Junior year was a year of loss, of growth, of reflection, of change. It was a roller coaster in the truest sense, full of failure and achievement and more failure. I learned about myself in the classroom and out. It’s time move forward with my fourth, final, and senior year at Agnes Scott College. But first– a look back.

I entered the 2017-2018 academic apprehensive yet hopeful. I completed the Women’s Bridge to Business program at Georgia Tech, I was an intern at Green Worldwide Shipping, and I was eager to get started with my double major in History and Business Management. However, there was a horrible, looming shadow casting doubts over my abilities; BUS-211, Financial Accounting.

A mandatory class for the Business Management major, I tried my best to face my fears head-on and enter the lecture with a positive attitude. As someone with Dyscalculia, a math-based learning disability, I have never had an experience with math that wasn’t inherently traumatic. Still, my father is an accountant by trade, so I knew that if I put in the work, I could manage.

I could not manage.

Financial Accounting drove me to the brink of mental breakdown, and during the midterm exam, I turned in a half-blank test, left the class in tears, walked to my advisor’s office, and dropped the class, thereby withdrawing from the Business Management major. While I instantly felt better, I had to grapple with the fact that I was now a History major– just a history major. Only a history major.

At Agnes Scott, that is rare. Most students double major, major and minor, or double minor. Here I was, with just one major. I felt like a failure. I felt like a slacker.

However, I couldn’t dwell on these thoughts for long; my grandfather passed away in October.

The rest of the semester seems like a blur; I struggled to attend class, I struggled with finals, I struggled, I struggled, I struggled. I pass/failed two classes, allowing me to save my GPA. On a whim, I quit my internship of 18 months, hoping to find an internship in the spring– I did not. I entered winter break feeling like a failure, full of regret and anxiety.

Then, I went abroad to Israel. I wanted to come back excited and refreshed for the semester; instead, I came back, and I immediately felt like I was drowning.

I missed the first week of class due to being in Israel, and I came back without books, unprepared, without reading, and not ready to be thrown into the most challenging semester of my academic career.

I tried to keep up, but the longer the semester went, the more I felt like I was drowning– like I couldn’t manage the work. Still, I worked hard. I threw myself into research for my research project on the Enlightened Pirate, I excelled in my nonfiction writing class, and I had my play, Pathways, published. 

I started to thrive as a tutor at the Center for Digital and Visual Literacy. I was selected as a lead for marketing and development for the center, as well as to join a visiting professor from CNN to be a teaching assistant for SUM-400, and helped develop curriculum.

Still, I struggled in classes. I was told by a teacher I was in danger of failing (I was not), and a week before finals, I left campus, went home, and spent a week recouperating from a mental breakdown. My mental health is incredibly important to me, and without this week away from class, I knew I would have become dangerously close to harming myself.

I finished the semester maintaining my 3.5 GPA, with a research plan in place for my senior thesis, and with an internship for the summer at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.

While this may seem like a story of triumph, it is not. I may have ended the year academically unscathed, but I lost friends. I lost family. I lost hope.

I enter this next school year with my two closest friends graduated. I enter after a long summer internship. I enter with no idea how to approach the subject of grad school or the GRE.

Still,  I am cautiously optimistic. After this year, how bad can it be?

Senior year, here I come.

In this desert, who will you become?

—

Taglit-Birthright Israel (or, in Hebrew, תגלית) is a non-profit that organizes free, ten-day trips to Israel for any person of Jewish heritage between the ages of 18-26. This trip, often called a gift, was founded in December 1999 by a group of Jewish Philanthropists. These Philanthropists, led by Canadian Businessman Charles Bronfman and American Hedge-Fund Manager Michael Steinhardt, aimed to bring Jewish young adults together as a community by sending them to Israel.

Nearly 800,000 young adults of Jewish Heritage have received the gift of a Birthright trip. These young adults come from 67 countries, are diverse in language, age, and religious beliefs. Some don’t know they are Jewish until they are told so, as is the case of many Birthright participants from the former Soviet Union. Some have traveled to Israel many times, speak Hebrew fluently, and don Tefillin three times a day to pray.

The only requirement to receive the gift of a Birthright trip is that you be between the ages 18-26, have not visited Israel on an organized tour in the past twelve months, and have at least one parent that is Jewish.

In December 2017, I met these three criteria. Alongside my brother and 38 young adults from the Greater Atlanta Area, I departed the United States for a free, ten-day trip to Israel, that claimed to change my life.

—

“Take ten steps forward. Do not go further than ten steps. One time, a boy went further than ten steps, fell asleep, and we spent an hour looking for him.”

The instructions we receive as we nervously step away from the group ring in my ears. I do not want to walk ten steps away; I don’t want to walk two steps away. How can I walk away, when you just told me that a kid almost got lost and died? Still, breath hanging in the freezing air in front of me, I walk one, five, ten, steps away towards a small bush and gingerly sit on the ground.

