Giving Fanks

Cousin 1: We had a duck until it got too big for the fish tank.
Cousin 2: Its head was sticking out over the top!
Cousin 1: IT WAS SO SCARY!!!

Also great was when my great aunt came into the house and said to everyone quite cheerfully: "HAPPY CHANUKAH!!! ....oh shit!"

ALSO great was when my grandma came in, took one look at my Catholic brother's Catholic fiancee and before saying anything else says, "You look Jewish."

Hahahha, I love Thanksgiving.

1) I got a visa! Now all I gotta do is set foot in Israel and I automatically get citizenship!
2) Does anyone else not give a shit about that astronaut's tool bag that was lost?

Tomorrow I get to to go the Israeli consulate to apply for a visa! And once that's in my passport, all I got to do is show up in Israel and I get citizenship!!!

Also, I was told that tomorrow I'll find out whether or not I get to live in Jerusalem (in an absorption center) or whether I have to look for lodging in a different city. STAY TUNED!

I just had the weirdest dream. I was back in Israel, back on the kibbutz....except the laundry room was now outdoors. And it was pouring rain, so we were all wearing raincoats in the laundry room. Except outside the laundry room it was bright and sunshiney. Also, the laundry room (and the rest of the kibbutz for that matter) was understood to be on one of the hills by the ocean in Los Angeles. And it was also understood that Los Angeles was just down the hill. I could even see it! Yet we were still in Israel. Jerusalem didn't exist, it had turned into Los Angeles.
Also strange was the fact that EVERYONE I had met in Israel, not just ulpan friends or whatever that were supposed to be on the kibbutz, but EVERYONE I had ever met in Israel was now working on the kibbutz.

Precedence does not equal acceptance

I keep panicking in front of my friends about how I'm going to tell my parents about my pending move back to Israel. And, strangely, I keep getting the same response: "Well, you already did it once...it can't possibly be worse for them this time!"

Well, dear friends, let's use that same logic in different scenarios and we'll see if simple precedence makes a situation more tolerable:

-"Sorry I dropped another piece of your wedding china, Mom, but I DID shatter another piece a few months ago."

-"Sorry I raped your daughter again, Ma'am, but I DID do it five months ago too, so...."

-"Sorry I killed that man, Your Honor, but I DID kill another guy a few months ago, so....you know...."


So, "Sorry I'm moving back to Israel, Mommy and Daddy" even with the understood "but I DID also do the exact same thing a few months ago" does not exactly sound less horrible than the original, "By the way, I'm moving to Israel."



On a happier note, I told my brother and he is very supportive. He might be extending his Birthright stay so I'll get to see him when I arrive, and he'll probably be in Israel over the summer or during the next academic year for some sort of yeshiva thing. So that's one less family member I have to worry about telling.

How embarrassing...

Have you ever been so embarrassed that you think the only possible solution is to go hide in the woods somewhere for the next few decades until everyone you know is either dead or has forgotten about you?

That's pretty much how I feel right now. Someone I knew during my high school years has suddenly made a sort of brief re-entrance into my life, and so with that comes a whole slough (or is it slew?) of embarrassing moments that I'm suddenly remembering. I thought I had done a pretty decent job of converting horrifically embarrassing moments into future cancer-inducing repressed memories, but aparently I was wrong. Because I'm getting flooded with embarrassing moments.

I'm not talking about stupid moments like:

1) Like the time I pissed my pants on my front porch when I was 12. (I was out walking the dog, the door was locked.....and I had to go real bad.)

2) Like the time I got pantsed in front of a supermarket, except the friend who pantsed me also managed to bring my underwear down with it....and I ended up mooning an old lady.

3) Like the time I accidentally corrected a girl with a lisp on her pronunciation when she said "Lassen" as "Lashen" (being physically incapable of saying "Lassen")

4) Like the fact that I was a cheerleader in middle school.

5) Like the time I took a nap onstage before a show, and I woke up and found out that the red paint on the stage had rubbed off onto my butt in such a way that it looked like I had "perioded" myself, except I didn't realize it until one of the actors (I was the lighting designer) pulled me aside and asked if I needed a tampon.

