Brigadoon

Am going to make a short film, spoofing Brigadoon. About the exits in Tech, which only appear once every 100 years. But love can bring them back.



maybe an engineer stumbles across the exit?
maybe they actually open regularly, giving regular access to "brigadoon" but engineering students just dont realize it cos they never leave tech.

Rosh Hashana Eve

The past couple weeks I've been thinking a lot about what denomination or whatever of Judaism I consider myself. I'm still not sure. And it's kind of bothering me.

What HAVE I figured out?
1) A person should not have more children than days of the week.
2) Oh G-d, oh G-d, DO NOT homeschool your children!

(This is a result of watching a shit ton of "Wife Swap" and "Jon and Kate Plus 8" and all those shows about the Duggars....)



Services weren't so boring. I forgot how much I really like the cantor they bring in for the high holidays. We'll see how great I think his voice is after I have to listen to it all day tomorrow and all day again next week.

Also, forgot to mention what I found to laugh about at today's services (besides "vdibarta bam").
1) The guest rabbi has the most bizarre voice when reading prayers "silently" to himself.
2) I sneezed into my hands. Big mistake. I missed and got some on my cashmere sleeves. Which was so disgusting yet so hilarious to me that I was convulsing with silent laughter.

As I told Abraham today at lunch, I'm going to start my own denomination of judaism. I just have to figure out what kind.

Maybe something like "Educational, Zionist, Non-Secular Judaism." We would support the values of every Jewish person having an incredible amount of Jewish knowledge, and we would be Zionist, but we wouldn't be secular. What "non-secular" means to individuals can be interpreted individually. Kids brought up in this denomination would speak fluent Hebrew, would be able to feel at home in an Orthodox synagogue or in any Orthodox school, but they wouldn't necessarily practice Orthodox Judaism. See, for the Jewish knowledge, everything would be learned from the traditional or Orthodox perspective, and that would be taught as the "correct" perspective, though whether or not a person actually chose to practice as an Orthodox Jew would be seen as optional. Belief in G-d would NOT be optional though. That point would be non-negotiable. (Well, obviously you can't FORCE people to believe or not believe something. What I mean is that belief in G-d would be seen as one of the core values of my denomination. My point is that it's not like Humanist or whatever Judaism)


Is there a denomination of Judaism that is already like this? I feel like it resembles what little I know about Reconstructionist Judaism.....but that branch has never really appealed to me. Sigh....I guess I have to look into this.

Or maybe I'd start "Orthodox Judaism minus the really boring-ass and long prayer services, plus the fact that you can break Shabbat to watch soccer on TV."

hahaha, anyone wanna join my synagogue?

Holy fucking balls. Who the hell gave G-d permission to let loose a torrential rainstorm today? My pants are soaked from the ankle all the way up to the belt area. My socks are soaked through, and my shoes each now host a swimming pool. Have realized that both my underpants and my t-shirts are dry, and since I have no roommates....I shall be sitting in my room in my underpants and t-shirt until I have to get ready for services. I think it's important for the greater international community to be aware of this.

So I just tried to turn on my heating unit/ac unit.....and it make this rapid POP POP POP noise, and sparks started flying. It looked like fireworks. I immediately turned it off, but now smoke is coming up, it smells like ass in my room, and i'm afraid to turn on my heat....even though im friggin freezing.

Wow, staying awake through the boringness of evening services (no matter how short) this year is going to prove difficult. I got maybe 3 hours of sleep last night, if even that.

Something's been bothering me for almost a whole year now, and for some reason it chose last night to keep me up all night. So I kept trying to count sheep....which didn't work. So then I tried conjugating French verbs in the conditional. Which also didn't work. So then I tried talking to myself in Hebrew, which also didn't work. So then I ended up spending about 2 hours thinking about the issue that is bothering me, just staring at the ceiling. And then I sort of passed into this quasi-sleep for a few "seconds," and before I knew it my ringtone alarm was waking me up.

Oh man....Only three hours of classes, then maybe I'll pass out for a bit.

Happy Rushushunnuh!

Excited for Rosh Hashana tomorrow night.

I love pronouncing "Rosh Hashana" like
Rushushunnuh.

What is this Rosh Hashana business? It's Rushushunnuh!

Yom Kippur, on the other hand, must ALWAYS be pronounced "Yom Kippur," and I want to kill anyone who calls it "Yum Kipper."


I always have mixed feelings about the holidays. As I told Elana: "I like the holidays cos it means all the jews get to spend some quality time together, but it also means having to sit through some really boring ass shit." So I guess that pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject. I know it's a free country, I know I don't HAVE to go to services, but....I don't know, I'm such a shitty Jew that I feel like I should at least try to do things right for two days out of the year.

Oh well, this week won't be so bad. At least on Rosh Hashanah we can eat.


I used to love going to services with my family, because I would usually sit next to one of my brothers--the one who still considers himself Jewish. Whenever they blew the shofar, we used to laugh uncontrollably. We had this personal joke when we were little that "Tekiah" was actually the song "Tequila." So we'd be sitting together at services, one of the two days of the year that we actually went to services, and when it came time for the shofar blasts.... Someone would call out "Tekiah!" or whatever, and my brother and I would start humming the song "Tequila" under our breaths.
And whenever we heard the song "Tequila" on the radio, my brother and I would shout "TEKIAH" instead of "TEQUILA!" and start pretending to blow shofars.
Oh man...I miss going to services with my brother. It sucks having to go to services at school. Sorta.

I think I've always had a problem with laughing during inappropriate moments during religious services (or during the grace after meals when Abraham decides to belt a certain verse). Once someone farted during Purim services and I completely lost it. In that instance I guess it was okay to laugh about farts in synagogue though, cos it was Purim. But usually when I'm laughing during services it's because a word sounded funny ("vdibarta bam" has done me in, without fail, at every single service I've ever been to), or because someone made a weird face, or because I got in my own little world of thought and thought of something really random. Sometimes I laugh because someone is dressed ridiculously, sometimes I laugh because the congregation can't figure out how to stay together during the prayer and so all the words are jumbled, and sometimes I laugh because some girl across the aisle is singing "Lecha Dodi" like she THINKS she's Mariah Friggin Carey or something. In my synagogue at home, I'm constantly giggling to myself because our cantor sounds like a woman when he sings. And sometimes I laugh because I have just stepped back for a second and realized that I'm in a room full of people who are singing in some bizarre language that none of us understands, and for all we know we're saying, "Please fuck me up the ass, Satan."

I'm beginning to think that maybe I shouldn't go to services at all since I'm just so inappropriate and offensive.


Whatever. A very happy new year to all who are reading this!

And now for a traditional Rosh Hashana song from my family to yours:


TEKIAH!

Freshmen

A post to follow about why I think freshmen are funny, and how I'm the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Check back later tonight


"I LOVE JUNGLE JUICEEEEEEE!!! WHAT'S JUNGLE JUICE?"
"IS THERE A PARTY?!"
"I am going to hang out in a group of 20 people, and we'll wander the streets of Evanston together even though I don't know most of their names."
"Oh my goodness, I can totally feel how drunk I am right now!"

Poor critters don't realize that 1) jungle juice is just nasty kool aid, 2) yes, there is a party, 3) .........no comment, and 4) they're not actually drunk.

A new generation of American youth is becoming educated in alcohol for the first time! Ah, I love this yearly tradition......it's something most other countries miss out on, in my opinion.

I honestly don't know what to think of this:




What a school I go to......


(BTW, WE'RE DOING SO FUCKING WELL IN FOOTBALL THIS YEAR! I actually wanna sing "Go U Nwestern" without being sarcastic.)

"OH MY G-D I'M ON THE 'EXPWY!' WHAT THE HELL IS THE 'EXPWY?' "

Christendom.

Wow, I never realized how many Jesus jokes I make until I got back to the US. So many times this week I've cracked some sort of inappropriate joke about Jesus or Christians, only to look up at the person I'm talking to and realize, "ohhhhhhh shit, you're not Jewish."

Oh man I can't believe Paul Newman died....... Ari Ben Canaan?

Am I any less of a man because I am black?

I nearly just lost all control of my bowels. I was trying so hard not to laugh during history discussion class that I thought that not only was I going to piss my pants, but I was also seriously concerned that I'd vomit and crap my pants from laughter supression.

You know the guy in my history class that I mentioned a couple days ago who talked for like five hours about how great he was before finally getting to his point? He's in my discussion section.

We were broken up into three groups. One was supposed to represent what the Founding Fathers meant by "All MEN are created equal," one group represented a women's group from the 1800s whose document we read arguing that MEN includes women, and another group represented a group of black people from the 1800s whose document we read arguing that MEN includes black men as well.

I was in the group representing the black men, as was Mr. Pretentious. He seemed really busy typing something, so me and the other folks in the group had this whole discussion that we thought was really productive. And then came time for the "debate."

First to go was the women's group. Their way of presenting their point was kind of like:
Group: "They though that--"
The TA: "Ah ah ah, who's 'they?'
Group: "Oh. Right. Whatever. WE thought then that .....blahblahblah."

No one really got into it, and the point wasn't to really get into it. It was just to argue from that group's perspective.

Finally it's my group's turn. The other folks in my group motioned for me to do the speaking, and as I was about to start Mr. Pretentious caught my attention. He motioned, asking permission for him to speak. So I was like, "Yeah, okay, whatever, you can do it."

Oh. My. G-d.

I cannot do justice to this, but I'm going to try. Please keep in mind that the real thing lasted 7 minutes, and it was performed in an accusatory manner, as if the people present in the classroom were personally responsible for slavery. Here is what he said:

"The Declaration of Independence. * DRAMATIC PAUSE* guarantees rights to *DRAMATIC PAUSE*. all. men."

*Another dramatic pause in which people audibly shift in their seats with discomfort as they realize that this is going somewhere awkward.*

"You say that all men are created equal, but you go against your own conscience, your own values, [*yet another dramatic pause*] ...and your own heart. I ask you: [now getting more intense] am I not equal? [*dramatic pause in which some people contemplate killing themselves*]."

