Esther


 * IN A NUTSHELL **

Hi! My name is Esther. I am fifteen years old and I am a sophomore at the Frisch Yeshiva High School. I am American, and I have lived in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. I am an observant Jew and I have three younger siblings.




 * WHO AM I ANYWAY? **

I am a passionate singer, creative writer, and actress. My hobbies are reading and drawing with chalk pastels. I am a chronic daydreamer – my head is always in the clouds and I tend to get lost in my own mind. I am loquacious and find pleasure in the simple things in life. I love literature, musical theatre, and grammar. I am interested in color psychology and the etymology of names. I am a very indecisive person and I can be rather stubborn. I stand up for my beliefs and take a stand against cruelty towards people and animals. I overanalyze things and I am terrifically eccentric. I am self-aware and enjoy taking personality quizzes. I have old-fashioned values and I'm very curious. I am sophisticated and naïve, classy and gullible, whimsical and poetic, youthful and free-spirited. I am unique.


 * MY FAVORITE THINGS **

Despite being so indecisive (or perhaps because of it), I enjoy making lists of my favorite things. Occasionally, I’ll make a list of something fun, like, “Top 10 People I Would Love to Meet Someday” – of course, I usually have to change the "ten" to a "fifty" by the end of it.

My all-time favorite novel is //Gone With the Wind//, and my all-time favorite series of books is Harry Potter. My favorite play (to read, not to watch or act in) is //Macbeth//. Other favorite books include //Jane Eyre//, //The Princess Bride//, and the Sisters Grimm series.

My favorite fictional characters are Peter Pan, Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler, Severus Snape, and Luna Lovegood. My least favorite characters (the characters who irritate me the most) are Cho Chang and Wendy Moira Angela Darling. Out of every character from every book I have ever read and every movie I have ever seen, I am most like Luna Lovegood. We are both open-minded, creative, dreamy, and very odd. We also have a tendency to skip through the halls and put our wand/pencil behind our ear. I have quite a few favorite movies, the first of which is //Gone With the Wind//. I also love //The Princess Bride//, //Gattaca//, Alfred Hitchcock films, and old movies in general. Right now, the movies that I want to see the most are //Cat on a Hot Tin Roof//, //After the Thin Man//, //Titanic//, //Bruce Almighty//, and //Back to the Future Part III//. My favorite television shows are //Desperate Housewives//, //Absolutely Fabulous// (//Ab// //Fab//), //House//, //The Carol Burnett Show//, //One Tree Hill//, and //Glee//.

My favorite foods are vegetarian chili, fettuccini alfredo, and sushi. My favorite desserts are cheesecake, carrot cake, and anything custardy. My favorite fruits and vegetables are pomegranates, cherries, avocado, onion, garlic, raspberries, celery, starfruit, tomato, and hearts of palm. I thoroughly detest chocolate and bananas. I like trying new things, which is how I discovered Indian food and caviar, and anything that’s very spicy. My favorite drinks are strawberry smoothies, seltzer (which I have most often), and Dr Pepper.

My favorite scents – there’s an interesting one. I love the smells of vanilla, chicken soup, fireplace smoke, the ocean, onion (when it's cooking), and – above all – roses. I hate the smells of fish, cigarette smoke, parsnip (only when it’s cooking), gasoline, and banana.

The long list of people whom I would love to meet includes Julie Andrews, Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters, Kristin Chenoweth, Helena Bonham Carter, and J. K. Rowling. I would love to meet Shakespeare, but chances of that are pretty slim at the moment. My favorite creatures are birds and wolves, followed by cats and Alaskan Malamutes. My favorite mythical/magical creature is the phoenix. My Patronus (Harry Potter reference) would be a large bird, symbolizing freedom and my passion of music.

My favorite color is bright cerulean blue, followed by lavender, followed by green. My favorite words include loquacious, perspicacious, avaricious, fortuitous, melancholy, chivalrous, and rambunctious. My favorite punctuation mark is the semicolon. My favorite grammar rules are the issues of who vs. whom, it’s vs. its, and the proper place for prepositions.

