personal choices

!though the last year of high school is considered the se-
nior year, I also consider my last year at Hillel as my
"senior" year. Even though it isn't as momentous, it is
still just as meaningful.

making
the leap

entering high
school is a
graduation, too.

by Jennifer Finkel

Like high school seniors, I'll be moving on to the next big
step. I'll be separating from friends as we enter different schools,
and I'll be passing another milestone in my life. Also like high
school seniors, I'll be scared to move on; scared because I don't
want to forget the memories and friendships I've made and be-
cause I may not like it wherever I go to high school.
What if I made the wrong choice and I should have gone
to a different school? What if I don't like it and I make no
friends? So many questions and what-ifs have filled my
mind but that won't stop next year from coming.
Being on the yearbook staff at Hillel, I got to see
where everyone was going to high school because it's one of
the things listed. As I looked through each person's choice, I
see a myriad of high schools, from North Farmington to West
Bloomfield to Frankel Jewish Academy. I look at all of these
places and I'm clueless as to where I'm going to go.

It is impossible for me to be with everyone, but there is a
part of me that wants to be with everyone. There were so many
confusing aspects to this decision that I spent hours at night just
thinking what next year was going to be like. My choices were
between the Frankel Jewish Academy and West Bloomfield High
School. What I'm used to and what would be a whole different
experience, where many of my friends are going and where only a
few are going — the choice was difficult but I reached it. The final

HMI eighth-graders

Emily Goodman,

Jennifer Finkel and

Ted/ Dorman — ready

for high school.

choice was West Bloomfield.

The idea of going to high school, one as big as West Bloomfield,
isn't as scary as the idea of leaving Hillel. This year I took in every
step and crevice Hillel had. I examined the classrooms, the people
and the hallways. I made note of everything and imagined myself
coming back here, not as a student but as an alumna. Many nega-
tive thoughts enter your mind. I try to focus on the positive. I look
and see friends, family and acquaintances who have left Hillel and
are happy; they continue to excel wherever they went, they are ac-
cepted and they still keep in touch with their old friends.
I will make an effort to stay in touch with my Hillel friends,
even as I go on to make new friends in high school, but I will
always remember Hillel as an experience that was life-changing
and defining.

Jennifer Finkel, 14, recently graduated from Mei Day School of Metro-
politan Detroit In Farmington Hills.

life's journey

by Davidi Lehmann

moving forward doesn't mean leaving the past behind.

nbelievable. Here I am, a graduate, no lon-
ger a member of high school. It a little scary
and very exciting — a window onto the un-

known.

Everybody has been talking about the future and
what that means for us seniors. How we can change
the world and the great promise we show. Challenges
that frustrate us. Successes that will make us feel trium-
phant.

These and other trite but well-intended words and
phrases conjure images in my head of me curing au-
tism, winning an elected office, publishing a best-selling
book, being in the hospital when my first child is born,
and many other fantasies – some realistic, others fanci-
ful delights.

But much as I enjoy dreaming about the path ahead,
there also is a nagging part of me that still has a strong
hold: my past. Sure, speculating about what will happen
can be a gratifying, if not overwhelming, exercise, but I
also feel that moving forward — or, as others have put

B2 teen2teen June • 2008

it, closing this chapter of my life — does not mean that
what has happened to me thus far has reached a finale
and now the clock has been reset.
Yes, this is a fresh start, but the clock is still ticking.
It's not that I fear the prospect of change; instead, I
want to make sure that I don't abandon all the memo-
ri.es. Memories, for me, are not just an accumulation of
occurrences filed away in a heap in some murky corner
of my mind, rather I believe they are an integral part
of my everyday life — every action I perform, every
word I speak or write, and all else I do is a sum total of
all I have seen, heard, tasted, felt, smelled and thought.
So while I am taking a new, huge step forward, there is
always going to be a part of me that is frozen in time,
whether in the sandbox on the playground or in the
fourth-grade classroom.

So now I journey onward, savoring the memories
and anticipating the creation of many more to be syn-
thesized into my being so that I am not just a person
going through the motions of life — graduation, work,

Dr. Michael Lehmann with his son, David!, at his Yeshlvat Akiva

graduation.

marriage, birth — but rather a person living in the pres-
ent as a product of my past. t

David! Lehmann, 18, recently graduated from Yeshlvat Akiva

in Southfield and will be studying In Jerusalem.