greatest show ever.

P.S. This was the greatest show on the planet until it got cancelled.

Little Boys.

(Reading that title, it’s sounds like this is the blog of a pedophile.)


So quite a few of my friends here in ulpan will be going off to the army in the next couple months. One joined like two weeks ago, some are joining in October, some in November…. It’s just very funny to hear the difference. What difference?

When I talk to each of these boys on their own, each one talks about how they’re excited about joining the army, but how they’re also terrified. They’re scared about being stuck in the country without the option of going back (if you’re in the ulpan and you miss home, you’re free to leave Israel and go back to Europe or the US or wherever without problems…if you’re in the army, it’s my understanding that going home and leaving Israel is considerably more difficult). They’re scared about not being able to understand everything and fucking up something serious because of their lack of Hebrew skills. They’re scared of something bad happening to them (they’re all going to be combat soldiers), which I can totally imagine is a scary thought. They’re scared just because they don’t have the familiarity of the workings of the army and shit like that, like native Israelis do, and because they’re still in the terrifying process of simply settling down in Israel, without the added burden of having to deal with all this army stuff.

I get told this because I’m a girl and I don’t think it’s as embarrassing for a guy to let a girl know he’s scared (as long as he’s not crying hysterically….) as it is for a guy to admit to other guys that he’s scared. And I totally understand and feel total empathy or sympathy or whatever word it is in this situation, because I’m scared about joining the army and, for me, it’s not even a final 100 percent deal yet. And for me, I have one less thing to worry about, because there’s no way in hell that the army is going to send me into a place like Gaza, whereas the guys are all going to be combat. I don’t for a second think any less of these guys for being scared about army service, but for the sake of what I’m about to say, just remember that pretty much the ONLY thing that each friend tells me in private about the army is that he is quite scared.

What I find really funny and endearing in all of this though, is when all the guys get together. It’s like an alternate, testosterone-filled universe. Each one tries to be manlier than the other. Two brag about how many Arabs they’re going to kill. One talks about which units are more “heroic” than others, and then starts speculating on what job or unit or whatever he will have, basing his choices on whichever unit he considers on that particular day to be the most heroic. Another talks about how all the years of his embarrassing failures that shamed his parents back home will disappear once he becomes a soldier, because he’s really going to “do something.” One of them will suggest that X unit/job is the most dangerous, and all of them will jump to say that THEY’RE going to join that particular unit. Then a different boy will suggest that a different unit is manlier and more dangerous, and suddenly all the boys want to do THAT job. No no no, no mention of fear or uncertainty or uneasiness—no. Here, the only thing the guys felt was that they weren’t just going to be “plain ol’ soldiers,” they were going to be fearless heroes.

I don’t know. All of this is rather…cute. They’re like little boys. It reminded me of being in preschool because at that time I was only friends with boys. Here’s the reason in short: with two older brothers at home, I was a huge fan of Ninja Turtles, whereas girls my age were interested in My Little Pony, which could kiss My Little Ass. So all my friends (who were all named Daniel, since I went to a pre-Jew-school) were little boys who loved pretending to rescue things. You know, during break the little girls would be playing house or playing with the dolls, but the boys would make believe that they were heroic American soldiers, or they were heroic firemen, or heroic knights, or heroic Super Mario Brothers. Whatever they were, they had to be manly. They could have pretended to be garbage truck drivers, as long as they were HEROIC garbage truck drivers. Normally when people say what I’m about to say, usually they mean it in a bad way. But it’s kind of sweet to know that I guess little boys don’t grow up.

Awwwwww!!!!

GOOD NEWS

Good news! I got a call from the Lishkat Giyus. The number was listed as a private number, so I just answered and said, "Hello?" and all of the sudden this lady started blabbering away for like two minutes in Hebrew. I understood that it was someone from the Lishkat Giyus talking, and I knew they were saying something about a medical appointment with them... So after two minutes she's like, "B'seder?" And there was an awkward pause and in Hebrew I was basically like, "Um, I MAYBE understood five words in all that." So she says in slow and deliberate Hebrew:

"YOU DO NOT NEED TO COME TO THE LISHKAT GIYUS FOR YOUR MEDICAL APPOINTMENT, B'SEDER?"

Oh my goodness. Nothing in the world has ever been more b'seder in my entire life.

Yes, I still don't know if I'm cleared for August enlistment, but at least now that I don't have to do the August extra medical exam, I know that August is at least still a possibility. I should know either Sunday or Monday....

STAY TUNED.

Also, there's going to be a mutiny in ulpan. Stay tuned. it's about to get ugly.

Jewz

Two things happened within 12 hours that made me very happy.

First I have to start with something that didn’t make me very happy. I was talking to a friend and explaining my army situation. Also, I don’t know if I mentioned this—the manager of the kibbutz picked me and one other girl to talk to the Jewish Agency today to talk about how great kibbutz ulpan is (if that’s not proof to you that I only complain on this blog and not really out loud…I don’t know WHAT is) in order for them to get more money.

So my friend says to me, “When you found out that the health clinic on this kibbutz fucked up, what did you do?” I told him that I went to them and asked them to find the form….after I was cut in line not less than THREE times…and then it turns out they had lost it, and I ended up saying sorry to them as if it was my fault. He asked if I screamed at them, which he said he would have done if they had potentially fucked up his army plans, and I said no. I just stood there quietly.

Oh man, did I get a yelling at. “THIS IS WHY THEY PICKED YOU TO GO TO THE JEWISH AGENCY—BECAUSE THE KIBBUTZ CAN BE AS HORRIBLE TO YOU AS THEY WANT AND YOU’RE NOT GOING TO YELL BACK! If it were me, or if it were [the names of other people in the ulpan…all of whom fight back], they know that we’d say bad things about this place! This is why you’re stuck in the laundry room while [the name of two assholes who switched jobs] you weren’t allowed to move! This is why the women you work with are so mean to you so much of the time, and this is why the kibbutz didn’t make extra sure to send your blood test to the army! THIS IS WHY [the House Mom] YELLS AT YOU FOR WHAT YOUR ROOMMATE DOES!* Don’t you fucking get it? I mean, you fucking HIT me when I was being mean to someone else, but a couple weeks ago I was yelling at you and saying that you’re incapable of functioning in society, and you didn’t even yell back! I can’t stand this, why don’t you fight back??”

(*The House Mom yells at me when my roommate doesn’t come to class, like it’s my fault, but has not once raised her voice at my roommate—who she know wouldn’t take that kind of shit and who she knows has a father 15 minutes away who wouldn’t let that kind of shit happen to his daughter) and yells at me for the trash in the ulpan area….when she knows damn well that the person creating the trash is a big, scary American guy that will yell back. I told her that I would NEVER EVER leave trash on the ground in Israel, but she doesn’t believe me because I guess she doesn’t understand.)


I guess he has a point though. I’ve always been a little bit like that, where I only fight back on rare occasions. I think it’s only gotten worse since I’ve gotten here, because I feel like that it’s really being taken advantage of here.


I did sort of yell back last night though. I mean, by normal standards it’s kind of lame, but whatever. The House Mom called me because there was a special night program for us, and most people hadn’t shown up. She started yelling at me, demanding to know where everyone was. Then she screamed at me to get everyone together, to the ulpan room, NOW. Said in the nastiest way possible, as if it were MY fault that no one had shown up yet. Normally I would have given a meek yes and then lamely tried to round everybody up against their will….probably with little success. But this time I yelled back, “Christ, [House Mom], I’m not a fucking cowboy, I can’t round everybody up like cattle if they don’t want to come!

Immediately after I said it, I put my hand over my mouth in surprise. The jaws of the ulpanists sitting around me all simultaneously dropped, and the friend who yelled at me for being so meek all the time patted me on the back. I waited for the woman’s response, dreading it, thinking she was going to keep yelling at me like she does when I just sit there meekly. But instead she said something like, “Oh, okay. Sorry.”

I think that was maybe the first sorry I got out of someone on this kibbutz. I hate how that works. I just sit there quietly, and I continue to get screamed at and blamed for problems OTHER people cause……..but when I yell back and act completely disrespectful, the screaming immediately stops and I get a fucking “sorry!” I don’t understand these people at all!


Anyway, so I show up to the night program. The lady leading it has been there twice before, so she sort of knows us all a bit. She’s an olah from an English speaking country, and I was the only English speaker who showed up. So we’re chatting in English, and she asked how the army thing was going. I told her about the kibbutz health clinic’s screw up and how I was really concerned about what I was going to do.

The House Mom came by and asked what we were talking about. I explained in Hebrew that I was upset about what happened with the form, and that I was scared cos I don’t have a job or house or a work permit or anything, and if the army thing doesn’t work out then I’m really fucked. The House Mom brushed me off and said “Yiyeh b’seder.” Which fucking pissed me off. I tried to calmly explain in my broken Hebrew that I had a LOT to worry about and that I wasn’t sure that “yiyeh b’seder.” In the middle of it, the olah/lecturer interrupted me. She said to me in English, “You’re doing it wrong, darling.” She’s been here for 19 years, so her Hebrew is excellent, so she started YELLING at the House Mom that the kibbutz really fucked me over and that they needed to do everything in their power to FIX IT. The House Mom immediately backed down and then said to me that the ulpan office would do EVERYTHING possible to fix the problem and to make everything b’seder.

Oh my goodness, I love the lecturer lady. I have never in my life wanted to give someone a huge hug more than right then. It really just made me feel great to know that someone out there wasn’t about to let me get fucked over.

Another nice thing? So I’m in the taxi with another girl from ulpan, and we’re on our way to talk to the Jewish Agency. The taxi driver is chatting with us and during the conversation the other girl says, “Snai chodeshim” rather than “chodshayim.” She was saying something like, “Yes, I have been here for two months, and I don’t want to go home.’ And the taxi driver smiled and said something in Hebrew like, “Yes, I also never want to leave Israel! Oh, and it’s “chodshayim.”” Very sweetly. The other girl explained that she didn’t understand, so the taxi driver (while driving) went through this very thorough explanation (in Hebrew) of the dual form. He frequently paused to ask if the girl understood or if she saw he was talking about, and allowed questions. This is going to sound so stupid, but it really was one of the kinder things that I’ve witnessed in Israel. I mean, he was just so nice about it, and didn’t make fun when the girl asked questions. And by the time we got out of the car, she had learned an important concept in Hebrew.