The vastness of the desert is daunting. Who got lost in this desert, walked for days, months, years, before eventually collapsing into the earth and dying? The dirt under my back is hard and unforgiving. I imagine how it must have felt in sandals, or barefoot, the small rocks that have been rounded smooth by millennia of erosion.  

The same voice that tells us not to walk too far, our guide, Ya’acov, tells us to look into the stars and let our minds wander, just as the way our ancestors did when they roamed the desert two thousand years ago.

I look up, and my vision blurs. The scarf that I’ve tucked my chin into is causing my glasses to fog with every breath of hot air, making the stars above look more like headlights in the rain, rounded and duplicated. Gloved-covered hands reach for the frames, wiping them before placing them back on the bridge on my nose.

Before me, a galaxy blooms, the moon illuminating the yellow-orange sand in a wash of pale blue.

—

For the 40,000 young adults that the Taglit-Birthright Israel program delivers to the desert nation every year, thousands more have critiqued the trip. Birthright is often called propagandistic and racist. Much of the criticism of the trip stems from greater disapproval of Israeli government and army, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

A Harvard Crimson Op-Ed from Sandra Korn, a student who went on a Birthright trip, criticizes the inherent political influence of the trip. Korn writes, “Birthright’s idea of engaging with Israel means supporting an illegal and oppressive military occupation, claiming citizenship to a state that deports African immigrants, glorifying ‘the Jewish mind,’ and decrying all Arabs collectively for their hateful terrorist tactics.”

Ellie Shechet, in the feminist magazine Jezebel, provides a different critique of Israel, especially since she had been to Israel previously, and was able to contrast her first visit to Israel as a sixteen-year-old and a trip as a young adult with Birthright. Shechet offers her opinion of the partying, the exhaustion, and the shiny, Disneyland-esque tourism of the trip. She criticizes that Birthright doesn’t provide a comprehensive critique of Israel. Shechet says it is “nearly impossible to come out of it with any kind of unified sense of your own experience, much less a sophisticated take on a society that’s only revealed its shiniest, most digestible bits,” thanks to the “sleepless, jam-packed nature of the trip.”

“Doesn’t Israel want its supporters to be educated enough to hold their own in a debate, even that education brings with it potentially unwelcome ideas and criticisms?” Shechet writes. “From what I’ve seen so far, the answer is no.”

—

I now see why Ya’acov has warned us against wandering too far away and falling asleep. The beauty of the night sky entrances me, and soon, the exhaustion washes over me, and I feel my breathing lull and my eyes began to flutter shut.

I’m startled awake by someone in my group coughing. We’re so near to each other that I know my new friends will find me. I can’t get lost, not when we’re so close.

—

The trip takes young adults across a country roughly the size of New Jersey. Most tours follow a general outline that highlights the history of Israel, from it’s founding in an art museum in 1948, the heritage of the Jews in the Internation Holocaust Memorial and Museum, and the natural beauty of Israel, from the mountains to the lakes to the seas.  

My trip started in the Golan Heights, territory acquired by Israel in 1967 after the Six-Day War. The Golan Heights is internationally recognized as Syrian territory occupied by Israel. It is heavily disputed as it contains the Sea of Galilee, the only freshwater lake in the region, as well as most of the arable land in Israel.

As the bus drives through the winding mountains and plateaus, I see landmines, and the members of the Israeli Defence Force detonating them. The bus passes bombed-out homes and shrapnel littering the fertile landscape. Yesterday, the group hiked through a nature reserve and looked in awe at the Galilee glittering in the distance. The next, the group travels to Mt. Hermon, where bunkers are overlooking the Israeli-Syrian border.

As our guide tries to tell us about the Six-Day War, we hear gunfire and bombs from Damascus, visible in the distance. To our right, Irish and Canadian peacekeepers from the United Nations are stationed. I begin talking to the Canadian about hockey when he interrupts me. Israel is conducting training exercises near the border, and they must observe.

I realize that the U.N. Peacekeepers are not there to observe Damascus or Assad or rebel forces. They are there to watch the Israeli Defense Force. Israel, in this instance, is the threat.

It’s only day two of the trip.

—

There is a rock pressing in the middle of my back, but I am so in awe that I will not move to ease the discomfort.

The moon is so massive that it looks impossibly close, and the condensation on my glasses causes it to twinkle, the light shifting and dancing overhead. The stars are innumerable, and I try to use my rudimentary astronomy skills to pick out the planets and stars I know. I can see Orion’s belt, and if I squint, I can see what I think is either Mars or Venus. For an instant, I think I see a shooting star, but the sound soon catches up to me, and I realize it’s a fighter jet.

