Let Me Introduce Myself....

Hey y'all! My name is, for all intents and purposes, Silly. I'm a 19 year-old Orthodox Jew, and I'm starting at Rutgers in the fall. I am naive, innocent, and going to fight tooth-and-painted-nail to keep it that way. That's my challenge folks: surviving college with my heart, mind and soul intact. What do you think are my odds?

A bit of background: I was born in Orlando, FL. My parents moved back up to Brooklyn, NY, when I was still little. (Brooklyn is a little place located somewhere on the west coast of Long Island, for those of you who don't know that quaint little neighborhood. In Brooklyn, red brick grows like poppies and the sidewalk is dalmationed with old gum. Luverly and citified, Brooklyn is.) For most of my life, I have lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor of a pre-war building. Some of my fondest memories were made there: writing on the windowsill while watching the snow gather over the fire escape; gathering on the roof to see fireworks rocketing in every direction on the Fourth of July; curling up next to my dad on our itchy old couch while he reads to me about some poor bloke named Watson, who seems to be trodden upon by just about every person he meets. (Indeed, the only person mousier than Watson in all of Sir Doyle's works seems to be Watson's near-invisible wife. Mayhap that was the basis of their marriage?) I grew up there, with my big brother, and my little sister. 

We went to Jewish parochial schools. My parents could not afford it, but our Judaism, and our role as moral servants of G-d, was important to them. Time and again school tuition challenged us, and Dad would consider enrolling us in public school, but with G-d's help I graduated from Manhattan High School for Girls, with a full scholarship to take the year off and study my roots in Jerusalem.

My time in Jerusalem was a maturing process for me. Sure, I had my hitchhiking adventures, and silly moments. (Maybe I'll do special posts on Israel memories, interspersed with my daily kvetches...) I also had the opportunity to observe and join in with many different cultures, and many different world views, and that led me to examine my own in matters that I had taken for granted before. The result: I'm now a die-hard Mitzvah Machine, and my main goals are to help as many people as I can, in as many ways as I can, and through that and the Torah build my relationship with G-d. 

Easy enough to say that in Israel! I have returned (temporarily, just long enough to get my college degree) to the States, and it's a whole different world here. People are meek, and they do what they're told to do by their bosses, the media, or really whomever has a stronger sense of self than the standard American. It's embarrassing. I know I grew up here, but I feel truly alien here now. Where is the intellectual curiosity? Where is the warm plate of cookies shared between erstwhile strangers? Where is the drive? The powerful opinions, developed by deep, critical analysis of the world around us? Where did morality and free-thought GO in this country??

I don't know, but I plan on finding out. Hmph.

My quest for morality and the American mind starts here and now, in New Brunswick, NJ. I'm sharing an apartment with three other girls at 93 Senior St. New Brunswick is a strange place, and I've been bumbling along trying to learn the native language ("Jerseyse"). Now that I'm starting to get my feet under me, it's time to lay out the RULES OF NEW BRUNSWICK, summer-style.