So tomorrow I’m going to New York/New Jersey for a week. A surprise from my mother to surprise my brother for his graduation. Yayyyy…. Time to stock up on GAP clothes, DVDs, and country music.
I ended up going to the Misrad Hapnim, the stuff of nightmares, being denied expedited “passport” services (I can’t leave Israel on an American passport anymore), and then bursting into tears. The manager felt so uncomfortable that she hurriedly told me that I should come back tomorrow and it would be ready. Get out, get out, she said to the sobbing mass that was me.
Before I started crying she was screaming at me that I was ridiculous for coming in here and demanding a Teudat Maavar almost immediately, and yelling that this was a government office and not an office for mothers who want to surprise brothers. She then (Oh G-d…) caught sight of my American passport in my hand, which was kind of like waving a red flag in front of a bull. She suddenly got inexplicably furious, threw an angry finger pointing in the direction of this apparently disgusting passport and she just kept asking me if I had any idea how long it took to get my American passport (and therefore how could I expect to get my Israeli one in one day?), and I just kept telling her that the last time I got a passport I was a minor and therefore my parents took care of it. In response she started yelling, repeating herself, “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT TOOK TO GET THIS PASSPORT??!” So I started getting upset and yelled back that I just told her, I was a kid, a little girl, my parents took care of it. She just kept yelling, “DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK TO GET YOUR PASSPORT???” At this point I burst into tears, and started crying and saying that I was like 6 when I got my American passport for the first time, that my parents did it, that I didn’t remember. I continued sobbing hysterically that I just wanted to see my family, and that my mother didn’t know when she surprised me (on Monday.) that I couldn’t use my American passport to leave Israel.
Suddenly the woman goes, “It takes three months for American passports. B’seder, come back tomorrow and you’ll get your Teudat Maavar. Just go. Get out, get out.”
I’m a little scared because a week is just long enough to feel like, “Yay, I’m happy to be speaking English, I’m happy I get to see my family, etc etc etc” but not long enough to really want to go back to Israel. In recognition of that, I’d like to say two things about Israel that make me laugh:
1) Yesterday I was getting on a bus with friends to go see a movie (Angels and Demons---seriously, Dan Brown, you have a vendetta against the Catholic church). My last friend to get on the bus let out a sort of yelp of pain, and then asked the bus driver in Hebrew, “Why did you close the door on my foot???”
And then bus driver yells at her, “Why can’t you make up your mind???” Which causes me to start laughing uncontrollably. As my friends and I make our way to the back of the bus, I hear the bus driver muttering (quite loudly) to himself, “Jeez, are you getting on the bus or not? Make up your mind……Fuck!….”
Which I just loved. You know that in the US the bus driver would have apologized without even thinking twice about it, but in Israel if the bus driver closes the door on you, it’s your own damn fault for not getting on the fucking bus immediately.
2) I love the Israeli equivalent of “Enjoy your meal.” Except in the US the only person who would wish you something like, “Enjoy your meal” would be your waiter. Here, if anyone in a 50 ft radius sees that you are eating something, they tell you to enjoy it. On the kibbutz, as I walked through the dining hall with a lunch/dinner tray to a table, every other table I passed would without fail wish me a good meal. Today I grabbed a croissant as on-the-go breakfast and sat down on some low wall to eat it. There I was, crumbs all over my shirt and face, and no less than five complete strangers who walked by told me Bon Appetit in Hebrew.
So although I love America for its country music, it’s easy to understand government, and for my native language, at least Israel has angry bus drivers closing doors on people and people wishing you an enjoyable meal.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Sam the furrner
We almost just had a riot on our hands. The non-Jewish kitchen staff accidentally put out milk plates for a meat meal, and Oh G-d, by the way the religious kids were acting you would have thought that the apocalypse had come early.
Look, I understand that it’s frustrating and that re-koshering the kitchen and throwing out some ceramic plates is all going to be a hassle. But that’s not an excuse for dramatically striding across the room, giving a nasty look to the kitchen workers, and growling, “Zeh lo tov” (this is not good), and then storming out of the room. It’s not an excuse for throwing a hysterical fit and having loud arguments with the other religious residents about what we have to be doing to save the kitchen. Why?
Because it was just an honest fucking mistake.
It made me miserable to see the looks on the kitchen staff’s faces, because they just looked so humiliated, and I was embarrassed to be ethnically/religiously related to people who could make other people feel as ashamed as this over an accidental mistake. I counted a grand total of one religious person who managed to keep a serene expression on his face, who assured the kitchen staff that everything would be okay, and who quickly and calmly tried to contain the “contamination” to minimize the hassle of making the kitchen kosher again. Meanwhile, most of the religious residents just stood around looking pissed off or verbally expressed their displeasure to the kitchen staff.
Frankly, I would classify today as a day when I was embarrassed to be part of the Jewish people. Most of us just stand around whining about things, making others feel like shit, and only a small fraction of a percent of us ever actually do anything to fix the problem.
On a happier note? I love how protective certain people in the army get of people like me, aka foreign people. At the gibush for combat jobs, I remember how any time someone learned that I was foreign they immediately tried to be as helpful as possible to me. Though it annoyed me, several girls in my squad kept trying to be helpful and translate things into English for me…even stuff I understood perfectly. I remember as I was leaving to go back to Jerusalem, my commander tried to make absolutely sure that I knew how to get home (outside of the bigger cities sometimes it’s hard to find reliable bus information in English), and I remember as one unit gave a presentation on what the unit does—in extremely fast Hebrew—the commander interrupted and said something like, “Speak a little slower so that Sam can understand everything, too.”
At the army thing the other day, I had to take a 300 question questionnaire that was only available in Hebrew. When an officer who was interviewing me found out that I was foreign and that I had to do the questionnaire in Hebrew, he suddenly became extremely concerned for my welfare. He said that if it was too difficult for me to do in Hebrew he would personally arrange for someone to sit with me and say every question in English for me.
The best part of that day was the interview. The officer (soooo good looking!) asked a couple details, like about my name/birthday/parents’ names/etc. After asking about my parents, he said, “And where do you (plural) live?” And I said, “What do you mean, where do I live or where do they live?”
“YOU MEAN YOU MADE ALIYAH ALONE???”
As I confirmed this, he immediately stopped taking notes, turned over his folder, and started asking questions about how I could possibly make aliyah alone, and all that hoopla. He was totally freaking out, “But…but…but….you can make so much more money in the US! It’s so much safer there!!!” But then every couple seconds he’d say, “Col HaCavod!”
Eventually we had to continue the interview, so he turned back over his notes, but every couple of minutes he would let out a noise of disbelief and be like, “Wow, I still can’t believe you made aliyah alone,” followed by the phrase, “Col HaCavod….” After a few more minutes the officer formally ended the interview. As I stood up and began to head back to the testing room, he stopped me and said something like, “On a personal level, not as an officer interviewing you, I want to say that the story of your aliyah has really moved me.”
I MOVED SOMEONE! Haha, awesome.
I wanted to be like, “And your sexiness has really moved me.” But instead I just blushed and scurried back to my tests. Hopefully once I’m actually in the army the idea of a man in uniform will lose its appeal, otherwise I’m going to be swooning every ten seconds.
But wow, I never thought aliyah could be an ego booster. I feel like every five seconds someone is telling me how great I am for giving up “everything” in order to come to Israel, etc etc.
Also, as I’ve mentioned before, a girl keeps trying to name me in a synagogue. She was really pushing for me to do it this very weekend. She keeps telling me that it’s weird/stupid for me to go around in Israel with such a foreign name and that I should choose a nice Hebrew name, because that’s actually what G-d wants. She says that especially in the army I’m going to want an Israeli name.
But in my limited experience with the army, I actually much prefer having an English name in a sea of “Avi”s or “Lior”s or “Shoshi”s or whatevers. I like that when my name gets called in the Lishkat Giyus, I’m the only one who stands up, unlike with some Hebrew names. I like that at the gibush I was the only girl in the group whose name the commander and all the other girls remembered, because it was foreign and I was foreign. I liked that at the army interview yesterday several of the soldiers remembered that I was “Samantha,” yet couldn’t tell you the names of any of the other girls in the room.
My whole life in the US I was one of many Sam’s or Samantha’s or Sammy’s, and now when I finally get the chance to be the only one I’m supposed to change my name?