Ya’acov calls ten minutes, and numbly, I rise from the dirt and walk back to my group, 47 in total. The group creates a circle, our legs criss-cross, shoulder-to-shoulder.

“What did you think about?” Ya’acov’s comes from somewhere outside the circle, but I don’t know from where.

One by one, my peers begin to share.

—

Five days into our trip, seven Israelis our age join the group. This experience is called a Mifgash (Gathering) and is ubiquitous to the Birthright experience. Like us, our peers are between the ages of 20-26, love Instagram and Snapchat, and sing along to Cardi B on the bus.

Unlike us, our peers are currently serving in the Israeli Defense Force. Some patrol the West Bank, some fight in Gaza. Some work by gathering intelligence for Mossad, the most notorious spy agency in the world. They dress in green uniforms, berets carefully placed on their heads, their hair shorn or tied back into tight braids and buns.

“37 days until I get out,” Lital, 20, says, a grin stretched across her face. “Then, I’m going to Brazil with my boyfriend.”

There is mandatory conscription for able young adults in Israel. Instead of graduation photos, in 37 days, Lital will take pictures of her throwing her beret into the air and cutting up her military ID card. She is trained to shoot semi-automatic rifles. She hasn’t been to college. She knows how to salute and how to run through the desert with a weapon on her back. Her life is so different than mine.

Lital and I become fast friends, along with Alona, 21, who works with Lital in the intelligence arm of the IDF. The first night of the Mifgash, I room with Alona, and my other roommate asks her about violence against Palestinians. It’s not precisely the getting-to-know-you type of conversation.

“I think there needed to be more serious punishments,” She says, before telling us the story of Elor Azaria, a 21-year-old soldier who shot and killed an already wounded Palestinian while medical help was on the way.

“The guy,” Alona tells us, referring to the now-dead Palestinian, Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, “Came and stabbed Elor’s best friend. The soldiers shot him in the foot, incapacitating him, and called for the Magen David [Israel’s Emergency Services]. I guess Elor got mad and then he shot him in the back while he was down.”

The incident that Alona is referring to made international headlines for dividing Israel politically. Many wanted to see Azaria locked away for murder. Others said he shouldn’t spend a day in jail. He ended up spending eighteen months in prison, a sentence which received criticism across the world.

“I think he should have gotten a longer sentence,” Alona says, carefully. “But I also understand it. He was eighteen. His best friend got stabbed. He was angry. We all do stupid things when we’re angry.”

—

“Two days ago, one of my campers died in a plane crash,” Leah says through tears, sobbing into the circle. I walked in on her in Tel Aviv, crying in the bathroom, after the news broke that two families died in a plane crash in Florida. Both the kids involved in the tragedy were campers of Leah’s.

Beside her sits Joelle, who also knew the family. Her gloved hands circle the fabric of Leah’s jacket. I can see the tears on their faces, illuminated by the moon above.

Slowly, the blase comment about ‘having so much fun I had no time to write in my journal!’ dies on my tongue. I know that here, with these people, I must be honest. Not only does my friendship with them deserve honesty, but it seems as though the desert demands it.

—

We hike Masada and swim in the Dead Sea. We sob at Yad Vashem and pray at the Wailing Wall. We sing HaTikvah in the hall where David Ben-Gurion founded the state of Israel and then left stones on his grave. We clutched each other at the military cemetery, Mt. Herzl, as our new friends in the IDF tell stories about their friends who have died while serving. They tell us stories about Americans who have immigrated to Israel and served in the IDF and died. We visit Theodor Herzl’s grave.

We talk about how close we feel to Israel, to our history, to our collective heritage. We cry and laugh and sing. We play endless games of cards on long bus rides and promise to get brunch when we return to the United States. We have our inside jokes, and they go on a t-shirt, which we wear with pride.  

The trip is a whirlwind. It’s how Birthright trips are meant to pass.

Many people will argue that this leaves no time to think critically about Israel’s political situation, it’s colonialism in the West Bank or the state’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

In a hotel, in Jerusalem, a doctoral candidate in Middle Eastern Relations and Policy comes to present the history of Israel and Palestine. He is candid. He cites sources. He provides a detailed, unbiased, view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He shows us how maps have changed. He tells us how many times Palestinian leaders have refused to work with Israeli peace offers. He shows us how Israel has committed war crimes.

When antisemitic comments on Facebook call Birthright ‘apartheid propaganda,’ they don’t know about that night in Jerusalem. They don’t know that the soldiers we were with criticized Israel. They don’t know about the nights we spent heatedly debating Israel’s foreign policy, whether or not they should give back the Golan Heights for peace or whether or not Israel should de-occupy the Western Bank. They don’t know that Birthright, for the most part, has tried to become better about presenting a neutral, pluralistic view of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

I am more than aware that Israel isn’t perfect. I’m reminded of the young nation’s imperfections in the media I consume and in the news I read. But on this trip, where I have made friends, learned about my history, grown closer to G-d, and became a Bat Mitzvah, is criticizing Israel really the point?

