This website is dedicated to the remarkable life, passions, and joys that Samantha Ginsburg Myers brought to the world; it incorporates many of her blog entries and photos that she kept over the years.
Here is a video of my cousin, Sonia Szajnberg's senior recital at Manhattan School of Music. This is one of my favorite songs
called "Beauty Interrupted" which is a poem I wrote that Sonia turned into an original song. Enjoy!
And here is my poem, inspired by William Carlos Williams' famous and beautiful poem, This is Just to Say.
Peaceful Night
In the country
crickets chirping.
Sitting at the table
with my grandparents
eating and laughing.
In my bed
under my quilt,
I think of them
and smile.
A couple weeks ago I got an autograph from Zac Efron. Alla's friend Katie was able to get it for me. Katie used to work for the magazine Cosmogirl. She interviewed the cast of High School Musical, which is how she met Zac Efron's publicist. Katie doesn't work there anymore, but she still has connections, which is how I got the autograph. The autograph says "Love Zac Efron", and it's a picture of him from the third High School Musical wearing his basketball uniform. I framed it and it's hanging right above my computer on the wall.
This is the personal signed autograph from Zac Efron
I'am so excited to finally have this, because I have been waiting for such a long time to get it.
Two days after my birthday I got pneumonia again, which really sucked. I was in the hospital for two weeks this time. Luckily my birthday party was awesome I got to have a sip of champagne, and I felt great. There were 25 people at my party and each one shared a story about me. I got a lot of great presents I got an autograph from Heather Burns, and these really awesome sneakers from Sonia and Lily. It was a really really great 21st birthday party.
Now that I'm 21 I can't be in the pediatric unit at the hospital anymore, so this visit was completely different from the last one. A couple days after my birthday party I started to not feel well, I would get fevers and my oxygen would get really low, we went to see Dr. Axelrod. She said that the pneumonia was not gone, and I would have to stay in the hospital again. After being in two adult unit hospital rooms, I missed the pediatric unit where the nurses were very friendly, and they would bring me good food. Although I couldn't go back to pediatrics, the third room was the best. It had a nice view and i had it all to myself and all the nurses were really nice.
I had a lot of visitors, and people called me from all over the world. I was super excited to see my best friends who i haven't seen in 10 years. Their names are Sam and Julian, and their parents names are Philip and Elizabeth Benfey. Other visitors were Alla, Bambi, Rayna, Cathy, Martin, Eric, Diana, Dr. Sussman, Lauren, Connie, and more. It was just great seeing everybody. Last Monday I got to go home, I was ecstatic to leave the hospital.
Since I left the hospital, i have felt so much better but still resting. I have been gaining my strength back.
Me blowing out thr candles at my 21st birthday
My parents and i with old family friends, Sam, Julian, Philip, and Elizabeth.
Me sitting up and eating a cheeseburger and fries
Thanks everyone for all your great messages! It makes me feel so much better!
Sam
I had to go to the hospital, because I got pneumonia while my dad was in Vancouver. The first night my mom and I slept in a single room, then the next night we stayed in the ICU. Then the next day we went into another single room. My dad came back early from his trip,and he gave me a beautiful gold bracelet with hummingbirds on it. While I was in the single room and the ICU I got a lot of visitors, for example Natan came to visit me Rayna came Bambi, Aunt Deb, Lily, Maya, Kate, and Alla all came to visit me. It was boring being in the hospital, but I was so happy to come home home on Wednesday.
While I was at the hospital, I had to have a CAT scan, an IV in my arm which was extremely itchy and painful. They took blood from me a couple of times, and I got 2 transfusions. I had a lot of different nurses, and Dr. Axelrod came in a bunch of times to check up on me. The nurses were all so nice. There was Erica, who has 2 westies, so she totally understands all about them. My nighttime nurse Caroline was super nice and extremely friendly. I watched The Cosby Show and Marley and Me over and over. I also played war with Maya, which was a lot of fun to play. When I was in the hospital my class called me and put me on speaker, so I got to talk to everyone at the same time. I was so happy to finally get home, and be in my own bed and see Smokey and Charlie, who I missed so much while I was in the hospital.
I can't believe it's only been 4 days since I've been home it feels much longer than that.
Zac came over to pick me up for our date.
Me kissing Zac on our date after bringing me home. Thank god my dad didn't see.