At this point our TA tried to step in before it got more embarrassing. "Wow, all right," he said, "That's some powerful stuff, and so why don't we hear from 'The Founding Fathers' now...." But Mr. Pretentious kept going.

"I ask you ANOTHER question. [*five minute pause during which Mr. Pretentious thinks he's milking the 'drama' for all its worth*]. Am I any. [*emphatic downward fist pound on the desk*] less [*fist pound*] of a man [*fist pound*] than YOU?"

He directed this towards the table of people representing the Founding Fathers, who were all looking at the floor.

"Am I any less of a man simply because, YES, [*dramatic, breathy sigh*], my skin IS black?"

At which point I almost shat myself with laughter because this guy is the whitest person I've ever met.

"[*dramatic pause*] Nothing further."





Hahahahha, I love being back at school. There aren't enough pretentious people out in the real world, but in school? Hooooooooo yeah.

Aw Eff: The Musical

Good news? The cockroach is gone.


So at my university they're putting on "Moby Dick" as a musical....which sort of begs the question: why?

It got me thinking, what if everything that was ever written eventually ended up as a musical? What if a hundred and fifty years from now, this blog was a musical? What would that look like?

There'd probably be a musical number involving the lyrics "Why the fuck is everyone named Avi?" I think that's how the musical would kick off. The heroine gets to Israel, and we suddenly launch into a high energy song like "Jesus Christ Superstar" as she wanders through the streets of Tel Aviv and almost gets hit by several cars. The romantic interest would probably be my unrequited loves for the guy who works at Bank HaPoalim, the guy who works at McDonald's at Harel Mall, and the Arab guy who worked in the dining hall. There'd probably be some sort of scary and climactic number, kind of like "Be Prepared" in "The Lion King," which would be right before intermission, and would involve the Women of the Wash. During the climax the actors (of course, the women of the wash would be played by men) would rip off their human-form masks to reveal that they are actually the deformed henchmen of Satan. And like in the "Lion King," in the background of the laundry room there would be goose-stepping hyenas alluding to the Nazis.*

We'd also have to include walking into the Arab village on two occasions. For the sake of the audience, we could fictionalize it and say that the heroine came with an arrogant attitude and ended up getting schooled by some "native" Arabs. One of them would take her and her friends by the hand and start singing some kind of rip-off of "Colors of the Wind" a la Pocahontas, as he/she told of the Arab's rich natural heritage or whatever.

There'd probably have to be a moment where a rip off of "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermaid would have to be sung when the heroine realizes that the bottom half of her body is always going to be fish when all she wants is some fucking legs. which is probably the simplest way of describing how it feels to be an American in Israel. (On a more hopeful note, Arielle gets to be human in the end of The Little Mermaid, so maybe on Aliyah Take 2 I'll figure out how not to be half-fish.)

The part immediately before the moment where I hit my friend way back in May would be the song "Gaston" from Beauty and the Beast.

In the end, the heroine would be carted off into the sunset, towards the US, by one of those moving walkways at Ben Gurion while eating some pudding for breakfast.
Or maybe the ending would be like: "Two years later..." and the person would be coming back. And it'd be a sort of optimistic Hmmmm I wonder what's going to happen ending.

I think my arrival on the kibbutz would have to be charactized by the song from South Pacific "There is Nothin' Like a Dame." Something about that song just reminds me of the perverted boys I had to live with, and the 'First Annual All-Russian Outdoor Farting Contest" that the Russian boys were always participating in.

I think my arrival back to the US would have to be characterized by a fucking enormous gospel choir.



P.S. Something I wrote is prolly gonna be in the next edition of the Jewish magazine the university does. Stay tuned. I think I'll post it here.

Just realized that this weekend will be my first "real" weekend since I got back to the US. Meaning, I put in a week of work and now I get my off time. And I'm really excited about getting Sunday off as well. Like, not just a one day weekend. TWO WHOLE DAYS! Really fucking excited.

I'm not so excited to have to explain to my profs (of the two non-Jew classes I'm taking) about the whole "I need to miss class for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur seeing as I'll be in synagogue all day," which is something I'm sure I wouldn't have to explain if I were still in Israel. And I'm feeling really panicked and uncomfortable, like the profs are going to be like, "NOOOOOO!" But hopefully all will be well.

But hey, at least I don't have to work/go to school on Sunday. It kind of makes the whole being part of the American Jewish minority thing worth it.

i'm a creep!

I now have a Yiddish name for the purposes of Yiddish Class. "Sime Sprintzeh." We actually had to take a vote in class based on a list of S-names. My vote was for "Sime" because it reminded me of how everyone in Israel pronounced my name "Semi." And the discussion was about to end, when one of the guys blurted out, "Please pick Sprintzeh, it sounds like a reindeer!" And I thought that was a valid point. Sprintzeh sounds like a reindeer that Santa never had. So with laughter, the class voting decided on Sime Sprintzeh. hahahahahahhaaha

Also, today I met the man of my life. He doesn't know it yet. haha. I was at the copy store picking up a course packet for my history class, and I wasn't really paying attention. I didn't even look at the guy behind the counter and was like, "Yeah, History 314..." and then started futzing with the papers in my bag. And then the guy said, "I'm having trouble finding it, what's the professor's name?" So I looked up to respond and WHOAOAOAOAOOAOAOA!
So I'm now thinking of finding things to photocopy just so I have an excuse to go back to that store. If any student at my university (or any neighboring university) is reading this and needs things copied, please give them to me.

haha, oh man, I'm a creep....

So that cockroach is still on my window.... Should I be concerned? Is it dead? I smacked the window (he/she/do cockroaches have genders? is on the other side of the window), and he didn't move

so this one time

Shit, is the world falling apart? Russia's being crazy, Iran's being crazy, the economy is "HOLY SHIT WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE POOR!" one day and then "NO, JUST KIDDING IT'LL BE FINE---WAIT, NO IT'S NOT!" the next day. Now we got John McCain "suspending" his campaign, whatever that means. And in an hour and a half (according to Fox News) Dubya is going to address the nation on all the TV networks, which can't possibly be good. The president never comes on TV to be like, "Hey y'all, just wanna let y'all know that everything is hunky-dory, no problemo, super duper!" The president never comes on TV to tell us that he just saw a funny TV show he thought America should know about, or that he heard a good joke today that he wants to repeat for America, or that he ate at a really good restaurant he discovered down the street which America would really enjoy...... No, the president never comes on with good news, the president only ever speaks to the nation when he wants to tell us in that calming yet sad way of his that we're all going to die/we already have died, or that we all just got attacked by terrorists/the terrorists are on their way, or that the economy is in the shit/our economy is being crapped out of someone's ass as we speak.

And WORST OF ALL, there is a cockroach on my window screen.


No, worst of all is that I just saw a preview for a movie. About the invention of car windshield wipers. "Flash of Genius." Oh man...

I'm sleepy. That's not to say, however, that I'm sleepy.

Just had to take a break from my homework to say this.

1) I am now a unit of measure when it comes to mess.


2) I haven't taken a full-on history course since.....since maybe the summer before 11th grade. And I forgot how confusing history text books are. You gotta love it. There's stuff that's like"

"In the period leading up to the Civil War, the South was A, B, C, and D."

And what follows is several pages explaining how the South was A, B, C, and D.

And then the book gets scared that you'll get the wrong impression, so it then says something like:

"That's not to say, however, that the South was A, B, C, and D."


WHAT??!?! YOU JUST TOLD ME IT WAS! YOU WENT ON ABOUT IT FOR FIVE PAGES! AND NOW YOU'VE CHANGED YOUR FUCKING MIND? OR WERE YOU LYING OR SOMETHING?! WHY IS THIS SO GODDAMN CONFUSING! JUST TELL ME WHAT THE SOUTH WAS LIKE BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR AND LEAVE IT AT THAT. DON'T SAY IT AND THEN CONTRADICT YOURSELF!!

Seriously, if the book were written in simpler terms and it were about a person, here's what an equivalent paragraph would look like.
(The "I"s in these sentences are not talking about me.)
"I am a serious student. I study hard, I do my homework, and I try to learn even what won't be on the final--I learn it just because I find it interesting. I thoroughly enjoy learning and being in school, and I put in a lot of effort to ensure that the experience will continue to be a good one and that I will get something meaningful out of it all. That's not to say, however, that I take education seriously."

WHAT?!?!?!

Before I answer this question, allow me to first provide you with my autobiography.

I think classes are turning out to be interesting. Today I had Logic, Civil War History, and Hebrew.

Logic....Wow. The professor seems like one of those really nerdy math guys. I mean, a perfectly nice human being, but just someone who could not exist outside of academia. He kept making really awkward jokes, and I would burst out laughing cos I was just cracking up, but no one else laughed. It was also just so funny cos he was this fragile, geeky looking math nerd, but with no running start he calmly hopped up onto the lecture stage, which is no small feat.
He's also in love with his own name. I have no idea how many times he repeated it.
He also uses big words, to the point where I zoned out for a second and was pretty sure he wasn't speaking English.

Then came Civil War history.....prof seems nice. Unfortunately we have one of "those people" in our class. You know, the kind that raises his hand and then talks, using enormous words, about something that is only loosely related to the topic or question at hand, but that is clearly an attempt to show how smart he is. I have no problem with people participating in class, but this is a different kind of participation. You know, the question is a general question like something about what are the lasting effects of Reconstruction, and the guy starts off with, "Yes, well, I am studying the French Revolution, and my head is up my butt, and I wrote a paper on British government in the 1500's, and I had a summer internship at a law firm in Seattle, therefore I feel qualified to answer this question on Reconstruction efforts after the American Civil War. So here are my thoughts on the question you have posed: __________"

One of these days I want to do the same thing. In a French literature class, I want to raise my hand and say, "I spent a summer "internship" in a laundry room in Israel, and I also once wrote a paper for a "Post-9/11 Documentaries" film class, and therefore I feel more qualified than anyone else in this room to speak on the matter of French Literature of the 15th century."

These people are ridiculous. Like, I do not need a full-on autobiography from your lame ass in order for you to answer the fucking question.

.....sigh.....I don't know if that makes me hate being back at school or if the ridiculousness of these kinds of people makes me laugh enough to want to stay.