I don’t know, it’s just such a nice change from what it’s like on the kibbutz. Last night we went to the kibbutz’s Bar Mitzvah show, and afterwards one of the Bar Mitzvah boys walked by. My friend (who has a strong English accent), said something in Hebrew like, “It was a great show, and congratulations!”

And the little shit, the little Bar Mitzvah kid, says in his meanest impression of this guy’s accent in Hebrew, “Thanks!” Then he laughed hysterically. He turned to his friend and repeated it, mocking the guy’s accent. The Bar Mitzvah kid and his friend walked away and kept repeating Todah in a ridiculous English accent. Which is really shitty. It doesn’t feel good when you are trying to be kind and supportive and you end up getting teased. I know you think that it’s just 13 year olds being 13 year olds….but unfortunately even adults on this kibbutz have done shit like that.

So, Mr. Taxi Driver: I salute you for giving an impromptu Hebrew lesson in a kind way!

(By the way, in case you’re wondering what I told the Jewish Agency: In the maybe five minutes total that I talked about myself, I made a SINGLE reference to the kibbutz. I said that I chose to come to a kibbutz as part of Zionist ideals to come settle the land…and ended up in the laundry room. The Jews thought this was a cute joke, so they all laughed and clapped their hands in delight. The rest of the time I talked about my family background, what made me decide to come to Israel and general, and what I’m doing AFTER the kibbutz. I thought this was the most diplomatic thing to talk about, as opposed to Oliver Twist’s tool shed.)

P.S. The Jewish Agency place? Oh my goodness, the room we were in was like a picture out of an anti-semitic book. You know how people say the Jews control the world and that there’s like a council of elders who meet and discuss how to continue controlling the world? Well, I’m pretty sure those people got that idea from this room I was in. It was a huge board room, with an enormous table. Jews lined it on both sides, and on both ends there was another enormous table—so it was like a huge, I-shaped table. In front of each chair, there was a microphone. There was an enormous picture of Herzl on the wall—think beyond ‘enormous.’ Think of a picture of a frightening size. I’m only exaggerating a little when I say it looked like the sort of picture/banner that you’d unroll along the side of a building during the climax of a particularly violent and emotional public rally or demonstration-- as well as two Israeli flags and signs that said “The Jewish Agency for Israel” and “The World Zionist Organization.” The ceiling was extremely high, and the walls were paneled with wood squares, which gave the room an old-fashioned and sinister quality. Kind of like Dracula’s mansion.
Everyone who sat at the table looked like a stereotypical Jew, and almost every single man wore a kippa. In a mixture of Hebrew and English, the Jews who had come from various countries and continents discussed how to get more people to come to Israel and how to market the idea. Oh man. It was everything I could do to keep from laughing…it was EXACTLY like how I pictured it would look like if we Jews actually DID control the world. Oh man. It totally made my day.

DOES ISRAEL HAVE DIARRHEA—AND AM I A VICTIM OF IT?

You can tell I’m sad cos I’m listening to Wings. Sing it, Paul! And I’m also listening to Christian rock….

We’ve moved past saying “Eff.” We’re way beyond that. Hell, we’re even beyond plain ol’ “fuck” territory, but I can’t think of a word stronger than that. Let’s try

Cunt-bitch-fuck-face-shit-mother-fucking-ass-wipe-cock-sucking-slut.

(That should get this blog some interesting visitors from Google search….)

Basically I’m fucked because I don’t have a job or anywhere to stay past September, and it is too late to get citizenship worked out for afterwards—I’d be unemployed for a for a little while without money or whatever.

I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be in Israel. Between 2006 and now, I can’t even tell you how many office errors, missing documents, power outages, whatevers have happened that have prevented me or have greatly hindered my plans to stay in Israel.

What happened today? Well, you know how I got jabbed by needles 4 times for blood tests? Once at the Lishkat Giyus and thrice at the kibbutz?

Well today I got a letter from the Lishkat Giyus, and I got all excited. It had a date in August on it!!! Aaaaaaa! I asked an Israeli for help in understanding exactly what I had to do…..and he told me that I had to go to the Lishkat Giyus at the end of August---to get more medical tests done.

We found this confusing, given that we had already given them the results that they asked for. So we did some research.

The fucking kibbutz. This fucking kibbutz, which I will one day burn to the ground and salt its earth, this fucking kibbutz’s health clinic didn’t send the fucking results. I got poked with a needle three times, I still have a disgusting enormous bruise from one, and it didn’t even count for it. I am so angry at this kibbutz because it’s already shat on me countless times, but this really takes the cake because this has really fucked me over.

We got the results on paper—they had LOST them at the health clinic, and we had to spend like 20 minutes combing the reception area--and we are faxing them over to the Lishkat Giyus. But I don’t know yet if I can still join the army for the August enlistment date, because even after we send the results, the army might want to do their own tests just because we were so irresponsible the first time, or since it’s already on their computer that they don’t have my results.

Fuck fuck fuck. You know when the next enlistment date is for my program? March. It’s either August works, or March. And I am not allowed to get work with my visa. So I’m fucked. And I know that if I get stuck with the March enlistment and they let me go back to the US for a while….I ain’t coming back! If they want me to go back to Israel after going back to my family (who I haven’t seen since April….and some of whom I haven’t seen since January), then they will have to come and pry my arms off of my parents. My point is….well, to quote the country song that I shared a couple months ago: “If you’re going through Hell, keep on going.” The song is not “If you’re going through Hell, leave for a bit and then voluntarily put yourself back at the entrance to Hell again so that you can go through it all over again.”


Frankly, at this point, I’m fine with just going back to the US and living among people that will always think of me as “The Jew.” I don’t mind dealing with the occasional attacks on synagogues and Jewish centers, and I don’t care that I’ll always have some Christian at university trying to convert me. I don’t give a shit that my not being in Israel might delay/speed/cancel/(whatever the fuck different Jewish groups believe) the coming of the Messiah. I honestly do not give a flying fuck at this point. I honestly don’t give a shit, as long as I never again have to deal with places like kibbutz health clinics, the Lishkat Giyus and the Misrad Hapnim.

Holy fucking shit though, do I hate this kibbutz. It’s bad enough being housed in Oliver Twist’s tool shed, and having the world’s worst job with some of the world’s worst co-workers, being surrounded by horrible kibbutznik people, and on top of that PAYING for the “privilege” to be here…….but the ONE thing they had to do to let me get off of this place without problems was to fax that fucking form, and they couldn’t even do that for me. Hell, they couldn’t even remember where they put the fucking test results, so how the fuck were they gonna fax it?
I just feel so fucking shat on by this kibbutz, and also I feel really completely SHAT on by the people of Israel who are NOT on the kibbutz, and in general I feel like the State of Israel pulled down her pants and took a huge, t-rex sized shit on my head.

It’s great. All I wanted was to come to a country that I thought I loved, and I wanted to contribute something good to it, and I wanted to learn everything about it and I wanted to join its army, and…. My point is that I had nothing but good intentions for coming here. And in return the country thanks me by letting me feel constantly scared and alone and confused. Thanks buddy. I’ll remember that.

Last night I was talking to a friend who is an oleh, and he said to me, “I don’t think anyone in the country has said to me yet, ‘Welcome to Israel.’ Not on the kibbutz, not off the kibbutz. Before I left, people kept telling me that we Jews are really hospitable and welcoming. If that’s true, why hasn’t anyone said welcome and why does everyone treat us like unwelcome idiots?” I joked with him that I’m sure there must have been a sign somewhere in the airport that said “WELCOME TO ISRAEL,” but in all seriousness I agree with the sentiment. When I was five years old my family moved, and I remember that on the day we moved in ALL of our neighbors came over (they also all happen to be Christian….not Jews who are apparently known for being welcoming) to meet us and bring us cookies, cakes and conversation. (Nice alliteration…). And on that day, I met one of my oldest friends, a girl whose house I basically lived at when I was growing up and whose family I saw more than my own family. (They happen to be Atheist/Christian and totally anti-Israel but that’s a different story).

I’m not saying the kibbutz and the State of Israel needed to come to all of us who had chosen to try to live here and give us sweets…. But people could have at least tried to not make us feel like our presence was a burden. Like they regretted our arrival. I’m not exaggerating when I say this: I feel like almost everyone in Israel is pissed off with me (and with the olim I’m in ulpan with) for coming to Israel.

All I know is that back in the US, I was “The Jew” or “Sam, my Jewish Friend” or whatever to many Americans—many of whom I consider friends—but that I still felt more welcome and loved by that country than I do in this country, where I’m not weird for being “The Jew.” I’m beginning to think it wouldn’t be so bad to be “The Jew” for the rest of my life.
Wanna hear something extreme? Last summer I was in Dresden, Germany. There was a huge neo-Nazi rally while I was there. And I STILL felt more welcome in that city than I have felt here in Israel.

Fuck, I have to stop complaining so much. That’s the problem with this blog. All this shit I’m saying on this blog? The vast majority of it will never be said out loud by me. I’ve been trying so hard to be cooperative and positive in the real world, because I thought that might help, but I’m beginning to see that it doesn’t make the slightest fucking difference. Maybe I should try only putting positive things in the blog and then out loud I’ll say all the negative shit. Maybe that will work better.



In spite of all this, I still have that little voice in my head saying, “No no, you need to stay!” I don’t know why. Maybe the voice is my head just loves getting the (figurative) shit beaten out of it.

I think part of all this sudden “I hate this country”-ness is just cos I’m scared. I’m really scared. I was talking to a friend, and I was saying, “What am I going to do while I get things sorted out?” and the friend was like, “Well, my enlistment date got postponed and so I’m planning on just staying at my grandparents’ house, so you should do something like that—oh…..oh….right.”

This experience has been a horrible realization of how fucking stupid I am for being idealistic. Before coming here and in the early days, people used to give me a funny look and ask, “Let me get this straight: you have NO friends, and NO family in that country….and yet you’re moving there???” And I didn’t understand what could be so scary about that. I just replied, “Well, I’m a Zionist, so I’m gonna go live in Israel. So what?” My whole life, things have always been so plain and simple to me: you do what you believe. Practice what you preach. Blah blah blah. Well, now I’m here, and now I know what’s scary about that and why people questioned my coming here even when they knew that I felt strongly about Zionism.

i am your cowardly lion

P.S. I know I've already posted both of these on facebook, but I just....I'm sorry. I've watched both (especially the original) like well over a hundred times, but it's still absolutely hilarious to me. I can't stop laughing.