Look, I understand that it’s frustrating and that re-koshering the kitchen and throwing out some ceramic plates is all going to be a hassle. But that’s not an excuse for dramatically striding across the room, giving a nasty look to the kitchen workers, and growling, “Zeh lo tov” (this is not good), and then storming out of the room. It’s not an excuse for throwing a hysterical fit and having loud arguments with the other religious residents about what we have to be doing to save the kitchen. Why?
Because it was just an honest fucking mistake.
It made me miserable to see the looks on the kitchen staff’s faces, because they just looked so humiliated, and I was embarrassed to be ethnically/religiously related to people who could make other people feel as ashamed as this over an accidental mistake. I counted a grand total of one religious person who managed to keep a serene expression on his face, who assured the kitchen staff that everything would be okay, and who quickly and calmly tried to contain the “contamination” to minimize the hassle of making the kitchen kosher again. Meanwhile, most of the religious residents just stood around looking pissed off or verbally expressed their displeasure to the kitchen staff.
Frankly, I would classify today as a day when I was embarrassed to be part of the Jewish people. Most of us just stand around whining about things, making others feel like shit, and only a small fraction of a percent of us ever actually do anything to fix the problem.
On a happier note? I love how protective certain people in the army get of people like me, aka foreign people. At the gibush for combat jobs, I remember how any time someone learned that I was foreign they immediately tried to be as helpful as possible to me. Though it annoyed me, several girls in my squad kept trying to be helpful and translate things into English for me…even stuff I understood perfectly. I remember as I was leaving to go back to Jerusalem, my commander tried to make absolutely sure that I knew how to get home (outside of the bigger cities sometimes it’s hard to find reliable bus information in English), and I remember as one unit gave a presentation on what the unit does—in extremely fast Hebrew—the commander interrupted and said something like, “Speak a little slower so that Sam can understand everything, too.”
At the army thing the other day, I had to take a 300 question questionnaire that was only available in Hebrew. When an officer who was interviewing me found out that I was foreign and that I had to do the questionnaire in Hebrew, he suddenly became extremely concerned for my welfare. He said that if it was too difficult for me to do in Hebrew he would personally arrange for someone to sit with me and say every question in English for me.
The best part of that day was the interview. The officer (soooo good looking!) asked a couple details, like about my name/birthday/parents’ names/etc. After asking about my parents, he said, “And where do you (plural) live?” And I said, “What do you mean, where do I live or where do they live?”
“YOU MEAN YOU MADE ALIYAH ALONE???”
As I confirmed this, he immediately stopped taking notes, turned over his folder, and started asking questions about how I could possibly make aliyah alone, and all that hoopla. He was totally freaking out, “But…but…but….you can make so much more money in the US! It’s so much safer there!!!” But then every couple seconds he’d say, “Col HaCavod!”
Eventually we had to continue the interview, so he turned back over his notes, but every couple of minutes he would let out a noise of disbelief and be like, “Wow, I still can’t believe you made aliyah alone,” followed by the phrase, “Col HaCavod….” After a few more minutes the officer formally ended the interview. As I stood up and began to head back to the testing room, he stopped me and said something like, “On a personal level, not as an officer interviewing you, I want to say that the story of your aliyah has really moved me.”
I MOVED SOMEONE! Haha, awesome.
I wanted to be like, “And your sexiness has really moved me.” But instead I just blushed and scurried back to my tests. Hopefully once I’m actually in the army the idea of a man in uniform will lose its appeal, otherwise I’m going to be swooning every ten seconds.
But wow, I never thought aliyah could be an ego booster. I feel like every five seconds someone is telling me how great I am for giving up “everything” in order to come to Israel, etc etc.
Also, as I’ve mentioned before, a girl keeps trying to name me in a synagogue. She was really pushing for me to do it this very weekend. She keeps telling me that it’s weird/stupid for me to go around in Israel with such a foreign name and that I should choose a nice Hebrew name, because that’s actually what G-d wants. She says that especially in the army I’m going to want an Israeli name.
But in my limited experience with the army, I actually much prefer having an English name in a sea of “Avi”s or “Lior”s or “Shoshi”s or whatevers. I like that when my name gets called in the Lishkat Giyus, I’m the only one who stands up, unlike with some Hebrew names. I like that at the gibush I was the only girl in the group whose name the commander and all the other girls remembered, because it was foreign and I was foreign. I liked that at the army interview yesterday several of the soldiers remembered that I was “Samantha,” yet couldn’t tell you the names of any of the other girls in the room.
My whole life in the US I was one of many Sam’s or Samantha’s or Sammy’s, and now when I finally get the chance to be the only one I’m supposed to change my name?
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Shoulder Soldiers and Arab Radio
Okay, not going to lie…I love the Eurovision song that won. Which is embarrassing. But whatever.
Yesterday in Beer Sheva? Hot as a bat’s ass. But then again, it was also boiling in Jerusalem. Granted, it was a little hotter in Beer Sheva, but I feel like after you reach a certain point of discomfort, a few degrees doesn’t make a difference. Okay, maybe I had 6-inch pit stains when I would have only had 5-inch ones in Jerusalem, whatever.
Oh, the other night my roommate screamed in her sleep…nothing new…but this time she did it in Hebrew! She only started learning Hebrew in January, and already she can scream in her sleep in grammatically correct Hebrew! I wanted to wake her up and congratulate her.
Speaking of French, yesterday stepping off a bus in Beer Sheva I completely ate pavement. Just, BAM, on the floor. It was really embarrassing. The woman getting off the bus with me looked at me with a look of concern and said to me in Hebrew, “Tizahari…” (“Be careful”), but for some reason (the fact that I’m deaf and also a complete space cadet) I thought she was speaking French and had said, “Desolée” (“Sorry”). I thought she thought that she had caused my fall. So then I started explaining to her in French that it wasn’t her fault…..at which point I finally realized that the woman hadn’t been speaking French at all. The woman just kind of looked at me funny and then crossed the street very quickly to get away from me.
Anyway, getting on the bus to Beer Sheva (not the one I fell off of), I arrived just seconds before the bus was to leave. Consequently, there was only one seat left, in the back row, sandwiched between a bunch of sleeping soldiers. A couple minutes into the ride, the soldier on my left decided he wasn’t comfortable leaning on the window and sort of shifted his head a little more towards my direction. Slowly but surely, as he got deeper and deeper into sleep, his head found his way to my shoulder. I hate when this happens to me, even if it’s someone I know, but I felt bad because soldiers are notoriously sleepy so I didn’t want to wake him. I figured I’d probably end up sleeping on a stranger on a bus at some point during my army service and I would appreciate it if said member of the public allowed me to continue to sleep. So I said nothing. But at the very moment when he had finished transferring the full weight of his head onto my shoulder, he woke up very suddenly, with a strong jolt that the entire row of soldiers next to me could feel, completely mortified that he was now sleeping on a stranger.
The soldier, now with a bright red face, tried sleeping upright, and I ended up shaking from silent laughter. After a few minutes the soldier had forgotten his embarrassment and had dozed off again. Once more, his head began a gradual migration to my shoulder. It’s hard to describe what happened next in words instead of simply demonstrating it in person, but let me try: When his head finally rested on my shoulder, instead of jerking back in surprise and embarrassment like he did last time, he actually grabbed my shoulder and moved it to more comfortable position for him. He tugged my shoulder down a bit, then pushed it a little farther away, and then settled his head back down on it again. All very sleepily and with his eyes closed, mind you. It was a bit like he was fluffing a pillow, except I’m person. A person this guy doesn’t know. By this point I was dying of laughter inside. I took a look over at his beret and shoulder tag (which, before the soldier shifted MY body position, had been hidden from me), and it turns out…he’s was wearing the exact same beret and tag that I would be wearing! Haha….Oh man…..
Also, I got a new phone today (yeah, I dropped my phone in a toilet while brushing my hair….luckily the toilet was clean at the time….), and this phone has radio capabilities. Unfortunately, when I’m in my building I only pick up signals to the east of the building. It just so happens that I live over the Green Line, meaning that “East” is basically Arab central. So, without exaggeration, the only radio I have access to is a single station--in Arabic. I just heard them advertising a store and then the name of the city Amman, so it may very well be Jordanian radio that I’m picking up.
This bizarre song in Arabic came on advertising McDonald’s chicken gourmet, and I think I just shat my pants laughing.