Yente is a professor at my university apparently.

"I dont know what it is about language teachers, they always feel like they have to rename you. I used to get your Latin report cards and I would say, 'Who the hell is Aemilia?' " --My mom



Just got out of my first Yiddish class. Was horribly embarrassing. So we're going around the room saying in Yiddish, "My name in Yiddish is _____." And in the blank people were supposed to supply their Hebrew/Jewish name. It is important to note at this point that everyone in my Yiddish class looks/talks/acts like the most stereotypical jew that you can possibly imagine. So EVERYONE has a Yiddish name. And I'm just turning bright red because I just want to answer the fucking question, I just want to say in Yiddish, "My name in Yiddish is ______." and then let the next person speak. I don't want that awkward pause and then have to blurt out in English, "How do I say that I don't have a Jewish name?"

Well, I ended up having to say that. And instead of just telling me and moving on, class was briefly stopped while people tried to think of a Yiddish name for me, all of which sounded gross. Eventually, after what seemed like fifteen years of embarrassment, class moved on.



Later on in the class, the teacher asked if everyone could read Hebrew and maybe even knew a couple words. The entire class raised their hands. And I raised my hand too because, surprise surprise, after going to Hebrew school, then studying Hebrew for two quarters in college, and then spending nearly five months in Israel......I too know how to read Hebrew and might even know "a couple of words."

And the teacher singles me out. In front of everyone, out of everyone, she singles ME out. She says, "You do?" She gives me a look that suggests, "Oh sweetie, are you confused?"
And I'm like, "Yes, I do." And, apparently believing that I misunderstood the question, she probes further, "You can read Hebrew?"

At which point I just wanted to seriously bitch slap this Jew, and be like, "You know, you asked me in English, not Yiddish, I understood the fucking question. You asked if I know a bit of Hebrew, which I do, thus I raised my hand. What is so difficult for you to understand about this?"

But I was just so fucking embarrassed that I just muttered, "Yes, I can...."


I don't think I'm going to like this class. This woman reminds me of Yente in Fiddler on the Roof, and like will go off on these ridiculous tangents or stories that are completely irrelevant. And I just want to learn some goddamn yiddish!




P.S. I placed into the Hebrew class for this fall. I'll be in class with the same people I started with. So I guess that's cool....

Jesus Freaks out in the streets

First day of class today. Haven't had a class yet, but instead did placement.

I got out of my Hebrew placement test and was accosted by no less than five different people handing me pamphlets about Jesus. At first I thought it was an advertisement for something interesting, but I opened it up and POOF there's a Bible verse. New Testament. So I handed the lady back her pamphlet and said, "Take this."

I went to lunch and then on the way to the library I had more pamphlets about how great this Jesus guy is thrust into my face. Frankly, I think Jesus would be really embarrassed if he knew that his jackass followers were being so fucking obnoxious.

I have no problem with Christians. I really don't. My dad is Christian, 75 percent of my cousins are Christian, and most of my friends are Christian. The problem I have is with people handing me pamphlets that suggest that my religious beliefs aren't good enough, that my religious beliefs are wrong. I honestly do not give a shit what people believe, as long as their beliefs don't drive them to murder me or to hand me pamphlets. Apart from that, you can believe in animal spirits or magic or Greek mythology or whatever and I seriously could not give a fuck, as long as I don't have to hear about it.

Finally, I said to one of them, "No, I do not want your stupid pamphlet!!! You know, I really resent your trying to convert me at my own school! I don't come into your house and shove my dumbass pamphlets in YOUR face, so leave me alone on MY campus!"

As I started to walk off, the lady just smiled and said to me something that the Jesus Freaks always say. They want you to think that they pity you, when really they're smirking with delight cos they think you're going to hell and there's going to be more room in Jesus' lap or whatever in Heaven. "Even though you won't open up your eyes/heart/{whatever part of the body she said....maybe it was 'anus?'] to the Lord, I pray and hope that the Lord will bless you."

And that just pissed me off. As if G-d's gonna curse me just cos I don't believe Jesus was his kid. So I just whipped around with as much 'tude as I could muster, like I was a big fat woman from the ghetto that someone just slapped in the face.. And I snapped back,

"Lady, the Lord already HAS blessed me: I'm Jewish!"

To repeat what Kenan and Kel said....

....."Aw, here goes!"

Classes:

Intro Logic (Distro)
History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (Distro)
Rabbinic Lit
Yiddish
Heeb (Possibly)

(if one of these doesn't work out, im also registered for french lit....)

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Repeated Conversation from the past couple days:

Person half a mile away: "...SAM?"
Me: [looking wildly for source of voice] "...Yes?"
Person half a mile away: [now approaching] "OH MY GOD, I THOUGHT YOU WERE IN ISRAEL!"
Me: "Uhhhhhhh"
Person now wildly running towards me with arms wide open coming in for a hug: "OH MY GOOOOOOOD, HOW WAS IT, I MISSED YOU, YOU GOTTA TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT!?!?!??!"

At which point I wanna say, "YOU GOTTA TELL ME YOUR FUCKING NAME!"

But instead I just awkwardly accept the hug, even though I pretty much hate people hugging me (except for good friends...and even then I'm an awkward hugger). And I pretend wildly that I actually know the person who is hugging me. Like, "Oh my goodness, wow, it's so crazy to see you again, how has school been for you while I was gone?! How are you?!?!?!"

ha alufah ha alufah ha alufah

This theme song alone is enough to make me go back to Israel like RIGHT NOW. I don't know what happens in Ha'Alufa! Gaaaaaaa!!!!

(P.S. Is it just me or is this theme song like ridiculously long for a TV show song? Aren't most of them just like 30 seconds or something? maybe I'm just crazy)

My cousin (not Jewish) is coming in a couple weeks. Must remember to either a) take down Israeli flag or b) put up additional flag, this time American.
A couple years ago I was with her family and they saw someone waving a foreign flag and they flipped out and said that if they wanted to wave a foreign flag then they could go to that country and do so.

Upon further reflection, I think I'll buy an additional flag regardless of whether or not my cousin is coming. I think I kind of agree with my aunt/uncle/cousins that it's weird to be in a country, living in it, benefitting from it or whatever, and then flying a different flag. It's almost rude.

the dating [definition] game

One of the things that I thought was the funniest thing last year was hearing a friend tell me what his definition of a date is. And today I heard an even funnier one. I think I have to share:

Friend 1: "A date is when two people have a meal together."

Friend 2: If people order the same thing then it's a date.

Ah, the stress sets it...

I have pretty much until Tuesday morning to figure out what I want to do with my life. Okay, maybe that's being dramatic, but here's the deal: I don't have enough time left at college to change around my major, so this quarter I pretty much have to be like BAM, this is it. I have two options pretty much: Classics or Jewish Studies (which would be a "make-your-own" major). Right now I'm leaning towards Jewish Studies, but last week I was so convinced to go with Classics. Soooooooo....now I'm stressed.

Happy note? I'm pretty much moved into my room. The bed is made, the closet is full, etc etc...... Too bad I hate my dorm! That's okay, I've still been having a nice time seeing old friends.

All my acquaintances (not good friends, I mean) seem more ridiculous than I remember.

Finally back at school. got in this afternoon..

It's pretty great to be back. It kind of sucks though. I like being back with old friends and feeling like it was only yesterday that I left for Israel, when actually it was 6 months ago. But I hate that I feel like a freshman again.

driving was fun. will tell stories when im not exhausted.

Shutting down the computer now. See you in the Midwest!

Forgot to mention: had the strangest dream last night.

I had a dream I was visiting my high school. I was enjoying telling old teachers and some of the younger students I remember about what I did in Israel, and it was all very pleasant. But then I saw this ghost talking to one of the current students. Like, a ghost who looked like a normal person, but it was understood in the dream that everyone knew this guy was a ghost. And I realized that it wasn't just any old ghost, it was this guy that was in my grade in high school who died in our last year of high school. And I was absolutely shocked, so I just watched him talking to the student, giving him friendly advice. And the student chatted back as if it were normal to be approached by ghosts. It was also a bit bizarre since, in life, my late classmate was not the chatty type.

So I interrupted the conversation and said to my classmate who has died, "Why didn't you tell any of us that you're like basically still alive?! Do you have ANY idea how upset people were?!"

And the ghostguy just shrugs and continues chatting with the younger student. And so I just woke up.

I don't know, it was disturbing to say the least.

Woooooo! I am finally packed for school. All I have to do is go buy a new backpack though, since Israel decided to destroy my old one. :-( I loved that backpack. Got me through 10th grade all the way through sophomore year of college.

Tonight at 7.30 (or so) I am leaving for Chicago! Tonight we are driving as far as Las Vegas. I'm really excited. I've never been to Utah, Nebraska, or Iowa (and I've only been to the airport in Colorado), so this should be kinda cool.

All right, Chi-town....see you on either Friday, Saturday or Sunday! (Aiming for Friday now....)

Am very exciting about the prospect of looking at corn for a solid 1000 miles. I'm guessing the first 1000 miles, until Denver, will look like mountains and deserts. Whereas the last 1000 miles will be just miles and miles of cornfields. We'll see though. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Nebraska is actually America's best kept secret, and actually has the largest population of any state. But then, maybe I'm right and Nebraska is just cornfields. We'll see.

Star Wars.

My mom and I were arguing downstairs while my dad was upstairs and did not hear any of this:


Mom: "WHY AREN'T YOU PACKING FOR SCHOOL? YOU LEAVE TOMORROW!"
Self: "But Star Wars is on!"
Mom: "I don't care!"
Self: "But it's Return of the Jedi!"
Mom: "You need to pack NOW!"
Self: "Jeez, I will in a minute....like after the movie is over"
Mom: "[paging my dad on the phone system] Will you come down here and help me?
Dad: "[voice over the phone paging system], I can't, Star Wars is on."

Maybe you figured it out that the boys in my family and I take Star Wars very seriously. My mom doesn't quite understand it herself, but in fairness she has allowed us to devote an entire hallway in the house to Star Wars movie posters.

mr c

Just found two sheets of paper with song lyrics on it. When I was 12 a teacher really pissed me off, so a friend of mine (a classmate) and I wrote a song about him. We also performed it on video.