The Legend Begins:



The Legend Ends:


I watch Cochav Nolad just because I hope that maybe something like this will happen.....but I don't think anything can beat "I am your brother."

Well, this comes close:

This was my favorite American Idol contestant until "I am your brother"

Assume: makes an ASS out of U and ME.

Whenever I used to get embarrassed, my mother would always look at me and laugh. “You can really tell just by looking at your face that you come from a red-headed family. You look like your granny. Or…. Actually, you look like a lobster.” Actually, in Human Development Class (the class in school where you have to talk about feelings, sex, drugs, peer pressure, etc…), my classmates gave me the nickname of “Miss Lobster.” Sure, that class was embarrassing to everyone, and most people spent the class giggling or whatnot with embarrassment and awkwardness, but I’d just sit there quietly with my bright red face.

Today I had a moment that made me think of this. Astrology Bitch asked me in Hebrew, “How are your mom and dad?” And I hadn’t talked to them in a relatively long time, so in my head I thought, “Well, I ASSUME they’re okay.” I tried to think about how to convey this thought in Hebrew, but then I realized that just the other day in class we learned “assume” in what our teacher calls “Pretty Hebrew.” So I said to the lady (or at least I thought I said this), “I’m not sure, but I assume they’re okay!”

Almost immediately after I spoke, I could tell I said the wrong word. Astrology Bitch started snickering and said something in Hebrew like, “What a word choice….” I immediately went bright red and just wanted to die because I couldn’t think what I said wrong, and I was like, “Oh my G-d, what if I said something vulgar?” Astrology Bitch kept laughing and laughing, so Charades Bitch said to her, “What are you laughing at?”

And Astrology Bitch said, “Well, Sam said ‘I ASSUME they’re okay,’ and that’s soooo incorrect!” And she continued to laugh at my idiocy.

Normally I don’t like Charades Bitch, but today I love her. She said to Astrology Bitch, “Ehhh…no, she’s correct.”

A huge fight ensued in which Astrology Bitch continued to argue that I used the word incorrectly, while Charades Bitch (who is like 30 years older than Astrology Bitch) refused to back down. The fight ended when Charades Bitch started yelling at Astrology Bitch something like, “Why are you laughing, she’s trying to learn Hebrew! And, that’s a GOOD word she used. And it’s okay to say, “I assume they’re okay.” I think that she must read a lot of books, because she sounds smarter in Hebrew than you do!”
Holy Fuck, it was incredible. Best moment of my life.
(From now on though, I’m not going to use the word. Maybe this is why there’s a saying that goes: “To assume makes an ass out of you and me.”)


On the same note, I think I’ve sort of been “accepted into the tribe” by some of the Women of the Wash. Naomi Bitch has a daughter who is starting the army in August (like I’m aiming to), and so I think that may have helped my case. So she’s suddenly become extremely protective of me. Like, today I bumped my head, and this woman like freaked out like a mother would, and she was showering me with food and hugs and such. Awwwwww….

Not all is well in ulpan land though. Today I was putting away laundry in the cubbies where the members come to pick up their clothing, and a woman came in today…. She immediately eyed me suspiciously. I don’t know how suspicious a person can look when they’re wearing a pink shirt and a curly ponytail and glasses….but there we are. She set her purse down on a table and started to head down the aisle to get her clothing. But she came back. And looked at me. Just stared. So I said, “May I help?” And she said, “This is MY bag. This is mine.” I said okay, and laughed uneasily. She then stared at me for a bit. “This is mine,’ she repeated. I told her that I understand. She replied by saying, “Don’t take anything from my bad, or I’ll know.”

Ladies and gentlemen….I was appalled. It did not even occur to me to go near this woman’s bag (I don’t want to catch any kibbutznik germs and suddenly become infected with lazy asshole-ness). I don’t want to say that I’ve never stolen anything in my life, but let me tell you EXACTLY what I’ve stolen in my life: 1) A couple bucks from my brother when I was 9, and 2) one pair of socks from Baby Gap for my doll when I was a little girl. And I STILL feel guilty about both. So while I can’t honestly say that I’ve never stolen anything in my life, I can say that stealing is not something you’ll likely find me doing.


Finally: I saw this the other day and I just wanted to share it with you. I was watching the news in Hebrew, and suddenly they were having an interview with a guy. The guy was being filmed in his room at home or something. And in the background on the guy’s walls there were pictures of wolves EVERYWHERE. Like, at least 8 that I could see. Just pictures of wolves crammed in to every free space on the wall. And then to top it off, the guy was wearing a t-shirt with a huge picture of a-yes, you guessed it: wolf. Like, obviously someone really likes wolves. Like, a lot. Can you imagine this guy at dinner parties? “Hi, my name is Avi [I don’t remember his real name, but this is a good guess since we’re in Israel]. I’m really interested in wolves.” I could just imagine him, sipping champagne in the corner. He’d be wearing one of his many wolf t-shirts underneath a tuxedo jacket, miserable because he couldn’t find any women to talk about wolves with. “I wish I brought my book about wolves to read….,” he’d think to himself.

I have no idea what the interview was about since I couldn’t hear over my hysterical laughter—but one would assume that the interview was about wolves.

SHABBAT SHALOM AGAIN

Warning: Nostalgia, Country Music, Complaining and Random Shit follows.

First off, I just want to point out that I’m wearing long-sleeves. Now, the important thing to notice is that 1) I had to smuggle in any warm clothing that I have with me because my mom tried to prevent me from packing it (I think she thought by taking away my warm clothing I would not be able to stay here for the winter) and 2) it is fucking hot right now and long sleeves are NOT what’s up. This is the first sign that I really need to do some laundry. Which I will today. Back in Chicago, the sign that I needed to do some laundry was when I would wear my more formal clothing. Here in Israel though, I don’t think I own any formal clothing. Do I? Let me check….

…Just got back from the closet. Yes, I own “formal” clothing, but not “formal” by US standards. So the sign that I need to do laundry is when I start wearing long-sleeve shirts in the middle of July.

Wow, I just had a crisis where I realized what a weird word “sleeve” is. I remember a couple years ago I had an existential crisis that involved my realization of the weirdness of the word “door.” I felt like I couldn’t go on anymore now that I had realized what a strange word that is. Fuck, now it’s happening again.

Anyway, I know this is boring to read about. But I’m not holding a gun to your head and saying, “Stay here or else.”

So here’s what’s important for me to say: I feel a bit better than I did yesterday. Perfect? No. But better. I think part of what made me feel better was watching cartoons in Hebrew and understanding quite a bit of what was going on, so my self-esteem is through the roof right now. Also, I studied a bit of Hebrew (you know, reviewing what we learned in class over the past couple months) this morning and I came to the word “to complain.” I remember learning the word in French when I was 14, and I remember the teacher told us that it literally meant “to pity yourself.” I don’t know. Something about remembering that made me feel disgusted with myself for complaining so much and for basically pitying myself above all other people.

I also just want to say that I love Dora the Explorer in Hebrew.

Yesterday I was talking about “Looney Tunes” with the crazy French guy, and he said that he loved, “Sam Le Pirate” or something like that. And I was like, “Sam the Pirate? There’s no ‘Sam the Pirate’ character, what are you talking about??”
And he described him. A short guy, two pistols at his sides, a big hat, red hair and big mustache.
“Oh, you mean ‘Yosemite Sam!’ Yeah, he was my favorite character, too!” I told him. And he said, “What is ‘Yosmeetee?’” I tried to explain that Yosemite is a famous national park in California, and Yosemite Sam was supposed to be this sort of prospector character, like maybe from the Gold Rush or something, and so he probably got his nickname from the state park which is near the area where all that shit went down. But seriously, my French is pretty bad, so the guy didn’t really understand it. Actually, even in English I don’t think I can explain it properly.
Finally I settled on, “They call him Yosemite Sam because it’s kind of fun to say.” Which it is. But I don’t think the French guy thought it was funny to say. He kept saying, “Yosmeetee Sam” and then would laugh uneasily…

But seriously though, how did they get “Pirate” from that??


Speaking of Yosemite…I think it’s time to bring back “Country Music Shabbat.” Just because I enjoy sharing my terrible taste in music. I feel like I’ve already put up like five Brad Paisley songs, but whatever. Here’s another. “Mud on the Tires.”
Why? Well, for some reason it makes me think of high school retreats. Every year they would take each grade to a different place in the California wilderness. I remember on the first one, they took us to a place that was also used as a Christian retreat center. There was a huge picture of Jesus looking down on all of us in the dining hall, and I seem to remember that most of the Jewish kids lost weight on that trip because they felt so uncomfortable. (If that’s not a reminder that I’m better off in Israel, I don’t know WHAT is.) Another year they took us to Catalina, an island off the coast of Los Angeles. And I remember at night they had us look across the ocean at Los Angeles and it was just this impressive glow of lights. Another year we went to Yosemite—I remember, I was 13 and at that time my favorite thing to do was to talk in a Minnesota accent. And, as luck would have it, my group’s guide was from Minnesota, and so I remember making fun of her mercilessly. Every year they would have us go on a night hike, and they’d find a place for all of us—all 100 something of us--to lie down and look at the stars. And some of us would have competitions to see who could find the weirdest picture in the stars.

Anyway, these trips were simultaneously horrible and wonderful. What was wonderful? The adventure. Seeing stars, which you never got to do in LA (well, you saw celebrities, but not real stars). “Roughing it.” Missing school.
And all of this also makes me think of family driving trips, of driving to San Francisco with my brother, and of summer vacations at my friend’s house in Northern California. You know? Like getting lost in orchards along the side of the road, playing in streams, learning about Californian history. Besides Southern California (which is where I’m from), I think the greatest places in the US are the inland parts of Central/Northern California, because I think it still feels like what it must have felt like when people started moving there from the east. When you’re there, you still feel like it’s wild and you’re on an adventure. There are still enormous open spaces. It’s cool cos it still has that pioneer and wild west spirit.