Yesterday in Beer Sheva? Hot as a bat’s ass. But then again, it was also boiling in Jerusalem. Granted, it was a little hotter in Beer Sheva, but I feel like after you reach a certain point of discomfort, a few degrees doesn’t make a difference. Okay, maybe I had 6-inch pit stains when I would have only had 5-inch ones in Jerusalem, whatever.
Oh, the other night my roommate screamed in her sleep…nothing new…but this time she did it in Hebrew! She only started learning Hebrew in January, and already she can scream in her sleep in grammatically correct Hebrew! I wanted to wake her up and congratulate her.
Speaking of French, yesterday stepping off a bus in Beer Sheva I completely ate pavement. Just, BAM, on the floor. It was really embarrassing. The woman getting off the bus with me looked at me with a look of concern and said to me in Hebrew, “Tizahari…” (“Be careful”), but for some reason (the fact that I’m deaf and also a complete space cadet) I thought she was speaking French and had said, “Desolée” (“Sorry”). I thought she thought that she had caused my fall. So then I started explaining to her in French that it wasn’t her fault…..at which point I finally realized that the woman hadn’t been speaking French at all. The woman just kind of looked at me funny and then crossed the street very quickly to get away from me.
Anyway, getting on the bus to Beer Sheva (not the one I fell off of), I arrived just seconds before the bus was to leave. Consequently, there was only one seat left, in the back row, sandwiched between a bunch of sleeping soldiers. A couple minutes into the ride, the soldier on my left decided he wasn’t comfortable leaning on the window and sort of shifted his head a little more towards my direction. Slowly but surely, as he got deeper and deeper into sleep, his head found his way to my shoulder. I hate when this happens to me, even if it’s someone I know, but I felt bad because soldiers are notoriously sleepy so I didn’t want to wake him. I figured I’d probably end up sleeping on a stranger on a bus at some point during my army service and I would appreciate it if said member of the public allowed me to continue to sleep. So I said nothing. But at the very moment when he had finished transferring the full weight of his head onto my shoulder, he woke up very suddenly, with a strong jolt that the entire row of soldiers next to me could feel, completely mortified that he was now sleeping on a stranger.
The soldier, now with a bright red face, tried sleeping upright, and I ended up shaking from silent laughter. After a few minutes the soldier had forgotten his embarrassment and had dozed off again. Once more, his head began a gradual migration to my shoulder. It’s hard to describe what happened next in words instead of simply demonstrating it in person, but let me try: When his head finally rested on my shoulder, instead of jerking back in surprise and embarrassment like he did last time, he actually grabbed my shoulder and moved it to more comfortable position for him. He tugged my shoulder down a bit, then pushed it a little farther away, and then settled his head back down on it again. All very sleepily and with his eyes closed, mind you. It was a bit like he was fluffing a pillow, except I’m person. A person this guy doesn’t know. By this point I was dying of laughter inside. I took a look over at his beret and shoulder tag (which, before the soldier shifted MY body position, had been hidden from me), and it turns out…he’s was wearing the exact same beret and tag that I would be wearing! Haha….Oh man…..
Also, I got a new phone today (yeah, I dropped my phone in a toilet while brushing my hair….luckily the toilet was clean at the time….), and this phone has radio capabilities. Unfortunately, when I’m in my building I only pick up signals to the east of the building. It just so happens that I live over the Green Line, meaning that “East” is basically Arab central. So, without exaggeration, the only radio I have access to is a single station--in Arabic. I just heard them advertising a store and then the name of the city Amman, so it may very well be Jordanian radio that I’m picking up.
This bizarre song in Arabic came on advertising McDonald’s chicken gourmet, and I think I just shat my pants laughing.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Farts and Intelligence
So is ripping loud farts not vulgar in certain cultures? Cos I was just sitting in the public common room in my absorption center and there was this one guy chatting on Skype (no headphones…), and every couple of minutes he’d rip a loud mid-sentence fart. Totally nonchalant. My friend and I, on the other hand, were about to have aneurysms trying not to laugh.
So anyway, the good news is that I passed the “exam” for combat soldier positions in general. The bad news is that for this particular job that I’ve been accepted into (Field Intelligence, or Field Intelligence Collecting), I have to undergo a security interview thing. I was talking to a friend who interviewed for a job at the Israeli embassy, and who therefore underwent a strenuous security interview, and he tried to give me some kind of an idea of what questions they’ll ask me. Among other more boring questions, he said they’ll probably give me some shit about my dad being Christian, they’ll ask about any medical problems, and they’ll ask about political beliefs and about any activism I’ve been a part of.
And of course they ask about any drug use.
Let’s be pretty honest here, kids: I’m pretty straightedge. But the honest answer is that, yes, I have smoked weed on a few occasions over the past few years. Is the amount of times I’ve done that really low though? Yes. Have I done that in the past year? No. Do I plan on using drugs of any kind in the near future? No. I asked my friend if I should just be honest, and he told me to just lie.
My problem is that I’m a terrible liar. Usually when I tell lies I’m so bad at it that it doesn’t even get to the point where people actually believe me. On the rare occasions when I actually do get someone to believe my lie, I’m so pleased with myself for finally succeeding that I end up smiling uncontrollably, almost like a smirk of, “I can’t believe I got away with it,” which instantly dashes my success away.
So my thought here is that if I choose to lie, I won’t be able to lie convincingly, meaning the interviewer will think that in addition to being a drug user (and who knows how many times!!! Maybe she’s high right now!!!), I’m also a tremendous liar. My idea is that if I just tell the truth, it might be less harmful. Still not exactly a positive point of my interview, but less harmful than telling a lie. It’s like one of those bizarre things my mother told me a lot when I was younger:
“If you’re on trial for murder and your honest alibi is that you were shoplifting at the time of the murder…just go ahead and tell them you were shoplifting.”
Sure, it’s not as catchy as some homey sayings you might find in Little House on the Prairie, like “Waste not, want not” or “Marry in black and you’ll wish yourself back,” but this is the wisdom of my mother. And I think she makes a fair point.
So anyway, the good news is that I passed the “exam” for combat soldier positions in general. The bad news is that for this particular job that I’ve been accepted into (Field Intelligence, or Field Intelligence Collecting), I have to undergo a security interview thing. I was talking to a friend who interviewed for a job at the Israeli embassy, and who therefore underwent a strenuous security interview, and he tried to give me some kind of an idea of what questions they’ll ask me. Among other more boring questions, he said they’ll probably give me some shit about my dad being Christian, they’ll ask about any medical problems, and they’ll ask about political beliefs and about any activism I’ve been a part of.
And of course they ask about any drug use.
Let’s be pretty honest here, kids: I’m pretty straightedge. But the honest answer is that, yes, I have smoked weed on a few occasions over the past few years. Is the amount of times I’ve done that really low though? Yes. Have I done that in the past year? No. Do I plan on using drugs of any kind in the near future? No. I asked my friend if I should just be honest, and he told me to just lie.
My problem is that I’m a terrible liar. Usually when I tell lies I’m so bad at it that it doesn’t even get to the point where people actually believe me. On the rare occasions when I actually do get someone to believe my lie, I’m so pleased with myself for finally succeeding that I end up smiling uncontrollably, almost like a smirk of, “I can’t believe I got away with it,” which instantly dashes my success away.
So my thought here is that if I choose to lie, I won’t be able to lie convincingly, meaning the interviewer will think that in addition to being a drug user (and who knows how many times!!! Maybe she’s high right now!!!), I’m also a tremendous liar. My idea is that if I just tell the truth, it might be less harmful. Still not exactly a positive point of my interview, but less harmful than telling a lie. It’s like one of those bizarre things my mother told me a lot when I was younger:
“If you’re on trial for murder and your honest alibi is that you were shoplifting at the time of the murder…just go ahead and tell them you were shoplifting.”
Sure, it’s not as catchy as some homey sayings you might find in Little House on the Prairie, like “Waste not, want not” or “Marry in black and you’ll wish yourself back,” but this is the wisdom of my mother. And I think she makes a fair point.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
oh jeez
I love being sick. Not because it’s particularly nice to have snot dribbling out of your nose like it’s some kind of leaky faucet, and not because it’s pleasant feeling like your body aged 60 years overnight….but because sometimes it’s nice having an excuse to lie in bed all day.