The song was so vulgar at times and so mean to the teacher that my friend's mother was afraid we'd be expelled from school, so she took the video and locked it away in Northern California. She said we wouldn't be allowed to show it to our other friends until after we had graduated (we did indeed show it to friends after we graduated).

But all this time I had the lyrics and had forgotten about it. Cleaning my room, though, has its benefits. Here's an edited flavor of it (extremely vulgar parts or personal jokes that you won't understand have been removed):

Your opinion don't matter cos I'm so much fatter
I'm a teacher you'll hate, I've never had a date.
I'm Mr. C, yes it's a conspiracy
I'll talk about Jon [my brother who attended Yale and was apparently well-liked by this teacher], he's in on this con.
He's going to Yale and I'm going to jail
I hate Jorge [sic] Bush, my manboobs look like gush.

Mr. C. Mr. C. Doot doot doodle doo doot doot doodoo
Mr. C. Mr. C.

I have really bad BO, just thought you'd like to know
I am an old fart, I live in a shopping cart
I have a big schnoz, it doesn't have a cause
I'm into deja vu, I am a piece o poo.
I think you are all thugs, but then I'm on drugs!

Mr. C. etc etc

(awkward pause)
Sorry!
I've just been to Tijuana to get my marijuana.
I come from Mehico, you Americanos are my foe.
When asked to teach class, sometimes I just pass
I have a lot of mass, then I blast gas in class.
I am so retarded hat I must be force-fed.
So give me a straightjacket or I'll whack you with a history packet.
I play the air guitar, you'll see I'll go far!

Offstage person: "Boo, get off the stage you retard!"

Shut up you ass cos I like sea bass....

Chorus chorus chorus, blah blah blah....


("I come from Mehico"--is a reference to the fact that the teacher would INSIST that he was actually this cool Mexican guy, rather than American. He had us pronounce his last name as if it were Spanish, despite the fact that this guy was clearly American, was born in America, and came from an American family--and was probably no more Mexican than I am.)




Hahahah, oh man though. My friend and I thought we were just the cleverest people on earth back then. haha. Oh the things you think are funny when you're 12.... (Okay, who am I kidding...I still do.....)

Gem

A word of advice scribbled on a piece of paper from one of my tech mentors:

"Gotta be careful when your [sic] working on a musical. As a rule of thumb music teachers are always full of little surprises--like overtures."


(This is a reference to a show I was stage managing. We had already done opening night without problems....but the next night the music teacher just decided that he wanted to start the show off with an overture, but didn't tell anyone except for the band! Haha......oh, good times in the theater....)

Okay, back to cleaning my room....

TINA F

So today is my last full day at home until Thanksgiving. Tomorrow afternoon I leave for Chicago (though since we're driving I'm only getting as far as Vegas). Road trip!

I'm totally fucked though. I'm supposed to have my room spotless before I go AND I have to have all my shit for college packed.....and I've maybe put away three books and I've only set aside like half of my clothing. You might be thinking, "How difficult can it be to clean your room?" Um, extremely difficult. When I was in Israel, I promised my mom over the phone that my room would be clean before I leave for school....but when I got home, I saw that literally everything I own is on the floor. My mom thought she'd be helping me if she took everything out of my closets and such and put it on the floor for me to sort through. And holy shit do I have a lot of stuff. I'm a pack rat. So basically there's 20 years of acquired shit on my floor at the moment that I have to sort through by tomorrow.



Note the near-empty closet in the background....

Also, last night my mom and I got into a heated political debate. Voices were raised. Fingers pointed.

What was the debate topic?

"Who is prettier, Sarah Palin or Tina Fey?"

I was pro-Tina Fey, while my mom argued that Sarah Palin is prettier.

heeb update

just found out that I can rejoin my Hebrew class provided that I can re-learn how to write with vowels between now and next Tuesday. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

This is so frustrating. I don't know why she puts so much focus on writing with vowels. Oh well. She's the teacher, I'm sure she knows something I don't.

.

"Miss Berry, you have an overactive imagination and absolutely no attention span whatsoever. ...Good luck with that." --math teacher.

.

the physics of caring

Cleaning out my room at the mo.

It's weird because I keep discovering little pieces of paper that I took notes on. Even four years later I still remember what things like "3 pretzels" or "MC Hammer Pants" or "Aliens at Church" or "I wonder if the 20's were just like this" mean.

I also am stumbling across old binders from high school. Just flipped through my physics one, and I couldn't help but think, "This is so fucking boring, how the hell did you manage not to kill yourself in this class?"


You know, high schoolers deserve a lot of credit for the kind of shit they have to put up with and study. Fuck me, I'm glad I never have to give one flying fuck about stuff like physics ever again.

Also just found my binder from 11th grader American lit. Holy shit. Towards the end of the year we readt he Great Gatsby. And the teacher had just built it up. I lied. America built it up. Here I was expecting THE greatest piece of literature ever to have graced America and quite possibly the world......and it turned out to be shit. So then I refused to read any of the other assigned books for the rest of the year. And yet I still had to write papers on them. So I keep finding these papers written on books that I didn't actually read, and they are....remarkably vague. I cannot believe the teacher didn't notice and didn't figure out that there were about 10 books that I wrote papers on that I didn't actually read. Entire papers without citations from the book. Seriously? How does that slip one's attention? THe best part is that I didn't always get A's, but the comments and stuff from the teacher never suggested that I didn't read the book or even that I hadn't read the book closely enough, and they certainly never said, "Why don't you have even one citation from the book?" or, "You obviously did not even open the fucking book!"


Here's an excerpt from my English binder:



Yes, I've been in full-time private education since I was 5, and I'm still drawing hand turkeys during Honors American Literature class at the age of 16. You got a problem with that?


.

I LIKE GUYS.

Having lunch with my Christian cousins in a few hours....should be interesting. Haven't seen them since I left for Israel.

My mother is driving me absolutely insane with questions about Israel. She did this when I was in college/high/elementary school as well, but now it's ridiculous. Every time I mention what a friend of mine in Israel and I did, she always goes, "Oh, and is he/she Jewish?" Yes, mother, it was Israel! Perhaps the most ridiculous instance was when I was talking about going to the Wall with two friends to go pray, and she goes, "O, and were your two friends Jewish?" YES.

Also, my mother only figured out a couple days ago that I hated the kibbutz. WHAT??!?!?!

I'm also frustrated because after asking if they're Jewish, my mom then asks (if the friend in question is a male) if said person was more than a friend. And I'm like, "no." And she gets all frustrated. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm a lesbian. I'm not (as far as I know!), but my mother wouldn't be the first person to think I am. I'm thinking that if she starts to get really upset at this perceived lesbianism, I'll just randomly shout, "I LIKE GUYS!" at regular intervals. Just to reassure her.

hebrew class update.

Finally got a response from Hebrew teacher. Have to take placement test on September 17th. Will not be in Evanston on September 17th, so am hoping to G-d that said placement test is online. Hope hope hope I get placed in Year 2 rather than any other year, as have structured my schedule on the assumption that I will be in year 2. yikeeeeeees, we'll see

blech

So not only did my beloved UCLA lose yesterday, but USC (the school I despise) won. Urgh. A sad day for LA. Well, at least good LA people, not the USC fans....

They're sooooo Jewish, but don't let that bother you.

Just had an eventful couple of minutes. Within a few seconds of writing the last post, I went to get my dogs ready to take them on a short walk. I bent down to give of the dogs a pat on the head, and she jumped up to lick my face--and ended up smacking her head against my nose. Which opened up the floodgates. I had blood simply pouring out of my nose and onto my shirt, pure chaos. So I quickly changed my shirt and shoved toilet paper up my nose, and then took the dogs out again.

So I get outside, toilet paper still up my nose, and I see a neighbor across the street. She hasn't seen me since I left in April, and she's known me since I was 5 (when I moved to this neighborhood), and she's a chitchatty grandma-type so I know she's going to try to talk to me. I quickly pull the toilet paper out of my nose (my nose stopped bleeding by this point) and waited for her.

She's pretty anti-zionist, so she was against me going to Israel at all. (Actually, there's a couple people who have known me since I was a baby who are shunning me because I went to Israel.) But she comes up to me and starts talking about what a shit place Israel is, in a tone that suggests that we are in total agreement. And I said that just the kibbutz was bad, but Israel itself is a wonderful place.

We start talking about me going back to school next week, and she makes a reference to this family her family knows in Chicago. I've already heard a lot about this family. I've been instructed by basically everyone to call this family once I get back to Chicago since they're Jewish and we can do Shabbat and shit like that.

So this woman starts talking about this family, and it's clear she doesn't think too highly of them. She's like, "Oh, they're this, and they're that, and blah blah blah." And after going on and on and on about all their bizarre traits, though she points out that they're nice people, finally she goes, "And they're sooooo Jewish, but don't let that bother you." She continues talking for a second or so, but then she quickly realizes that she said something a little bit crappy about Jews. In front of a Jew. So she stopped very abruptly and there was this horrible, awkward silence.

So I cleared my throat and said in the friendliest voice I could muster, "Yeah, I was just in Israel for five months...so.......I don't think I'm gonna be bothered by other Jews' Jewishness....."

There was another uncomfortable silence, and then we started talking in a friendly way, like nothing happened, about school and life and blahblahblah. The conversation ended with, "See you at Christmas!" (I've spent every Christmas Eve at that family's house except for last year when I was in Israel, and every Christmas morning I go across the street and my friend shows me what she got.) And we parted ways.

I understand that in the grand scheme of things, this is hardly a big deal. And I understand that when your'e an old lady, you don't always censor yourself, and I don't think she really meant it in a bad way, but jeeez.....it made me feel so weird.
It just made me feel like shit. I mean, I basically grew up at this woman's house. She lives with her daughter and daughter's kids, and I went to school with the kids. I had dinner more times with this family than I did with my own. I spent weekends at this house, I went on trips with them, I named two of their four dogs.... I don't know. It just makes me feel weird. It makes me really want to hurry back to Israel.