6) Like the fact that at age 8 I was playing a dog in a play, and all I had to do was bark. And during the climactic scene of "Annie," I was supposed to bark a lot but I suddenly forgot how to bark....so I simply let out short blood-curdling screams instead of barks.

7) Like the fact that at age 9 I was playing a BRICK in a play, and I had to wear a bright yellow UNITARD, along with a cardboard brick attached to my head. That's right, I'll say it again: I wore a fucking unitard. On a fucking stage. And it was a yellow unitard. And, G-d help me, we have pictures of it.

8) Like the fact that we also have this gem of a picture from 6th grade:



9) Like pretty much any other moment of my childhood.

No, that's NOT what I'm talking about. At least for these moments, while horrifically embarrassing at the time, I can laugh about now. I'm talking about moments that, even almost a decade later, cause me to cringe and say to myself, "WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING, SAM?!" Moments that are so horrifically embarrassing that I sometimes question if I'll ever be fit for human company.

I noticed that a lot of my unbearably embarrassing moments (the moments that I won't be describing on this blog) have almost without fail arisen from situations in which I went against my natural instincts/desires in an attempt to do what I thought was socially expected or normal, and ended up failing miserably. I guess the moral of the story is, Be Yourself. Or maybe, Learn how NOT to fuck up socially expected situations.

For the past couple weeks I've gotten at least one phone call a day (sometimes two) in which my mom says, "Just hang in there and finish school." Cos I think she's figured out what my plans are, based on my hints. So basically every single day when my mom calls me, I have a minature heart attack as I panic and think about how horrible it's going to be when I finally have to acknowledge what my plans are.

insensitive pricks.

Just got back from grabbing a quick bite downstairs in the dining hall....and I'm struck by how much I hate people here. I don't think I've ever been surrounded by more insensitive people in my life.

Two overheard conversation today were particularly disgusting.

First, I have to explain that last year around the time when Los Angeles was (again) burning, some guy in my Hillel student group said that we shouldn't bother helping people affected by the fires because "Why should we bother helping people who bathe in Perrier?" His argument was that EVERYONE was so fucking rich in LA that it didn't matter if their homes burned down. (Never mind the fact that plenty of not so well-off people were affected.)

I immediately let it be known that, as a native of the city that was burning, i was extremely offended by this guy's insensitive attitude, and the fight got so ugly that the rabbi had to step in.

Anyway, so today at dinner I overheard the same argument. Some guy was blabbering on and on to his friends about how "We shouldn't care that LA's on fire....good riddance, they're only actors."

Cos, yeah, I'm sure a BUNCH of successful actors were living in that mobile home park that got completely burned up. (And, to be clear, LA's only surrounded by fire--it's the outlying areas that are actually burning. Fewer actors there....) Meanwhile, if it's anything like the fires I've been in LA for, there are a lot of refugees, there's ash all over the place, the air is unhealthy, and the sky looks like fucking armaggedon. It's especially creepy when the fire is behind the mountains that surround LA, because then you can see this scary glow coming over.


I wanted to pick a fight with this asshole, but then I decided to just ignore him. But then I hear the voice of a DIFFERENT asshole, cracking jokes about a missing student from our university. Laughing about how there's going to be a vigil for him, how a body was found in the lake that might very well be his...... I have no idea what's funny about that. Maybe I just have a terrible sense of humor, but I don't see what's funny in that. I'm not offended by it on a personal level, since I didn't know the poor guy who has gone missing, but it still struck me as an insensitive thing to say about ANYONE, even if you don't know them, but especially insensitive to say about someone who was a member of your larger university community.

It really made me wonder, "What if I were the one who went missing, or what if one of my closest friends were the one?" These assholes sitting at that table would probably still be cracking jokes.

I'm not saying everyone has to bow their heads and talk in somber tones all the time just because SOMEWHERE in the world SOMEONE is suffering, but I just don't think we should all have the attitude of "Oh, it doesn't affect me, therefore I don't give a shit and am going to voice my opinion about how I should not give a shit in a loud manner so that everyone can hear."

What bothered me most in all this was just how loud both assholes were being. You know what? You can have as many insensitive or offensive opinions as you like--just keep your fucking voice down when you're voicing them.

dancing in circles

Before I say anything, let me say two things:
1) I love that at the kosher market, there are Santa Clauses on the Coke bottles.
2) I hate that when I'm learning Yiddish I'm basically learning how to mutilate Hebrew.