And for some reason this song makes me think of all that. In a nice way. In a nostalgic sort of way.

(again, please excuse the ridiculous fan video....of trucks with mud on their tires. The actual Brad Paisley video 1) doesn't embed on websites thanks to capitalism, and 2) the actual Brad Paisley video has the audio interrupted by people talking about how great his tour was. So just don't watch the video. Enjoy the music.)


You know what I think would make me feel better? I think I need to go on a little adventure in Israel. I’ll try to think of one. Maybe on Friday I could just get on a random bus….like the first one that comes to the junction. And get off at the last stop and stay there for Shabbat. Or something. I don’t know. I think I just need to get out more.

Last Shabbat a couple friends of mine and I were hungry, but we didn’t have food and everything was closed. So we had an “adventure” to the neighboring Arab village to get food. This involved walking down a small mountain/large hill, traversing a vineyard, walking through wild grasses with thorns (the thorns they make you crawl over if you do combat training, according to one of the guys with me), jumping over a barbed wire fence, and eventually navigating the winding streets of the Arab town to find a market that I had never been to. It was actually pretty awesome, because whenever I’m in a Jewish area everyone always immediately addresses me in English when they realize I’m not from the area (which sometimes happens before I even open my mouth), but here everyone spoke to us in Hebrew, even after they heard our ridiculous accents.
But it pissed me off because the other two kept complaining and asking, “Do you even know where you’re going??” and I hate that question. Really hate it. I kept saying, “Not really. I know we want to go in that general direction, where the two minarets are, but other than that…..no.” And they saw this as a problem. Farrrrrrrrr, I hate when people are like that. It’s like, we can SEE our destination—we know exactly where we have to get to--we just can’t see the path. But it’s not dark out, so what the hell is the problem? You’d think people who left their old lives behind to move to Israel would be a little more adventurous.

Today's sack of self-pity is brought to you by.....

Just a warning that what follows is a sack of self-pity.


Oh man….today was a really rough day. I’m not entirely sure why. The Women of the Wash must think that I either have a bladder problem or a drug problem, because I kept going to the bathroom today to have a cry.

This is so unlike me. I think I’m just terribly homesick, and Friday is always the worst day for me, because it’s when everyone leaves to go to their families and I’m just……here.


Another exciting problem is that I’ve basically been lying non-stop to my parents on the phone, and that’s stressing me out. I hate lying, I absolutely hate lying. I can’t tell them that I’m lonely and homesick, because they’re going to talk me into coming home. And I don’t want to come home because I’m a stubborn, idealistic bitch who wants to make this whole Zionist thing work out even if she knows damn well she’s not cut out for it and would be better off if she just swallowed her pride and went home. I can’t tell them about the whole army thing, because I know they’re gonna try to fly out immediately—which could be a huge threat to their businesses—and try to take me home by force. I mean, I guess I have to tell them eventually, but I’m not sure when “eventually” is. I hinted to my Jewish brother that I had gone through steps to make this more than a just “I’m INTERESTED in joining the army” thing and rather, “It’s a pretty serious thing I’ve done, because the army now knows everything there is to know about me,” and he freaked out a bit. He was also the first member of my family that I told that I had decided to move to Israel. Actually, I told my parents back in 2006, during the war, “I’d like to move to Israel.” And then in 2007 I remember saying, “I really really really want to move to Israel. How would you feel about that?” But the actual first time I said to a family member, “Um, so I AM moving to Israel” was to my brother. The problem is that he gets really stressed out when he has to keep secrets from our parents, so this obligates me to tell my parents very soon.

Part of what is stressing me out is that it’s painful for something that I want so badly to be so difficult. All my life I learn about Israel, and I get excited and I want to come here so badly, and finally I get to come after 19 fucking years (which is nothing, I guess, in comparison to 2000 years)….and it’s like everything I learned about my whole life is shattered. I remember one day at Sunday School we learned a bit about the IDF. I was like 7 or something at the time, and I brought home the handout with a black and white picture of an Israeli soldier, and I told anyone in my family who would listen that I thought it was the prettiest uniform ever and that I wanted one too and that mine would be pink. I remember another time learning about Israeli cities, and I brought home that handout, pointed at a picture of Haifa and announced, “When I grow up, I’m gonna live here!” It was a picture of the port, so my parents said, “You’re gonna live in a port?” And I got so annoyed with them that I hid under my bed for the rest of the day.
I knew all the Zionist songs, I even put up with Israeli dancing in Sunday School just because it was Israeli, and I learned how to play Hatikvah on the flute. I remember that when we learned how to read Hebrew, I worked my butt off because it was what they spoke in Israel.
I mean, shit son, I hated the religious part of Sunday school, but anything having to do with Israel I loved.

But then after 19 years of learning all this stuff and being almost brainwashed in a way, I come…and I fold laundry. If there’s a more meaningless job in Israel, please let me know. The people that I work with congratulate me for coming over here, but at the same time they make my life absolutely miserable and treat me like shit most of the time, and make living here in this country near-unbearable. I’m a total idiot in this country, and even if there were no language barrier I’d still be an idiot in this country. And to top it off, I’m extremely lonely because everyone else has family to go to. Everyone else has a support system in this country, and I just have me. So basically my being in Israel is meaningless and solitary. I know, I know, this is a ridiculous amount of self-pity, and I know that “it could be worse.” Yes, it could always be worse. But first of all, this is my blog and I’ll be as self-pitying as I wanna, and second of all I don’t give a fuck that it could be worse—all I know is that it is unbearably painful that everything I believed growing up, everything that I cared about growing up, everything that was important to me growing up….is fake. It’s not real. I just feel like a total idiot for dropping out of school, saying bye to everybody I know and love, and coming to “An Ideal.”

I’m normally such a hopeful and idealistic person. At least, that’s what I think about myself. Actually, the other day when I was talking to Hadas, it was she who pointed out (not in these words) that I have the hope of a crazy person. I don’t know how true that is anymore though, because I feel like over the past months I have become unusually bitter and pessimistic. I hate that. Usually I have hope to the point where people ask me, “What, are you retarded or something??? How the hell can you hope for things to turn out okay in a situation like this?” And lately I’ve had people here telling ME to be hopeful.


Oh well. I have a feeling that tomorrow I’ll wake up and I’ll be singing some song I learned at Hebrew school, and I’ll totally forget that I felt this way today. But for right now, this is what I’m feeling.




I did feel a little better because the crazy French guy came back from his first day in the army, and as much as the guy drives me crazy, it was nice to know that I won’t be totally alone this weekend. Also, it was nice cos I got to ask questions about was the first day is like, and he got more information on what the first couple months are like, so of course I drilled him for any and all information he had. Because, let’s be honest people: I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. I have a couple friends who are olim who are also going into the army soon, but they have Israeli family members to ask about this shit, so they seem to have a much better idea of what’s going to happen, whereas I feel like some sort of little lost puppy. Actually, I feel like that fucking kitten who got stuck on my roof yesterday. She just kept peering over the edge, deciding whether or not the jump down would kill her….. It broke my heart because she just seemed so alone and scared, so I spent an hour trying to coax her into a basket I was holding. My British friend asked what I was doing, I replied that I was trying to rescue the cat, and he joked, “Ah yes, you call the fire brigade for this sort of thing in America, don’t you? ‘No no, no time to save that family from that burning building, there’s a cat stuck in a tree!’ ” He thought it was ridiculous that I was trying to rescue the cat when it would eventually figure out how to get down, but I couldn’t stand to hear it’s pathetic little frightened meows. I tried to climb a fucking tree to help her down, but that required both hands and so I couldn’t hold her. I tried to build a fucking ladder out of tables and chairs, but it was too shaky to be safe. So basically I felt like that cat, you know, just pacing around on the roof not sure what to do. Or some shit like that.

Another thing that made me happy? The song “Tainted Love” came on the radio today during work, and I started laughing because of a memory. In my senior year of high school I was in an art class, and next to me sat a friend. And we were drawing or something, and there was total silence. We were completely wrapped up in our work. And suddenly my friend quietly starts singing the song…..but I don’t really notice it. She gets to the chorus and is like, “Tainted love….” And then I, completely without thinking, go, “Ohh ohhhh ohhh!!’ And then she, also without thinking, goes: “BOMP BOMP!” And then I go, “Tainted love…” and we continued like this for like the duration of the song, and then when we got to the end, one of the freshman in the class turns to us and goes, “Did you guys like rehearse that or something?” And then my friend and I turn to each other, and until THAT MOMENT, we didn’t realize that we were doing a little duet with “Tainted Love.”

Oh man….remembering that just made me smile. And it also made me feel a little more homesick.

Rick. Rolled.

Today I tried to explain the phenomenon of "Rick Rolling" to a couple Israelis and a few various foreigners. I guess this is the best way to explain it:

I wrote a really long story, so click here to read the full story of what happened to me today.

Ian.

Well, I'm sure most of you know that today was a really sad day. I don't think it's my place to be saying much about it.


I will say something happy though, because I think it'd be good to think of something positive right now: Hadas came to visit today!

Yes, that's right! Hadas! From Birthright!

Maybe this will sound stupid or insensitive or something, but all day whenever I felt sad, I just thought of Abraham yelling in Rabbi's voice: "HADAS! WHERE'S IAN?!?!?! HADAS!!!!" (I know normally Ian's last name is in the quotation, but in case Ian ever decides to google himself, I don't want this blog to come up.)

It was really great to see a familiar face. I know, I know, after three months the faces on this kibbutz should be more familiar than someone that I haven't seen in like 7 months, but what I meant was that it was great to be able to say "Rabbi" or "Abraham" or whatever and not have to explain who I'm talking about. I can just say, "Abraham" and not follow it up with, " , my poetic friend from Northwestern who is slightly ridiculous but in the best sense possible." I can say, "Rabbi" and not have to explain, " , the rabbi from my college who loves getting people drunk."

Oh man. It was great. I can't even explain it.



This morning though started out interesting. I had to get an additional blood test to send to the army (they want to see for themselves exactly how bad my blood is before deciding my health profile, and they want a more precise test than the impromptu one done in the lishkat giyus), but I had to get it done on the kibbutz. So in the morning I go to the health clinic, and the lady starts poking around looking for a vein. And she says something in Hebrew, and I was like, "Oh fuck, I know what that means.... I don't know the word for veins, but did you just ask me, 'Where are your veins? --Do you HAVE veins?' " And the lady is like, "Yes...."