Twinkie on a Stick

I don't know where else in the world they have this (maybe everywhere? maybe just here?) but in Southern California you hear about this thing called "The Marine Layer" a lot. (Okay, I just wikipedia-ed it and apparently it's common along large bodies of water....such as the Pacific Ocean). I had kind of forgotten about it, but yesterday they made a reference to it on the radio. Marine Layer...... Wow. What a great phrase. It makes me think of a layer of floating whales and various marine life floating around in the sky. How awesome would that be?


So I went to the Verizon store since my cell phone has been acting up, and the guy who was helping me had short fingernails---except for his pinky fingernail, which was appallingly long. Oh my goodness, i cannot describe to you how gross it was. It was like all of his fingernails were normal length for a guy, but the fingernail on his pinky--which is normally the most disgusting finger anyway--was like....like..... I cannot even describe how long it was. It was like he glued on a long fake nail. And then glued another one on to that. Guuuruglglgugluge eeeeeeeeeeeew!!!!

I also saw something that made me think, "Only in America...." It was this guy riding on a motorcycle in front of me, and he was wearing a jacket that had "I LOVE JESUS" written all over it. The dirt flap on his back wheel said something like, "CHRIST LOVES ALL!" and he had a backpack with hearts and "Jesus" all over it. His helmet was also decorated with Jesus slogans.
I mean, here's a guy who CLEARLY loves Jesus.
I'm not saying that Israel doesn't have its fair share of weirdos, but I think the heartwarming difference is that in the US, this weirdo more than likely has friends and is probably also a respected member of his community. Jesus Christ, do I love this country! Hah!


(I'm not gonna lie, I missed these people)

I was also happy because I ate at Hot Dog on a Stick yesterday. I think that that "restaurant" pretty much covers at a SINGLE time every kind of food Americans are supposed to like: hot dogs, fried foods, and foods on sticks.
Next time foreign folks make fun of us for being so goddamn fat, I wanna say, "Look, if you had the opportunity to eat hot dogs on sticks or fried twinkies on sticks or whatever fried on some kind of stick, you would too! You're just jealous!"

(Today though I think I'll stick to salad......I have pity on my poor arteries.)

Natural Disasters and Unnatural Idiocy

Maybe I'm just saying this because I grew up with earthquakes rather than hurricanes. But why the fuck don't people get the hell out when they know a hurricane is headed directly at them? "Oh, we'll just board up the windows and ride out the storm...." No. No, you fucktard, get the fuck out of the way cos that storm ain't gonna stop for you!

If I knew an earthquake was coming DAYS in advance, I'd secure my house and then peace the fuck out of LA well before the shaking started.

So unless you've been in lalaland for the past week or whatever, then you'll already know that there's this friggin enormous hurricane headed for Texas right now. The news is saying that people who stay in their normal homes are facing "certain death" and they're telling people to write their social security numbers on their arms in case they need to be identified. Which just makes me angry. There was also footage on the news of people just partying it up at a bar right on the beach, and it's like.....Jeez, I knew Texans were idiots, but this is moronic even by their standards.

Then the Gov came on TV, and the news anchor says something like, "Given all the warnings, why are people still staying?" And the governor was like, "Well, it's a free country."

A free country. I'm fucking sick of that response. Usually people say "It's a free country" when they're justifying something completely moronic. When you're a little kid and you're annoying your friends by singing some obnoxious song over and over again, and they tell you to shut the fuck up, THEN is the time to say, "It's a free country!" But when someone tells you a friggin enormous hurricane is coming your way, you don't say, "It's a free country!" and then party it up on the beach. No. You get the fuck out of the way.


A word of advice: if you have shit for brains, you should not be living in a free country. No. You should be living in a country where they MAKE you do what's best for you, rather than simply suggesting what's best for you. Jesus Christ.



My first week of freshman year, there was a tornado very close to where I was living in the midwest. I remember I came out of the dining hall and noticed that the atmosphere felt very strange. I then realized that I heard sirens. I thought it was air raid sirens, so I looked to the skies......and noticed the sky was green. Oh fuck, thought I. This is not good.
So I ran to a basement and waited for the skies to clear up. Turns out everything was fine, the tornado did not end up being a strong one and it didn't get close enough to us to do damage. But I'd still do the same exact thing over again, because you don't know in advance if everything's going to be okay. Just.... You do not fuck around with Mother Nature. She is a PMS-ing bitch with no sense of humor.


Anyway..... I'm just pissed off. I hate when people do this because now people are probably going to die, and the entire country is going to get all sad, and it's just so fucking frustrating. I was in Israel when I heard about how big this hurricane was going to be, so how the hell did people in Texas not get the message?
Oh well. Hopefully everything will turn out to be fine and hopefully the National Weather Service was just exaggerating.




Okay, this was a little dark, so here's a Sarah Palin name generator:

http://www.personal-space.com/palin/index.php

My name would be "Lean Pipe Palin" if Sarah Palin were my mother.

she's leaving home

Have decided not to take up tutoring job. Why? Because no one tells Sam what language to learn. That just irritated me. I don't mind being told I have to review geometry and biology, and I probably would have learned Spanish just for the fun of it and just because I'd like to be a more helpful person to the person I'd be tutoring....but being TOLD to learn Spanish kind of pissed me off. Fuck this, I'm gonna apply for a job at Burger King instead!


Sad news? My dog that I've had since I was 6 has cancer. :-( poor thing. We think we can give him medicine that'll help, but we're not sure yet.



Right now I'm packing to go back to the glorious midwest. I leave next Thursday morning and we're driving until Sunday evening. Wooooooot. (That's such a weird statement after being in Israel. Everything's so close. Eilat seems like the farthest corner of the world, but it's only a few hours from Jerusalem.) We have 2000 miles to cover.

I'm pulling out all my wool sweaters, my scarves, my heavy coats, my "turd coat" (it's this long down coat that we accidentally ordered in brown and, thus, makes me look like a walking turd), and my heavy snow boots. Fuck. I really should have gone to UCLA, shouldn't I have?

I will say though, experiencing Evanston winters makes me feel.....like I deserve a medal. Like, simply by surviving the winter there, I earn bragging rights. So some sick part of me is actually really excited about the descent into winter. I think the best part of going to school there is that point in Fall. At first you're like, "Wow, finally it's cooling down! Finally it's not swelteringly hot and sweaty." And then you realize that the cooling down isn't stopping. It isn't slowing down. If anything, it's getting colder faster. And then you feel like the doors of the train have closed at the subway stop you're supposed to get off at, and you're being moved to the next station, and you're stuck on the train, pounding the doors screaming, "Wait! No! Stop! Stop! Make it stop!" But there's absolutely nothing you can do, so you're trapped on this train screaming, "OH MY GAWD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!?" as you disappear off into the darkness.

That's basically the transition from Fall to Winter in Evanston in a nutshell.


I wasn't there for the transition from Winter to Spring/Summer this past year, but from what I remember about freshman year....it's pretty much the exact same thing, except the reverse.

just got my car back from the shop.

checked the trunk, just for the hell of it.

found a dirty lacrosse uniform from my hgh school lacrosse days.

i graduated high school in 2006.


eeeeeeeeeew.

bizarre

So last night I had dinner with my mom and grandparents. Of course, my grandparents were asking about Israel.

Grandpa: "All right, Dolly, if you had one word to describe your trip, what is it?"

Me: "........Bizarre."





I think that's accurate.

high school spanish in a week or less.

So it's like 2 am or so, I've been awake for 2 hours.....after going to bed at about 7.30.

You know what I gotta say? I love Facebook. I'm facebook friends with some of my cousins, and some of them I haven't seen in many many years. (At least 2nd cousins. I only have 4 first cousins, three live only two hours away and one recently moved to San Francisco, so isn't too far away, and so I see them pretty regularly.) From a facebook status, I learned that a first cousin was moving to Missouri. From looking at what network someone belonged to, I learned where a second cousin was studying at college. On facebook chat, I learned that my 16 year old second cousin is OBSESSED with Israel (and so, obviously, thought I was a total badass for being in Israel.) I learned that a "step"-cousin was in Argentina, and that her brother (my other "step"-cousin) was engaged to a girl from Kazakhstan. And just a few minutes ago I got a message from a second cousin that I haven't seen, spoken to, or heard talk about since I was very little (he's about four years older, and the last time I remember seeing him he was like 12 or so), and he makes a reference to his boyfriend. Jeez, how awesome is facebook? There's no need to stay in contact with these people outside of the internet.

Jesus, I just found my mom's cousin on facebook (who's like 40). Hahahaha.



So I'm about 80 percent sure I have a job for the year tutoring a 10th grader. I'm supposed to be helping in all subject areas, so that means that this week I have to review things like geometry and biology because they're not exactly fresh in my mind. I was talking to the girl's mom yesterday on the phone, and she's like, "And [girl's name] is taking basic Spanish...can you help her with that?" And I explained that I could probably teach her some study skills, like HOW one learns foreign languages and how to study for tests, because I've studied a few languages but that I hadn't ever studied Spanish (despite it being my first language...which I then forgot) so that I probably couldn't help with Spanish-specific issues. So the woman asks me what languages I've studied, and so I told her that I studied Hebrew, French, Latin, and a bit of Arabic and a bit of Italian.

So then the woman goes, "Oh, then I'm SURE you can help her with Spanish."

Me: "Um....are you sure? I mean, I don't really know Spanish......"

Mother: "Right, but if you know French, Latin, and Italian then it shouldn't be a problem for you to just pick it up really quickly."


Uhhhhhh.....so I guess I'm learning Spanish this week. this is in addition to reviewing latin, hebrew, french, biology, and geometry. Fucking hell. I guess I better get started.

Things to do between now and September 23rd (first day of classes):
Study Latin, French, Hebrew.
Learn Spanish.
Review Geometry and Biology.
Pack for college.
Clean room.
Buy a bit of school clothing.
Drive from LA to Chicago.
Move into new dorm room.
Buy books.
See friends for first time in 6 months.

home.

I'm back in the US! What??!?!?! Pretty weird. Until this point, the longest I had ever been out of the US was 2 1/2 weeks. I think the longest I had ever been away from LA without coming back to visit was 2 1/2 months. And, holy fuck, I just went from April 22nd until September 8th without seeing either LA or the US.