Sure, I’m living on my own so I can pretty much lie in bed as long as I want even when I’m in perfect health…theoretically. Unfortunately, years of living in my mother’s house has conditioned me to be really bad at sleeping in. That is, my natural desire is to want to sleep all day, but every few minutes after 8 am I keep waking up expecting my mother to barge in and start scolding me for being lazy. Of course, my mother is now 8000 miles away and is probably not going to be barging in every few minutes in the morning yelling at me to wake up, but old habits die hard. I feel guilty when I sleep in.
I think this was my mother’s way of trying to prevent me from becoming her. My mother, like every normal human being I suppose, LOVES sleeping in. And the woman is a Master of The Nap. At about 2 pm she might crawl into bed, telling anyone who will listen, “I’m just going to rest my eyes for a for minutes, I swear, just for a couple minutes.” And for us kids, we know that this means that we’ll be eating Chinese food or pizza for dinner tonight, because at 9 pm or so she’ll wake up and groggily ask what time it is and…”Oh G-d! Is it really??? Oh jeez….well what should we do about dinner?”
The best though was when my mom would come barging in to wake me up, and I’d weakly say, “I don’t feel good.” And boom. Immediately my mom’s voice would change from a scolding yell to a soothing whisper. From that point on I would be allowed to lie in bed for as long as I wanted, whether it was till noon or until next Wednesday. Periodically my mom would come in to wake me, but this time offering orange juice (or Sprite if I were suffering from some kind of stomach ailment).
So this weekend I’ve been sick. Meaning I’ve been lying in bed all day and not feeling in the slightest bit guilty or lazy. All I need now is someone to bring me some OJ…
Last night I saw “Twilight” for the first time….oh man….I’m so embarrassed to admit that I liked it. Am I turning back into a preteen girl? What a horrible thought. Christ…. Luckily I was the youngest girl in the room watching the movie, so I guess it was slightly less lame for me to be enjoying the movie. Only slightly. All I know is that from the amount of squealing and swooning and gushing going on in the room, I felt like I was at some 7th grade slumber party. But in the awesomest sense possible.
Girl One: “OH MY GAAAD, HE’S IN HER ROOM!!!”
Girl Two: “I’m going to start leaving my window open at night and hope that a hot vampire guy comes in while I’m sleeping.”
Girl Three: “Well it couldn’t hurt. …Unless he eats you.”
So, completely unrelated, there’s this girl in my class who clearly doesn’t like paying attention to the teacher. She’s constantly bored and uninterested and fidgety. Which I can totally relate to, because I am also bored during class. It’s difficult to sit through grammar class for several hours every day, and to top it off the teacher is strange and boring. But when it comes down to it, class is optional, a gift from the government. But this girl…she squirms like someone is holding her down, forcing her to be in class. It’s like she’s struggling desperately to get out of her chair, unbearably bored yet unable to just get up off her ass and leave the classroom. She constantly lets out exasperated sighs, and says, “This is so boring,” or “I can’t stand this,” or “No, I can’t sit here any longer.” Which I don’t really understand. That’s not to say that class is always a joy for me, but at least I just shut up about it. Okay, I’m bored, so I’ll doodle in the margins of my notes. Or I’ll keep a tally of how many times the teacher says “Okayyyyyyyyyyy,” or I’ll daydream. I don’t really understand the need for constantly announcing how horrible the class is. Just leave or shut up. It’s driving me crazy. Once she tried to take a nap during class—using my shoulder as a pillow—and I nearly lost it. I wanted to smack her and yell, “GROW THE FUCK UP ALREADY!” but instead I just sort of shrugged my shoulders until she took the hint that I wasn’t a pillow. What’s really frustrating is that this girl—or woman actually—is a college graduate, and not just a worker but a “professional.” She’s several years older than me. And I’m a college drop-out, the youngest in the class by several years. And yet…who knows how to behave herself?
Sure, I’m living on my own so I can pretty much lie in bed as long as I want even when I’m in perfect health…theoretically. Unfortunately, years of living in my mother’s house has conditioned me to be really bad at sleeping in. That is, my natural desire is to want to sleep all day, but every few minutes after 8 am I keep waking up expecting my mother to barge in and start scolding me for being lazy. Of course, my mother is now 8000 miles away and is probably not going to be barging in every few minutes in the morning yelling at me to wake up, but old habits die hard. I feel guilty when I sleep in.
I think this was my mother’s way of trying to prevent me from becoming her. My mother, like every normal human being I suppose, LOVES sleeping in. And the woman is a Master of The Nap. At about 2 pm she might crawl into bed, telling anyone who will listen, “I’m just going to rest my eyes for a for minutes, I swear, just for a couple minutes.” And for us kids, we know that this means that we’ll be eating Chinese food or pizza for dinner tonight, because at 9 pm or so she’ll wake up and groggily ask what time it is and…”Oh G-d! Is it really??? Oh jeez….well what should we do about dinner?”
The best though was when my mom would come barging in to wake me up, and I’d weakly say, “I don’t feel good.” And boom. Immediately my mom’s voice would change from a scolding yell to a soothing whisper. From that point on I would be allowed to lie in bed for as long as I wanted, whether it was till noon or until next Wednesday. Periodically my mom would come in to wake me, but this time offering orange juice (or Sprite if I were suffering from some kind of stomach ailment).
So this weekend I’ve been sick. Meaning I’ve been lying in bed all day and not feeling in the slightest bit guilty or lazy. All I need now is someone to bring me some OJ…
Last night I saw “Twilight” for the first time….oh man….I’m so embarrassed to admit that I liked it. Am I turning back into a preteen girl? What a horrible thought. Christ…. Luckily I was the youngest girl in the room watching the movie, so I guess it was slightly less lame for me to be enjoying the movie. Only slightly. All I know is that from the amount of squealing and swooning and gushing going on in the room, I felt like I was at some 7th grade slumber party. But in the awesomest sense possible.
Girl One: “OH MY GAAAD, HE’S IN HER ROOM!!!”
Girl Two: “I’m going to start leaving my window open at night and hope that a hot vampire guy comes in while I’m sleeping.”
Girl Three: “Well it couldn’t hurt. …Unless he eats you.”
So, completely unrelated, there’s this girl in my class who clearly doesn’t like paying attention to the teacher. She’s constantly bored and uninterested and fidgety. Which I can totally relate to, because I am also bored during class. It’s difficult to sit through grammar class for several hours every day, and to top it off the teacher is strange and boring. But when it comes down to it, class is optional, a gift from the government. But this girl…she squirms like someone is holding her down, forcing her to be in class. It’s like she’s struggling desperately to get out of her chair, unbearably bored yet unable to just get up off her ass and leave the classroom. She constantly lets out exasperated sighs, and says, “This is so boring,” or “I can’t stand this,” or “No, I can’t sit here any longer.” Which I don’t really understand. That’s not to say that class is always a joy for me, but at least I just shut up about it. Okay, I’m bored, so I’ll doodle in the margins of my notes. Or I’ll keep a tally of how many times the teacher says “Okayyyyyyyyyyy,” or I’ll daydream. I don’t really understand the need for constantly announcing how horrible the class is. Just leave or shut up. It’s driving me crazy. Once she tried to take a nap during class—using my shoulder as a pillow—and I nearly lost it. I wanted to smack her and yell, “GROW THE FUCK UP ALREADY!” but instead I just sort of shrugged my shoulders until she took the hint that I wasn’t a pillow. What’s really frustrating is that this girl—or woman actually—is a college graduate, and not just a worker but a “professional.” She’s several years older than me. And I’m a college drop-out, the youngest in the class by several years. And yet…who knows how to behave herself?
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Atonement
A couple nights ago I had a fantastic dream. Every friend from every stage in my life that I had fallen out with or that I had simply grown apart from was there. Basically it was everyone I wanted to see again but that I wouldn’t see in real life, even if I were still in the same country.
How did the dream start? By some mysterious figure I was ushered to some nondescript building next to what looked like a futuristic version of Haifa’s Carmelit. Except this time it wasn’t underground, but rather aboveground encased in glass tunnels. Anyway, I came into this building, a one-room building, and in the one room it was kind of dark and mysterious. Kind of Indian design. And there were tables with packets of papers and books and so forth. Just paper EVERYWHERE.
Hearing me come in, all the people in the room looked up. “Holy shit,” I thought to myself within the dream, “it’s everyone I ever fought with and never made up with….and some other people I haven’t seen in years!” There was a temporary moment of awkward hesitance, and then everyone burst forth offering apologies, whether for something they had done to me or for not keeping in touch. Basically, in my dream, every person gave me exactly the kind of apology I would have wanted in real life. Exactly. 100 percent.
