1) Every single time anyone talks about the financial crisis, specifically the financial crisis back in the United States, I feel like a fucking refugee. I feel like the Americans in my class get sympathetic looks or even smug looks from the others whenever the subject comes up on the news we’re listening to in Hebrew. I wanna be like, “Oh yeah, cos things are just going swimmingly wherever the fuck you’re from.” Especially when we get the look from the Russians….
2) Today I finally took out the last bit of American money in my wallet. Even throughout my 4 ½ months here last time I always kept a dollar or so in my wallet. Why? I think I may have already brought it up, but I’ll explain again: the day after I got to Israel last time, I took my American money out. But then the first time I opened my wallet in Israel after that, I nearly had a heart attack. I thought, “Oh my G-d, I have no money!” Because, let’s face it, shekels look like Monopoly money. I thought I was walking around hundreds of Monopoly notes, which is great if I want to buy Boardwalk or Park Place, but is pretty worthless if I want things like food. So to quell my fears I took to putting either a 20 dollar bill or a one dollar bill in my wallet, so that when I opened it I saw green and my brain got the idea that I had money, and I wouldn’t panic.
But now that I’m a resident of Israel with all rights and responsibilities (besides the right to vote…still have to wait two months to get that right….meaning I’ll miss the elections), I feel that it is time for me to carry exclusively Israeli money when I’m in Israel. I’ve also decided to stop thinking of things in terms of exchange rates. A shekel is a shekel, it isn’t a quarter. And I’m also trying to get the hang of units of measure, like centimeters and kilometers and all that shit. And Celsius. I think that’s going to be the hardest, since shit like centimeters and kilometers and kilograms we had to learn in science class. Of course, I feel spectacularly European and pretentious when I use the metric system, but I guess that can’t be helped… I also feel like I need to call my high school science teachers and be like, “You know that irrelevant shit you taught us a couple years ago? Yeah, turns out that outside of the U.S. it actually IS relevant!”
But Celsius? We didn’t use that in high school science class. This is going to take forever to get the hang of, but here’s my understanding of Celsius so far:
0 Celsius: Warm jacket, gloves and scarf weather.
15 Celsius: Jacket weather.
40 Celsius: Underpants weather.
I think that’s a good base to start from, and hopefully my understanding of Celsius will grow. Either that or maybe come summer time I’ll die from heatstroke because I mistook an underpants-weather forecast on the news for a jacket-weather forecast.
Also, when I read the weather forecast in the news (or rather look at the picture of Israel with numbers next to cities), I feel like reading the numbers with a ridiculous British accent. Or maybe a Swedish accent. I don’t know.
3) So tomorrow (or I guess rather in the wee hours of Monday…) I’m watching the Super Bowl. Sure, doesn’t sound all that new or exciting, seeing as I’ve watched the Super Bowl every year since I’ve been alive, but what makes it exciting this year is that I’m watching it in a bomb shelter.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over the use of a bomb shelter as a social gathering place. I remember my dad said that growing up he had a bomb shelter (or maybe he just lived really close to the neighborhood bomb shelter…?) and he remembers it as this very scary place, and blahblahblah, something about the scary Russians, Cold War, blahblahblah. I know of one family that I knew growing up who had a bomb shelter. They were neighbors, they had a girl in my grade at school and a boy a year older than one of my older brothers. Their bomb shelter was this cold, scary, cement place in their backyard, and I remember on one occasion when I was about 8 or so that bitch of a girl tricked me into going into the bomb shelter, then locked me inside for about an hour or so, leaving me to scream for help and have it just echo…..urgh, it was horrible. So, as you can imagine, even growing up in a country far removed from war, I still find the idea of bomb shelters kind of creepy. And when I don’t think of them as creepy, I think of them as rare, bizarre, unnecessary relics of the Cold War.
Here, however, the bomb shelter is nicer than my bedroom back in LA.
Back on the kibbutz, there was a weekly dance party (sometimes a couple times a week) in the bomb shelter, and I even went down there for a few minutes with some friends on my last birthday. In this building, the bomb shelter is also a place of festivity. It is the nicest room in the building, with comfy chairs, a plasma TV screen (is this SERIOUSLY what the Israeli government is spending on its immigrants? I LOVE YOU, GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL!!), ping pong tables, an exercise bike, and a bar. Granted, the bar is empty, but the fact that there is a potential alcoholic bar in. a. bomb. shelter. never ceases to amaze me.
So the bomb shelter has become, or us immigrants in this ulpan, THE place to gather to watch movies or have dance parties or do whatever. In fact, the bomb shelter is SO cool that in order to prevent things from being stolen or wrecked, the bomb shelter is kept locked and opened only for specific, planned social events.
I was talking to my mom about our bomb shelter and laughed at how we have to lock it and she, as mothers have a habit of doing, became hysterical. First of all because I said the word “bomb” and second of all because I used the word “shelter” and “locked” in the same sentence. “WELL WHAT IF THERE’S A BOMB??”
Which I guess is a valid point. I mean, G-d forbid and all that.
But if in the very unlikely event that Iran finally decides to bomb us at the same time that my ulpan is having a movie night in our bomb shelter, I can assure you that me and my classmates will have a VERY comfortable nuclear holocaust, complete with popcorn, ping pong, and cable TV.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
“I can get you a Green Card…does that turn you on?”