Every single time of the many times I've had to get blood tested, the people cannot find my fucking veins. They tell me, "Drink a bunch of water the night before and then the morning of the blood test, and then your veins will be easier to find." But it never fucking works! I drank so much fucking water last night and this morning, and yet still my veins are nowhere to be found.

So first the lady stuck me in my left elbow joint. But that didn't really work. So they bandaged me up and then the lady started poking around on my hand. Then they tied the rubber band thing AROUND MY FUCKING WRIST!!! I cannot stand having things around my wrist, which is one reason why I don't really like wearing watches or bracelets, and here I had a fucking tight rubber band on it!! GAAAAAAAA. Then they stuck a needle in a vein in the back of my hand and tried to draw blood from there. After a couple minutes though, they took that needle out too and bandaged up my hand. I looked at the vial, and saw that it only had a couple drops.

The ladies were starting to panic. Then they had the idea to have me lie down. After lying down for a couple minutes, they jabbed a needle into my right elbow joint, and a few excruciating minutes later we FINALLY filled up a single vial. Fuck man.
Then they pulled it out and bandaged me up again.

So basically when I walked out of there, I was a walking battle wound. I had three patches of gauze on me, with long strips of tape to hold them in place. I immediately went to the dining hall so I wouldn't faint, and the Arab guy who rings people up looked at me and asked, "Samim?"
And I kind of wanted to be like, "Exactly."

Super Nanny in 10

Today during a class break I sat down to read a couple copies of The Jerusalem Post. And my roommate says that she wants to go do something, and I said I'd actually just prefer to have a nice sit and read something in English. And she calls out, "Jeez, you're always READING!" as if reading were such an annoying habit. As if it were criticism.

So I was just like, fuck this. I don't need to be criticized for reading the fucking news of the country I now live in and want to call home. So without thinking and without looking up from my papers, I blurted out, "Yeah? Well you never read, and look how you turned out."

You know when you say something, and then you freeze immediately after saying something, almost like you're hoping that if you stand absolutely still the person might not see you, or maybe you'd slip into an alternate reality or something. You're really hoping for some extreme salvation. I didn't look up from my papers cos I thought maybe it would turn out that my roommate was actually a trick of the light or some shit like that.


I kind of stand by my statement though. During class we were reading an article on Ron Arad, and one of the words we didn't recognize in Hebrew was like famished or starved or something. And the substitute teacher tried to explain it to us in Hebrew, and she's like, "It's when you don't have enough food and you're hungry and skinny and blahblahblah." And my roommate was like, "Anorexic?" And I wanted to smack her for being so stupid, but I kept silent. I mean, even by guessing standards, that's pretty retarded. Granted, in any other context anorexic would have been a decent guess, but this is a captive we're talking about, and my guess is that someone who is being held captive would not intentionally deprive himself of food. I dont know, maybe there's something I'm missing though...

It's really starting to piss me off though. All the time she tries to "out-Israeli" us, but at the same time she doesn't know anything about Israel. "Who's Ehud Olmert?" "What's the Knesset?" "What three captured soldiers?" It just pisses me off. Pick up a fucking newspaper once in a while! I mean, I'm hardly the most informed person, but even I make sure I have basic information of what the fuck is going on.

Also, the Mexicans ripped a huge fart in class today. The substitute was introducing herself and the two of them were being kind of antsy, like kids in elementary school are when there's a sub. And then suddenly one of them, in the middle of the sub's sentence, rips the BIGGEST fart I have ever heard in my entire life. And I could not stop laughing. Like, uncontrollably, to the point where I cried, broke a sweat, and thought I was going to pee my pants. I have no idea why I find this so funny..... And even though my roommate and I were kind of pissy with each other today, she said she couldn't stop laughign because she thought it was just so funny that I, of all people, was laughing. "But you're so mature usually!" she said, while choking back giggles. I wanted to be like, you obviously have not discovered my blog, because today I'm publishing a story about Mexican farts and yesterday I mentioned that I was afraid of spilling a cup of pee everywhere.


Anyway, so today I ended up going over to the family's house to teach the girls some more English. It was cool. I taught the youngest girl to recognize A through G, and I finished the cursive alphabet with the oldest. The middle girl taught me the TV schedule, hahaha. (Super Nanny is on in 10 minutes!!!). Then they invited me to stay for dinner, and so I did.

The dad came home, and at first I was really freaked out. I'm afraid of most of my friends' fathers, because a lot of them are cold or scary or whatever. There was one father I knew when I was 5 years old who used to make me cry whenever he entered the room because I thought he was so scary.

Oh man though. I like this dad. He came in and was like making fun of his kids, then he made fun of me, but at the same time made me feel like a welcome part of the family. Haha, it was awesome.

They kept putting food under me, and I thought I was going to burst. They gave me a pudding cup (I thought pudding was only for breakfast! WHAT A DEVELOPMENT THIS IS!!!!!), and the oldest girl said she also wanted one. But they had given me the last one. So i told the girl that I was actually really full (which was true), and that she could just take mine. So she agreed, but as she reached for it, the dad smacked her hand and was like, "No no no, she's just being polite--this is what they do in America! They have manners! You can learn something from our American friend here!" And then he turns to me and is like, "Tell her that you have manners in America. You learn to be polite in America, not like in Israel! Right?"

Hahhaha, I love this family.

She's back from the recruitment office--and she's got news!

Today I created yet another reason for going on birthright (if you’re an Israeli).


So I went to the Lishkat Giyus today, and they informed me that if (G-d forbid!) a soldier dies in the army, a little bit of money is paid to your family or to some other person of the soldier’s choosing. So they asked me who I wanted my money to go to if (here’s your cue to say “G-d forbid!”) I die in service—yeah, I know I’m probably going to work in an office somewhere, but you can die from papercuts….

So obviously my immediate response is, “My parents, of course!” And she tells me it has to be someone in Israel and asks if I have any other family in Israel—and then she catches herself, because she remembers that earlier in the interview we couldn’t think of anyone that I know in Israel that has been here for at least 7 years, and she suggested that I put down the name of a family member, and I told her that I don’t have any family in Israel or even an old friend, and all of the people I talk to here in Israel regularly are new immigrants. So the soldier who is interviewing is trying really hard to be helpful and suggests that we put down the guy in the Machal office to be both my contact who lives in Israel and the person who would get my money. So we called him, and he freaked out and was not helpful and didn’t understand what was going on and was generally unhelpful. He told me that no one else has ever had this problem before and so he couldn’t figure out what my problem was. (My guess is that most people who do the program do have family/close friends in Israel that they can put down, so that’s why this guy has not heard this problem before….). So we get off the phone with him, and the soldier who is interviewing me is starting to get a little concerned, cos we can’t move on without this information. She suggests putting down the manager of the ulpan. Desperate to just get on with things, I said okay.
(Holy fuck though, if my money went to this fucking ulpan……Jesus Christ, I’d pray for immortality, drink unicorn’s blood….do whatever it takes to prevent that.)
So we called and there was no response.

Well, fuck. So we’re just sitting there, and I'm trying to act all calm but in my head I’m freaking out because I don’t know what I’m going to do. I asked if she could just give away my death money to charity or something, or if she could just give it to a random person on the street—I didn’t really give a fuck, I just wanted out.

Meanwhile a crowd of soldiers gathered around the desk I was at as each tried to offer advice. Other people being recruited who were bored and scared looked over at me, and I just felt so pathetic. It was embarrassing and really drove home the point that I’m alone in this country.

I started nervously fidgeting with my phone, and then I got suddenly got an idea. “Fuck this,” I said in English, and then continued in Hebrew to the soldiers, “I’ll try one more time, wait.”


I called my roomie from Birthright.

I said in Hebrew, “If I die in the army, do you want my money?”
And the ENTIRE room erupted in laughter. Oh my goodness, it was excellent. I think most of the time people are just like, “Give it to my parents,” and here I was just trying desperately to get rid of my money to anybody (if my last attempt didn’t end in success, I was considering just finding a random schmoe off the street), and I end up asking questions in an incredibly blunt way.

Anyway, once that got settled everything was quite nice. During the interview it was really difficult to understand everything the soldier was saying, but I thought I understood pretty decently.


So finally I got released from that room and sent downstairs for my physical. I’m like about to die because I have to pee so badly, and so I go quickly and then head downstairs for a medical exam. And they immediately tell me I need to go pee in a cup. And they tell me that I need to pee in an upstairs bathroom and then carry it downstairs in front of everyone back to the doctor’s office. Which struck me as quite possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard. What if I bumped into someone (as I do all the time) and I spilled a cup of pee everywhere? Omg, that’s so gross, I’m sorry I just said that to y’all.
So obviously since I just peed I can’t go again so I start chugging water. Like I spent a solid 5 minutes at the water fountain.
Which meant that for the rest of my time in the lishkat giyus, I had to pee every 10 minutes. (Again, sorry I’m telling you all of this, but I mean, you are CHOOSING to read my blog….)

Eventually I end up in the main physical examination room. And this horrible and enormous Russian lady talks to me in English, which is a relief for me after (at this point) experiencing 2 hours of not fully understanding everything), but she’s only doing it because she thinks I don’t understand Hebrew at all.

As she sifts through my papers and says not a single word to me, in Hebrew she starts yelling, ranting, etc. at the soldier in the room about how angry she is that I don’t have a teudat zehut and how that just makes everything soooo difficult for her, and how angry she is that my doctor from home gave me a prescription that she didn’t think I should take for what I have, and what a pain I was and how difficult I am making her day just by sitting in her office. And then to top it off she started ranting about how she hates my doctor and people from England (where she said I came from) because they use pounds and inches, instead of kilograms and meters.

So I sat there quietly through all of this and smiled and pretended that I couldn’t hear or understand. But when she suggested that I was from ENGLAND and that the English use OUR system, I got pissed. So I said to her in Hebrew, “They use kilograms and meters in England too. And anyway, I’m not from England. Oh, and anyway I also understand Hebrew.”