I forgave them all, and then asked forgiveness for everything I had done to them. I wondered out loud why we hadn’t done this sooner, and then everyone told me, “We would have done it sooner, but we wanted to first find a way to make everything up to you. We decided the best thing to do would be to edit everything you ever wrote and compile it for you.” WHAT?? AWESOME.
All laughing together happily, me and my crowd exited the room…which had now become a bizarre kind of gypsy/circus tent on the outside. Somehow we had been transported back to my elementary school, and we wandered out to the traffic circle (in elementary school it was sort of like this forbidden “jungle” that we all would die to play on), still talking and catching up. I looked around and saw that there were Christmas decorations everywhere. Pretty much, everything was awesome.
One person, with whom I have been more recently fighting/growing apart from, decided that the group apology wasn’t enough, and so we separated from the group and got back on the futuristic Carmelite. We were just about to start our conversation when suddenly I woke up.
Fuck. Still confused and half asleep I hear someone screaming in French, “WHY DID YOU TAKE MY THING?”
Dammit. Dammit.
Waking up was maybe the worst feeling ever. To feel like every fight with every friend I’ve ever fallen out with was finally resolved…and then suddenly to realize that NOTHING happened. …just shit!
How did the dream start? By some mysterious figure I was ushered to some nondescript building next to what looked like a futuristic version of Haifa’s Carmelit. Except this time it wasn’t underground, but rather aboveground encased in glass tunnels. Anyway, I came into this building, a one-room building, and in the one room it was kind of dark and mysterious. Kind of Indian design. And there were tables with packets of papers and books and so forth. Just paper EVERYWHERE.
Hearing me come in, all the people in the room looked up. “Holy shit,” I thought to myself within the dream, “it’s everyone I ever fought with and never made up with….and some other people I haven’t seen in years!” There was a temporary moment of awkward hesitance, and then everyone burst forth offering apologies, whether for something they had done to me or for not keeping in touch. Basically, in my dream, every person gave me exactly the kind of apology I would have wanted in real life. Exactly. 100 percent.
I forgave them all, and then asked forgiveness for everything I had done to them. I wondered out loud why we hadn’t done this sooner, and then everyone told me, “We would have done it sooner, but we wanted to first find a way to make everything up to you. We decided the best thing to do would be to edit everything you ever wrote and compile it for you.” WHAT?? AWESOME.
All laughing together happily, me and my crowd exited the room…which had now become a bizarre kind of gypsy/circus tent on the outside. Somehow we had been transported back to my elementary school, and we wandered out to the traffic circle (in elementary school it was sort of like this forbidden “jungle” that we all would die to play on), still talking and catching up. I looked around and saw that there were Christmas decorations everywhere. Pretty much, everything was awesome.
One person, with whom I have been more recently fighting/growing apart from, decided that the group apology wasn’t enough, and so we separated from the group and got back on the futuristic Carmelite. We were just about to start our conversation when suddenly I woke up.
Fuck. Still confused and half asleep I hear someone screaming in French, “WHY DID YOU TAKE MY THING?”
Dammit. Dammit.
Waking up was maybe the worst feeling ever. To feel like every fight with every friend I’ve ever fallen out with was finally resolved…and then suddenly to realize that NOTHING happened. …just shit!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Semite Fight
My Australian roommate back on the kibbutz used to tell me frequently that you should never insult a Middle Easterner’s mother, because no one gets insulted by that sort of thing like these people do. I used to laugh and playfully tease her, “What, do you know of an ethnicity whose people LIKE having their mother insulted?”
Anyway, during work the boss told me to fill up the refrigerator in front with soft drinks from the back. So after taking a couple minutes to make a note of what was missing up front, I headed to the back room. I had to squeeze by because the boss seemed to be arguing with one of the other workers, telling him to be more respectful to another worker…but I wasn’t really paying attention. I had my back to the whole thing while I grabbed myself a crate, and as I turned back around to start filling it up I noticed that one coworker was holding back another coworker. For the sake of clarity, I’ll tell you that the coworker being held back was Arab. I then took a second look and saw that the boss was holding a Jewish coworker back. The Jew and the Arab kept trying to lunge at the other, and kept screaming at each other. I couldn’t tell exactly who or what started the fight, but apparently mothers on both sides had been insulted, and so both were screaming things like, “Don’t you talk about my mother!”
“WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MY MOTHER???”
“WHAT DOES MY MOTHER HAVE TO DO WITH THIS?”
Part of me wanted to run to the Arab’s aid, because he’s the only coworker who hasn’t made a nasty comment about my weight, and is just generally very nice, and also because he’s sort of a kindred spirit—his Hebrew is very good, much better than mine, but it’s still not his language of comfort and so he sometimes feels sort of out of the loop just like me. The non-Israeli part of me felt that it was unfair that the Jew got to yell at this guy and fight back in his native tongue, whereas the Arab had to do it in a foreign language. To top it off, for various reasons I don’t like this particular Jew. So basically—and I say this as a loyal Zionist and Jew—I was rooting for the Arab to beat the shit out of this Jew.
But I just sort of stood there dumbfounded. Clearly it would be inappropriate for me to continue filling up my crate with soft drinks in this tiny back room filled with screaming and thrashing foreigners. But what was I supposed to do? I didn’t know if I should grab a pizza cutter to protect myself or if I should start singing some kind of peaceful Jesus or Kumbaya song in hopes that everyone would stop fighting and instead hold hands and join together in song. Maybe even make s’mores. And part of me considered turning the sink hose on them.
Instead I decided to just stand there with my mouth partially open, looking like a total retard.
The lunging got more aggressive, and the shouting got more frightening. What was particularly terrifying about the whole situation was that I didn’t fully understand what was going on because of the language barrier, but it was perfectly obvious that things were gonna get UGLY. “Oh G-d,” I thought to myself, “this is the part where people start blowing up.” Were we going to have to call in the American Army?
The boss, struggling to hold back the lunging Jew, caught sight of me standing agape like some kind of feminine and obese version of Aeneas (“obstipescere”) and shouted for me to leave the room and close the door. So I weaved my way through a sea of thrashing Jews and an Arab, and closed the door. Customers kept curiously glancing towards the door to the back room, because you could still hear people screaming at each other, and you could hear the aggressive shuffling of lunging feet. So I just turned up the volume to the song “Don’t Stop” by the Rolling Stones and hoped for the best….
Actually, the song “Don’t Stop” felt appropriately aggressive. I think it could have been worse if I had tried to cover up the sounds to Middle Easterners screaming at each other with something like the song “MMMBop” by Hanson or “Downtown” by Petula Clark. Or “Dancing Queen.” Now that would have just been disturbing…
Anyway, during work the boss told me to fill up the refrigerator in front with soft drinks from the back. So after taking a couple minutes to make a note of what was missing up front, I headed to the back room. I had to squeeze by because the boss seemed to be arguing with one of the other workers, telling him to be more respectful to another worker…but I wasn’t really paying attention. I had my back to the whole thing while I grabbed myself a crate, and as I turned back around to start filling it up I noticed that one coworker was holding back another coworker. For the sake of clarity, I’ll tell you that the coworker being held back was Arab. I then took a second look and saw that the boss was holding a Jewish coworker back. The Jew and the Arab kept trying to lunge at the other, and kept screaming at each other. I couldn’t tell exactly who or what started the fight, but apparently mothers on both sides had been insulted, and so both were screaming things like, “Don’t you talk about my mother!”
“WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MY MOTHER???”
“WHAT DOES MY MOTHER HAVE TO DO WITH THIS?”
Part of me wanted to run to the Arab’s aid, because he’s the only coworker who hasn’t made a nasty comment about my weight, and is just generally very nice, and also because he’s sort of a kindred spirit—his Hebrew is very good, much better than mine, but it’s still not his language of comfort and so he sometimes feels sort of out of the loop just like me. The non-Israeli part of me felt that it was unfair that the Jew got to yell at this guy and fight back in his native tongue, whereas the Arab had to do it in a foreign language. To top it off, for various reasons I don’t like this particular Jew. So basically—and I say this as a loyal Zionist and Jew—I was rooting for the Arab to beat the shit out of this Jew.
But I just sort of stood there dumbfounded. Clearly it would be inappropriate for me to continue filling up my crate with soft drinks in this tiny back room filled with screaming and thrashing foreigners. But what was I supposed to do? I didn’t know if I should grab a pizza cutter to protect myself or if I should start singing some kind of peaceful Jesus or Kumbaya song in hopes that everyone would stop fighting and instead hold hands and join together in song. Maybe even make s’mores. And part of me considered turning the sink hose on them.