I just remembered something that needed to be shared: so sometime during the war (or “operation” or whatever it was that just happened here in Israel), we were sitting in class when we heard a large number of helicopters and airplanes and whatever flying around Jerusalem. Whenever something like this used to happen back in LA or Chicago, I used to be like, “Goodness, are we at war or something? Haha…” And without thinking I totally said it here in Israel when, yes, we were indeed at war. Boy did I feel like an idiot.
So, about the job: I went in today, as I was asked…..and neither of my bosses were there are the moment, so I just sort of hung around and chatted with one of my (former, I guess) co-workers from Chile who is a very nice girl. And then the boss who told me to come in today to talk to my other boss entered the store, and immediately from the look on his face I could tell that I had done something wrong, though I didn’t know what. There was an awkward pause, then I said in Hebrew, “Is [other boss] here?”
And then in response he snapped at me as if he were just impossibly irritated and said, “No, he’s NOT here….I said CALL today.” Oh man did I feel embarrassed. Yesterday I could have sworn he said to come in tomorrow. He used the word “to enter,” “ticansi.” I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, that seems like a weird word choice, are you sure he said ‘ticansi’?” And I really thought hard and decided that that’s what he said, because I thought maybe “enter” can be like “come in” and then it’s like in English where you can be like, “Yeah, just come in tomorrow and we’ll talk.” And maybe it’s like that in Hebrew too, I don’t know, but APPARENTLY this is all irrelevant because he said ‘titkashri’ which is call. Fuck. I could have sworn he said ‘ticansi.’
So now, not only do I not understand Hebrew, but apparently I’m also deaf.
Oh man, I’m pretty sure my face was bright red, but I tried to salvage whatever amount of my dignity that I could. I tried to act like all these Israeli women I see walking around all the time in their boots and weird clothing, and their expressions that seem to say, “I don’t give a shit about what you have to say.” I said in the most confident way I could muster in the best Hebrew accent I could manage, “Fine, then I’ll call later.” And then I tried to waltz out of the room as if I had somewhere much more interesting and important to be.
Of course, I DON’T have somewhere much more interesting or important to be.
Instead I decided I’d walk down to the Old City and maybe check out the Christian sites, none of which I’ve ever seen before, or drop in for some praying at the Western Wall (which clearly I could use at the moment….). So I went towards the Kotel via the Arab market, because the Armenian Quarter isn’t all that exciting. And as I’m walking down the steps, I see this Arab guy on a cell phone. First he happily chirps, “Aywa!” (Yes.) Then a second later he yells even more happily, “Aywa!” And then completely ecstatic about something, he lets out a climactic, head-turning, “AYWA!!!!!” And then to top it off, “ALHAMDULILLAH!!!!!”
Anyway, I’m just glad SOMEONE in Jerusalem was having a good day….
So anyway, I was about to turn down the alley to the Wall, and then I thought maybe I would actually go to the Christian sites first. So I continued down the path through the Muslim Quarter, and suddenly a voice from behind me calls out in English, “It’s closed!”
I turned around and saw an Arab guy sitting in a chair a few paces back, across from the alley that gets you to the Wall. Basically every single time I’ve ever been to the Wall using this route or left the Wall using this route, there has been an Arab guy (a different one each time) sitting in that chair and yelling advice/travel advisories/directions to passing tourists. I have no idea how these men make money, the only way I can figure they can afford to do this all day is that somehow the government sponsors them. I’ve decided from now on to refer to it as the “Arab Ministry of Information.”
“What do you mean ‘It’s closed,’ what’s ‘it’?” I said to the man from the Ministry.
So apparently when the mosque is being used for prayers the route I was taking to the Stations of the Cross is closed. Whatever. So instead of doing the Jesus thang, I went down the alley to the wall, and instead of actually going down to it I stayed up on a balcony, grabbed the bars of a the railing in front of me and poked my head through for about 20 minutes.
Also, I have to say that in a sequel to what happened one time outside the Rambam’s Tomb in Tiberias, another yarmulke-wearing man who colored his speech with frequent “Baruch Hashem”s and “B’Ezrat Hashem”s tried to pick me up as I exited the Wall plaza. First he offered to take me to a bar for a drink (mind you, it was about noon at the time…), and when I politely refused he offered to take me to his apartment for drinks. So I have to ask: what is it with creepy religious men trying to pick girls up outside of religious sites?
On a final note, you know what it felt like to work? I felt like Laura Ingalls Wilder when she was teaching at the Brewster’s school, and she had to live with the Brewsters. If you’ve read the Little House series, maybe you’ll know what I’m talking about….
So, about the job: I went in today, as I was asked…..and neither of my bosses were there are the moment, so I just sort of hung around and chatted with one of my (former, I guess) co-workers from Chile who is a very nice girl. And then the boss who told me to come in today to talk to my other boss entered the store, and immediately from the look on his face I could tell that I had done something wrong, though I didn’t know what. There was an awkward pause, then I said in Hebrew, “Is [other boss] here?”