So as I was snooping around on other blogs by Jews/Israelis/whatever, I stumbled across someone (unfortunatelyI forgot who now...) commenting on the fact that Miriam Makeba recently died. The author lamented the loss of a woman who provided the world with the song "Pata Pata," and recalled (fond?) memories of dancing to it in Hebrew School.

I thought to myself, "Wait, is this THE song?" There was one song that we danced to without fail, sometimes multiple times, at every Israeli dance class in Hebrew School--meaning that about a solid 50% of my Jewish education consisted of dancing to "Pata Pata." Years later I tried to locate the song out of nostalgic longing, but because I thought the song was called "Popcorn" I kept getting that electronic song that makes me feel like I'm playing Pong on my Atari.



I quickly leapt on this opportunity to track down this elusive song. And it turns out, the song of my childhood WAS INDEED "Pata Pata." This was the song of my childhood, and now I finally have it on my iTunes.

I mean, I thought it was weird that MY temple had us dancing to a song in a click language, but what struck me as bizarre was that this other blog I was reading said that her temple ALSO had them dancing to this song. Apparently there's some sort of "Pata Pata" epidemic among the Reform Movement, which raises the question: what is it with Reform Jews, mostly of Ashkenazic descent, and Miriam Mekaba? Isn't it kind of like ex-patriot Aboriginese Australians living in Canada adopting a Finnish folk song as their cultural dance?

And even forgetting the illegitimacy of using South African music as Israeli dance, why was such a large portion of religious school and hebrew school devoted to Israeli dance? Sure, I couldn't speak Hebrew, I barely knew prayers, and I didn't know the rules of kashrut, but holy cow could I dance in a circle. Occasionally we'd dance in partners or occasionally we'd dance in a "square" (like, you know, in rows), but mostly we were all about the circle dance, as a way to promote socialist/kibbutz values of equality, and the song would be some kibbutznik from decades ago singing away on some crappy tape recording.

Kind of like this:


הגבעטרון - ים השיבולים

Or maybe this:


הגבעטרון - בת 6

Or, come to think of it, kind of like pretty much anything else The Gevatron has ever sung.

I understand that they wanted to include the Israeli dancing as a sort of element of zionism....but it made it so that the only zionist fact I knew was that Haifa has a port. I couldn't tell you where in Israel Haifa was--when asked to point to it on a map, I'd be just as likely to point to Gaza city--but I knew it had a port. Also, I had picked up in a very vague sense that a lot of shit (and Palestinians) had blown up over the years in Israel, but I couldn't tell you when or where or how many times. But, DAMN, could I dance in a circle.

And how useful is dancing in a circle in modern Israel? Sure, I dont know how the government works, but I can dance in a circle. I dont know basic geography, but I can dance in a circle. I'd be completely lost at a bar mitzvah in Israel, but holy shit could I dance--in a circle--at the reception afterwards.

"Welcome to our kibbutz, SemenTAH. Do you have any relevant skills that you think our kibbutz could benefit from? Tell me before I permanently sentence you to the laundry room."
--"Well, I can dance in a circle."
"Um....."
--"What, I thought that's what y'all do on kibbutzes all day....?"

And yes, I'd call them 'kibbutzes.'


Perhaps my bitterness towards learning Israeli dances (mostly of the circle-variety) stems from the fact that in kindergarten I once became a sort of projectile missile during one of the dance sessions. We were learning the chicken dance in either kindergarten religious school or during pre-school (you gotta start Chicken Dance training early if you want to be ready in time for your Bar/Bat Mitzvah), and my partner was my bestie--who also happened to be the largest girl in our religious school class. And, at the time, I was basically the smallest. At regular school we had to line by grade and by height every year for the Christmas and the "American Appreciation Day" shows, and in kindergarten I was 3rd smallest out of 60. Just to give you an idea of how short I was.

So basically I, the shrimp, was paired with the largest land mammal this side of the Mississippi. We were having a lot of fun going really fast during the do-si-do parts.....until, towards the end, we were going so fast that my little feet actually left the ground and I was simply being swung around by my great moose of a partner.

And then, G-d help me, she let go to switch arms.