—

“I pick at my skin,” I say, my voice wavering, my hand reaching for my back as I do when I am anxious, though the movement is jutted and aborted. “I pick at my skin when I’m anxious, or bored. It’s a form of self-harm that I’ve done since I was diagnosed with depression when I was fourteen. And I was so worried this entire trip I wouldn’t be able to go in the Dead Sea today because the salt would hurt the open sores on my back.”

The group is silent. Beside me, Mitchell, who I met six days ago, holds my hand, woolen mittens clutching my knit gloves. I have never admitted this aloud before, but the desert demands honesty, and so does my love for my friends.

“But when I walked into the Dead Sea today, I didn’t feel any pain. The salt didn’t sting.” A tear falls from my cheek and wets the scarf wrapped tightly around my neck. “I was having too much fun with y’all to pick. I didn’t have to worry about anything. I was never bored. I’ve never gone this long without picking. And I did that because of y’all.”

In the desert, I am honest. And under billions of stars, holding hands with my new family, I am free.

After deciding to invite pirates and philosophers alike to my salon, I decided it was integral to the evening to discuss the topics of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, as well as Democracy, Human Nature, and Authority. While Kant, Locke, and Rousseau discussed their beliefs on the matter, the Pirate guests would offer their input as to best actualize the philosopher’s theories, as Pirates put ideas into action.

Finally, I was tasked with putting my salon online in digital format, so that it was easily accessible to not only those in my class, but to anyone who is interested in Enlightenment history, or Golden Age Piracy. The Agnes Scott College History Department loves digital history and this project correlates with the Summit curriculum and the development of our digital portfolios. Below is my methodology for my project, and a link to view the final website!

Introduction

As a Digital and Visual Literacy tutor, I knew that I had not only the training but the resources to create an engaging and dynamic digital salon. That, coupled with my love of Enlightenment history and my interest in piracy, I threw myself into my research and creation of, what I believe, is my most comprehensive and well-designed website to date.

The Frontispiece (Home Page)

I spent a lot of time working on the frontispiece, or home page, of my digital salon. As the landing page of my subdomain, I wanted to make sure it was eye-catching, informative, and provided suitable navigation for the rest of my website. I wanted to include the quote that formed my thesis, the Yoke of Nonage quote from Immanuel Kant. That, contrasted with the image of Blackbeard directing two men underneath a yoke, provide a direct correlation between the Enlightenment and Piracy that I continue throughout my website.
I first selected my template because it allowed for video as a header. The first piece of media created for my digital salon was the header video, which shows images of the Golden Age of Piracy with an overlay of a waving black sail. All photos, including the pictures in the video, were either from Wikimedia Commons or sources otherwise.

As the reader scrolls through the Frontispiece, the reader comes to a series of text boxes that link to three critical areas of research, the thesis, evidence, and analysis that make up the backbone of the website. The images included in the text boxes are ornamentations from Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates. As this text formulated much of my research, I wanted to include the beautiful ornamentation that I had come to know and love in my readings.

The reader then comes to a miniature “about” section, preceding the more in-depth separate page with navigational links. These sections allow the reader to quickly learn about the class, as well as the creator of the site. If the reader clicks on the links, they go to my digital portfolio or the Agnes Scott History Department website. These links allow the website to function not only as a research project but as an advertisement for Agnes Scott and myself as a content creator. Throughout the Frontispiece, as the website logo and icon, I have an image of the Jolly Roger, Calico Jack Rackham’s flag and the most enduring symbol of the Golden Age of Piracy.

About the Project (About Page and Scope)

I chose to include a page introducing the history of the salon, as well as the purpose of the digital salon. The project is not typical, and therefore, the average reader might not understand the reasoning behind the project. I further chose to include the methodology essay, albeit differently formatted, on the about page, so it is readily available to my classmates and the reader.

The page that introduces the scope of my project is when the research behind The Enlightened Pirate is introduced. I begin the page with a quote from noted pirate historian, Phillip Gosse. It was impossible to research the entirety of the Enlightenment, the Golden Age of Piracy, or the connections between them. As I explain on the page, I chose to narrow the research scope for the project based on coursework, primary source documents, secondary source research, as well as geographic range. I also included an image of an engraving from the 1772 edition of Encyclopedie, again, via Wikimedia Commons. After defining the scope of research, I was able to write my thesis and begin researching The Enlightened Pirate.