And then in response he snapped at me as if he were just impossibly irritated and said, “No, he’s NOT here….I said CALL today.” Oh man did I feel embarrassed. Yesterday I could have sworn he said to come in tomorrow. He used the word “to enter,” “ticansi.” I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, that seems like a weird word choice, are you sure he said ‘ticansi’?” And I really thought hard and decided that that’s what he said, because I thought maybe “enter” can be like “come in” and then it’s like in English where you can be like, “Yeah, just come in tomorrow and we’ll talk.” And maybe it’s like that in Hebrew too, I don’t know, but APPARENTLY this is all irrelevant because he said ‘titkashri’ which is call. Fuck. I could have sworn he said ‘ticansi.’
So now, not only do I not understand Hebrew, but apparently I’m also deaf.
Oh man, I’m pretty sure my face was bright red, but I tried to salvage whatever amount of my dignity that I could. I tried to act like all these Israeli women I see walking around all the time in their boots and weird clothing, and their expressions that seem to say, “I don’t give a shit about what you have to say.” I said in the most confident way I could muster in the best Hebrew accent I could manage, “Fine, then I’ll call later.” And then I tried to waltz out of the room as if I had somewhere much more interesting and important to be.
Of course, I DON’T have somewhere much more interesting or important to be.
Instead I decided I’d walk down to the Old City and maybe check out the Christian sites, none of which I’ve ever seen before, or drop in for some praying at the Western Wall (which clearly I could use at the moment….). So I went towards the Kotel via the Arab market, because the Armenian Quarter isn’t all that exciting. And as I’m walking down the steps, I see this Arab guy on a cell phone. First he happily chirps, “Aywa!” (Yes.) Then a second later he yells even more happily, “Aywa!” And then completely ecstatic about something, he lets out a climactic, head-turning, “AYWA!!!!!” And then to top it off, “ALHAMDULILLAH!!!!!”
Anyway, I’m just glad SOMEONE in Jerusalem was having a good day….
So anyway, I was about to turn down the alley to the Wall, and then I thought maybe I would actually go to the Christian sites first. So I continued down the path through the Muslim Quarter, and suddenly a voice from behind me calls out in English, “It’s closed!”
I turned around and saw an Arab guy sitting in a chair a few paces back, across from the alley that gets you to the Wall. Basically every single time I’ve ever been to the Wall using this route or left the Wall using this route, there has been an Arab guy (a different one each time) sitting in that chair and yelling advice/travel advisories/directions to passing tourists. I have no idea how these men make money, the only way I can figure they can afford to do this all day is that somehow the government sponsors them. I’ve decided from now on to refer to it as the “Arab Ministry of Information.”
“What do you mean ‘It’s closed,’ what’s ‘it’?” I said to the man from the Ministry.
So apparently when the mosque is being used for prayers the route I was taking to the Stations of the Cross is closed. Whatever. So instead of doing the Jesus thang, I went down the alley to the wall, and instead of actually going down to it I stayed up on a balcony, grabbed the bars of a the railing in front of me and poked my head through for about 20 minutes.
Also, I have to say that in a sequel to what happened one time outside the Rambam’s Tomb in Tiberias, another yarmulke-wearing man who colored his speech with frequent “Baruch Hashem”s and “B’Ezrat Hashem”s tried to pick me up as I exited the Wall plaza. First he offered to take me to a bar for a drink (mind you, it was about noon at the time…), and when I politely refused he offered to take me to his apartment for drinks. So I have to ask: what is it with creepy religious men trying to pick girls up outside of religious sites?
On a final note, you know what it felt like to work? I felt like Laura Ingalls Wilder when she was teaching at the Brewster’s school, and she had to live with the Brewsters. If you’ve read the Little House series, maybe you’ll know what I’m talking about….
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Whine Whine Whine
WARNING: What follows is a shit-ton of self-pity. Don’t get annoyed with me for complaining and and pitying myself…it’s my fucking blog and if you have a problem with self-pity then you don’t have to read it.
Dear Readers:
Do any of you know of a really rich (or even moderately rich) man who would be willing to lower his standards and marry me? I’ve realized that the working world is not for me, and so my only hope is to marry a fabulously wealthy man.
That’s right, dear readers, I’m pretty sure that today was my last day of work in the t-shirt shop. Well, I’m not 100 percent sure—they told me to come in tomorrow (I’m not supposed to be working tomorrow) for a “talk.” This could be one of two things: 1) I’m getting a raise after only 2 weeks of really mediocre and borderline BAD work on my part or 2) I’m getting fired.
I’m pretty sure I ain’t gettin’ a raise.
I’m actually kind of laughing about all of this. The idea of me as a salesperson is kind of ridiculous, since I’m very afraid of strangers, honest at the wrong moments, and pretty shit at pretending to be friendly. Probably the only job worse for me than tourist t-shirt saleswoman is car saleswoman. Someone with my personality being a salesperson is almost as ridiculous as the idea of me being a lifeguard, seeing as I can barely swim.
Today someone asked me how work was, and I told them that I had multiple reasons to suspect that I’m getting fired (It’s more than just the fact that at work we’re having a “talk” tomorrow…actually, since maybe Day 3 I’ve suspected that I was going to be fired for being so shit, so I’m surprised that it’s taken them so long to actually go through with it). So of course they were trying to comfort me. I didn’t want people trying to feel bad for me, so I tried to stay positive and be like, “Well, everyone has to suck at something, and I’m just glad it’s selling t-shirts that I suck at.”