Kristin Chenoweth as Fran in //Promises, Promises// Clark Gable & Vivien Leigh as Rhett Butler & Scarlett O'Hara in //Gone With the Wind// Julie Andrews as Maria in //The Sound of Music//


 * PICK-A-LITTLE, TALK-A-LITTLE **

There are many quotes that inspire me, touch me, and/or make me smile. Here is the majority:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” “Never say good-bye, because good-bye means going away, and going away means forgetting.” “To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” (This one is suspiciously similar to what Peter says.) “It is our choices … that show what we truly are, rather than our abilities.” “Ah, music! A magic beyond all we do here [at Hogwarts].” “The time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy.” “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!” "Fiddle-dee-dee!" “draco dormiens nunquam titillandus” (Latin for “Never tickle a sleeping dragon”) “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land in the stars.” "An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse." “The limits of your language are the limits of your world.” “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” “Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put.” “Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.” “Music fills the infinite between two souls.” “Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.” “Music is love in search of a word.” "Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures." "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." “Anything’s possible.”
 * Albert Einstein:**
 * Peter Pan (J. M. Barrie):**
 * Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore (J. K. Rowling):**
 * Scarlett O'Hara (Margaret Mitchell):**
 * The Hogwarts motto:**
 * Brian Littrell:**
 * Benjamin Franklin**
 * Ludwig Wittgenstein**
 * Gandhi**
 * Winston Churchill:**
 * E. Y. Harburg:**
 * Rabindranath Tagore:**
 * Sergei Rachmaninov:**
 * Sidonie Gabrielle:**
 * Jessamyn West**
 * Anonymous**
 * Me:**




 * THE SOUND OF MUSIC **

Music is a major part of my life. I love Broadway show tunes more than any other kind of music in the world. I also listen to country western (especially Brad Paisley), Frank Sinatra, Mozart, and the Beatles. Contrary to common assumption, I don’t really listen to opera, although I did see //Eugene Onegin// once. I am in the Hazamir Chorale, a Jewish high school choir with chapters in the United States, Israel, and Canada. My biggest accomplishment was singing a solo at Carnegie Hall. My favorite Broadway musicals are //Peter Pan//, //Company//, //Into the Woods//, //Guys and Dolls//, and //Wicked//, among others. My favorite Broadway composer/lyricist is definitely Stephen Sondheim. My favorite songs include “The Ladies Who Lunch” from //Company//, “Neverland” from //Peter Pan//, “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from //Funny Girl//, and “Over the Rainbow” from //The Wizard of Oz//. When I was in eighth grade, I started taking piano lessons. Unfortunately, I couldn’t continue with them either because they conflicted with rehearsals for the school play. I want very much to play the violin, the flute, guitar, piano, and concert harp.

The following YouTube video is of me, singing a song that I wrote for my chemistry project. The assignment was to advertise an element. My element was lithium, so I rewrote the lyrics to the popular '40s song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and turned it into.... "Baby, It's Lithium". It's a duet, so I used the Garageband software to record myself on two overlapping tracks.

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 * SEEN AND UNFORESEEN **

I have my whole future planned out. I’ve wanted to be an author since the age of six. I write stories, poems, songs, and the occasional musical. I went to the Young Writers Institute for five consecutive summers at the University of Pittsburgh and I got the school English award upon graduating eighth grade. I have always loved singing, and when I was ten I decided that I wanted to be on Broadway. I myself am a soprano with a wide range and a strong belt. I have not had many acting opportunities, but I got the lead role in my eighth grade play and in two camp musicals. At some point in my life, I would very much like to be a high school English teacher. Every now and then I find myself coming up with ideas for projects, ways to grade students on their knowledge, and books to cover with my hypothetical class.

I know exactly what I want to do in life, but I do have a back-up vocation. I would enjoy being an editor, specifically of novels. I love to edit my friends’ and peers’ writing, and their work is usually covered in red ink by the time I’m finished with it. I like correcting grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, pointing out areas that could be strengthened, and giving advice on how to develop the piece. If editing doesn't work out, I will be a speech pathologist. One of my many flaws is that I tend to correct people if they use improper grammar or mispronounce something. As a performer, I can enunciate very well.

Even though I have a back-up job and a back-up back-up job, I am vocationally ambitious. I will do what it takes to make my dreams reality. I am prepared to wait tables if necessary (although I don’t think that would really be so bad – I’d probably have fun writing down orders on a little pad). Someday, I am going to be exactly what I want to be – an author/singer/actress/teacher. There are so many people who choose their careers in order to make as much money as possible, but I don’t care about money. I just want to be happy.

Me as Ina Haxen in my eighth grade Holocaust Play, //Rowing to Freedom//.