Research (Thesis, Analysis, and Evidence)

My thesis, as presented on the thesis page, went through several revisions. I wanted to create a thesis that adequately stated what I was attempting to argue but also provided sufficient information for someone casually reading the project. I chose to accentuate the thesis page with a quote found in a valuable secondary source, Bandits at Sea: a Pirates Reader, that informed my research but did not directly make it into any analysis. I also chose to include one of the more complete images we have from A General History of the Pyrates, an engraving by Benjamin Cole that depicts Bartholomew Roberts, and his flag.

Next, I have a category of posts that summarize my research, or, what would be my essay, if this was a traditional research essay. I wrote six posts, three about piracy and the enlightenment, and three about enlightenment philosophers, to best examine the evidence and argue my thesis. I chose to outline the philosophy of the Enlightenment philosophes attending my salon, that is, John Locke and the Right of Rebellion, Immanuel Kant and the Yoke of Nonage, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and The Social Contract. I then chose to synthesize my argument in three short essays; Enlightened Pirate Democracies; Piracy, Human Nature, and Autonomy; and Freedom, Liberty, Equality, and Pirates. Each post contains links to direct evidence, as located further on the website, as well as footnotes.

I also chose to create images for each post, by combining an image of Enlightenment art, or a portrait of an Enlightenment philosopher, with an overlay of a pirate flag, in the same motif and design style of the video header.

Like the categorical organization of my analysis, I chose to organize primary source evidence in one category, with each piece of evidence having its own post. This system allowed for an efficient tagging and categorizing and allowed me to link back to direct evidence with ease. While I did not upload every piece of evidence utilized, I thought that uploading the primary sources that I found showcased my research abilities.

The Salon

While the Salon page precedes my scope and research on the toolbar, as it was the most in-depth page, I decided to leave it to last in my methodological essay. On this page, I showcase the guests of the salon; with the guests being three Enlightenment philosophers and six pirates. For each guest, I show a portrait, and give a brief biography, alongside essential arguments or accomplishments. For the Philosophers, I link to the posts that further outline their arguments.

I chose Kant, Rousseau, and Locke as guests for my salon because of the similarities in their arguments about autonomy, the human condition, and social contract theory. While each offers a different argument, and in Locke’s case, one that precedes the other two by a century, all of the philosophers chosen created a cohesive base argument for my research.

In regards to pirate guests, I chose the most famous, most successful, and most notorious. This was difficult, and I had to leave out many notable pirates (Edward England, Emmanuel Wynn, Henry Every, Mary Read) to create a concise guest list. I also chose pirates based on the availability of primary and secondary sources on their lives. For instance, while Mary Read may have been more ruthless than Anne Bonny, I chose to showcase Anne Bonny because there were more resources about her life and her actions.

Beneath the guests of the salon, I included one of the most famous images of the salon era, Madame Geoffrin’s Salon, painted by Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier in 1812, again with the imagery of the pirate flag. The text is what would have been my conclusion if this were a traditional research essay. It summarizes the topics discussed at the salon and leaves the reader thought-provoked and interested in learning more.

Biography and Links

The bibliography is separated into primary and secondary sources, just as they would be in a research essay. To keep the dynamics of the rest of the website, I decided to consolidate the bibliography into a file-like widget, which allows the reader to view the full citation of a work, only if they wish. I think this allows the page to be less cluttered, and it also is pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.

Finally, I included a link to my digital portfolio and the Agnes Scott College website, to continue to promote my work and the college.

I really enjoyed creating my digital salon, and I am incredibly proud of my work. I hope you enjoy looking at it and learning more about the Enlightened Pirate!

View The Enlightened Pirate here!

November 27th, 2017

Dear Anna Zuckerman,

I am writing to inform you that I have made the very difficult decision to resign from my current position as your partner in this endeavor. My last day will be December 1st, 2017.

It has nothing to do with Thanksgiving.

Since joining your company on January 1st, 2016, I am so proud of what I have accomplished as your partner.

That New Year’s Eve, at David’s apartment, kissing you on the fire escape, red solo cups in hand as the clock struck twelve. You tasted like cider, because you hate beer, and I had drunk too much champagne. There was glitter in your curly brown hair. The tips of our noses were red from the cold, but as I kissed you, I never felt warmer.

I have learned so much and have grown significantly as a person and as an employee during our year together. From starting new projects to learning new programs, I am thrilled with the experience I have had over the past eleven months.

Walking through the park, our hands laced together, squeezing yours tightly. Hiking with you, holding your hand when you tripped over a branch and cut your leg and joked that you needed to amputate. Learning how to be kind to you while we argued over toothpaste caps and what to get for dinner and the exit I missed on the interstate. You wanted to get to our destination, but I was content to wander.

The decision to leave you has not come lightly, I assure you. After many months of talking to my friends and my therapists, I have decided that not returning to you in the New Year is not only best for myself and my future, but also for your continued success.