But then I realized that there’s a lot I suck at. I didn’t say it out loud to the person I was talking to, but when I got up to go to class I made a mental list: I suck at swimming, I suck at dancing, I suck at singing, I suck at speaking Hebrew (or any other language for that matter), I suck at seeing (without my really strong glasses prescription), I suck at dressing stylishly, I suck at science and math stuff, I suck at understanding how things like banks, interest, exchange rates and all that shit works, I suck at interacting with people like a normal person, I suck at eating healthy, I suck at making a decent cup of tea, I suck at having a discussion about politics or religion without getting overexcited or angry, I suck at bowling, I suck at soccer (and this breaks my heart to no end!), I suck at sewing, I suck at embroidery, I suck at drinking, I suck at drawing, I suck at every musical instrument I’ve ever tried to learn, I suck at giving blood, I suck at Judaism (if that’s even possible), I suck at setting up tents, I suck at keeping my room clean, and I suck at getting along with people. And a bunch of other stuff that I’d rather not get into right now.
So, really G-d, did you REALLY have to make me suck at selling t-shirts, too?
I’m beginning to get concerned that my life is just becoming one long, continual discovery of what I suck at. And to top it off Shabbat is coming up so now I’m like doubly depressed cos I feel like I suck at everything and then I get to spend the weekend in an abandoned building by myself moping about how I suck at everything. Great.
On the bright side, I’ve been told I’m really good at whistling……so….uh….that’s comforting, I guess.
Actually, I will share the most comforting thing I heard all day: so a friend from Brazil who is in my class was talking to me, and he was trying to comfort me. He tried to make it sound like my bosses’ fault, so he gave a weak, “Well, you know how Israelis are….” And I was like, “Well, that’s just it, they’re not Israeli, they’re from South America…Argentina, I think….”
And, oh man, did I strike a nerve. His eyes lit up and he was yelling, “I HATE Argentinians! They’re even worse than Israelis! Here, tell me something mean you want to tell them and I’ll tell you how to say it in Spanish to them!”
I kind of shrugged it off because I actually think my bosses are nice people—it’s not their fault that I suck at selling shit. So the two of us sat in silence for a minute, and then finally my friend said, “You think you suck at your job? I have a story for you….”
What followed was the most comforting story I’ve ever heard. So apparently this guy was volunteering on a kibbutz a few years ago when he was 17. He worked in the chicken house and his job was stacking eggs onto these large carts with multiple rows. So anyway, one day he was putting away a tray on the top shelf, and he was shorter at the time and couldn’t reach. His Israeli boss just sort of watched, but didn’t offer any help, so my friend just tried to finish the job on his own, because being a shy teenager he was too embarrassed to ask for help.
Well, he ended up tipping over his tray, sending tens of eggs to splatter on the floor. This would have been humiliating enough, but what followed was a spectacular chain of events. As he tried to catch the falling eggs from the tray, he ended up whacking the large cart he was loading eggs onto, completely knocking it over and shattering every single egg that was on it. And as he tried to catch the falling cart, he knocked into a neighboring cart and made a couple trays from that one fall to their death. So, all in all, in a single moment my friend ended up destroying HUNDREDS of eggs while working.
Seriously, this is something that is so spastic that I thought only I would be capable of it. And now I feel a little bit better about myself—not that I’m any more coordinated than this guy, but at least I know that there’s at least one other person in the world as spastic on the job as me…
FROM YESTERDAY:
Yeshiva Boys of the World: I seriously dislike you.
You speak like a Torah.
You speak Hebrew in Israel like you’d speak Shakespearean English in Compton.
You completely overcomplicate things. If we’re doing some stupid exercise in Hebrew where we’re filling in the blank, you need to spend five hours on each question and try to come up with the most complicated or interesting sentence that was ever uttered in Hebrew. It’s never okay to just spend a minute, pick a word and then say, “Next!”
You think everything warrants a 10 hour discussion. Everything needs to be picked apart and dissected like The Talmud. Nothing is too simple to be subjected to your analysis.
You refuse to accept something as an answer. If a girl tells you the correct answer to a Hebrew question during class, and even the teacher—a native Israeli Hebrew speaker--confirms to your face that it’s correct, your response is simply a cold, “Maybe.”
NO, you fucktard, it’s not “maybe!”
What’s so frustrating is that I noticed whenever a GUY suggested an answer, he was much more willing to accept it, but whenever me, some girl, suggested an answer, it was either “NO.” or “Maybe…” if he knew I was right.
Oh my goodness though, I almost killed this guy. Whenever he refused to accept my answers as correct, I wanted to slap him. Whenever he wanted to spew out an analytical essay on some bullshit, I wanted to grab him and shake him like a baby.
It’s going to be a long five months…
How the hell do religious Jewish women tolerate their husbands? I can barely tolerate religious guys for a couple hours during class, I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to actually LIVE with one of this asstards every day for the rest of my life. I mean, I can’t think of an easier way to completely lose faith in G-d than having to live with a former yeshiva boy.
Speaking of the religious, there are two things I’ve always wanted to do in Mea Shearim (an ultra-orthodox area in Jerusalem) :
1) Run through the streets completely naked.