Instead I decided to just stand there with my mouth partially open, looking like a total retard.
The lunging got more aggressive, and the shouting got more frightening. What was particularly terrifying about the whole situation was that I didn’t fully understand what was going on because of the language barrier, but it was perfectly obvious that things were gonna get UGLY. “Oh G-d,” I thought to myself, “this is the part where people start blowing up.” Were we going to have to call in the American Army?
The boss, struggling to hold back the lunging Jew, caught sight of me standing agape like some kind of feminine and obese version of Aeneas (“obstipescere”) and shouted for me to leave the room and close the door. So I weaved my way through a sea of thrashing Jews and an Arab, and closed the door. Customers kept curiously glancing towards the door to the back room, because you could still hear people screaming at each other, and you could hear the aggressive shuffling of lunging feet. So I just turned up the volume to the song “Don’t Stop” by the Rolling Stones and hoped for the best….
Actually, the song “Don’t Stop” felt appropriately aggressive. I think it could have been worse if I had tried to cover up the sounds to Middle Easterners screaming at each other with something like the song “MMMBop” by Hanson or “Downtown” by Petula Clark. Or “Dancing Queen.” Now that would have just been disturbing…
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Haredi Crushes
So today I met a potential housemate, and he was so good looking that I was actually embarrassed at the prospect of living with him. It was actually extremely difficult, trying to come across as a rational, sane, friendly and mature adult….and yet inside feeling like a giggling schoolgirl. Oh G-d, I’m such a freak….
Anyway, I’ve decided that lately my life has gotten a little bit boring and it’s time to spice things up. How?
I’m going to start seducing Haredi men.
Okay, that’s actually a little bit misleading. So when I was talking to this potential flatmate, he asked what I like to do and I told him I like to write. He asked what I wrote about, and I said I keep a “journal” (you’re reading it, folks) about all the things that happen to me in Israel. He asked for an example of such a thing, and I told him about the time that an orthodox guy mooned me from a yeshiva van traveling down the abandoned highway I was standing at the side of. He was completely bewildered—yes, not just surprised, but actually bewildered. He started demanding answers to questions, like his whole world had suddenly been turned upside down. After demanding a detailed description of my “assailant,” his ass, his buddies, the van, and the setting, his next question was, “Were you wearing something revealing?”
I explained that, if he knew me better, he’d know that I NEVER wear something revealing. I told him that a short-sleeved polo shirt is pretty much as sexy as it gets for me. And my potential housemate’s response? “If you weren’t wearing something revealing, then why did he moon you???”
Which raises the question: is wearing revealing clothing the guaranteed ticket to getting to see some random orthodox guy’s ass?
I’ve decided to find the answer to that question, and even explore it further. If wearing revealing clothing makes orthodox boys moon you, then what happens if you wink at or give a seductive glance to a Haredi guy? Besides getting beaten up, of course. Like, are they so overwhelmed by this unprecedented expression of sexuality from a member of the opposite sex that they instantly feel compelled to rip off all their clothing? If a girl, not even a pretty one, blows a kiss in the middle of Mea Shearim, would the street instantaneously be filled with naked Haredi men, wearing nothing but enormous fur hats on their heads?
So for the next few days, I’m going to walk down the streets of Jerusalem smiling, winking and giggling coquettishly at Haredi men. Wish me luck, and if someone wouldn’t mind writing me an obituary, I’d really appreciate it….
Anyway, I’ve decided that lately my life has gotten a little bit boring and it’s time to spice things up. How?
I’m going to start seducing Haredi men.
Okay, that’s actually a little bit misleading. So when I was talking to this potential flatmate, he asked what I like to do and I told him I like to write. He asked what I wrote about, and I said I keep a “journal” (you’re reading it, folks) about all the things that happen to me in Israel. He asked for an example of such a thing, and I told him about the time that an orthodox guy mooned me from a yeshiva van traveling down the abandoned highway I was standing at the side of. He was completely bewildered—yes, not just surprised, but actually bewildered. He started demanding answers to questions, like his whole world had suddenly been turned upside down. After demanding a detailed description of my “assailant,” his ass, his buddies, the van, and the setting, his next question was, “Were you wearing something revealing?”
I explained that, if he knew me better, he’d know that I NEVER wear something revealing. I told him that a short-sleeved polo shirt is pretty much as sexy as it gets for me. And my potential housemate’s response? “If you weren’t wearing something revealing, then why did he moon you???”
Which raises the question: is wearing revealing clothing the guaranteed ticket to getting to see some random orthodox guy’s ass?
I’ve decided to find the answer to that question, and even explore it further. If wearing revealing clothing makes orthodox boys moon you, then what happens if you wink at or give a seductive glance to a Haredi guy? Besides getting beaten up, of course. Like, are they so overwhelmed by this unprecedented expression of sexuality from a member of the opposite sex that they instantly feel compelled to rip off all their clothing? If a girl, not even a pretty one, blows a kiss in the middle of Mea Shearim, would the street instantaneously be filled with naked Haredi men, wearing nothing but enormous fur hats on their heads?
So for the next few days, I’m going to walk down the streets of Jerusalem smiling, winking and giggling coquettishly at Haredi men. Wish me luck, and if someone wouldn’t mind writing me an obituary, I’d really appreciate it….
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Laurence of Beer Sheva
Yesterday I went to Beer Sheva for the first time. Actually, it was my first time in the Negev since a year ago, so it was a bit like seeing the desert for the first time ever. Why was I in Beer Sheva? Because it has cheap apartments. You may ask, Where is Beer Sheva in relation to Haifa, my original dream city? The answer: really fucking far.
As you can imagine, when I was on the bus to Beer Sheva I felt really disappointed that I was being forced to move to the middle of nowhere because of money concerns that I’ll face in the army. I had never been to Beer Sheva, and I imagined it was like some of the small desert towns you see in California on the road to Las Vegas. You know, like the town that brags about having “The World’s Tallest Thermometer,” which is not actually a thermometer but in fact a large sign in the shape of a thermometer that simply lights up as if it’s a real thermometer but is actually just connected to a much, much smaller real thermometer that tells it what temperature to display in lights. Trust me, I’ve visited it.
Sure, these towns have this kind of cowboy, frontier romanticism about them that makes me really enjoy spending vacations there…but living there? My cousins live in one of these towns, and I love visiting. I love standing in their enormous backyard (compared to my family’s Los Angeles backyard that is the size of a small closet) and looking out at the mountains and the vast stretch of empty desert surrounding their small town, and being able to imagine clearly what America looked like before anyone ever got there. But at the end of the day, I’m happy to return home to LA and have a GAP or Best Buy or whatever within walking distance.
Holy Shit though. Beer Sheva. It was fucking amazing. It is a city with all modern conveniences (the movie theater in the enormous, air-conditioned mall was playing Wolverine), and yet you still have the joy of feeling that you’re an adventuring pioneer on some kind of frontier outpost. There were many parts of the city, even parts in the center, where I could peek at a crack between two high-rise apartment buildings and see a vast stretch of empty desert not too far beyond the edges of the city. “Holy shit,” I thought to myself, “I’m on the edge of the fucking world!!!” And I felt like a total badass.
Most of the people walking down the street were dressed like normal Israelis (so basically they looked ridiculous…), and not a Haredi penguin in sight! And every time I started to feel like this town was a little too bland and normal for me, an Arab woman would walk by in a flowing black bed sheet with her mouth covered with a small black piece of fabric---and Oh G-d I’m in the Middle East! I’m somewhere exotic! I’m in a foreign, exotic desert land with bizarre people and even Arabs—not in some tourist trap city teeming with American tourists and American immigrants, a city that feels vaguely like an old, dirty, and crumbling Disneyland! No, bitches, I will not be just another American in Jerusalem—I’m going to be Laurence of friggin Arabia in Beer Sheva!
Also wonderful about Beer Sheva? Bus fare is 2 shekels less than in Jerusalem. It doesn’t sound significant, but when you are traveling every day it does add up. WORD!
Anyway, the apartment: it’s 100 shekels less than the apartment I liked in Haifa, but nicer. The room itself isn’t too much to talk about (but I wouldn’t have to buy a bed like I would in Haifa), but there is an enormous living room (couches, tables, A TV!!!, and a large kitchen and nice dining room table), and—get this—a fucking garden. A private garden for the apartment, shared with no one but the roommates. A garden that is bigger than the entire apartment I am now living in.