I told you, Anna, it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. It’s the way you spend too much time on your phone when we’re together. It’s the way you need to win every disagreement. The way you always need to be correct. It’s your militant attitude towards the world. It’s your constant need for justice, to see pain brought to those who have wronged you.

It’s a long time coming.
I’m afraid that the twang of my voice and the fact that I jump at constant car alarms and that I’ve never done Molly at 2 a.m. in a club in Brooklyn annoys you. You love the city, the noise, the lights, the people, the energy, and I hate it, and I’m afraid you hate me.

You were born here. It’s in your blood. After all, I’m just a hick.

Remember when you called me a hick? I do. I cried in the bathroom when you made fun of the pictures of me showing livestock in high school, happy and proud of my accomplishments. You called me a hick. You meant it jokingly, but if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, your words are sharp as knives when you want them to be. They can cut.

It has been an honor to work with you, Ms. Zuckerman. The assistance you’ve provided me with and the insight you’ve shared in our field is invaluable to me. I consider you a mentor on both a professional and personal level, and I have learned so much while working for you.

It has nothing to do with Thanksgiving.

You stared, eyes wide, as we drove through my hometown. You said you couldn’t imagine living in a place where cows lined the winding roads, even though I can’t think of anything more beautiful. It has nothing to do with the bitchy way you told my mom you wouldn’t try her fried okra. It has nothing to do with the snarky response you gave my father when he asked you how your work in activism is going. You assumed they hated you when they wanted nothing more than to know you. But you were drunk. You know how you get when you drink red wine.

It has everything to do with Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend our weekend retreat. I apologize for the short notice.

We were supposed to go to that AirBnB in the mountains. Spend the weekend wrapped up in each other. When you first brought up our anniversary, all those months ago, I knew, even then, we wouldn’t make it that far. I think you did, too.

I will be happy to help fill the position that my absence will create. I have many friends that would thrive in the position of your partner.

I’m lying, Anna. I don’t want you to date anyone else. I want you to be miserable. I want you to be heartbroken over me. I want you to spend weeks in your apartment, drinking shitty tequila and eating Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey until you get sick because you’re lactose intolerant. But I know you’ll just fall into David’s bed. You always fall into his bed when something goes wrong. You always tell me it means nothing because he’s a man. It’s just a dick, you say.
Maybe this time it will mean something.

Please acknowledge this letter as my official notice of resignation. I will do my absolute best to ensure a smooth transition before my departure December 1st. I have been so fortunate to be part of this endeavor. I wish not only you, but the company continued success.

Sincerely,

Julia Sweeney
Your Partner

Ma grande famille

J’ai une grande famille. En plus de ma mère et mon père, j’ai deux sœurs, deux frères, deux nièces, un neveu, et deux chiens! Décembre Dernière, toute ma famille a visité pour la fête des Lumières, Hanoucca! C’était bon de visite avec ma famille.

Pour Hanoucca, mon frère, Douglas, a voyagé de New York avec ma nièce, Ashley, et mon neveu, JJ. Je n’ai visité pas Douglas depuis longtemps. Il est plus âgé que moi. J’ai 21 ans, mais Douglas a 34 ans. Nous avons visité plus souvent avant j’ai quitter New York. Ma nièce, Ashley, a treize ans. Elle est très intelligente et elle aime écrit. Mon neveu, JJ, a sept ans. Il est un petit comédien!

Ma sœur, Bethany, visite de la Virginie, avec son mari, Tommy, et son bébé! J’aime visiter avec ma sœur parce que son bébé, Ava, a un an et elle est trop mignonne!  Elle est très amusante à regarder. Ava apprendre à parler et à marcher. Elle a de grands yeux bleus et des cheveux blonde. J’aime visiter avec Bethany, Tommy, et Ava beaucoup. Ava me rend très heureuse.

Mon frère, Harrison, a 24 ans. Il vit en Atlanta avec son chien, Max. Il a conduit d’Atlanta pour Hanoucca. Harrison travaille avec les ordinateurs, et il est très riche. Je l’aime, mais il me met en colère. Toutefois, il me fait rire aussi.

Ma petite sœur, Frances, a quatorze ans. Elle habite avec mes parents. Elle est une gymnaste. Dans son école, elle est très populaire. Elle a beaucoup ses amies. Elle est très dramatique. Nous nous battons, mais je l’aime.

Nous sommes restés à la maison de mes parents. Je vis avec mes parents quand je ne suis pas à l’école. Mes parents, Alan et Laura, sont très intelligents. Alan a son MBA. Laura a sa MBA aussi. Alan travaille pour l’institut de technologie de Géorgie, et Laura travaille pour l’université de Géorgie. Ils vivent à Athènes, en Géorgie.