2) Stroll through the streets singing Christian pop music (“Awesome G-d,” anybody?) and carrying Christian religious symbols
I’m 100% Jewish, and I am 100% NOT an atheist, but holy fuck do I dislike a large portion of religious people.
Dear Readers:
Do any of you know of a really rich (or even moderately rich) man who would be willing to lower his standards and marry me? I’ve realized that the working world is not for me, and so my only hope is to marry a fabulously wealthy man.
That’s right, dear readers, I’m pretty sure that today was my last day of work in the t-shirt shop. Well, I’m not 100 percent sure—they told me to come in tomorrow (I’m not supposed to be working tomorrow) for a “talk.” This could be one of two things: 1) I’m getting a raise after only 2 weeks of really mediocre and borderline BAD work on my part or 2) I’m getting fired.
I’m pretty sure I ain’t gettin’ a raise.
I’m actually kind of laughing about all of this. The idea of me as a salesperson is kind of ridiculous, since I’m very afraid of strangers, honest at the wrong moments, and pretty shit at pretending to be friendly. Probably the only job worse for me than tourist t-shirt saleswoman is car saleswoman. Someone with my personality being a salesperson is almost as ridiculous as the idea of me being a lifeguard, seeing as I can barely swim.
Today someone asked me how work was, and I told them that I had multiple reasons to suspect that I’m getting fired (It’s more than just the fact that at work we’re having a “talk” tomorrow…actually, since maybe Day 3 I’ve suspected that I was going to be fired for being so shit, so I’m surprised that it’s taken them so long to actually go through with it). So of course they were trying to comfort me. I didn’t want people trying to feel bad for me, so I tried to stay positive and be like, “Well, everyone has to suck at something, and I’m just glad it’s selling t-shirts that I suck at.”
But then I realized that there’s a lot I suck at. I didn’t say it out loud to the person I was talking to, but when I got up to go to class I made a mental list: I suck at swimming, I suck at dancing, I suck at singing, I suck at speaking Hebrew (or any other language for that matter), I suck at seeing (without my really strong glasses prescription), I suck at dressing stylishly, I suck at science and math stuff, I suck at understanding how things like banks, interest, exchange rates and all that shit works, I suck at interacting with people like a normal person, I suck at eating healthy, I suck at making a decent cup of tea, I suck at having a discussion about politics or religion without getting overexcited or angry, I suck at bowling, I suck at soccer (and this breaks my heart to no end!), I suck at sewing, I suck at embroidery, I suck at drinking, I suck at drawing, I suck at every musical instrument I’ve ever tried to learn, I suck at giving blood, I suck at Judaism (if that’s even possible), I suck at setting up tents, I suck at keeping my room clean, and I suck at getting along with people. And a bunch of other stuff that I’d rather not get into right now.
So, really G-d, did you REALLY have to make me suck at selling t-shirts, too?
I’m beginning to get concerned that my life is just becoming one long, continual discovery of what I suck at. And to top it off Shabbat is coming up so now I’m like doubly depressed cos I feel like I suck at everything and then I get to spend the weekend in an abandoned building by myself moping about how I suck at everything. Great.
On the bright side, I’ve been told I’m really good at whistling……so….uh….that’s comforting, I guess.
Actually, I will share the most comforting thing I heard all day: so a friend from Brazil who is in my class was talking to me, and he was trying to comfort me. He tried to make it sound like my bosses’ fault, so he gave a weak, “Well, you know how Israelis are….” And I was like, “Well, that’s just it, they’re not Israeli, they’re from South America…Argentina, I think….”
And, oh man, did I strike a nerve. His eyes lit up and he was yelling, “I HATE Argentinians! They’re even worse than Israelis! Here, tell me something mean you want to tell them and I’ll tell you how to say it in Spanish to them!”
I kind of shrugged it off because I actually think my bosses are nice people—it’s not their fault that I suck at selling shit. So the two of us sat in silence for a minute, and then finally my friend said, “You think you suck at your job? I have a story for you….”
What followed was the most comforting story I’ve ever heard. So apparently this guy was volunteering on a kibbutz a few years ago when he was 17. He worked in the chicken house and his job was stacking eggs onto these large carts with multiple rows. So anyway, one day he was putting away a tray on the top shelf, and he was shorter at the time and couldn’t reach. His Israeli boss just sort of watched, but didn’t offer any help, so my friend just tried to finish the job on his own, because being a shy teenager he was too embarrassed to ask for help.
Well, he ended up tipping over his tray, sending tens of eggs to splatter on the floor. This would have been humiliating enough, but what followed was a spectacular chain of events. As he tried to catch the falling eggs from the tray, he ended up whacking the large cart he was loading eggs onto, completely knocking it over and shattering every single egg that was on it. And as he tried to catch the falling cart, he knocked into a neighboring cart and made a couple trays from that one fall to their death. So, all in all, in a single moment my friend ended up destroying HUNDREDS of eggs while working.
Seriously, this is something that is so spastic that I thought only I would be capable of it. And now I feel a little bit better about myself—not that I’m any more coordinated than this guy, but at least I know that there’s at least one other person in the world as spastic on the job as me…
FROM YESTERDAY:
Yeshiva Boys of the World: I seriously dislike you.