Anyway, even if this apartment in particular doesn’t work out, I’m actually now quite excited about the possibility of moving to Beer Sheva.
Best thing about it? About 10 minutes before arriving, I looked out the bus window and saw a large group of camels just kind of chilling in this sandy field by the side of the road—no tourists riding on them, no Bedouins leading them. Just camels hanging out on the side of the road. I think that’s when I fell in love with Beer Sheva.
As you can imagine, when I was on the bus to Beer Sheva I felt really disappointed that I was being forced to move to the middle of nowhere because of money concerns that I’ll face in the army. I had never been to Beer Sheva, and I imagined it was like some of the small desert towns you see in California on the road to Las Vegas. You know, like the town that brags about having “The World’s Tallest Thermometer,” which is not actually a thermometer but in fact a large sign in the shape of a thermometer that simply lights up as if it’s a real thermometer but is actually just connected to a much, much smaller real thermometer that tells it what temperature to display in lights. Trust me, I’ve visited it.
Sure, these towns have this kind of cowboy, frontier romanticism about them that makes me really enjoy spending vacations there…but living there? My cousins live in one of these towns, and I love visiting. I love standing in their enormous backyard (compared to my family’s Los Angeles backyard that is the size of a small closet) and looking out at the mountains and the vast stretch of empty desert surrounding their small town, and being able to imagine clearly what America looked like before anyone ever got there. But at the end of the day, I’m happy to return home to LA and have a GAP or Best Buy or whatever within walking distance.
Holy Shit though. Beer Sheva. It was fucking amazing. It is a city with all modern conveniences (the movie theater in the enormous, air-conditioned mall was playing Wolverine), and yet you still have the joy of feeling that you’re an adventuring pioneer on some kind of frontier outpost. There were many parts of the city, even parts in the center, where I could peek at a crack between two high-rise apartment buildings and see a vast stretch of empty desert not too far beyond the edges of the city. “Holy shit,” I thought to myself, “I’m on the edge of the fucking world!!!” And I felt like a total badass.
Most of the people walking down the street were dressed like normal Israelis (so basically they looked ridiculous…), and not a Haredi penguin in sight! And every time I started to feel like this town was a little too bland and normal for me, an Arab woman would walk by in a flowing black bed sheet with her mouth covered with a small black piece of fabric---and Oh G-d I’m in the Middle East! I’m somewhere exotic! I’m in a foreign, exotic desert land with bizarre people and even Arabs—not in some tourist trap city teeming with American tourists and American immigrants, a city that feels vaguely like an old, dirty, and crumbling Disneyland! No, bitches, I will not be just another American in Jerusalem—I’m going to be Laurence of friggin Arabia in Beer Sheva!
Also wonderful about Beer Sheva? Bus fare is 2 shekels less than in Jerusalem. It doesn’t sound significant, but when you are traveling every day it does add up. WORD!
Anyway, the apartment: it’s 100 shekels less than the apartment I liked in Haifa, but nicer. The room itself isn’t too much to talk about (but I wouldn’t have to buy a bed like I would in Haifa), but there is an enormous living room (couches, tables, A TV!!!, and a large kitchen and nice dining room table), and—get this—a fucking garden. A private garden for the apartment, shared with no one but the roommates. A garden that is bigger than the entire apartment I am now living in.
Anyway, even if this apartment in particular doesn’t work out, I’m actually now quite excited about the possibility of moving to Beer Sheva.
Best thing about it? About 10 minutes before arriving, I looked out the bus window and saw a large group of camels just kind of chilling in this sandy field by the side of the road—no tourists riding on them, no Bedouins leading them. Just camels hanging out on the side of the road. I think that’s when I fell in love with Beer Sheva.
Tisha B'Av?
/
"I'd totally feel comfortable flying on September 11th, because you know they're not going to do it again on that day specifically. It's not like it's Tisha B'Av."
--A friend saying maybe the funniest thing I've heard in a while...
Also, little Iranian immigrant child (age 4) watching Dora the Explorer, yelling at the TV, "IT'S RIGHT THERE, DORA! RIGHT THERE! WHAT, YOU DON'T SEE!?!?!? HOW DO YOU NOT SEE IT!!!"
Then, turning to me, "I think Dora's blind!"
Later, Dora asks the viewer to help her with something else, something so easy that the 4 year old immigrant child can't believe it. So she calls out to me: "Dora's retarded!"
Me: "hey, don't call Dora 'retarded,' it's not nice!"
Girl: "But she is retarded! So is her mother and her father and her brothers and her whole family! All of Dora's family is retarded!!!"
/
"I'd totally feel comfortable flying on September 11th, because you know they're not going to do it again on that day specifically. It's not like it's Tisha B'Av."
--A friend saying maybe the funniest thing I've heard in a while...
Also, little Iranian immigrant child (age 4) watching Dora the Explorer, yelling at the TV, "IT'S RIGHT THERE, DORA! RIGHT THERE! WHAT, YOU DON'T SEE!?!?!? HOW DO YOU NOT SEE IT!!!"
Then, turning to me, "I think Dora's blind!"
Later, Dora asks the viewer to help her with something else, something so easy that the 4 year old immigrant child can't believe it. So she calls out to me: "Dora's retarded!"
Me: "hey, don't call Dora 'retarded,' it's not nice!"
Girl: "But she is retarded! So is her mother and her father and her brothers and her whole family! All of Dora's family is retarded!!!"
/
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Frontier Outposts
So in a month I’ll be done with ulpan. Not just with this ulpan, but with Ulpan. Not only do I not have money for another ulpan, but also I don’t have enough time (army in July…anybody?), and also finding my level would be a bit of a challenge since most places only offer the first couple levels. It’s a bit weird thinking that in a month I’ll be out in the real world, learning Hebrew in the real world.
For all the language learning I’ve done in my life (mainly Hebrew, French, Latin…and a bit of Arabic, Yiddish and Italian…), I’ve never had to learn a language in the real world. I’ve always learned languages in classrooms, in a very structured way.
I’d use some kind of simile about learning how to ride a bike, but in fact beginning my real world Hebrew studies is actually going to be less scary than learning how to ride a bike. See, in most normal families you learn how to ride a two-wheeler bike first by riding with training wheels….then by removing the training wheels and having a parent hold onto you and guide you until you’re okay on your own. This is kind of like learning Hebrew in the US in a classroom, then doing ulpan in Israel, and then just learning by living in Israel—which is exactly what I’ve been doing and will do.
In my family, however, all of us learned how to ride bikes by being placed at the top of an enormous hill. Our mother would place a helmet on us, give us a kiss, and put us on a bike. And then my dad would shove our bicycle down the slope. We’d then go flying down the hill on the bicycle, hear our dad let out a kind of “yeeeehaaww!!!” from the top of the hill, and then it was up to us to try to figure out how to control the bicycle. When you’re scared shitless like that and going approximately Mach 3 down a steep hill, you figure out how to ride a bicycle pretty quickly.
My point is that, on the bright side, my learning Hebrew in the real world without class is not going to be as terrifying this. Although maybe it’s a shame that I won’t be learning Hebrew like I learned to ride a bicycle, because my family’s bicycle method was actually quite successful…
I suppose that’s the joy of being young. If it came down to it, I COULD learn to deal with Hebrew and Israeli society the same way I learned how to ride a bike. You could just shove me down a hill and hope for the best. And if, just as it did the first time I got shoved down a hill on a bike, a child’s ball rolls into my path and I slam into it and end up flipping off my bike….I can laugh about it (you can bet my parents were laughing their asses off at the top of the hill), and I can climb back up to the top of the hill and try again. I’m 20, I can try and fail again and again when it comes to learning Hebrew and becoming Israeli.
I worry about some of my older classmates and some of my older ulpan-mates in the lower levels. I’m basically still a kid—I still have the army and university ahead of me, which means plenty of Hebrew practice and interaction with Israelis before I have to start my “real” life. G-d willing, after university I should have no trouble (at least in terms of language) working in any Israeli workplace. But there are some people in the ulpan that are over thirty or in their late twenties, and immediately after ulpan have to start their lives. And if they flip off their metaphoric bikes….it’s not funny like it is for me.
