ALLEN SIGHS RESIGNEDLY when she is asked the Powell question. Yes, she will be protesting. "I'll definitely be wearing an armband and a sticker on my mortarboard," she says, adding "I think the balloon is a stupid idea. It's going to look like a party, not a protest."

Like many gay rights activists Allen is uneasy about the dominant place on the gay agenda that integrating gays into the military has taken. "Fighting for our rights to kill and be killed is not my top priority," she says.

"What I'll be protesting is the insult of inviting him here in the first place," Allen says.

ALLEN HAS ENJOYED a relatively low profile since her junior year. One of the biggest events in her life since then was her recent conversion to Judaism.

Although she grew up going to Episcopalian Sunday School, Allen says she always felt more culturally Jewish than Christian. She says that she always marked the beginning of spring by the Passover seders that her family attended at the home of friends.

After the father of a Jewish friend died in her senior year, Allen says she realized that she felt much more comforted by Jewish mourning customs than by the Christian ones she had undergone when her own relatives died. "The Jewish rituals just seemed so much warmer, so much more humane," Allen says.

She initially planned to put off the decision to convert until after college--when she'd be mature enough, Allen says laughing. She also felt that coming out was already enough to deal with. Last spring, she says, she realized that it was no longer enough to be a "Jew by default."

"Last year there were a whole bunch of things going on right around Passover that if one was Jewish, might have made you feel under attack," Allen says, making particular reference to the controversy over the kosher toaster oven in Dunster House and to a letter to The Crimson by Harvard Foundation Director S. Allen Counter, which accused the paper of having a pro-Jewish "racial agenda."

"I realized I was feeling under attack as well," Allen recalls. "And then it was Passover and I couldn't find a seder to go to. It sort of felt like spring never came."

Allen says she continued to think about conversion over the summer, doing a lot of reading and talking with another friend who was considering it as well. In the fall, she met with Rabbi Sally Finestone of Hillel and began studying with her.

Finestone says she was impressed with how comfortable Allen already felt with Jewish customs and observances when she began the conversion process.

"In conversion there's always a psychological component, a moment of feeling a part of the community. That was the easiest part for Sheila," Finestone says.

The Friday after Allen converted, she led the Reform services.

"That was really nice," Finestone says, who saw it as Allen saying that "I am now an official member of this community and I am now ready to take responsibility for continuing this community."

For her part, Allen says she found coming out good prepatory experience for converting. It is a comparison she is used to making.