 * SECOND STAR TO THE RIGHT, AND STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING **

The best places to which I’ve ever been are Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the beach, the library, Kennywood Amusement Park, Israel, and my mind. If I could travel anywhere in the world, I would definitely go to England. Many great writers were English – Shakespeare, Dickens, the Brontë sisters, J. K. Rowling... England is known for its beautiful gardens, and its national flower is the rose, which is my favorite flower, as well as my birth flower. English food like Yorkshire pudding, pie and mash, and scones sounds scrumptious. (I have had scones, actually, and they’re quite good.) It rains frequently in England, which I think is bloody brilliant. England’s history interests me more than American history, especially the parts about their kings and queens.

In addition to England, ever since reading //The Thief Lord// (the audiobook version is absolutely fantastic, by the way), I’ve wanted to go to Italy, specifically Venice. I think Italian is a beautiful language and Italy seems utterly wonderful. The final place I want to go, more than any other place in the universe, is the planet in a story I’m writing. It’s a truly splendid place; I created it years ago and I know more about it than about Earth. Sadly, I still haven’t figured out how to get there.

The main auditorium at Carnegie Hall is the Isaac Stern Auditorium. I sang here with my choir, the Hazamir Chorale, in the Zamir Chorale's 50th anniversary concert. The Isaac Stern Auditorium seats 2,804 people on five levels.


 * YOU’VE GOT TO BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT **

Although part of me wants to skip ahead to the best years of my life career-wise, I’m not ready to stop learning. In truth, I don’t think people ever stop learning unless they shut out everything. There are certain skills that I want very much to develop, certain things I want to know. It would be easier if I could wave my magic wand and instantly know everything I need and want to know, but where’s the fun in that? (Okay, that would be terrifically fun, but still...)

First and foremost, I need to learn to dance. Since I plan to work in professional musical theatre, it would be immensely helpful to be a triple-threat. I am not a good dancer for a few reasons. One is that I am simply not talented in that area. I just can’t seem to move my feet to someone else’s rhythm. Another is that I feel very self-conscious when I dance. I am something of a perfectionist, and when I don’t excel at something, I don’t usually enjoy it. This is true in the cases of dancing, mini-golf, bowling, and most sports. Lately, I’ve tried to be more relaxed about all of these things, and consequently, I have a better time doing these activities. I've even improved at them! The exception to that is sports. I’m still a poor athlete, but I’m now able to laugh it off. Anyway, I am not a good dancer due to lack of talent, grace, and confidence. I would love it ever so much if I were a good dancer.

Though I can’t see this happening for a long time, as it just isn’t a priority, I would really like to learn Italian. It strikes me as a beautiful language, as I mentioned above, and it would certainly be useful if I ever do go to Italy. I also want to learn how to lucid dream. A lucid dream is a dream in which you are aware that you are dreaming and, oftentimes, able to control what happens. I have had lucid dreams before, but I am currently unable to lucid dream at will – that is to say, I don’t have them every night. It is a rare pleasure. As written above, I want to learn to play musical instruments.




 * THE PENSIEVE **

Here are some fun facts about me. I am related to Albert Einstein (his grandmother and my great-great grandmother were sisters… or something like that). I believe in aliens, but not little green men with antennae. I am not exactly graceful. I probably couldn’t walk in a straight line if I wanted to, and once, I tripped over a caution sign. I think that walking is boring, so I try to make it more interesting by running, hopping on one foot, or sliding (that is, not actually lifting my feet from the floor). If you ever come across a peculiar girl skipping the hallway or walking backwards while reading a book, it’s probably me, especially if she collides with a wall while trying not to bump into someone. I have a great British accent (according to quite a few Americans and the small number of Brits I’ve met). Sometimes I’ll accidentally spell a word the British way – “grey” instead of “gray” or “defence” instead of “defense” – and it’ll take me a moment to realize why my computer underlined it in red. I nearly always write my e-mails in letter format, and I usually sign them either “cordially” or with something else that fits the mood. “Loquaciously yours” is my personal favorite of the latter.




 * IN CONCLUSION **

I love the arts, literature, and musical theatre. I have big hopes and dreams for the future. I have many interests and I was probably born in the wrong decade. I am loyal, friendly, and unique. I am a feminist and can often be found gazing at the sky.



Selection of section titles:

“Who am I anyway?” is a line from the song “Opening: I Hope I Get It”, which is from the Broadway musical //A Chorus Line//. “My Favorite Things” is a song from //The Sound of Music//. “Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little” is a song from the Broadway musical //The Music Man.// // The Sound of Music // is a famous Broadway musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. “Seen and Unforeseen” is a chapter of //Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.// “Second star to the right, and straight on till morning” is the way to get to Neverland, as said by Peter Pan. “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” is a song from the Broadway musical //South Pacific//. “The Pensieve” is a chapter of //Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire//.