This is me and my dad and Lyn Pentecost at the grand opening of The Celebration Cafe which is part of the Bowery Poetry Club. It is New Years Day and they were having a 24 hour poetry slam. The Cafe is now being run by The Lower East Side Girls Club. The Director of the Girls Club is Lyn Pentecost, who is one of my mom's oldest friends and so much fun! I hope to have an internship working at the Cafe.
Me and Lyn talking and drinking coffee at The Celebration Cafe.
Lyn and Dave's son Willie who is the chef at the cafe
Dolls from The Lower East Side Girl's Club
Recently, Marianne Petite came to my class at NYU SKILLS to teach us about film making. She came on the same day we were having our publishing party, because we had just finished writing and reading poetry. Each student was given a small video camera that we can borrow from ITP. ITP is a multimedia production center at the TiSCH School Of The Arts at NYU, which is where Marianne works. The cameras were so cool they came with a little tripod that you can put the cameras on, and we all had a great time. We had the chance to play around with the cameras and film each other in the classroom.
The project is for my class, so we can learn about video blogging. I'm the only one in my class who has experience in blogging since I have my own blog. The point of the video blog is to have each student videotape something they are interested in, and then write about it.
I can't wait to continue working with Marianne and the rest of my class on our projects.
I have included a link below to ITP which explains what the center is all about.
This is a picture of my class fooling around with the cameras we got from ITP.
This is a picture of Marianne Patite and myself. The cheese doodles on the plate next to me from our publishing party were delicious.
This is a picture of my friend Jake, who loves to film everything,and wants to be a filmmaker one day. The person standing behind Jake is Mr. Moran who's a dean from my old school.
I just came back from an amazing trip to Philadelphia with my parents and Maya.
We stayed at the Marriott right downtown where my parents were attending a meeting.
The first day the weather was great and my mom and I headed out to see Franklin Court, the home of Benjamin Franklin, the famous American inventor, writer, and patriot.
We saw the printing press that he used, and a park ranger dressed in colonial clothes showed us how the printer worked. He had to put ink on the press with a big stamp soaked in ink. I got a copy of a 1754 famous cartoon by Benjamin Franklin that shows a cut up snake representing the different states: It says "Join or Die". That was his way of saying the country can't survive if the colonies didn't work together to fight for independence.
After that, we went to the Underground Museum where they had some of Ben Franklin's beautiful furniture. They also had room full of telephones — maybe 80 — on little stands. You could dial different numbers to hear what different famous people had to say about Benjamin Franklin. Here is a picture of me listening to John Adams – the second president of the U.S. — saying what a great man Ben Franklin was.
I got to see Becca who just got back from Mexico
and Ayse Parla from Turkey who brought a beautiful vase.
That evening I went to dinner at the Italian Bistro with my parents, our old friend Francoise Dussart who is French but lives in Providence, and a bunch of friends from Australia. I had mozzarella and tiramisu for dessert. I loved going out with everyone.
The next day, before i went out with Maya, Francoise, who is an anthropologist, came to our room and read my tarot cards. She is amazing!!
Maya and I went to see The Liberty Bell which was rung when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. The crack in the bell was very small and has gotten bigger over the years.
Later, we went to Independence Hall. We saw the courtroom and the room where Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and many other founding others signed the Constitution of the United States. They had the original desk that they used and quill pens and inkwells to show what it was like at the time. I thought it was really cool. I love seeing all the things they used over 200 years ago.
We went to the famous Reading Terminal Market right near the hotel for lunch. The market is amazing because it has so many places to eat and buy food. It can be a little overwhelming at lunch time!
That evening, my parents went out and Maya and I watched Hairspray and ordered room service. It was great!!!
On Saturday the weather was cold and rainy, so we stayed in the hotel and I worked on my poetry assignment and hung out. That evening, there was a party in my dad's honor at the Loew's hotel across the street. It was a beautiful and lots of fun with lots of people I know.
Here is a picture of me enjoying my last night in the hotel, right before bed
Yesterday on my way to school, I got Emma Thompson's autograph. She's in New York presenting her traveling art exhibit called Journey, which is about young girls who are forced into sex slavery. When I met her she was very nice, and friendly. There is a tunnel that you can walk through to see what it's like for those girls to be abused in such a horrible and scary way. I may or may not see it since it's so scary and terrifying. In other news, school's going really well and tomorrow is the Margaret Mead film festival at The Museum of Natural History, which my cousin Lily is working on. I love going to this festival every year, to see these films which are amazing and very entertaining as well.
Samantha Myers 