Hahahahahah. Oh it felt so good. She got all red. Then she started arguing with me in English over whether or not England used pounds or not. I told her she was confusing pounds, the unit of measure, with pounds, the unit of currency. I wanted to say, "You're also a fucktard," but I kept it civil.

So finally since I have a blood issue I had to get a little blood test, and so a soldier takes me down the hall. And again no one thinks I understand English. No one told me in English that I was getting a blood test, I just overheard it in Hebrew and I was told to follow a soldier in English. So I’m sitting there and a couple soldiers start whipping out needles and shit like that. And then one of them says to the others in Hebrew, “Do you think maybe we should translate for her what’s going on, because she probably doesn’t understand what’s happening. It might scare her.” Then another said, “No, just surprise her, that will be better.” And I burst out laughing….

After being made to stand in nothing but my skivvies in front of the horrible and enormous Russian lady, I was sent upstairs to take tests.

So first I had to do that horrible shape/sequence shit test. And it was great because all the instructions were translated into English.
Finally I clicked to go onto the personal questionnaire….and everything switched into Hebrew. I thought I was going to vomit. I think the last time my stomach dropped like that was when I went on “Ghostrider.” I raised my hand and a soldier came to my aid. “Yes?”

“Um….it’s in Hebrew.”

“Yes.”

“Um…..I….I….I’m American….I….I can’t….”

“Oh. Well, we only have it in Hebrew, so…..can you read Hebrew at all?”

“Yeah, a bit, but—“

“Well, just try.”


Fuck. So I started off the questionnaire by being totally pissed off. I don’t understand why they wasted their fucking time translating the questions and instructions for the shapes and sequences thing when the instructions were self-explanatory, while the actual verbal questions they left in fucking Hebrew. Like, whose fucking great idea was that?

But then I started working on the questions and I realized that I more or less understood the questions and the answers. At least, I THINK I understood. For all I know, I kept saying, “Yes, whenever we go to Gaza I want to be the first one in.”

A couple questions I had to guess at because I would read it and it would be like, “In your opinion is garble farble in quarkledee foobletan dratten?” And they don’t let you leave questions unanswered so you have to put SOMETHING. So I have a feeling that like 80 percent of my answers are accurate (more or less) representations of me, whereas 20 percent are total wildcards. I can just imagine people somewhere reading my answers:

“Well, from the answers we got we can tell that she’s slightly introverted, likes to read, is excited about her army service, and enjoys raping small children. She also is always on time, enjoys studying, and she also killed a man in Reno.”


Finally I was released. I walked down to Ben Yehuda to get some shwarma, and when I went to pay, the guy says to me IN ENGLISH: “You got chicken? 29 shekels.” And I wanted to be like, “Bitch please, ‘chicken’ and ‘29 shekels’ would have been the easiest thing I’ve heard in Hebrew all day…..”

Get me teachers' credentials!!!

I taught someone something today!

I taught an 11 year old Israeli girl how to write in cursive in English.

It was so fucking cool, cos she caught on pretty quickly.

Someone in the world knows something--BECAUSE OF ME! Yes, it may be something incredibly irrelevant and that no one uses, but she still knows it because of me!!!! Aaaaa!


This is great! It's great because, you know, I've spent basically three months now being the idiot. The person who doesn't know anything, who doesn't understand what people are saying when people ask her for help on the street, and when she does understand, doesn't understand the bus system well enough to give proper, helpful instructions. The person who is always holding up the line, or bumping into people, and being generally bewildered and confused.

BUT NOT ANYMORE! I KNOW SOMETHING THAT SOMEONE DOESN'T KNOW, AND I SHARED THAT INFORMATION. I AM THE FUCKING CHAMPION!


:-)

I feel really good. I think from now on, every single day that I'm in Israel I have to teach someone something. I don't care if it's teaching someone how to tie their shoes, or how to whistle, or how to do trig problems--I just need to teach something and then I won't feel like a total retard.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE!

My TV magically fixed itself! Gaaaaa!!!! What a miracle!!!


Also:
I have to figure out where I want to live during the army, if indeed everything works out. Do I want to stay on the kibbutz? Do I want to move to a different kibbutz? Do I want to get an apartment (it's a more expensive option, so that's prolly not gonna happen)? And if I go to a different kibbutz, WHERE??!?!?!
This should be interesting. Stay tuned as Sam figures out where the hell she's gonna be!

I'm not gonna lie...cosmonauts...I hate cosmonauts.

"German Boy, your farts could kill a room full of Arabs. I think that's what your job's gonna be in the army." --one of The Americans.


Today the French guy was ranting about the love of his life and how he's going to win her back. At the end of his explanation, he stood up from his chair and screamed in English: "I AM ZE CHAMPION!!!" And then he sat back down in his chair....but with a little too much gusto. He flipped over, and also took out the table behind him. Oh man...... We did a re-enactment of it and caught it on film, which I hope to upload at some point, but I just wanted to write this down so that whenever I feel sad I can think about this. It was almost as ridiculous as the Pink Packaging Peanuts Man in terms of things I've seen...

From age fifteen:

"Down the street, there was this man carrying HUGE bags of bright pink packing peanuts. And since they were so big and cumbersome, you couldn't see him, you could only see his feet sticking out below. And he was kicking a HUGE roll of bubble wrap ahead of him cos he had no free hands. It was seriously the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. It was just this levitating being of packing peanuts kicking a roll of bubble wrap. I pointed, screamed, "OH MY GOD--LOOK!" and then I fell off my chair laughing."

It's one of those things that you have to see to appreciate it, but I'm gonna appreciate it for the rest of my life.

This has kind of put me on a nostalgic turn, and so I just want to put together a couple moments of my pre-Israel life:

"Last night I woke up at 4 am to hear the front doorknob clicking and Dolley growling at the door. I thought to myself, this would be a good time to go arm myself. So I hid in a dark corner of my room, beanie on head and softball bat in arms. First I sprinted across the hallway to go poke Dingo until he woke up, figuring that he would maul anyone who tried to hurt me. "Kill, Dingo!" I whispered. "Attack!" He just grunted and fell back asleep. Then slowly I crept around the house with this very large metal bat, checking for intruders and wishing I knew where the gun was. Checking the windows. I figured if anything was going to try to kill me, at least I'd go out beating the living shit out of it."

"I saw a classical concert tonight with my dad. The Disney Concert Hall inside looks like the mouth of a lizard, filled with people it's trying to eat. Some people sit on the side, clinging for dear life, not wanting to be swallowed completely by the lizard. And the pipes of the organ look like menacing buck teeth, and it makes the audience want to tell the orchestra, "LOOK OUT!!!!" as they're about to be bitten off. During La Mer (one of the first pieces they did), you can totally just hear where the pirates come. Then there was Swan Lake and I could just imagine the conductor waltzing with the lead violin lady, wearing a poofy green gown. The violinist wearing one, i mean. not him. Right before the first piece, you know, the audience is quiet and it's right before the conductor does that downbeat thing......this guy behind my dad did a good long 5 second blast fart and I burst out laughing.....I thought it was my dad, but it turns out it wasn't."

"The closing of Waldenbooks is a bit like the sinking of the Titanic. You know, the band just kept playing as the ship went down. That's kind of what the employees of this book store are doing. They're not acting like doom is right about to hit them. They just keep assisting people and smiling, knowing that their store is closing this month, knowing that they're going to lose their jobs. But they keep smiling and helping. Just like the Titanic band."


anyway....(9.9.05 and 2.8.05), i just wanted to share. because im bored.

AND
I've been feeling really nostalgic. I just watched my team, the LA Galaxy, tie with Chivas. And I was sad I wasn't home. But at the same time, I don't want to go home. It's becoming easier and easier to imagine staying here in Israel for a long time, if not for the rest of my life. I just can't wait to get off this fucking kibbutz.

I should charge for everything I do...

You know what I feel like at this place? Everyone’s therapist. I mean, I like to be helpful and I like to find solutions to friend’s problems….but today for example I had a guy I just met a couple days ago telling me all about his love life issues. In excruciating, emotional detail. The way he was talking to me, you’d think he was laying down on a couch with me in a chair behind him taking notes. I’m like, “Dude, I JUST met you!!!” Except I didn’t say it. I just tried to say comforting things, but it’s hard to do that when you don’t know the person….
Then there’s the French guy. Holy fucking balls, it’s like 2 hours a day I have to listen to him talk about his love life problems. It’s pissing me off because we used to be friends, and now it’s a one-way street. All we get to talk about is HIS issue. This single issue. The other day he apologized to me for threatening me all the time and being an ass in general—but then a couple days ago he bragged to me that when he apologized to a bunch of people (including me) the other day, he was only doing it because the girl he is obsessed with demanded that he did. So he says this to me, he admits that he isn’t sorry for being threatening or scary or insanity-inducing, but then he expects me to want to keep listening to all his shit and problems. Why? Because I’m not his friend, I’m his therapist.



Also, I’m thinking that if the Women of the Wash respond to me in English when I talk to them in Hebrew one more time…I’m gonna charge them. I get paid to talk to little girls in English, so I feel like I should get paid if I talk to these women in English against my will. Either that or I could do what my mom told me: “Wait, Sammy, you said your boss is French, right? Well, from now on, whenever she responds to you in English, you should respond to her in French. See how she likes it.” I think my mom’s a genius sometimes….

Also: yesterday in Jerusalem we (among other things) went to the Knesset and Yad Vashem. And well, you know me. Or maybe you don’t. But maybe by now you’ve figured out that I tend to internalize (is that even a word?) emotions more than I express them. Apart from anger or excitement, I think most of my powerful reactions to things are done in my head. So we’re in the Knesset and we’re looking at this really interesting tapestry, and I’m just taking it all in quietly. But my roommate is one of those people that needs to outwardly express things at all times—so she kept repeating things like, “Ooooh! Look the colors!” “Isn’t this just incredible??!?!” or “Wow, isn’t it amazing how he ____?!” And I just kind of ignored it because I was deep in my own thoughts and enjoying the art in my head (I mean, the enjoyment occurred in my head…I wasn’t looking at art inside my head….whoa….). And then my roommate gives me this look as if I’m crazy, and she says to me in this vicious and condescending tone, “You just don’t appreciate art!” So I turn to her and said, “No, I just quietly appreciate art.” But she didn’t really get it.