You speak like a Torah.
You speak Hebrew in Israel like you’d speak Shakespearean English in Compton.
You completely overcomplicate things. If we’re doing some stupid exercise in Hebrew where we’re filling in the blank, you need to spend five hours on each question and try to come up with the most complicated or interesting sentence that was ever uttered in Hebrew. It’s never okay to just spend a minute, pick a word and then say, “Next!”
You think everything warrants a 10 hour discussion. Everything needs to be picked apart and dissected like The Talmud. Nothing is too simple to be subjected to your analysis.
You refuse to accept something as an answer. If a girl tells you the correct answer to a Hebrew question during class, and even the teacher—a native Israeli Hebrew speaker--confirms to your face that it’s correct, your response is simply a cold, “Maybe.”
NO, you fucktard, it’s not “maybe!”
What’s so frustrating is that I noticed whenever a GUY suggested an answer, he was much more willing to accept it, but whenever me, some girl, suggested an answer, it was either “NO.” or “Maybe…” if he knew I was right.
Oh my goodness though, I almost killed this guy. Whenever he refused to accept my answers as correct, I wanted to slap him. Whenever he wanted to spew out an analytical essay on some bullshit, I wanted to grab him and shake him like a baby.
It’s going to be a long five months…
How the hell do religious Jewish women tolerate their husbands? I can barely tolerate religious guys for a couple hours during class, I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to actually LIVE with one of this asstards every day for the rest of my life. I mean, I can’t think of an easier way to completely lose faith in G-d than having to live with a former yeshiva boy.
Speaking of the religious, there are two things I’ve always wanted to do in Mea Shearim (an ultra-orthodox area in Jerusalem) :
1) Run through the streets completely naked.
2) Stroll through the streets singing Christian pop music (“Awesome G-d,” anybody?) and carrying Christian religious symbols
I’m 100% Jewish, and I am 100% NOT an atheist, but holy fuck do I dislike a large portion of religious people.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Basically I'm retarded.
Oh fuck am I frustrated. Not frustrated enough that I wanna call it quits and pack up and go back to the US after only two weeks, but frustrated enough that it warrants a blog post. (Then again, what DOESN’T warrant a post on this blog? It seems like I talk about pretty much any minor thought that has ever crossed my mind at any point in my life, including some things I haven’t thought about since I was 5.)
Fuck, why am I so bad with this language? It’s humiliating because I’ll get on the bus carrying a newspaper in Hebrew (which isn’t too difficult for me to read), but the person sitting next to me will ask a question or something, and I’ll either a) not understand what the hell they’re asking or b) understand the question but not know the answer, and stumble helplessly through Hebrew as I attempt to explain how/why I don’t know. And the person either snaps at me with something like, “It’s a simple question!” or gives me this kind of sympathetic or embarrassing look that says that they understand I’m hopeless with the Hebrew language. And then I’m embarrassed to open the newspaper, because I’m afraid the person sitting next to me who just learned that I can’t speak Hebrew to save my life will think that I also can’t read Hebrew, and that I’m just pretending, like a little kid who picks up a book and pretends to be reading, but is in fact holding the book upside down.
Even more embarrassing is that the only bit of spoken media that I can actually understand almost word for word are children’s cartoons in Hebrew. Radio? Hopeless….maybe I’ll get the gist, but in terms of the finer points of the conversation? Nothing. Music? Nothing. TV news? Nothing. The only TV show that I could sort of understand was “HaAlufa,” and that had Hebrew subtitles, and it was also a soap opera so it was kind of easy to understand what was going on.
Instead I’m stuck watching “Winnie the Pooh” in Hebrew—and I can’t even sit back and relax as I watch it. I have to concentrate on every single word in order to understand it. So I’ll be in the TV room of my building, and me, a couple other immigrants, and a sizeable crowd of small children watch “Winnie the Pooh” or whatever else together.
On Friday at work I thought I was going to start crying. An Israeli came into the store (this is not all that common), and she was a girl about my age. I was trying to help her in Hebrew, and was doing just fine until she asked me a question that I didn’t understand. I hesitated for a moment trying to figure out what she could possibly have said, and then I figured I should ask her to repeat what she said. So she did, this time slowly and deliberately and loudly—not in a kind way that showed she was sympathetic to my language barrier or that she was patient, but in a way that suggested she was pissed off with me for being such an idiot. And I tried to catch every single word, but I still had no idea what she was saying. I felt really panicked, and I hesitated for a bit, and as I was thinking of what to say next, she snapped at me in completely exasperated Hebrew that I actually understood: “IT’S TERRIBLY EASY, WHY DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND! THIS IS NOT DIFFICULT!” At which point all words in any language completely left me, and instead I just let my face immediately turn bright red. Completely humiliated, I shuffled back behind the counter to grab my Israeli coworker to help this Israeli bitch.
The worst part is, I STILL have no idea what she was trying to ask me.
So I guess my point is that the life of an immigrant (or even the life of a long-term tourist, as I found last time I was here), is the life of people constantly telling you that something is completely simple or obvious or easy, when to you it seems impossibly confusing.