When the plane landed in NY, I decided that I had to do something incredibly American upon arrival. So, of course, I looked for a Twinky in one of the snack shops. But they didn't sell Twinkies! What?! I was scandalized. So instead I bought an Oprah magazine and I felt a little bit more assimilated.

It was kind of weird for NY to be the first piece of the US that I experienced when I came back, seeing as I hate New York. I could talk about how and why and how much I hate New York, but that would take a few hours.


When we were about to land in LA, I caught a glimpse of the light towers. They are these giant poles and they light up. I can't even tell you how many times I've fought with my parents about them. I love them because I love lights, but my parents hate them because 1) they cost the city of LA millions of dollars, 2) they're kind of weird looking, and 3) they were built during a year when California didn't have enough energy, we had rolling blackouts, and so most of the time the poles just stood there with no light since there was no electricity to spare. And literally every single time we are near the airport, my parents argue about these poles. So when I saw the poles from the plane, I couldn't stop laughing remembering this.


Today I stopped by my mom's office to go to lunch with her, and everyone in the office was basically jumping on me. I've been going into that office since I was a baby, so everyone knows me. So while everyone was pinching my cheeks and bursting with questions and hugging me and whatever, the receptionist (who is this kind of older, creepy lady) came up to me and was like, "Israeli men are really hot, huh?" So I just blushed and was like, "Um.....I guess....." And then some other lady got all defensive and was like, "WHAT ABOUT AMERICAN BOYS?!?!?!" So then I got all panicked and flustered and turned even more red, and responded, "Um...of course, of course...." It was really awkward cos these people are all older women, and my mother is like RIGHT there. And then the receptionist was like, "No, but Israeli men are supposed to be VERY hot I hear, so is that true?" And then another woman cut her off and was like, "So! Tell me! Did you get an Israeli guy?!"

Which, of course, catches my mother's attention and so she leans in to hear my response. I want to scream, "Will you creepy old ladies all just fuck off for like two seconds??!?!?! Jesus Christ!" But instead I just settled on biting my nails and muttering, "No." More questions about my non-existant love life followed, and I'm left wondering: do old women have nothing better to do in their lives besides pester gross 20 year old girls about their love lives? Really? Does being an old woman really suck that much?



Just checked the answering machine, and on it was a message from my godfather, making fun of my dad as usual and asking about how I was doing. Oh my goodness, I couldn't stop laughing. I had forgotten how strong his southern accent is. Awwwww, i missed being at home and things like this

I loooooooove LA

So regardless of what happened this morning, and regardless of how sad I feel about leaving Israel..... I'm going home! (for only two weeks....). Back to where I was born! This calls for celebration:



(People from other places always ask me if I actually live in LA. Yes, I say. "Well, what's your ACTUAL town's name?" LA, I tell them. "Well if I were to send you a letter, would I put LA in the address." Yes, you fucktard, cos I live in LA. In the city. Not Beverly Hills, not Santa Monica, not the high desert, not whatever.)

Fuck this.

So my entire life I've had this problem where sometimes I'm far too trusting with strangers. My parents always like to bring up this one story as a prime example: I was 5 years old, with my family at some sort of fair in Northern California. I don't really remember what happened, but I remember one of my brothers had won me a penguin stuffed animal and I just thought it was the greatest thing ever. Next thing I know, my mom gets distracted for a second and temporarily loses sight of me, and we're separated. Then this man came up to me, asked me some questions about the stuffy I was holding, took it from me for a second, and then handed it back. He said something about how the stuffed animals was partially ripped or something (which it wasn't) then instructed me to take his hand, so I did....and apparently he started leading me out to the parking lot. We're almost completely out of sight of the fair, when suddenly out of nowhere my mom comes running up to us and in one single motion ripped my hand from this guy's hand and picked me up. It was actually pretty incredible because my mom has a terrible back and even had trouble picking me up when I was a little baby, let alone 5. Then all of the sudden my dad, my brothers, and a whole squad of security guards caught up, and I don't know what happened after that.

The problem is, this isn't an isolated incident, and the other problem is that I haven't grown out of this. Pretty much my whole life, even now that I'm 20, my parents have worried about this. They're worried that I'll walk off with some random, dangerous stranger, or that I'll accidentally give away my credit card information, or that I'll do any number of stupid things because I am extremely gullible and trusting. I think the problem is that I don't lie and to a certain extent I'm pretty much incapable of being manipulative, so I have a hard time understanding when other people are lying, or are being manipulative, or have ulterior motives.


So anyway, this morning I went to the wall to put in a note before leaving. (If you tell people what you prayed for, does it not come true? Or is that just for birthday cake wishes? Someone let me know please...). And I decided to come back up through the Arab Quarter since I had come through the Armenian Quarter on the way in. And this Arab guy who looks about 40 or 50 calls out to me. I ignore him. But he keeps calling out, asking questions and such. All in English. He then keeps repeating, "excuse me? Excuse me?" and he sounded like he was pleading, and then I felt like a bitch for ignoring him. So I turned around, and we started chatting. He started asking questions about what I had seen in Jerusalem, and he explained that he was born in the Old City and lived there his whole life. He was actually very interesting, and I'm really interested in the history of that area, so I started to loosen up. He offered to show me a great view of Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy sites. And I thought that sounded cool, so I said yes.

I don't want to tell the full story until later, but it was a totally shit farewell to Jerusalem, I can tell you that much.

Bass.

So tonight is/was my last real night in Israel. My last night is tomorrow, which will be spent at the kibbutz not doing anything. Jesus Christ, this past week has been excruciating. If I thought folding towels was horrible, being a Zionist saying bye to some of my favorite places in Israel is like torture.

Tonight I hung out on Ben Yehuda Street for what will likely be the last time until maybe two years from now. I watched a group of religious boys yell/sing/jump around. It was awesome. I got it on tape, but I need a cable from home before I can upload it from my American phone. I also managed to catch on tape an Asian Christian group singing and a bunch of Jews were just standing around staring at them. Hahahahah, it was great.

I also got shwarma from my favorite place. Yes, I have a favorite shwarma place in Israel, how cool is that? Between eating and watching the guys jump around, I walked down to the Old City for a bit. I thought I’d go down to the wall again, but I ended up just staying up near a balcony near the left entrance (the more hidden one) and staring at it from a distance.

At this point, being in Israel has just become unbearably sad for me because I know I’m going home for a long time, and so I just want to go home already and get it over with. Yeah, I’m excited about seeing my friends, my family and my dogs,* but still….

*Actually, I think I’m most excited about seeing my dogs. This is not meant to be insulting to friends or family, but think of it this way: when I left, I was able to explain to my family exactly why I was leaving, when I was thinking of coming back, and how to contact me. With the dogs, you just leave, and they don’t understand where their human friend went, and it’s just so fucking sad for them and it makes me sad to think about it.


Hey though. Almost two full years after I decided I had to make aliyah, I came to Israel for the first time. So I guess two full years after trying to make aliyah I can successfully make aliyah? There was no logic in that, but oh well.


GOAAAAAALLLLLLL FOR ISRAEL!!!! (Sorry, I’m watching the Swiss/Israeli World Cup Qualifier and Switzerland was up by two until now.)



Good news? I may have gotten a job tutoring a 10th grader back in the Midwest. Awesome? Pretty much.

Also, today I caught a bit of a football game involving Ohio State (who is in my school’s football league), and I gotta admit: I got kind of excited about going back to school and football games and school colors and shit like that.

More good news? So I’m taking a car to school, and I thought it was going to have to be my grandpa’s old one….but my parents have decided to spoil me and let me take the nice one I shared with my brothers during high school. Which has quite possibly the bitchinest sound system. Bass is extremely important to me, and Jesus Christ, with the bass in that car your ass shakes. Like, you could be parked with the music on, drinking a glass of water, and the water would do that rumbling thing like in Jurassic Park. When your driving you could have the music on pretty low, but the bass is so strong that you feel like your heart is malfunctioning, like the bass is overriding your heartbeat. I’m exaggerating only slightly. But the best part of all of this? I’ve tested it, because I hate those people who put the bass on so loud in their cars that you can feel it from your car, and for some reason the bass in my car is contained to my car! How bitchin’ is that???

I really wanted to take my stereo to college because the bass on my computer is total shit, but my mom doesn’t want me to for some reason. But Jesus Christ, if I have this car…….I…..I……there are no words.

Fuck, have I really become so shallow that I’m talking about a car?

Within seconds of posting this, we got a TIED SCORE, BABY!!! 2-2!

dirty shabbos

Gotta say, I’ve kind of learned to love Shabbat here in Israel. At first I was pretty pissed off that nothing was open, there was little/no public transport, etc etc. And I was pissed off that Saturday had the same bittersweet feeling that Sunday does back in the US, when you know you have to go back to work/school the next day. So where’s the good in this? It’s the perfect excuse to sit around in my jammies all day. It’s 4.30 pm as I write this, and I’m still in the clothing I slept in. I have not left my room. Why? Well, what would I do if I left? The streets of the city are abandoned besides a few people walking around. Or playing catch. From my window I can see two kids playing catch in the park, and clearly they are both lacking in hand-eye coordination. Seriously, I’ve never seen such terrible baseballs skills. Part of me is tempted to go down there and show them how it’s done.

Anyway. Back at home, if it were 4:30 pm on a Saturday and I were still in my pajamas, my mother would be pissed off. On Saturdays we always have to run errands, and go to this and go to that and blah blah blah. Because everything’s open on Saturday, but sometimes it’s not on Sunday, so we have to do everything on SATURDAY. And when I’m not at home but in the Midwest, I’d personally feel disgusted with myself if I were still in pajamas at this hour on a Saturday, just because I could have done something a little more productive. But here in Jerusalem, on this Shabbat….what else am I going to do besides sleep in late and lounge around in my jammies? THAT, my friends, is what I enjoy doing. What a perfect Shabbos!

I just think everyone else should be entitled to experience this with me: here I am in a dirty polo shirt, dirty jammie bottoms, unbrushed hair, and just completely filthy. But also completely content.

Malouca.