Then in Yad Vashem…oh Jesus was I ready to kill her. Look, I don’t think I need to waste a bunch of space to say that obviously the Holocaust upsets me—1) I’m a human being, 2) I’m a Jewish human being, and 3) I’m a Jewish human being with roots in Eastern Europe. So I think we can just go on the assumption that I find the Yad Vashem experience extremely upsetting. Well, the thing is that I don’t always make it entirely obvious that I’m upset—yesterday at Yad Vashem I didn’t cry, and for the most part I kept a pretty calm outward expression. This is despite the fact that seeing some of the exhibits, or reading some of the information or looking at some of the pictures was absolutely unbearable.

My roommate on the other hand cried. She was a total mess. Now please don’t think for a minute that I’m criticizing her—I don’t for a second blame her for crying. The problem was that her way of experiencing the museum involved jabbing me with her elbow constantly to get my attention to say, “OH MY G-D ISN’T THIS HORRIBLE?!?!” I quietly told her that I agreed, but then went back to reflecting in my head everything that I was seeing/reading/etc. Later we came to a few pictures of men being hanged, and again my roommate took to poking and jabbing me to get my attention. She again demanded to know how horrible this was, and I quietly said that I agreed…..and then my roommate got angry. She demanded to know why I wasn’t upset. She told me that her family’s not even from Europe and she’s a complete mess, and so being a Polish Jew I should be an even worse mess. I told her, “I AM upset.” But she refused to believe it, saying, “Well you don’t look it!” I didn’t look it, so therefore I couldn’t BE it.

I hate this.

You know what I need? I need a nerd. I need a nerd to hang out with—age/gender/race/religion/whatever is irrelevant. I’m accepting applications from now until the end of time, so here are the requirements if any of you think you fit the bill:

I need a quiet friend to sit with and to occasionally translate Latin with. If you don’t know Latin, that’s okay—as long as you want to learn it. I need someone who’s geeky, who likes TV and the internet. (And, on another note, I need a TV.) I need a friend who wouldn’t mind sitting on the top of the crusader ruins here and looking around at the view in silence for an hour—and the silence is interrupted only when the two of us simultaneously wonder out loud where the bathroom of the castle would have been. And then we get up and actually investigate the ruins because we honestly feel like we’re gonna figure it out. (And this is in spite of the fact that we both know damn well that people probably used chamber pots or some shit like that back then.)
I need a friend who understands that I’m just letting my imagination run wild—but also takes it seriously--when I say, “That building on that mountain over there is what I think Mount Olympus would look like if the Greek gods actually lived there,” and then the friend gets into an argument with me by suggesting, “No way! That place looks like G-d’s toaster!”
I need a friend I can sit with at Coffee Bean, and we can speculate on the lives of the people passing by. “That guy definitely has genital herpes.” “I bet that woman is having an extra-marital affair.” “That woman is probably a teacher, or maybe a social worker.” “That man grew up on a kibbutz.” We might argue or disagree on certain conclusions, but we’d both agree that the man over there is an aspiring journalist.

Unfortunately, there are no friends like that to be had at this place. Instead I’ve got party animals, men on the run from the law, aggressive weirdos, and Russians. For all I know, the Russians are sweet nerds—but I can’t understand a fucking word that comes out of their mouths, except, “Mah nishmah, SEMMY???”


Anyway, I’m accepting applications.

I've got a bad case of the day before yesterday

Good News?
On Monday I’m going to the enlistment center place thing. A few days after that, I should be receiving 100 percent confirmation that I’ll be doing the army (assuming all goes well and that they don’t reject me for whatever reason….). I’m both excited and nervous. I’m afraid it’s gonna turn out to be like my Misrad Hapnim experiences where everything seems to go wrong.



I’ve had a really bad headache the past couple days, and so today I slept in during class. The director of the ulpan called me like 45 minutes after class had started, and started demanding to know what was wrong. It’s so fucking difficult to have a conversation in Hebrew when you’re feverish and are disoriented from just waking up.

A translation of my conversation in Hebrew:
Him: What’s the problem?
Me: I have a headache.
Him: Okay, take a pill and then come to class.
Me: No, but I’ve had a headache since yesterday and the day before yesterday.
Him: You also have the day before yesterday?!?!?!? If you have the day before yesterday, you have to drink a lot of water, okay Samantha???

I felt really confused. How the hell could I have a “the day before yesterday.”



I then realized, a little too late, that I had said “diarrhea” instead of “the day before yesterday.” Shilshom (yesterday) versus shilshool (diarrhea). I think that this is by far one of the most embarrassing Hebrew errors I’ve ever made. I always confuse the two words and I guess with the fever I couldn’t keep it straight which one is which. From now on, I’m just gonna say “Yesterday yesterday” instead of “the day before yesterday” in Hebrew, because this was beyond embarrassing.


About an hour late I arrived at class, and I walked into a tense situation. Apparently the guy that I smacked and that yelled at me a couple weeks ago had gotten into a verbal fight with our teacher about her teaching methods. (For example, if you don’t know how to conjugate a verb like l’shalem, she’ll say, “How do you conjugate l’daber” and that’s supposed to get you to think of the correct answer. It works for some people, but for some reason it confuses the hell out of this guy.)

During our breakfast break, our class (minus the teacher) was eating together in the dining hall, and the guy was ranting about our teacher in Hebrew. During his little monologue in which he addressed our teacher, he used the male form instead of the female form. Our teacher is a female. No one corrected him because it’s fucking annoying to be corrected all the time, and the guy was speaking really fast and was in the middle of a story. Mostly, no one really gave a fuck. But my roommate interrupted, and in an incredibly arrogant voice said, “It’s LACH, not LECHA!” As if she were exasperated with this guy and couldn’t believe how stupid he was.

Oh G-d. That was the wrong thing to say. The guy looked like he was gonna stab her. He started speaking really viciously, saying that he didn’t correct her when she was reading in such a way that suggested that she was a terrible reader (we all know she’s the worst reader in the class), so she shouldn’t be correcting him when he’s speaking. A small argument ensued, and five hours later the guy is STILL pissed off about being corrected.

I don’t really blame him. It’s not fun to be corrected by your fellow English speaker when you’re speaking Hebrew, especially when you’re corrected in such an arrogant way. And I’ve noticed—when I was learning French in high school, it didn’t bother me too much when I was corrected because at the end of the day, it didn’t matter if I could understand French or not. But now that I’m learning Hebrew and trying to live in this country, I’m REALLY sensitive to being corrected, because I’m constantly feeling like my Hebrew isn’t good enough for me to live here. I usually don’t mind corrections if they’re from Israelis and if it’s done in a nice way though.

But this was not a polite correction done by a native speaker. This was a rude, arrogant correction done by a fucking Australian. So the guy was HEATED.

Moral of the story though: Don’t fucking correct someone when they’re ranting and telling a story about something that has really upset them.

Funny thing about this guy though? He found out about the crazy French guy who was threatening me with this and that and who was driving me crazy—and IMMEDIATELY he went up to the French guy and started screaming at him for treating me in such a way. Is this supposed to be an apology—a rather aggressive one at that--for yelling at me?

Everyone at this fucking kibbutz is a loose cannon though. You may ask me, “Sam, why are you trying to hang out with such aggressive/mean/whatever people? Why are you friends with this guy who yells at anyone and everyone, including you? Why are you hanging out with a French guy who is on the run from the French police for arson and attempted murder?” Well, the answer is that I don’t have a choice. These are the people I know in this country. For some reason that apparently only makes sense to G-d, I’ve been put with these people. Yesterday the aggressive guy got into a fight with a kibbutznik in the dining hall. He told me the story: “I was standing in line, when some twat who lives on the kibbutz pushed me out of line and cut in front of me. He said, ‘This is MY kibbutz, MY home.’” And hearing that pissed me off. Yes, I may have just arrived in this country a couple months ago, and yes maybe my house is Oliver Twist’s tool shed, and yes maybe I am completely miserable here—but I have no other home in this country! Yes, I understand I’m not a kibbutz member and that this is only a temporary home (5 months is still a long time though…), but again, I still have no other home. It pisses me off that these people can tell us that this isn’t our home, because it makes me feel homeless in this country. Worse than that, I’m a parasite to these people. I may hate this home and this may be a terrible home, but it IS my home. And similarly, I may have serious issues with the aggression of some of the people here in the ulpan, but they ARE the people here. There are no other people here. This is what I have. Might as well make the most of it.


Tomorrow we’re going to Jerusalem on a field trip. Should be interesting…

West Coast Represent.

If you know me, you probably know that I hate New York. I hate New York with a firey passion that consumes my soul. I just fucking hate it. Why? New Yorkers.

Today some fucking New Yorker waas in the laundry room. She’s the visiting sister of one of the immigrants who lives on the kibbutz. She decided to come in and work for the day to see what it’s like.

She had that G-d awful New York accent, and despite the fact that she was at least 55 she wore short shorts. Her outfit looked like she was attempting to dress like a kibbutznik, except she clearly hasn’t spent much time on a kibbutz—if you lived on a kibbutz, you’d know that everyone wears Mom Jeans and shirts with shoulder pads and numerous holes and paint stains. Yet that wouldn’t be trendy enough for this New Yorker.

I’m introduced as another American, and she asks where I’m from. “Los Angeles,” I tell her. She then asks the most annoying question in the world, which is, “Do you actually live in Los Angeles?” And I want to be like, “Yes, I actually fucking live in the city I just said I live in, what a crazy concept, you rancid bitch.” But instead I just smiled sweetly and said, “Yes, if you were to send me a postcard you’d write Los Angeles in the address.” (I’ve noticed that a common theme with me is “smiling sweetly” but thinking something violent and horrible at the same time.)

She then immediately asks if I went to public or private school. I told her I went to private school, and she made some sort of smug gesture and made some sort of rude comment about my family’s financial situation, which really pissed me off. “What’s the matter with that? It was a huge financial burden on my parents, but it was really important to them that my brothers and I got the best education we could possibly afford.” She then talked about how, even though she could afford to send her children to private school, she chose to send them to public school as a political statement. Clearly, the reason she immediately asked what kind of school I went to was so that she could brag about how politically hip she is. Normally I wouldn’t be so bold, but this bitch was from New York and was as smug as hell, so I asked her why she chose to sacrifice her children’s education when, as she said, she had more than enough money to send them to incredible schools. She repeated that it was a political statement and gave a little flip of her frizzy gray hair and returned to towel folding. So I looked down at my own work and said in the sweetest way with an innocent smile, “Oh, that’s really interesting…I didn’t realize a child was a medium for political statements.” And oh G-d, how that New Yorker bitch turned bright red!!!