There’s no university or army in their future, so they have to find respectable jobs immediately. And because they don’t speak enough Hebrew yet, they have to take jobs which allow them to work in their native languages. Which means that they get themselves on a path of being surrounded only by English-speakers (or some other language), which means their Hebrew doesn’t improve and they get no interaction with Israelis. Basically their life in Israel is going to be lived in some kind of bizarre American or English frontier outpost, surrounded by “savages” whose language and culture they don’t understand.
What I’m about to say I say without the benefit of hindsight—I don’t know if I’m going to have a successful aliyah at the end of the day. I don’t know if I’ll end up staying here beyond my army service, or if I’ll end up raising a family here or end up speaking perfectly fluent Hebrew. I don’t know. For all I know, my connection to Israeli society is never going to improve.
Also, what I’m about to say is practical, rather than Zionist. Anyway, here’s my thought:
If you are considering making aliyah after the age where you can either do the army or at least attend university IN HEBREW WITH ISRAELIS (meaning, not the English-language universities here that attract mostly foreign students)….don’t. Just don’t.
Unless, of course, you’re comfortable with never being fluent in the language and you’re comfortable with never really understanding Israeli society. I say this with the experience of meeting Americans/English who have been in Israel for decades yet still don’t speak Hebrew past gimmel level (Level 3, out of 7 Levels—6 levels of learning, 7th is fluency), and who basically mingle exclusively with fellow Anglo immigrants.
If you’re comfortable with that….then great, feel free to make aliyah at age 40, whatever. If you’re like me and not comfortable with that….then….well……I don’t want to recommend something that is not Zionist, but figure it out…
Maybe this is kind of weird of me, but something my grandma said a year ago gave me some kind of inspiration, She said that growing up she was in this youth program that prepared them for aliyah—they learned Hebrew and some “basic skills” that would serve them in Israel. I asked my grandma what she meant by “basic skills,” but she refused to elaborate, making me suspect that this had something to do with weaponry. Anyway, my grandma didn’t end up making aliyah because she met my grandpa at a young age and he refused to go, but the fact is that basically at any moment after the age of 15 or whatever had she found herself in Israel she would have been prepared. Sure, she wouldn’t have been fluent immediately, and there’d be a lot to get used to, but she would have a great base to start from.
Nowadays there are so many young Jews who know little to no Hebrew and know little to nothing about Israel. They can’t just up and come to Israel at a moment’s notice without feeling totally lost and out of place. Heck, even many of the orthodox, with all their Jewish education, come to Israel and can’t even have a simple exchange in Hebrew with a shopkeeper in Jerusalem. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
This is why aliyah isn’t exactly a popular option: it’s too much of a hassle and ordeal, learning how to communicate.
Anyway, what I’ve decided to do when I’m older is to restart the kind of program that my grandma was in. My thought is that in an ideal world, any Jew above Bar Mitzvah age—whether orthodox or completely secular--should know enough Hebrew and enough about Israel that they could be airdropped into Israel and get by. (Actually, in an ideal world all the Jews would already be in Israel, but there we are….).
For all the language learning I’ve done in my life (mainly Hebrew, French, Latin…and a bit of Arabic, Yiddish and Italian…), I’ve never had to learn a language in the real world. I’ve always learned languages in classrooms, in a very structured way.
I’d use some kind of simile about learning how to ride a bike, but in fact beginning my real world Hebrew studies is actually going to be less scary than learning how to ride a bike. See, in most normal families you learn how to ride a two-wheeler bike first by riding with training wheels….then by removing the training wheels and having a parent hold onto you and guide you until you’re okay on your own. This is kind of like learning Hebrew in the US in a classroom, then doing ulpan in Israel, and then just learning by living in Israel—which is exactly what I’ve been doing and will do.
In my family, however, all of us learned how to ride bikes by being placed at the top of an enormous hill. Our mother would place a helmet on us, give us a kiss, and put us on a bike. And then my dad would shove our bicycle down the slope. We’d then go flying down the hill on the bicycle, hear our dad let out a kind of “yeeeehaaww!!!” from the top of the hill, and then it was up to us to try to figure out how to control the bicycle. When you’re scared shitless like that and going approximately Mach 3 down a steep hill, you figure out how to ride a bicycle pretty quickly.
My point is that, on the bright side, my learning Hebrew in the real world without class is not going to be as terrifying this. Although maybe it’s a shame that I won’t be learning Hebrew like I learned to ride a bicycle, because my family’s bicycle method was actually quite successful…
I suppose that’s the joy of being young. If it came down to it, I COULD learn to deal with Hebrew and Israeli society the same way I learned how to ride a bike. You could just shove me down a hill and hope for the best. And if, just as it did the first time I got shoved down a hill on a bike, a child’s ball rolls into my path and I slam into it and end up flipping off my bike….I can laugh about it (you can bet my parents were laughing their asses off at the top of the hill), and I can climb back up to the top of the hill and try again. I’m 20, I can try and fail again and again when it comes to learning Hebrew and becoming Israeli.
I worry about some of my older classmates and some of my older ulpan-mates in the lower levels. I’m basically still a kid—I still have the army and university ahead of me, which means plenty of Hebrew practice and interaction with Israelis before I have to start my “real” life. G-d willing, after university I should have no trouble (at least in terms of language) working in any Israeli workplace. But there are some people in the ulpan that are over thirty or in their late twenties, and immediately after ulpan have to start their lives. And if they flip off their metaphoric bikes….it’s not funny like it is for me.
There’s no university or army in their future, so they have to find respectable jobs immediately. And because they don’t speak enough Hebrew yet, they have to take jobs which allow them to work in their native languages. Which means that they get themselves on a path of being surrounded only by English-speakers (or some other language), which means their Hebrew doesn’t improve and they get no interaction with Israelis. Basically their life in Israel is going to be lived in some kind of bizarre American or English frontier outpost, surrounded by “savages” whose language and culture they don’t understand.
What I’m about to say I say without the benefit of hindsight—I don’t know if I’m going to have a successful aliyah at the end of the day. I don’t know if I’ll end up staying here beyond my army service, or if I’ll end up raising a family here or end up speaking perfectly fluent Hebrew. I don’t know. For all I know, my connection to Israeli society is never going to improve.
Also, what I’m about to say is practical, rather than Zionist. Anyway, here’s my thought:
If you are considering making aliyah after the age where you can either do the army or at least attend university IN HEBREW WITH ISRAELIS (meaning, not the English-language universities here that attract mostly foreign students)….don’t. Just don’t.
Unless, of course, you’re comfortable with never being fluent in the language and you’re comfortable with never really understanding Israeli society. I say this with the experience of meeting Americans/English who have been in Israel for decades yet still don’t speak Hebrew past gimmel level (Level 3, out of 7 Levels—6 levels of learning, 7th is fluency), and who basically mingle exclusively with fellow Anglo immigrants.
If you’re comfortable with that….then great, feel free to make aliyah at age 40, whatever. If you’re like me and not comfortable with that….then….well……I don’t want to recommend something that is not Zionist, but figure it out…
Maybe this is kind of weird of me, but something my grandma said a year ago gave me some kind of inspiration, She said that growing up she was in this youth program that prepared them for aliyah—they learned Hebrew and some “basic skills” that would serve them in Israel. I asked my grandma what she meant by “basic skills,” but she refused to elaborate, making me suspect that this had something to do with weaponry. Anyway, my grandma didn’t end up making aliyah because she met my grandpa at a young age and he refused to go, but the fact is that basically at any moment after the age of 15 or whatever had she found herself in Israel she would have been prepared. Sure, she wouldn’t have been fluent immediately, and there’d be a lot to get used to, but she would have a great base to start from.
Nowadays there are so many young Jews who know little to no Hebrew and know little to nothing about Israel. They can’t just up and come to Israel at a moment’s notice without feeling totally lost and out of place. Heck, even many of the orthodox, with all their Jewish education, come to Israel and can’t even have a simple exchange in Hebrew with a shopkeeper in Jerusalem. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
This is why aliyah isn’t exactly a popular option: it’s too much of a hassle and ordeal, learning how to communicate.
Anyway, what I’ve decided to do when I’m older is to restart the kind of program that my grandma was in. My thought is that in an ideal world, any Jew above Bar Mitzvah age—whether orthodox or completely secular--should know enough Hebrew and enough about Israel that they could be airdropped into Israel and get by. (Actually, in an ideal world all the Jews would already be in Israel, but there we are….).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)