I've never flown quite like that before. I don't remember anymore exactly what I smashed into--maybe it was chairs, maybe it was another couple, maybe it was a bookshelf, I have no idea--but I do remember it being absolutely terrifying and absolutely painful.


Anyway, I just wanted to take the time to reflect on Israeli dance. As I've learned from my past Israel experiences, Israeli dancing hasn't proved to be too helpful when trying to make a life in Israel, but who knows--maybe it's different when you're an olah? Maybe citizens of Israel have secret underground circle dance sessions that tourist visa holders aren't invited to.

Too bad that Miriam Makeba died... :-( But at least she left me with fond(?) memories of Hebrew School.



Hers was one of the few songs we DIDN'T have to be in a circle for....


.

January 11th, 2009: This girl leaves US soil as solely an American.

January 12th, 2009: This girl arrives on Israeli soil and becomes a friggin' citizen!


Time for some traveling music, eh?

Dierks Bentley, Free and Easy.

HEY YOU!

The following is perhaps a bit dweeby. Stay with me.



I used to find the concept of different types of "you"s in Hebrew to be extremely confusing. As you're probably well aware (unless you're a foreigner who happened to stumble across my site yet doesn't read English, in which case:

asdghj;alkdsha;wkengoiawe asdg asdkgakdg adsgaowigoawing

....That was an example of English for you to enjoy, dear foreigner), anyway, like I said, as you're probably well aware, English has only one word for "you," in most dialects. The exception, of course, being the Southern "y'all." But for most folks, you can be speaking to a girl, a guy, or a whole stadium full of people and just use "you."

Hebrew, on the other hand, requires the use of three different words that you can call "you man," "you woman," or "you folks." Eventually I got the hang of things, but when I was starting out in Hebrew and during my early days in Israel, I used to just use whatever form of the Hebrew "you" that first came to mind, simply because when I was trying to communicate quickly it did not occur to my English-speaking mind that my first thought of "you" was the wrong one.

So finally I'm getting the hang of things in Hebrew, but now I'm upset with English cos now I want more info from English "you"s. When you say "you" to me, are you talking about me and someone else or just me? Are you addressing me or the member of the opposite gender next to me? GAAAAAAA

Shit, when did I turn into a huge sack of illness? Why am I sick again?!?!?! And when the hell am I supposed to hear back from the JA?

Filler

This post is simply filler to remind myself to tell y'all (basically me) that tonight when I get back from dropping my ma off at the airport I will be writing about long johns that turn into glorified sports bras. Stay tuned!

plus, my eyes are burning and i look like that girl who always looked sick. And huck finn, the ulpanist who floated on by.

Oprah's job isn't her job.

Mom: I hate Oprah now.

Sam: WHAT?!!?!?!?!?!

**********Warning, what follows is the line of the century:***************
Mom: I didn't like that she endorsed Obama. I mean, that's not Oprah's jooooob, telling America who to vote for and what to think and what to do!
***************END***************

Sam: Um, actually that's EXACTLY Oprah's job.

Mom: What are you talking about?

Sam: Mom, she tells everyone in America to read a book and everyone in America--including you--go out and buy that book. She tells people how to lose weight, she tells people what to buy other people (at least in her magazine), she tells people about different issues that Americans suffer from and she tells us how to feel about them....basically, Oprah tells us EVERYTHING, so don't act all shocked that she told you who to vote for.

Currently in a hotel room overlooking Michigan Ave with my maaaaaaaaam!!!!

So, still no news from the JA. Maybe this week? Stay tuned. Or don't. That'd be okay too.

According to my classmates, I am "backwards"

I really hate political arguments. Really, I do. I really don't see the point of them, unless one of the participants is an undecided voter. But otherwise, what the fuck is the point of a die-hard Democrat and a die-hard Republican debating anything? I mean, do you as a Democrat think that maybe if you talk to me viciously enough I'll stop thinking that killing unborn babies is not a right, and do I think that maybe if I, a Republican, yell at you enough you'll suddenly be voting for Palin in 2012?

So, dear whoever is reading this, do not engage me in a political argument. Because I'm not interested in a useless discussion that just makes all participants angry.