I don’t know. It’s just scary. I mean, for right now I’m not too concerned because I live in a kind of closed environment, surrounded by a crapload of other people who don’t speak Hebrew. But five months from now, I will no longer be in this building. Five months from now I’m going to be in real society, and I’m still not going to be fluent, and instead of just experiencing brief moments of being made to feel like an idiot when I’m outside of my apartment building, every single moment of my life is going to be me feeling like an idiot. And, oh fuck, I’m so scared of the army now—I don’t want to spend 2 years being the person in the unit that everyone else thinks is a retard.
There is some kind of silver lining in all this shit though: today my boss got into a huge argument on the phone with someone in Hebrew. Mind you, my boss is an immigrant. Hebrew is NOT his first language. But I was listening to him, and I was so proud to hear an immigrant holding his own in an argument. He was yelling in such fast Hebrew that I could barely keep up with the conversation, and he didn’t stop every other word for a long “ehhhhhhh” like new immigrants unfamiliar with the language often do. Minus his slight accent, he sounded just like a native Israeli.
Now, I’m not particularly close to my boss or anything (he’s a very nice old man, but I only started working there last week), but I was so proud of him and it actually made me feel really good about myself too. Sure, the subject of the argument was not exactly a happy one, but I couldn’t help but smile and think, “Wow, someday my Hebrew will be just like his!”
Unfortunately, my boss has been here for well over 20 years, maybe even 30…so it’s not all that comforting to think that maybe when I’m 40 I’ll stop sounding so goddamn retarded.
Fuck, why am I so bad with this language? It’s humiliating because I’ll get on the bus carrying a newspaper in Hebrew (which isn’t too difficult for me to read), but the person sitting next to me will ask a question or something, and I’ll either a) not understand what the hell they’re asking or b) understand the question but not know the answer, and stumble helplessly through Hebrew as I attempt to explain how/why I don’t know. And the person either snaps at me with something like, “It’s a simple question!” or gives me this kind of sympathetic or embarrassing look that says that they understand I’m hopeless with the Hebrew language. And then I’m embarrassed to open the newspaper, because I’m afraid the person sitting next to me who just learned that I can’t speak Hebrew to save my life will think that I also can’t read Hebrew, and that I’m just pretending, like a little kid who picks up a book and pretends to be reading, but is in fact holding the book upside down.
Even more embarrassing is that the only bit of spoken media that I can actually understand almost word for word are children’s cartoons in Hebrew. Radio? Hopeless….maybe I’ll get the gist, but in terms of the finer points of the conversation? Nothing. Music? Nothing. TV news? Nothing. The only TV show that I could sort of understand was “HaAlufa,” and that had Hebrew subtitles, and it was also a soap opera so it was kind of easy to understand what was going on.
Instead I’m stuck watching “Winnie the Pooh” in Hebrew—and I can’t even sit back and relax as I watch it. I have to concentrate on every single word in order to understand it. So I’ll be in the TV room of my building, and me, a couple other immigrants, and a sizeable crowd of small children watch “Winnie the Pooh” or whatever else together.
On Friday at work I thought I was going to start crying. An Israeli came into the store (this is not all that common), and she was a girl about my age. I was trying to help her in Hebrew, and was doing just fine until she asked me a question that I didn’t understand. I hesitated for a moment trying to figure out what she could possibly have said, and then I figured I should ask her to repeat what she said. So she did, this time slowly and deliberately and loudly—not in a kind way that showed she was sympathetic to my language barrier or that she was patient, but in a way that suggested she was pissed off with me for being such an idiot. And I tried to catch every single word, but I still had no idea what she was saying. I felt really panicked, and I hesitated for a bit, and as I was thinking of what to say next, she snapped at me in completely exasperated Hebrew that I actually understood: “IT’S TERRIBLY EASY, WHY DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND! THIS IS NOT DIFFICULT!” At which point all words in any language completely left me, and instead I just let my face immediately turn bright red. Completely humiliated, I shuffled back behind the counter to grab my Israeli coworker to help this Israeli bitch.
The worst part is, I STILL have no idea what she was trying to ask me.
So I guess my point is that the life of an immigrant (or even the life of a long-term tourist, as I found last time I was here), is the life of people constantly telling you that something is completely simple or obvious or easy, when to you it seems impossibly confusing.
I don’t know. It’s just scary. I mean, for right now I’m not too concerned because I live in a kind of closed environment, surrounded by a crapload of other people who don’t speak Hebrew. But five months from now, I will no longer be in this building. Five months from now I’m going to be in real society, and I’m still not going to be fluent, and instead of just experiencing brief moments of being made to feel like an idiot when I’m outside of my apartment building, every single moment of my life is going to be me feeling like an idiot. And, oh fuck, I’m so scared of the army now—I don’t want to spend 2 years being the person in the unit that everyone else thinks is a retard.
There is some kind of silver lining in all this shit though: today my boss got into a huge argument on the phone with someone in Hebrew. Mind you, my boss is an immigrant. Hebrew is NOT his first language. But I was listening to him, and I was so proud to hear an immigrant holding his own in an argument. He was yelling in such fast Hebrew that I could barely keep up with the conversation, and he didn’t stop every other word for a long “ehhhhhhh” like new immigrants unfamiliar with the language often do. Minus his slight accent, he sounded just like a native Israeli.
