tiptoeing through the tulips: A Day of Firsts

Today our Fall 2012 class went down in JC history: we were the first group to ever have to go into the bomb shelters and the first group to have our own prom! I was playing sardines and was standing on the deck when the air raid sirens went off…my first thought was, “Oh, there’s an ambulance nearby” until someone ran outside and told us to run to the nearest bomb shelter. Surprisingly I remained pretty calm throughout the whole ordeal—I felt super safe inside the Jerusalem Center. After about half an hour the security guards explained the situation to us: Gaza had fired a missile at Jerusalem but it fell about 10 miles short in an open field. The crazy thing was that my roommate had a dream this week that someone bombed the Dome of the Rock and that morning we all said that was ridiculous because Gaza would ever aim for Jerusalem—they don’t want to damage one of the top three most sacred sites for Muslims. But we all thought wrong! We are all safe though and life is continuing on as usual. The Israeli government said that they’re pretty sure that the missile was their last one, at least for a while. And even then, their missiles aren’t able to make it all the way to Jerusalem (until they develop longer-range missiles that it…) but I feel very safe here. We have top-notch security and we are warned well ahead of time if there if a missile (the sirens went off as soon as the missile crossed the Gaza-Israel border, so we had plenty of time to get into the shelters).

Thankfully Prom was still on after that whole ordeal! In case you don’t know, we have a 3 girls: 1 guy ratio here at the good old JC—do you know what that means? Polyga-Prom! Only at the Jerusalem Center, which is as close to Zion as I think you can get, would a group of college students be able to pull that off without it being awkward. Our Prom committee (self-appointed) assigned the dates so there wouldn’t be anyone left out. I went with Andrew Wilcox, Abi Gunn, and Alison Malmrose. Andrew asked each of us in such creative ways! I actually helped him ask Abi before I knew that he was going to ask me. For mine, he wrote a poem that led me around the Jerusalem Center and ended on the balcony of the Learning Resource Center where he stood in a suit, with a rose, playing “The Way You Look Tonight.” We had a little pre-dance dance and he asked me to Prom! It actually was really cute and well thought out. I was so impressed! For Alison, he had someone lead her into the Auditorium blindfolded and had Brother Squires start playing “Past the Point on No Return” from Phantom of the Opera on the organ while Andrew sang (with a mask made of paper taped to his face). What a guy!

He picked us up and took us to our reserved table in the Oasis—classic! I think my roommate stole the show with her dress. The dance was so fun. I didn’t hold anything back and I think I surprised people because I have been a little shy this whole semester but I went crazy on the dance floor! It helped that Andrew loves to dance and we all felt super comfortable around each other. Such a fun day!