Mon père, Alan, est juif, et ma mère, Laura, est catholique. Nous célébrons Noël et Hanoucca. J’aime quand nous sommes tous ensemble. Parfois, nous célébrons Hanoucca ensemble, et parfois nous célébrons Noël ensemble. Quand nous sommes ensemble, nous sommes bruyants et fous. Nous sommes comme un cirque! Ma famille m’énerve de temps en temps, mais je les aime!

My eyes scan the paper once, then once again.

Four sopranos, four tenors, four basses, four altos. A perfectly balanced chamber choir. The same chamber choir I was proud to be a member of since freshman year of high school.

Four sopranos, four tenors, four basses… and three altos.

Tears begin to run down my face. My hands begin to shake. My eyes scan the paper again and again as if the innocent, white printer paper is playing a trick on me.

Surely, there was a reason why my name was missing as the fourth alto in my high school’s elite audition-only choir. After three years in this elite, audition-only choir, after five years of singing with the same director, surely there was a reason why my name, Zoe Katz, was left of the sheet of paper that listed the names of the sixteen– fifteen– members of this elite, audition-only choir.

Zoe Katz, a senior, the senior, the student president of the North Oconee High School Choir Program, a devoted singer who spent thousands of hours rehearsing with the same students, the same director, over and over again. Who spent ten years of her life working towards college auditions to become an opera singer, who spent the summer in a choral intensive in Pennsylvania, was left out of the group that would surely book her ticket into the best conservatories in the country.

My choir director rounds the corner, stacks of paper in her hands. I look at her, openly weeping, hot and angry, my face red and swollen. She sighs. She seems apologetic. “Come in my office,” She says. “Let’s talk.”   

—

I sit in the same grey chair in which I have always sat. I have chosen sheet music for concerts here. I have practiced for All-State and Honor Choir auditions here. I have napped here. I’ve even babysat my director’s children here.

I’m still crying. Renee Costigan, my choir director since seventh grade, looks at me. She still seems apologetic.

“You had a bad audition, Zoe.” She says. Her voice is atonal and pitchy, like a missed note on black keys. She has wild, black, tangled hair and a lazy eye that seems to follow you when you mess up a measure of sight reading. When she talks, spittle forms on her lips, and when her back is turned, focused on the piano or sheet music, teenagers mock her relentlessly about these attributes. I used to defend her or tell them to knock it off. Now, I want to stand alongside my peers and make fun of a grown woman who seemingly doesn’t brush her hair.

I tell her I don’t understand. She knows I have audition anxiety; she’s heard me sing for five years, it’s my senior year, come on, Mrs. Costigan, please, you know me.

She remains resolute. I gave a bad audition.

I tell her it makes no sense. Why have an unbalanced group? Why four sopranos, four tenors, four basses, and three altos? The same sixteen people sang together last year. We received awards and praise. Why the change now? Why fifteen?

“You can still remain involved in choir. You can still be president.” She says as if this consolation prize is not using my time and talents to take advantage.

I look at her. The same face I have looked at for five years, the same face that has smiled at me as I win a solo or receive an award or nail an audition. She had held my hand when I dumped my first boyfriend. She has promised to write me letters of recommendation. Those letters are the key to college applications. The key to my college auditions. The key to my future.

Wetness has dampened the collar of my shirt. I can barely see her face– the face I trusted– because of my vision clouding with tears. It’s my senior year.

Later, I will regret the next few minutes. Later, I will feel pride when I think back to what I am about to do. Later, I will find new passions, evolve and grow not only as a student and as a human, but as an artist. Later, I will feel grateful that I spent my senior year discovering playwriting and directing and European History, rather than agonizing over the approval of a woman who would never matter, in the long run. Later, later, later.

Now, I look at Renee Costigan. With my voice thick, stuck in the back of my throat from mucus and anger, I call her a fucking bitch and leave.

A fucking bitch.

There go those letters of recommendation.

In their usual restaurant, with their usual menus and their usual table, their usual waiter, in her black apron and loose tie, asked for their drink orders, Alan ordered waters, instead of their usual beers.

Laura was pregnant, which was not usual, and as they sat in that restaurant, waiting for their spaghetti with clam sauce, they discussed the name for their baby, soon to arrive, a little boy or girl who would change their lives forever.

This baby kicked incessantly and never seemed to stop moving. This baby who, even before seeing the light of day, was already a handful. This baby was a miracle, as, perhaps, all babies are, and his or her name was a point of contention between Alan and Laura. As, perhaps, all baby names are.

Alan wanted a boy named Harry. It made sense– his grandfather was a Harry, her grandfather was a Harry– they could kill two birds with one stone, and honor both of them with one kid. Laura hated the name Harry. Their son would be Harry Katz, and that was a kid waiting to be teased. Still, she relented.

Laura wanted a girl named Zoë. She loved the name ever since she was a teenager. Alan was against it– how could a computer ever type the two dots above the E? It wasn’t practical.

