Times Like This

When school is hard and things are stressful, sometimes all I want to do is go back to the summer; when I was in Israel.  Junior year is a year full of ap classes, SAT/ACT, starting to look at colleges, the usual high school drama, and just trying to get everything done.  It is almost the end of the semester which means finals.  Finals can help out your average a lot, but it also causes a lot of stress making sure you have studied the right thing. Right now I am very stressed.  BBYO has taken a turn and we are trying to get things back on the right path, I need to get organized for finals and the few things that help me to get unstressed is to listen to music, think about my summer in Israel and write.  At the moment, I am doing all three things.  BBYO has had such a big impact in my life for the past three years of high school, that when something goes wrong, it is my job to help fix it, and that is what me and the executive board are trying to do.  I know it will all work out however it is supposed to, but it is hard to look at something I have put so much pride in to see it not succeed.  The girls in my chapter have become some of my closest friends.  I would do anything for those girls, they are my sisters so I will do anything for them.  When I think about my Israel trip, I remember how stress at home just didn't matter.  I was with some of the most amazing people I have ever met, and at the time, things at home were the last things to cross my mind.  As long as the people I love at home were safe and happy, I was okay.  Israel was the most amazing place I have ever been to, so when I am having a bad day, or I am stressed, I can think about the trip and remember that I can just let go of somethings for a while, and everything will be okay.  I know I talk about Israel pretty frequently, but I think it had a huge influence on my life, that now I can relate a lot of things to the people on the trip, the places we went to, and the experiences.  The people you meet on trips like I took to Israel, and in youth groups like BBYO or NFTY, become your lifelong best friends.  When people ask my dad if he was active in BBYO or NFTY, he can both point to his best friends today and say "I met them when we were in high school." Today one of his best friends lives down the street from us, we carpool to school with their 15 year old girl, and spend almost every holiday with them.  My dad's other best friend lives 10 minutes away, and we have the same relationship with his family as we do with his other friend.  No matter what happens with BBYO, I know those girls would do anything for me.  My Israel friends are by my side 100% of the time.  There has maybe been 2 days since we have been back that I haven't talked to one person from the trip. 

The best summer of my life was spent in Israel, and my high school career was partly shapped by Fannie Sablosky BBG #396.
Submitted with undying love for,
Israel, camp friends, raggedy ann, blue and black, sisters, a summer of a lifetime and everyone that I met in Israel or in BBYO,

I remain,
Danielle Jordan Glazer

I love my sisters

(that's how we conclude emails in BBYO)