This is Sara Brown’s List. She mentioned it the recent webinar and we encouraged her to post it:
I have been to…
Oregon
▢ Mt. Hood
▢ Mt. St. Helens
▢ the summit of something (e.g., Cascade Head, one of the Sisters)
▢ tidepooling at the Coast
▢ Wahkeena and Multnomah Falls
▢ Silver Falls
▢ Ramona Falls
▢ the Japanese Gardens
▢ the Oregon Trail wheel ruts
▢ Fort Clatsop
▢ Bonneville Dam
▢ Smith Rock or another outdoor site in the high desert
▢ the Wallowas
▢ volunteer with the homeless
▢ OMSI
▢ Skiing
▢ Tinkertoy Tree Farm
▢ Tillamook cheese factory
▢ Old South Portland Jewish neighborhood
▢ Downtown walk
▢ Any 50 other hikes in Oregon
▢ Kesser davening
▢ A shiur by the rosh kollel
▢ Jewlandia
Israel
▢ at least 20 friends of Ima and/or Papa for Shabbos in Yerushalayim
▢ the Kosel
▢ Lonni’s family’s Teimani shul
▢ Tsfas
▢ Akko
▢ Chevron
▢ Kever Rochel
▢ the shtachim
▢ Bayit veGan, Har Nof, Mattersdorf, Sanhedria, and the Old City
▢ davening in Belz
▢ a tish of any Chasidus
New York
▢ Ellis Island
▢ the Tenement Museum
Anywhere
▢ at least two weeks in one other country besides the US/Canada and Israel
▢ overnight camping in a wilderness in a tent
▢ a zoo
▢ an aquarium with whales
▢ a botanical garden
▢ a county fair with livestock
▢ a working farm
▢ A courtroom in session
▢ A capitol building in session
▢ All four seasons, including playing in snow
Gerunds
▢ Sailing on a sailboat
▢ Milking a cow
▢ Volunteering with the chevra kadisha
▢ Visiting a shiva house
▢ Asking a shaila
▢ Public speaking
▢ Organizing an event
▢ Trying archery
▢ Coding
▢ Taking a martial arts lesson
▢ Dancing ballet
▢ Playing soccer, tennis, baseball, and basketball
▢ Grooming, saddling, and riding (ideally cantering on) a horse
▢ Taking a voice lesson
▢ Fishing
▢ Throwing a pot on a wheel
I have learned…
Kodesh
▢ I have learned the Five-Foot Shelf
▢ Boys: See Papa for more sefarim
▢ לשון הקודש as fluently as I speak English
▢ Enough Aramaic to translate a page of Gemara
▢ I have memorized a שירה in Tanach
▢ I have memorized the Chemdas yedios klalios
▢ I know by heart the text to say at a bris, the responses to the different types of zimun, Modim d’Rabbanan, and Aleinu/Al Ken, without having to look in a siddur
▢ Hilchos Shabbos
▢ Hilchos kashrus
▢ Hilchos brachos
▢ Hilchos tefila
▢ Hilchos bein adam lachaveiro
▢ Hilchos deios & chovos halevavos
▢ Leining Torah and haftora
▢ Boys: How to do hagba
▢ How to check my own clothes for shatnez
Humanities and Arts
▢ 1,000 important people, events, or ideas in world history
▢ I have entered half of them in a Book of Centuries
▢ I can recognize on sight the style of 50 famous artists
▢ I can recognize by sound the style of composers from ten different eras
▢ I have attained Fesolean level 5 in art
▢ I have had a work of creative writing accepted for publication in a magazine or as a book – nationwide poetry contests do not count
▢ I have written in ten different poetic forms and written pastiches of the styles of ten different writers
▢ I can write in English without convention errors
▢ I can navigate a library using the Dewey Decimal System without having to look up the call number
▢ How to sing on key
▢ How to play an instrument sufficiently well to accompany singers at a kumzitz
▢ Enough piano to walk up to a piano and play a piece with two hands
▢ Basic music theory
▢ A tune for each zemer in the bencher, and a half dozen songs in Yiddish
▢ I have read at least 500 English books from the Brown family library
▢ Vitruvius’ three design principles
Nature, Science, and Math
▢ High school chemistry education or the equivalent
▢ High school biology education or the equivalent
▢ Enough mental math to make quick calculations in the checkout line
▢ HS integrated math III or the equivalent
▢ Calculus of a single variable
▢ Fifteen common constellations in the Northern Hemisphere
▢ Identification of 100 common plants or trees in the Portland area and which are edible
▢ Identification of ten species of American or Israeli bird by sight
▢ Identification of twenty common garden flowers
▢ How build a lifesaving fire and shelter in the wilderness, and cook over a campfire; and navigate out of the woods without instruments
▢ How to plan and safely take students for an overnight camping trip
▢ How to plant a garden and keep it alive
▢ How to mow a lawn
▢ How to predict the weather from clouds, maps, and air pressure
Handicrafts and Movement
▢ How to sew on a button, close a tear, and sew up a cuff
▢ Girls: how to sew a skirt
▢ How to build and anchor IKEA furniture
▢ How to use a canoe
▢ How to draw a house to scale
▢ How to create a flyer
▢ One ornamental fiber art e.g. knitting, crocheting, netting, tatting, lacemaking, felting, dyeing, spinning, embroidery
▢ One schtick for chassuna e.g. handsprings or juggling
▢ The three essential knots
▢ Twelve string figures
▢ How to walk into Home Depot and build a shtender
▢ How to make Shabbos (including baking bread and dessert), five dinners, pancakes, and an omelet
▢ How to play chess
▢ Enough swimming to pass a swim test
▢ CPR and emergency first aid
▢ I can ice skate without falling down
▢ How to sweep a floor
▢ How to mop or sponja, and vacuum
▢ How to polish shoes and silver
▢ How to use a washing machine, a dryer, and an iron
▢ How to wash dishes
▢ How to change a diaper
▢ How to make Pesach
▢ How to drive a car and change a flat tire
▢ How to use a sewing machine
▢ How to make a pinch pot and a coil pot from clay
▢ How to tell whether shoes fit
▢ How to ride a bicycle without training wheels
▢ How to fold a fitted sheet
▢ How to make a bed with hospital corners
Linguistics
▢ Enough Chinuk Wawa to carry on secret conversations with my siblings
▢ Enough Yiddish to listen to a Yiddish shiur and be able to follow the main ideas
▢ Enough of any fifth language (besides English, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Chinook) to carry on basic conversation with a stranger at a wedding
▢ How to read Cyrillic
▢ How to pronounce French correctly
SEL
▢ I can visit a nursing home and make conversation
▢ I can comfort a person in dire distress
▢ I can make someone feel good about his work
▢ I can make conversation with a shy person so that he doesn’t feel awkward
▢ I can make conversation that isn’t about myself
▢ I can resolve a conflict so that we all still like each other
▢ I can tell when I am feeling anxious or despairing and address it effectively
▢ How to set a table
Don’t forget every day to…
Daven, learn Torah, walk outside, do someone a favor, shower, and brush your teeth!