My name is Olivia. It's also Chana, which is why posts to this blog from me will be signed as 'Chana.' I like to read, write, sing, dance and daydream. I'm engaged to be married to a Hasid. In the course of the past three months, I've attended Leadership Boot Camp at Camp Dora Golding, been hosted at the Stamford Hilton, visited Rutgers and handed out flyers at NYU through the Orthodox Union. At the moment, however, I'd like to tell you how I got my job.

It was a beautiful day in Upstate New York. Current Regional Director of Har Sinai (as Dr. Luchins bids me call it) Marc Fein and I were driving back from a Shabbaton. Marc was asking me to dream big. If I could do absolutely anything in the world, anything at all in order to help with projects, ideas or growth of our NCSY region, what would I do? What suggestions would I make?

"Take them all to Israel," I replied promptly.

"Good!" Marc said approvingly. "What else?"

I thought for a moment. I had had somewhat of an unconventional education, seeing as the last two years of my high school career took place at North Shore Country Day School. (You see, I had begun high school at a Bais Yaakov. Uniforms, single-sex girls school, absolutely no attendance at anything coed, including NCSY, the whole shebang. It didn't work out so well.)

"Well," I said, "I think that NCSY should be more like my high school."

"What do you mean?" inquired Marc.

"My high school's pretty smart. They decide to stay in touch with me by sending me candy. Every Halloween and Valentine's Day I get chocolate in the mail alongside an annual giving form. Now, since I'm 21 years old and barely paying my rent, it's not like I can really afford to give them any money. But I remember the chocolate, so that if I were ever to come into some money, they'd be the first on my list. It's like the Hare Krishna technique."

Marc looked puzzled. I decided to elaborate.

"See, Hare Krishnites used to hang out at airports with flowers. They would give flowers to people. After you accept the flower, the person asks you if they could have a moment of your time. Since you already took the flower, you're more inclined to say yes. It's the same concept. My high school sends me chocolate every single year. When they ask me to consider contributing to them, I think, you know what? Why not? They gave me candy."

"So you're saying NCSY should send candy to people."

"Precisely. We should follow up with our alumni when they are in college and send them candy, maybe on Chanukah and Purim. Firstly, because they are our alumni and we care about them and it's nice to get candy. And secondly, because it can't hurt if they decide this was nice of us and give us more money to plug into more programming for our kids."

Marc requested that I write all this up in an email. I did so. A couple of months went by. Then Marc called me up one day.

"Are you still looking for a job?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answered.

"I think you may have one," he said mysteriously. A couple minutes later, Scott Shulman, head of our Birthright Israel trip at the Orthodox Union called me up and asked me to come in for an interview.

Unbeknownst to me, Marc had forwarded my email to Rabbi Dave, the head of Alumni Connections, alongside my resume. They liked my ideas and as it happened, they were hiring. So they called me up, I came flying down on the subway (the A to the 4 or the 5 and then get out at Bowling Green) and voila! A couple of interviews later, and I was hired.

This all goes to show that one never knows what can come of casual conversations during car rides. And that Marc is awesome.