Israel

Imagine growing up as an American secular Jew, but finding out that simply because of the blood that flows through my veins, Jewish blood, I am eligible for a free 10 day trip to Israel. As I applied for the trip, I felt like a fraud. (After all, I am not that Jewish. I did not have a bat mitzah, I do not fast for Yom Kippur, I have rarely set foot inside a synagogue.) And yet they accepted me and sent me my travel information. Fast forward to June 12. As my plane lands in the Ben Gurion airport and I make my first few steps in the land of Israel, I am greeted with the words "Welcome Home." What can this possibly mean? Home is in Roseville, California. Home is the United States. Home is paved roads and shopping malls. How can this strange country full of deserts, seas, rivers, foreign insects and animals, and a language I don't even speak be a home to me?

I try to search for a feeling of home throughout my 10 days in Israel. I am traveling with my sister and 38 other American Jews, mostly from the Los Angeles area. We form a fast bond, all of us coming from similar backgrounds and sharing this amazing experience together. With them I feel at home. All of us remark that we feel that we've known each other our whole lives.

But can the country itself ever feel like home? All the beautiful sites.. the stunning views of desert, sea, hills, valleys, the historic cities and towns, the ancient buildings that defined history. Do I feel at home here? I feel unworthy of this beautiful country being my home. It is so rich, textured, old, and important.

I experienced so much in those ten days, so much that to describe it all here would be futile. Do look at my Flickr set to see it all as I tried to capture as much as I could. But to float in the Dead Sea and feel the stinging of salt in your eyes, to ride on a camel's back through the Negev desert as people have done for thousands of years before you, to raft down the Jordan River, to sleep in a tent on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, to eat Falafel in downtown Tel Aviv as you stroll through an outdoor market, to pray by the Western Wall, to be stung by jellyfish in the Mediterranean... all of this cannot be captured in words or photos. As I am back home fighting jet lag from the 15 hour flight back from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles, the whole thing seems like one of those dreams that was so good that you wish you could fall back asleep and be in the dream again.

The final day of the trip, the meaning of Israel being a homeland started to make sense. After nine days of sheer pleasure, the trip took a solemn turn as we visited Yad Vashem, the holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem. The Holocaust and the existence of the State of Israel are nearly impossible to separate. While some deny a cause/effect relationship, one can't help but acknowledge the sense of urgency with which Israel was formed shortly after the end of World War II. Being in the museum, seeing all of those people who look like you and lived a similarly carefree life, never suspecting anything like that could happen to them... and then seeing that the rest of the world could care less... that even the United States, the country that I call home, did not care if my Jewish relatives lived or died... I suddenly started to see how Israel is a sort of home. Because heaven forbid anything should ever happen, I will have a place to go and be safe. And I could go there tomorrow, ask for citizenship, and be granted it without hesitation.

But it is impossible to go through all of this without feeling torn about the conflict with the Palestinians. Is it fair that the safety and unity of the Jewish people should come at the expense of that of another group? Is it fair that my best friend, who is Palestinian and whose parents own property in a Palestinian territory, just got 40% of his land taken away by the Israeli government? How can I feel joy about this supposed homeland when it is tainted with the knowledge that another people are suffering? Is it possible to simply charge it to the game, and say life's not fair, but ultimately this is the best solution? I don't know.

I do know I had an amazing experience, and feel beyond blessed to have had it. I hope to return someday, but even more I ultimately hope for peace in the region.

Summer and the suburb

I am home sweet home in Roseville, California, land of a thousand malls. Here are a few interesting anecdotes about Roseville pulled from its Wikipedia page:

• Roseville has the ninth highest retail sales of all California cities; Roseville is also the smallest of the fifteen top ranked cities in retail sales.
• Roseville has one of the largest Auto Malls in the country.
• Roseville was ranked the skinniest city in the country, with an average body mass index of 24.5.

Other than my upcoming trip to Israel (in like three weeks!!!), my summer remains a blank slate. We shall see what develops.

Going to D.C.!