Greetings from a hotel room overlooking Jerusalem!

Well, this is my final Shabbat in Israel so I decided I’d go to the wall and do the whole Jew thing. Back at school I used to be in regular attendance at weekly services, but ironically since coming to Israel I haven’t gone even once (until tonight).

So I wore a skirt. This is only newsworthy because it’s the first time since I think April that I’ve worn a skirt. At elementary school I used to have to wear a skirt (or jumper when I was younger) every single day of my life, so since the age of 12 I’ve rarely worn skirts. Basically only when I do Jew things. So I packed a few skirts cos I assumed I’d be doing Jew things with some frequency in the Jewish Nation…….and ended up never wearing any of them.
So anyway, I’m wearing this skirt and I’m walking through Jerusalem and since I’ve never worn this skirt before, I didn’t know that it blows up. Holy shit, I felt like Marilyn Monroe. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. I was not nearly that glamorous. Rather, I was like an obese Marilyn Monroe wearing a turd-colored skirt. So I ended up running through the streets of Jerusalem, trying to hold down the sides of my skirt as I giggled coquettishly. This skirt incident is further proof that I am actually a prostitute, as was made apparent when that haredi kid spat on me on my first full day in Israel. Good news in all of this? When I come back to Israel I have a career lined up for me besides towel-folding.

Also, I just want to point out the fact that I went to the wall, dressed orthodoxly, prayed, used the fucking Shabbat elevator to get to my room on the 20th floor……and now I’m back in my hotel room writing a blog post and listening to my favorite song on my iTunes. (Ticks. Brad Paisley.)

At the wall there were a lot of tour groups, and I witnessed a first for me: I saw a guy on the women’s side! He was in a fight with someone, and two police officers had to step in. It was awesome.

Abraham (assuming you’re reading this), you’ll be pleased to know (that was a sarcastic pleased) that this one tour group did an EPIC version of Lecha Dodi, which I know you would have appreciated. I was at the wall for about 45 minutes, and they were still going as I was leaving. I’m pretty sure that they’ll be welcoming in the Sabbath until tomorrow night when the Sabbath peaces out for the week, at which point this group will probably start singing a “Farewell to Shabbat” song (there must be a song like that), which will last until next week’s Kabbalat Shabbat. These people don’t eat, these people don’t sleep, these people don’t have bowel movements—no, no, no, they just dance in front of the wall all week either welcoming or bidding farewell to Shabbat. Should one of these men die in the line of duty, they will simply fall to the ground and their bodies will be trampled by their dancing friends. Babies are born in the midst of the chorus, children are raised singing the verses, people get married in the split second where people breathe between words. It must be an extremist sect. The Epic Lecha Dodi Sect.

As I was leaving I ran into a Birthright group from my university. Which was really horrible. I know the lady who leads the Hillel trips (as opposed to the Chabad ones, which I chose to participate in), and she recognized me. Twas very weird, and it was a strange reminder that in just a couple weeks I’ll be back at that school, like those kids who were sitting around in her group. I kind of don’t want to go back now. I don’t feel like them anymore. I don’t know what I feel like. I’m clearly not Israeli, but beyond the whole obsession with Redneck music I don’t quite feel like the average American anymore. Maybe that’ll change once I’m back and I am part of things over there once again, but I don’t know. I’m already, even just over the phone, starting to feel different from my family. Then again, I’ve always been the weird one in the family, and maybe now I’m just noticing it more.

What’s really painful is that my towel-folding experience is becoming less painful. That sounds like it makes no sense, but let me explain: so I’m reading this book on Breslov philosophy and stuff like that, and it’s talking about how to be happy in all situations, even shit ones. And well, looking back I can say that the horribleness of folding towels for 4 ½ months was probably a good learning experience for me, a good challenege, and an important life lesson of some sort. So with the blessing of hindsight, with the knowledge that I never have to fold another towel that does not belong to me ever again, I can say that I’m glad that I worked in a fucking laundry room for almost half a year. I’m glad the ladies weren’t nice, I’m glad the kibbutz wasn’t welcoming, and I’m glad that there were few people in my Hebrew class to socialize with who were NOT crazy/wanted for arson in France/complete idiots. No, that’s not me being sarcastic.
So why is this painful for me? Because now with this “test of faith” behind me, I actually quite like Israel. I now LIKE that I have to take a ticket when I’m on the bus, I like that people ask “how much did that cost you?” and I like getting my bag checked at the mall. But now, because I was so miserable folding clothing….I am leaving Israel. Fuck.

Oh well. I’ll be back.

I need an aliyah buddy. I need someone to come back with me in two years.



Oh, so then after the whole Western Wall thang I had to walk back. I got stuck in the middle of this enormous German Christian Group.
I gotta digress and share this with you:
Roommate: Germans always have the craziest parties.
Self: Yes, like the Nazi Party.

Anyway, so I’m in the middle of this German Christian Tour Group, and I didn’t want to be. So I tried to go around them and use my mad navigational skills. I do know Jerusalem pretty well now. Well, I ended up getting completely lost in these dark, narrow streets in the Old City. Hahaha. It was really scary.

Finally I found my way back outside, and this lady wearing a little cross necklace stops me. She’s clearly American, but she speaks to me in slow and deliberate English. “Do. You. Know. Which. Street. This. Is?” I responded by saying, “Ehhhh….I don’t know. I’m sorry. Are you looking for something in particular?” Mind you, besides the “eh,” which was unintentional, the rest I said like a total American.

At which point the woman says to me, “Wow, you speak English so well!”

So I just smiled sweetly and said, “Thank you! Both my parents are American.”

And she replied, “Ah, that explains it!” (Well, yeah, that and also the fact that I was born and raised in the U.S.)




Had a horrible moment back at the kibbutz yesterday. There’s this Brazilian guy who doesn’t speak a word of English and hasn’t learned a word of Hebrew in the 6 months that he’s been in the country. He knows a bit of Spanish, so he speaks to “The Mexicans” (I finally gave up on insisting that we call them the Spanish-Speakers and joined everyone else in calling them all Mexicans…..), but he mostly keeps to himself. Obviously there’s a huge language barrier between us, I don’t think I’ve said more than one word to him in the almost five months that I’ve known him besides, “MALOUCO!” (I don’t know how to spell it.) It means crazy or something in Portuguese, and that’s this guy’s nickname. Whenever he walks by, everyone has to shout, “MALOUCO!” and he yells back, “MALOUCO!” And it’s just how we do things on the kibbutz. It’s our way of trying to communicate with the Brazilian guy and to make him feel like a full member of the group that everyone’s happy to see, even if none of us can have an actual conversation with him.

Anyway, yesterday evening I was on the phone, and Malouco (and may I remind you, I have never spoken to this guy in my life besides saying, “MALOUCO!” like everyone else) stands in front of me. He flings his arms out as if he’s about to start belting an aria from a famous opera, and he yells in his very accented English, “I LOVE YOU!” I was on the phone and I wasn’t really listening, so I just said, “K, fine, thanks,” and resumed talking.

After I hung up, I was near The Mexicans’ room, and suddenly Malouco flings open the door and yells at me, “I LOVE YOU!” I ignored it because I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but he just kept repeating it. I love you! I love you! I love you!
And this is where it gets horrible: frustrated, I ended up blurting out, “Fuck off!” Why? Because I thought he was just trying to be annoying or making fun of me or something.

Um….what followed was an angry yelling from The Mexicans. They were so fucking pissed off with me. Turns out the guy wasn’t trying to be funny. Well fuck, how the fuck was I supposed to know?! I don’t understand how you can like someone if you cannot even communicate with them on a basic level! So now I feel like the biggest bitch on the planet.


Anyway, more shit happened. I’ll talk about it tomorrow cos there’s not much else I’ll be doing. (Besides watching Fox News!!!)

lepers

Can I just say I hate facebook? Through a mutual "friend" (we all went to the same elementary school) I stumbled across a picture of a girl who used to beat me up and make me do her homework for her in elementary school. Even though she lives a block away from me, I've managed to avoid seeing her since I was 13. But now, G-d damnit, she's pretty. Not just pretty, but like MODEL good looks and great fashion sense. Fucking hell! I hate when that happens! What I'm about to admit is horrible of me, but at least I'm honest. Anyone else would wish the same, I'm just putting it out there and making it public: I had kind of hoped she would come down with leprosy, and that she'd have to spend the rest of her days wearing cloaks to conceal her hideous affliction as she wanders through the streets, without a point, a social pariah. At least, this is what I THINK happens to lepers--I got to admit, I got the idea for this wish after seeing the leper-related segments of "Ben Hur" when I was a little girl. I'm sorely disappointed that my wish didn't come true though. Granted, she's still young and there's still time for G-d to see to this, but still.......

Let me let out a hearty "DANG IT!"

studeeeeeeeee

I have to come up with a studying schedule. I'm out of practice in Latin, French and (bizarrely) Hebrew. I'm posting this so that I make all this public, and therefore I'll be more likely to feel obligated to follow through with my plans.

Airplane (18 hours total, not including the lay-over):
3 hours Hebrew review. (recopying words from my class notes)
1 hour reading book in Hebrew
2 hours French review.
a combined 12 hours of watching TV in Hebrew (at least when I'm on the El Al flight)/sleeping my lazy ass off (mostly over the US on the American flight).

My bet is that I'll be wide awake for most of the El Al flight to New York, whereas I'll completely conk out once the American flight leaves for LA.


I have 14 days of studying between Sept 9 (the first morning I'll wake up in LA) and the first day of class. And during this time I have to be unpacking/packing, driving/flying to school, and visiting with/annoying my family members and friends. I think during that time I can at least manage an hour in each language (meaning three hours of studying every single day).

Then school starts....hmm.... It's hard to work out a study schedule for that since I don't know where/if I'll be working. I think I should be working so that I have money saved up for Aliyah Round 2.

Yeah, it's two years away, but here's what else I gotta do for Aliyah Take 2: become fluent in Hebrew. Whatever it takes, I gotta get to that level!


Also, just wanna brag: for the first time in, I think, EVER all my classes are in two buildings next to each other across the street from my dorm. No more of these fucking hikes across campus in the middle of a friggin blizzard.