They were interrupted by a woman one table over. She turned in her chair, a smile on her face.

“I hate to interrupt,” She said, “but my daughter is named Zoe. And she is one of the most beautiful, vibrant, joyous girls to live. Zoe is a beautiful name– did you know it means life in Greek?”

So it was settled. They would name the baby Zoe– if they dropped the diacritic. And a few months later, Harrison John Katz was born.

Three years later, my parents finally got to use the name Zoe. To me, the name Zoe has always been so fitting, so beautiful, that I could never imagine anything else. But I nearly wasn’t Zoe– my parents had an entire other name picked out, for a boy who was never born. They had picked out such a meaningful name for my brother, that surely they would choose one equally as beautiful for their second son.

They chose Greg.

Greg.

Why the hell would they choose Greg? I didn’t know a single Greg. I had no uncles, nor grandfathers named Greg. I didn’t even know any strangers named Greg. To me, the name seemed so pedestrian, so dissimilar to the whimsy of Zoe, that it was almost offensive.

My brother had Zoe (Zoe!) as a backup. And I had Greg?

Even my sister, who was born six years after me, had two beautiful, meaningful given names. If she were a girl, she would be Frances, honoring my great-grandmother who passed away a few months before she was born. If she were a boy, she would be Noah, the leader of the ark, the forefather of Judaism, the man who entered into the first covenant with G-d.

But I had Greg.

Gregs do not change the world. Gregs do not make art, nor write symphonies, nor become president. There are no king Gregs. There are no statues to Gregs. Sure, there is plenty of beauty and honor in the name Gregory, but I wouldn’t be called Gregory. I would be called Greg.

Who would Greg Katz be? Would he be as comedic as I? As attention-seeking? A middle child, waiting for the spotlight, with a flair for the dramatic and an astounding ability to mismanage money? Would he be a good son? A good student? A good person? Or would he be as ordinary as his name?

Would the world be the same, if there was never a Zoe Katz in it?

Thankfully, I am not Greg Katz. Just as my sister is not Noah, nor is my brother Zoe. Just as you are not Will, or Anne, or Sonya, or James.

I am Zoe, the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Eve, born of the Hellenization of the wandering Jews. A name, like Eve, is G-d-given, birthed from the ashes, fertilized in the soil of the garden of Eden. I am Zoe, and all the vibrancy and hope that name carries. I have grown into this immense, expressive name, the name of queens, of stars, of the mother of life itself. I am the humidity of the August day I was born. I am the laughter I cause, and the tears that I cry. I am the infinite sadness and optimism and multitudes that exist within me.

But somewhere, I am Greg. A name I once thought of as pedestrian. As boring. As unimportant. I am Greg, who, I learned, was my father’s best friend from college. Greg, who was just as full of life and laughter as I am today. A man that passed away, lymph-nodes cancerous and swollen, too young, taken before his time.

I am Zoe. But more importantly, I was almost Greg.

This essay was written for ENG-208, Intro to Non-Fiction Writing and was selected as an example of the best work in the class. The prompt was to write an essay about your name to introduce yourself to the class. 

I’m a proud Center for Digital and Visual Literacy tutor!

I was hired at the end of last school year to teach my peers and professors about all things digital and visual. This includes video software, photo manipulation software, graphic design, blogging, coding, and more! I couldn’t be more thrilled for this opportunity.

My first assignment for my new tutoring job is to answer a few questions– so here we go!

What is your major/area of academic interest?
I am a Business Management/History double major. Specific academic interests of mine include Marketing, New Media studies, Creative Leadership (for business), and Renaissance and Religious studies (for history). Thanks to the Summit program, I’ll graduate with a certificate in Global Learning!

What are your post-graduate goals?
I want to be the Marketing Director of the Pittsburgh Penguins! I am fascinated by sports marketing, and I want to use my education to take sports media into the future.

I would also love to work for Women’s professional leagues, such as the National Women’s Hockey League, the National Women’s Soccer League, or Team USA! Empowering women through sports is something I’m passionate about, so that would be an amazing opportunity!

What excites you about working in the Center for Digital and Visual Literacy?
I am excited to have specific time devoted to working on creative pursuits. Photoshop, documentary making, writing– I’m an extremely creative person, but I have trouble setting aside time to relax and express my creativity, which leads me to feel tense and stressed out! I’m excited that I’ll have a job where creativity is mandatory, and I can work on my other passions that aren’t school!

What specific or unique skills do you bring to the CDVL community?
I think my creativity is unique. I think of things as if I’m directing a movie or writing a play– two things I’ve done! I’m all about the aesthetics and functionality of a project. I also have a lot of experience coming in– I work in Social Media/Marketing for my real, actual job, and that’s taught me a lot. I can’t wait to share my knowledge with others!