Why am I saying this? Because today at Hebrew table, within minutes of arrival someone asked me whether I went to Obama's victory thing downtown. As part of my answer, I mentioned that I was Republican. And, oh gawd, you would have thought that I had announced in the middle of a synagogue that I was a Hitler supporter. This girl immediately demanded--not asked with polite curiosity, but DEMANDED--to know why I was a Republican. I tried to explain in a nutshell, but what followed was just more pure nastiness from this girl. It wasn't so much that she was asking questions that were so out of line (though I guess they WERE out of line since I kept trying to make it clear that I'd prefer to talk about something less divisive), but it was HOW she was asking. It was just pure vicious. And, well, I have to say it made me pretty angry. I don't think I've EVER been even remotely as vicious to a Democrat when I've been in a rare political discussion with one. You're pro-abortion and I'm not? Fine, whatever, i don't really give a shit--let's just cast our votes and let that be it. Seriously, just fuck off, I don't want to talk to you.




Also, rich white kids at elitist universities have GOT to stop talking about communism. When they open their stupid mouths that have known nothing but privilege and they start spewing shit about the workers rising up and everyone living in perfect, government-enforced equality and Marx and blahblahblah....I just want to strangle them, myself, and anyone else within earshot of this stupidity. As I told Abraham, when this girl opened her mouth about communism I could hear my father screaming bloody murder 2000 miles away. At first I thought maybe I wasn't understanding her Hebrew properly, that clearly I was misunderstanding what she was saying cos no one could POSSIBLY be so stupid. But no, it turns out I DID understand! I mean, I could forgive her for advocating socialism, but full-blown communism? Nope, she's clearly retarded.


Okay, hopefully starting tomorrow this blog will be politics-free. Cos I'm just fucking sick of it.

where the hell am I supposed to be?

Edit: I guess I should say something about the election. Well, obviously I'm disappointed that McCain lost. Bright side though? I think Obama's really hot, so at least I have that to look forward to for the next four years (at least). I mean, not JOHN EDWARDS hot, but still quite hot. See, every storm cloud has a silver lining!


So at the moment I'm deciding against aliyah. I guess part of it has to do with the fact that the whole being home thing--driving across the country, experiencing an election, and seeing old friends and family once again--has made me realize that this really is my country. Not that Israel isn't....

I ended up calling my mom and having a sobfest, with me begging to come home. I kept sobbing that I wanted to come home, or that I wanted to go to Israel, or that I wanted to live in the boondocks of some rural state. ANYWHERE but here.

"My mom used to always say that you can't run away from your problems," said my Mom. I responded, "Really? That doesn't sound like grandma...." And my mom said, "Actually, the direct quote was, 'You're going to run away, Karen? Honest? Fine. Just know that wherever you go, YOU'LL still be there.' " And I loved the way my mom acted out my grandma saying "You'll," as if my mother would have been the most repulsive thing to come across when running away from home.

But I guess that's valid. I suppose in all my wanderings, from my longing to move to Wales and lead the Welsh independence movement (my goal throughout high school) to my longing to move to Israel and be a zionist leader (well, technically I wanted to be a prophet or the next Moses, but for some reason G-d chose not to agree), the main issue is that I really just don't like me and I don't like other people.

I'm gonna say that this is a 50-50 thing. Or maybe 75-25. 75% of my problems in life can be directly traced to my self-loathing and to the fact that I am socially inept. And the other 25% of my problems is completely unrelated to me and is based solely on the fact that people, as a rule, are douches. And let's face it: I ain't changing anytime soon. And people are douches, even in Israel.

My mom kept repeating, "Just hang in there." I'm starting to get sick of those words. I feel like that cat from all those posters, you know, the cat that everyone keeps telling, "HANG IN THERE!"



And I just wanna yell back, "BITCH, I AM HANGING FROM A FUCKING TREE BRANCH-- GET ME A GODDAMN LADDER!"

SOMEONE CALL THE FUCKING FIRE DEPARTMENT!

The problem is that if I leave....I give up all the shit I had to put up with. From kindergarten. All of it would be for nothing. And also, barring the taxi driving profession, any other profession I have ever considered in my life would be off-limits to me: I couldn't be a teacher, or an army psychiatrist (seriously, I wanted to do this), or....or whatever.