Fucking hell, third post of the day and I've only been back on the kibbutz for a few hours.....this place is so goddamn boring! I hate this place. I spend the entire week off the kibbutz, and I find myself loving this country so much that the thought of leaving it makes me want to cry, but then I come back to this place and all I want to do is see the country that is responsible for this travesty of a kibbutz to go to hell.

I remember seeing this a while ago on TV or something, and they put it up on Ebaums this week because Don LaFontaine died. This video cracks me up and I think given that one of the voices of the movies who is in this skit died this week, it's worth watching:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/253/

Super Voiceoever Team

I'm baaaaaaack.

back on the kibbutz until mañana in the morning. i then go to jerusalem for the weekend.



Well, it’s been an interesting week of adventuring.

I think the best part (minus, of course, my time in the Azrieli Center if Oz is reading this…and speaking of random shout outs to specific readers, “Hi Abraham!!!”) for me was a certain moment in Haifa. I was totally bored as fuck, as frequently happens when you spend a week with no one but yourself, so I decided to go to the mall. I love that I still haven’t checked out the Bahai place, or the immigration museum, or that fucking enormous Beit Dagon thing, and yet I’ve been in basically every mall in Haifa. (I looked into what the Beit Dagon thing is, cos I figured something so fucking enormous must be really exciting. Turns out it’s like the history of grain or something like that. Wow. I guess they were running low on museum ideas?)

So I’m walking through the mall, window shopping. I can’t really buy Israeli clothing because a lot of it is really weird. I mean that in a nice way. I like Israeli clothing, I just don’t think I could pull it off in the US, and since I’m going back to the US for at least two years I don’t wanna look weird. So I’m walking and looking at things, at people. And I’m thinking to myself, “Okay, guy selling candy, woman with a weird bag, lady cleaning floor, Ewok-like guy that I recognize working at that bar, group of soldiers chatting, woman—wwwwaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiitttttttttt.” So then I spent like two minutes trying to figure out who I know that looks like an Ewok, and then I was like, “Holy shit, that guy was a soldier in my Birthright group.” Once I remembered the connection, the name came back to me instantly. I then spent the next five minutes trying to decide if I should go up and say hi. Part of me was like, I don’t know that guy beyond his name and I know he doesn’t know my name, so this could potentially be extremely awkward, but the other part of me was like, fuck it, I’m leaving this country in a week and I doubt I’ll ever see this guy ever again so I’m gonna do whatever the fuck I feel like, no matter how awkward. And besides, I was really early for the movie and had time to kill.

So I ended up going up to him and speaking to him in Hebrew.
Me: Uh, your name is Dani, right?
Him: Yes….?
Me: Ummmmm……I was on Taglit with you.
A shocked expression on his face, and then a surprisingly pleasant and not-unbearably awkward conversation followed, during which I learned what he had been doing for the past few months and his post-army trip plans (which, come to think of it, is ALL I know about this person since beforehand I didn’t know/remember even the most minor detail about him besides a mineral water-related story), and I talked about what I had been doing in Israel. The BEST part though was when he said in Hebrew something like, “So how did you know I was here?!” At which point I wanted to grab his head and bash it into the bar, yelling, “No, you idiot, the point is that I DIDN’T, that’s why this is so weird!” But instead of doing that, I just blushed because I thought maybe he thought I had actually gone out of my way and had tracked him down. No, no dear, if I absolutely had to waste time tracking down someone in Israel it’d maybe be Yehudah Levi, but it definitely wouldn’t be you since I only just remembered your very existence two seconds ago, and I’m pretty sure the same can be said vice-versa.

Anyway, I just thought that was weird. During my one week on Taglit I bumped into someone I knew from Northwestern in a huge crowd in Jerusalem and met someone who is actually a neighbor but who I didn’t know before, but during my 4 ½ months in Israel on this stay this was the first time I randomly bumped into someone I “know.”


Right now I’m trying to make a video, and I’m calling it, “In a time when…..” and nothing happens. Remind me. I can’t do it here in Israel cos it requires too much coordination and I need internet access and a place where I can listen to the same songs over and over again, and I don’t have both in the same place here. Whereas when I’m back in LA for the week, I can just do this in my room once my parents have gone off to work (because, let’s be honest, what parent wants to hear the soundtrack to “Kingdom of Heaven” on repeat?)


Another joyous moment from my grand tour? Maimonides’ Tomb in Tiberias. I went on Shabbat since I had nothing else to do and I dressed appropriately and all that jazz. So I cautiously went up the path to the tomb and I sat on the women’s side of the tomb for a few minutes, reflecting and all that jazz. During the second evening of Birthright the rabbi took a couple of us who wanted to see the tomb, and I remember how I thought it was so cool and all that jazz. So I’m just sitting there, remembering various memories I now have of Israel and feeling very calm.

I get up to go, but before I leave the tomb complex I decide to have a pee. But the bathrooms are locked because OBVIOUSLY people don’t pee on Shabbat. So I turn around to head out the door, and then I notice for the first time that there is a homeless guy passed out in the middle of the pathway. Like seriously, I must have been really concentrated on something else when I came into the complex cos this guy was like RIGHT there. Sprawled out. Totally caught by surprise, I let out a blood-curdling scream. I thought the guy was dead, the way he was sprawled out like that. And suddenly the homeless guy’s head pops up, his eyes all bugged out, because apparently my screams can bring people back from the dead, and he starts screaming a less-than-manly shriek. Which, of course, sets me off on more screaming. I’m absolutely petrified, screaming like someone is simultaneously stabbing me, kicking me in the head, and giving me Indian Burns on my arms. So the two of us are just screaming and screaming, and finally I just turn and start sprinting down the path out the door. On the way, an orthodox man came running and asked me if I was okay, but I just kept running in the other direction.

I finally get out of the tomb complex and I stand there just catching my breath. I look to my left and there’s this orthodox guy about my age just standing around near the entrance and an awkward conversation ensued.


What is it with me and screaming? On the way back from Tel Aviv today (which time? I woke up in Tel Aviv this morning, went to the kibbutz to get something, went back to Tel Aviv, came back to Jerusalem, then went to the kibbutz again) I thought of a different time I started screaming at an unfortunate moment. I was driving a U-Haul truck in the middle of winter in Chicago. I had to pick up stuff at IKEA for a show I was working on, and I specifically aimed to do it on a day that clear (not snowy) since I had never driven a truck before, since I had never driven in snow before, and since I had never driven in Chicago before, only LA. So I’m on the fucking highway somewhere in Chicago, hurtling along at 60 or 70 mph or whatever, and my passenger and I are just chatting along. And then, all of the sudden, it starts snowing. Not just snowing, but SNOWING. Like, the road gets slick and we can’t see. And of course, my immediate reaction is to just start screaming. And so my passenger starts screaming. The two of us are just hurtling down the road, screaming. I yelled to my passenger, “I’M FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, I’VE NEVER DRIVEN IN SNOW BEFORE! WHAT DO I DO??!?!?!” And my passenger yells back, “HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW, I’M FROM CALIFORNIA, TOO!” And we basically screamed all the way to IKEA. It was great.

Yesterday while I was sitting outside the Azrieli place thing, those Nachman guys were doing their thing. I was sorely tempted to join them, but I thought it might be a little bit weird. I was really excited because I had heard so much about them but had never actually seen them in person….

I fucking love the Welsh national anthem. If I didn’t like the Star-Spangled Banner or Hatikvah so much, I think I’d run off and join a Welsh independence society or something. (Did I tell y’all that in high school I wrote my senior paper on Welsh independence? Hahahahah)


Also, I suppose I should talk about the RNC seeing as I’m a Republican. Sort of. First of all, I just gotta say that when McCain announced Sarah Palin was his pick….I totally cried. Totally lost it. I was just so proud.
I thought that Sen. Thompson (sorry if I spelled it wrong) was the best man to tell the whole McCain story the other night. His voice makes me think I’m sitting on some southern porch listening to an uncle or grandpa or something sitting in a rocking chair, telling us some Tall Tale. It was pretty badass. And then Lieberman came on. I totally forgot from 2000 how constipated Lieberman sounds when he talks.

You know what I’m gonna miss about Israel? Agorot. Maybe this is just me being a fat, hungry American, but I always think agorot are edible. They look like Chanukah gelt. On more than one occasion I’ve tried to pick at the sides of a coin just to double check that it is not, in fact, a piece of gelt. I don’t even really like chocolate too much, but still, it’s always a little disappointing. Just you wait, when someone gives me gelt during Chanukah I’m gonna try to spend it.

Another exciting trip story? I had an allergic reaction to my pants on the way to Tiberias. Okay, that was kind of a weird way to put it. I’m allergic to laundry detergent though. Like, it won’t kill me, I just get welts on my skin where it comes into contact with it. Usually when I wash my clothing I get most of it off, but since this summer I’ve had to do my laundry by hand (with gloves), sometimes things like jeans still have the residue on it. So I’m in the middle of the bus ride to Tiberias, which is a couple hours, and I start itching my legs like crazy. So basically I spent like two hours looking like a total pervert.

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of caves in the sides of mountains in Israel, and I’m wondering if the CIA is investigating these as potential hiding spots for Osama Bin Laden. I mean, if I were an Extremist Muslim Terrorist, I think the FIRST place I’d try to hide is Israel, because sure as fuck no one would look for me there.

One thing I won’t miss about Israel? (Besides breaks during movies, although I’m now told and I’ve now seen that modern theaters don’t do that.) The fact that some bathrooms make you pay a shekel for the bathroom. I understand that this is like, what, a quarter? Yeah, it’s just a quarter, but that’s a quarter I could be spending on jellybeans or gumballs or something in those little machines they have next to escalators in malls. You know what? This girl refuses to pay for peeing and parking. In LA I used to park like a mile away from my destination if I knew there was free parking a mile away and I would have to pay if I parked at my actual destination. Normally I’m not a cheap person—I normally blow all my money on worthless crap, I enjoy spending money on friends, etc etc….. But when it comes to paying for peeing and parking, I just get irritated.

That is all. Right now I’m just listening to a shit ton of country music, since I’ve been way from my collection for like a week now.