Later on, Astrology Bitch asked why this New Yorker hadn’t made aliyah. And the New Yorker did the traditional hemming and hawing of Jews who are too embarrassed to admit that they don’t want to leave their cushy lifestyle in the US. Finally, she put on this arrogant expression and said, “Well, my family has lived in the US since the turn of the century, sooooooooo….” She said it as if she deserved a fucking medal for it. Astrology Bitch began to say, “Oh…” and kind of give up, but I suddenly realized that I had said a similar thing before. I realized that I had used the same excuse before (as an excuse for wanting to go back to the US), and I realized that it sounded ridiculous. So I turned to the lady with a big ol’ American smile on my face, and I said, “My family’s been in the US for over 300 years….and here I am. An American Jew. Not in America. In Israel.” I smiled and gave a shrug. Astrology Bitch laughed and clapped her hands in amusement, whereas the New Yorker’s jaw just dropped.
She said, “That’s not even possible! Have there even been Jews in the US for that long?”

So I said, “See, that’s the funny thing about my family: my dad’s side isn’t Jewish. Yet here I am!”

“Ah, I get it,” she said, “You’re only half-Jewish.” She said it with disgust in her voice, like somehow having one more Jewish parent than me made her better.

Oh G-d. That statement is like my INCREDIBLE HULK trigger. It’s like calling Marty McFly from “Back to the Future” “chicken.” I can question whether or not I’m “fully Jewish” (whatever the hell that means) as much as I want, but if any other Jew dares to even suggest that I’m not as Jewish as them….oh Jesus. G-d help them!

I don’t normally like to question other people’s Jewish-ness, but this lady had it coming. So I said to her, “And you’re a full Jew, you would say?” She gave this arrogant nod and looked around as if expecting applause.

So I leaned towards her on my work table, laced my fingers together and held them under my chin as if deeply fascinated by what this woman had to say. I said to her, “See, I find this VERY interesting. Because how I see it is that there are two people in this room: one is learning Hebrew, the other hasn’t bothered to learn any Hebrew at all, one has tried to learn Jewish history and literature on her own, while the other has absolutely no interest in that, one has given up her life in America to live among Jews, while the other enjoys a cushy lifestyle in Manhattan because she doesn’t give a damn what happens to the Jewish nation. Now take that in, and then tell me again who’s the Half-Jew and who’s the Full-Jew.”

There was this horrible silence in the room as the New Yorker bitch turned towards her immigrant sister with this indignant look on her face. The immigrant sister just looked down at her work and said nothing, because there’s nothing to say. I looked towards Astrology Bitch for approval, and she gave me a huge smile and whispered, “Col HaCavod.”


I realized that I question myself and criticize myself in ways that I would not for a second tolerate from other people. Like the whole "I'm not Jewish enough to live in Israel thing" that I have been going through. When I hear from the mouth of another Jew that I'm not as Jewish as she is though, I realize what a fucking ridiculous statement that is, and how ridiculous I personally am.


Seriously though, what the fuck is this, Harry Potter? Enough of this blood shit.

I'm not my own grandpa, but I am completely dysfunctional in my own way.

First off, today French Bitch was describing to Naomi Bitch how the Prophetic Bastard (our Arab co-worker) has a family in which everyone is intermarried/inter-related/whatever. And, I got to say….it sounded suspiciously like the song “I’m My Own Grandpa.”


(Admit it, you loved "The Stupids" movie....)


A word of advice to those considering moving to a different country: Don’t.

If Nike’s slogan is “Just Do It,” then let my slogan be: “Just DON’T Do It. Don’t even fucking think about it. Put down the brochure, and go the fuck home like right now. I’m like not even joking about this so—hey, are you listening?! You, with the hat. Yes. Fine, whatever, but it’s distracting. Could you like maybe do that AFTER I’m done talking? No? All right, just try to do it quietly. Anyway, just don’t do it!”
I don’t think it has the same ring as Nike’s, but I think it makes more sense.

What makes me say this? Today I was supposed to take the bus to the mall so that I could go to the market, the pharmacy, eat dinner, and go to the bank. I didn’t get any of this accomplished today. Why?

I feel like I’ve regressed into childhood again. Before I got here, I felt like I was a very responsible person—yeah, I’ve never been 100 percent independent, but while away at college for almost two years I had to run my own errands, deal with my own shit, etc etc etc. But I get here, and while I’m expected to be even more independent than I was at home since I can’t even call my parents for help since my parents have an even worse idea of how things work over here than I do, at the same time I feel like the world’s biggest baby. I feel like everything’s impossible to understand. Today. A couple weeks ago I remember feeling like I understood EVERYTHING. Well, today I feel like I don’t understand how to use the bus. Today I feel like I don’t know how to go to the market, or how to fill a prescription at the pharmacy, or how to order food (actually, even on a good day I don’t know how to do that in Hebrew. I just point…), or how to go to the bank. What do I mean? I feel like if I got on a bus in Israel today, I wouldn’t know to pay the driver, or to wait for a ticket, or to find myself a seat, or to get off at the right stop. Despite the fact that I’ve been on the bus here a million times, and specifically this line a billion times. Yet somehow I feel like today it’s impossible.

With the exception of going to the pharmacy, these are all things I’ve done a MILLION times in Israel. Yet today I feel like an idiotic baby/child/beagle puppy, and that I am completely incapable of doing these things. Back home, it would not have even occurred to me to ask my parents to come with me on these kinds of errands, but here I wish my mom and dad were here, and that they could deal with all the scary foreign people for me. And then I could just hide behind Mom’s skirt and suck my thumb while Dad chuckled with the Israeli man behind the counter at the pharmacy about how shy his little girl is. Except I’m 20, so this vision is a little disturbing.

Look, I don’t want a bunch of comments saying, “Sam/Sammy/SemenTAH!, are you crazy? Are you an idiot? What’s the matter with you??? Just go to the fucking mall and run your fucking errands!” Yes, I realize that on a rational level, my belief that I am incapable of functioning in Israel is irrational. Yeah, there might be a “slight” language barrier, but 1) I’ve done most of these things before in Israel and 2) even if I hadn’t, I’ve done them before in the US and on a basic level things are gonna be the same: in both the US and Israel, you use the bus to get somewhere. You shop for food in the market. You get medicine at the pharmacy. You order food by expressing what you want. The bank is for storing money.

Yeah, yeah, I get all that. I can’t really explain it because I realize that what I’m feeling is completely irrational, that somewhere deep down I know I am fully capable of going to the fucking market because it’s really not that difficult! You wouldn’t really understand it unless you too spent three months (and soon to be more) being completely alone and feeling like a total idiot all the time. It makes even the simplest errands ridiculously overwhelming.

I can’t stand feeling like such a moron all the time. Yeah, I recognize that this is the country of immigrants or whatever, like the Russian soldiers in that guy’s story said, but at the same time I can’t stand feeling like the idiotic immigrant who’s always confused or standing in the wrong place at the wrong time or not understanding what’s being said.



I think I’m just a little stressed. I’ve said it a million times before, no need to go into details: work stresses me just because it’s not a good environment. I’m also stressed because the army enlistment date is drawing nearer and 1) I’m freaked out about joining a foreign army, 2) I’m freaked out about telling my parents and 3) I’m freaked out that something’s going to happen and that I’m NOT gonna be able to do the army.

I’m also stressed because I feel like I’m back in fucking middle school again, because the French suicidal nutcase has been bothering me a lot lately. He’s crazy about some girl here, and he’s openly declared his love for her to her. He’s extremely obvious about it, and everyone knows that he is obsessed with her. However, besides the girl herself, the only person the French guy has told about his “secret” love is me. And despite the fact that he’s INCREDIBLY obvious and that everyone already knows, he tells me that I better not tell anyone. So I haven’t—besides on this blog, and even then you have no way of knowing which girl I’m talking about.

Well the problem is this: some time ago I was talking to the girl the guy is crazy about, and I started crying about something. The French guy walked in, saw me crying, and demanded to know what the problem was. And being the emotional idiot that I was then, I talked to him and in the process let slip a personal detail—even though it’s something in hindsight I would have preferred to keep to myself as it’s a personal issue.

Well, now the crazy Frenchman keeps threatening me—CONSTANTLY threatening me. At first I thought he didn’t really mean it, but he is telling me this every five minutes now--that if ANYONE besides “The Girl” finds out that he is crazy about her, then he’s going to tell anyone and everyone he can about “My Secret.” The problem is that everyone already knows that the French Guy is crazy about The Girl, the French Guy just doesn’t know it yet. I have not told and would not tell anyone on this kibbutz about French Guy’s obsession, but that doesn’t matter to the French Guy—if he finds out that anyone knows, he’s going to see it as my fault, and suddenly I’m going to have a lot less privacy.

What a fucking soap opera, eh?

I’m just pissed off because I’m basically being blackmailed with a piece of information that the guy obtained when I was sobbing and when I thought he was trying to comfort me by asking me questions.

You know how I’m going to deal with it? I remember in high school or middle school or something someone once made fun of me for being ugly, and I replied very matter-of-factly, “I’m also fat, stupid and gross.” The insulter had the most shocked and bewildered look on her face, so I made a sort of bring-it-on/”come-on” gesture with my hands and continued, “What else ya got?” And that person never fucked with me again, because they didn’t know how to handle my response. So I think if it comes down to it, and if I know the end is near and that the Frenchman is about to yell out “My Secret” in the middle of the hotel lobby or ulpan classroom, I’m just gonna cut him off and yell it first. And if I don’t manage to cut him off in time to yell it myself, I’ll just follow up his yelling by shouting out an even worse “secret” about myself. Why? Because this guy is going to try to hurt me for something that I haven’t even done and wouldn’t do, and I just can’t let him win.


Jesus Hank Christ though, are all immigrants this fucked up or is it just the ones who came to this kibbutz? And does love/lust make ALL people crazy or is it just the French?