I'm thinking maybe I just have to "hang in there." And then when I graduate I can go off and lead the Welsh rebellion or some kind of Zionist uprising or some shit like that. For right now though, i guess i just gotta be boring and bored.


EDIT: I keep hearing people say/reading on status messages on Facebook/whatever whatever "Oh, FINALLY I'm proud to be an American!" or "For once in my life I'm actually proud to be an American!" Which I think is pretty disgusting. I mean, I get it, you didn't like Bush. Fine. I don't like Obama but I'm not suddenly ashamed to be an American just because he's going to be our next president. I don't know. I guess I just find people like that absolutely disgusting, kind of like how self-hating Jews are, except here we have self-hating Americans.


Welsh, French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, Romanian-- languages I'd like to try to learn. must talk to college advice person about this...

You know what's really cool about living in the US? When we have elections, the ENTIRE PLANET cares. Which is kind of cool. I mean, no pressure or anything, America....

IT'S GAME TIME, BABY!

it's now a few minutes past midnight. It's officially ELECTION DAY in Chicago (well, unless you count it from the time the polls open, which won't be for a few hours).

IT'S GAME TIME, AMERICA! BRING IT!

If Nader wins....

I love that before every election, you always hear people saying:

"If X wins, I'm moving to Y!"

Example? "If Bush wins, I'm moving to Canada."


Now, on a rational level, I can't imagine Bush was horrible enough to make people want to humiliate themselves by becoming Canadian, but that's another topic for another day....

But for this election, I will say: "If Barack Obama wins, I'm moving to Israel."


But then again, I can also say: "If John McCain wins, I'm moving to Israel."

Regardless of who wins, I'm going.


You know what? Let's get creative. Let's come up with different things to do depending on who wins.
If Nader wins, I'm moving to Wales.
If Bob Barr (libertarian) wins, I'm moving to France.
If McKinney (green) wins, I'm moving to Iraq.
If Keyes (American Independent) wins, I'm moving to New Zealand.


Also, I'm sick of all this "CHANGE!" talk. Obama's using it a bit (okay, understatement of the century), but McCain kind of hopped on that bandwagon as well. You know what? It doesn't matter who wins, not a whole lot is gonna change. Obama's a douche and McCain's a douche. Anybody who could devote an entire year and a half (or however long the campaigns have been running) to "traveling" the country, shaking hands and babies, and trying to say exactly what people want to hear....ANYBODY who does that, regardless of political affiliation, is a douche. You HAVE to be a douche to campaign. Dubya? A douche. John F. Kennedy? A douche. Abraham Lincoln? Also a douche.

So pretty much every president in this nation's history has been a douche, and they're only getting douchier because they're under a lot more scrutiny nowadays, what with the internet and TV and all.

So let's not say anymore, "Well, X seems like the kind of guy I'd have a beer with," because X is actually just a douche. X ain't gonna be drinking beer with you in the foreseeable future because he's too busy being a douche. X doesn't have time to crack open a Budweiser, a taste he secretly despises, with you because, like a gypsy or perhaps a creepy transient hobo, he needs to be moving on to the next state, where he'll pick up even more babies and give even more clammy, limp handshakes to a different crowd of morons.

I'm not sure what my point in saying all of this is. I guess my point is this: no matter who wins tomorrow, if your guy wins you shouldn't say, "Wow, we're in for some great change and some great times under this GLORIOUS LEADER." Because no matter who wins, the "glorious leader" is going to be a douche. That's just how it's going to be. I guess it's a little depressing that we have to live in a world where our lives revolve around which two douches an election will narrow down to every four years, and then we spend the next couple years being led by one of those douches.....but that's how it goes.

And may the best douche win.

GAAAA, I AM SO SICK OF EVERYBODY!

"We're sick of you, too!" shouts back everybody.

So prolly tomorrow or Tuesday I'll find out more Israel details. STAY TUNED, BITCHES


Also, I'm watching Titanic now. For like the millionth time. As with every movie with a sad ending (such as the sinking of aship....), I'm convinced that when I watch it, somehow it'll turn out okay. Like, "Op, the Titanic doesn't sink this time!"

Does anyone else not understand how daylight savings time works? Like, do I get to relive an hour of my life? This is one of those things I think I'll never understand.