So it is official: I am going to Washington D.C. on Sunday to participate in an mtvU program called Editorial Board. The premise of the show is for four college journalists to interview a political figure to get him or her to answer to the issues that are important to young people. There has only been one episode so far, in which the students interviewed Bill Clinton. You can watch it on the Editorial Board web site.


I am one of the lucky four who gets to interview Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for the show's second episode.

I fly out to D.C. on Sunday, rehearse Monday, and the interview takes place Tuesday. I fly back to San Francisco Tuesday night. Somewhere between all that I hope to see some of the sights our nation's capital has to offer -- I've never been! -- but I won't be heartbroken if that doesn't happen.

All in all, free trip to D.C., opportunity to meet one of my political heroines, invaluable journalistic experience -- not a bad deal.

New York, New York

Over Spring Break I was given the invaluable opportunity to attend a three-day journalism conference in New York City with three other editors of The Foghorn. We were in conferences from about 8 am to 3 pm, and then the afternoons and evenings were free for exploring. Needless to say, I had the time of my life.

The conferences were incredibly fascinating. It came to little surprise to me that many of the speakers emphasized the importance of new media for college newspapers, and newspapers in general.

Blogs. Podcasts. Videos. Comments. Sound familiar, digital journalism classmates?

I am really excited to start incorporating these story-telling technologies into the Foghorn's online platform, which is embarrassingly behind the times. Some of my co-editors seem hesitant to incorporate these changes, in part because they don't know how and in part because they don't know why it is important. Hopefully I can start changing that soon -- I know this conference definitely got me pumped to start taking some action.

I really enjoyed hearing from the professional journalists as well. A lot of them talked about how to get a job and what to expect when you do get one. It's funny how in all of my media studies classes, we rarely get any information about what an actual job in the media industry entails.

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As much as I learned inside the conference rooms, I learned almost as much by exploring the great city of New York. What an experience.

First of all, the food! Oh goodness, I have never eaten so well (or so poorly, from a nutritional standpoint). In my few days in the city, I enjoyed a cheesy roast beef sandwich from Connolly's Pub, a thick slab of chocolate cake from Junior's, and delicious Latin American cuisine from Boca Chica.

And I may have indulged in more pizza than one should in a three-day span. Oops.

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Our hotel was in Times Square (check out the view from on of the conference rooms!)


But, just as Union Square does not give one an authentic taste of San Francisco, I am sure Times Square does not give much of an accurate portrayal of NYC, so my fellow travelers and I tried to branch out as much as we could in our short stay.

We went to the Laugh Lounge comedy club in the Lower East Side to see some local comedians.

On St. Patty's Day we hit up some Irish Pubs (and I'm pretty sure we saw a real life leprechaun, or else just a very short, red-haired, and intoxicated Irish man).

We checked out Ground Zero. That was humbling.


From there we walked through the Wall Street area to Battery Park, where I got to see the Statue of Liberty.


And we took a super touristy double decker bus ride that actually ended up giving me a good grasp of the city.

I took loads of pictures, so to see the madness firsthand, check out my Flickr set.

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Incidentally, I was in the city in the midst of some pretty major breaking news: the embarassing Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal and the tragic construction mishap that left seven dead. It was interesting to hear all the buzz amongst locals about these major incidents. And there is something really cool about reading the New York Times when you're actually in New York City, a block or so away from its headquarters.

The only thing better than travel...

The only thing better than traveling is doing so on someone else's dime.

I have not one but two all-expense paid trips coming up. To answer your question, yes I do pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. Trust me, it's true.

The first trip is from San Francisco to New York City over spring break.


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I am going on this trip with three other editors from the Foghorn for a college journalism conference. During the days we'll get to learn all of the latest innovations in student journalism, and at night we'll peruse one of the few cities I would consider as cool as San Francisco.

The second free trip is to Israel over summer vacation.


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This trip is through the Birthright Israel program, which provides free trips to Israel for any young adult of Jewish descent to expose them to Israeli culture (and, I suspect, to try to convince them to move there). I have no idea what to expect -- the only place I've been outside of North America is Holland, where my brother-in-law is from -- and have a feeling that Israel will be quite a culture shock. I am really excited to be exposed to such a different way of life.