Now, I’m not particularly close to my boss or anything (he’s a very nice old man, but I only started working there last week), but I was so proud of him and it actually made me feel really good about myself too. Sure, the subject of the argument was not exactly a happy one, but I couldn’t help but smile and think, “Wow, someday my Hebrew will be just like his!”
Unfortunately, my boss has been here for well over 20 years, maybe even 30…so it’s not all that comforting to think that maybe when I’m 40 I’ll stop sounding so goddamn retarded.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Also, so a couple nights ago I was sitting with a couple orthodox girls and we were discussing what we would like in a guy. And I've decided that what I'm looking for is a man who really likes the concept of Brigadoon. Basically, I'd like to marry a Steve Irwin-type, you know, so courageous that it borders on the verge of idiocy, but at the same time REALLY likes the idea of Brigadoon. If you know of any such people, please send them my way. Thanks in advance.
Rambling
I’m listening to “The Final Countdown” right now. Basically if my brother and I had a song, this would be it. When I was a junior in high school and he was a senior, every single day after school as we drove home we’d roll down the windows and put “The Final Countdown” on as high as it would go. On our last day of school that we’d ever have together, his senior year, the two of us sang an impromptu a cappella version of it in the student center…. Oh man. Nostalgia sucks. You know what though? Given enough time I’ll eventually have lots of nostalgia for things that happened in Israel.
Actually, it’s already starting to happen. For example, when I turned back on my Israeli cell phone for the first time in 4 months, I found that I had a song on it that one guy on the kibbutz would always play. I think it’s called One Sign or something by Galleon…. Anyway, not only was it this guy’s ringtone, but he’d also walk around the kibbutz blasting the song from his phone. And he’d just strut around like he was about to go to a club. He was totally serious, but I thought it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, especially since I would see it at least twice a day—like not even with a different song. Same song, same guy. So now whenever I hear that song I think back on the things at the kibbutz that were funny and heartwarming or whatever. No, it’s not quite the same as memories of brothers or family or whatever, but it’s fond nostalgia all the same.
I think years from now I’ll hear songs from Grease and I’ll think of my current roommate singing completely incorrect pseudo-English lyrics to “Summer Lovin’” as she never tires of doing right now, and I won’t be able to stop smiling.
Okay, my big problem of the moment? Europeans and South Americans. Oh. My. G-d. Please stop touching me. I had the same problem on the kibbutz, but now I’m going through it all over again. Seriously, you do not need to hug me and do the MWAH MWAH cheek kiss thing just because we haven’t seen each other all day. If you want to do that after I’ve been stranded on an island for 10 years and suddenly see you again after being rescued….okay, maybe we can work something out in that case, I’m totally flexible. But on a day-to-day basis I don’t need to be hugged and touched and whatevered by people. Also, I’m having a lot of problems adjusting to how close certain people from certain cultures get when they’re talking to you. Certain people feel like they have to get close enough that they could whisper a secret, when really they’re just talking about what they did today or asking a question about how my day was.
Also, I gotta say that I’m really thankful I’m a lone immigrant. I know that sounds weird, especially since on this blog you’ll never cease to “hear” me complain about how lonely things like Shabbat are for people like me…..but living in this absorption center here and being surrounded by a lot of immigrant families, I’m so glad I’m doing this on my own. All I have to worry about is getting ME around a foreign country. I don’t have to worry about my children adapting and getting them around and dealing with all their shit on top of my shit. All I have to worry about here is if I am happy, not if my husband or one of my children is unhappy. If I want to stay, I can stay, and if I want to go I can go, and I don’t have to worry bout where anyone else wants to be.
Weird Work Story? So today a woman comes in and starts trying to get things accomplished in Hebrew. I can tell from her accent that she’s English, but because I know how hurt I get when people answer to me in English after I worked up the courage to speak Hebrew, I stuck to Hebrew. So after a couple basic sentences, the woman switches into English, and I follow her into English. She initially looks surprised, but we continue our conversation…. So we’re talking to each other in English for maybe 5 minutes, and at the end as she’s walking out she stops and turns around. And she asks in her cute little English accent, “I must ask, are you from England as well?”
WHAT? WHAT???? I mean, it’d be different if a Canadian asked me if I was also from Canada, because we have similar accents. But an English person asking me??? EXCUSE ME?? Do you not hear my nasal, harsh American accent? Do you not hear how I actually pronounce my R’s, instead of pretending that they don’t exist like you folks do?
I figured that if I told her that I lived my entire life, all my 20 years (except for four months in Israel), in the United States, she might get embarrassed that she had done such a horrific job of placing my accent. So instead I said, “Well, I was BORN in the United States….” Which, if you ask me, is slightly ambiguous. Sure, it’s a totally true statement, but the emphasis I placed within it suggested a lie. By placing the emphasis on “born” I somehow suggested that I had roots in the United States, so I was not in fact English, but the emphasis also suggested that I had lived most of my life elsewhere, making her mistaken accent placement an easy mistake to make. It did NOT suggest, however, that I had made aliyah all of two weeks ago.
Of course, I have NOT lived most of my life elsewhere, so I’m not sure why this woman thinks my accent is anything less than American…
I seriously don’t understand these Americans who think I’m an Israeli who doesn’t speak much English, or now these English people who think I’m one of them (G-d forbid!). Or even more bizarre was a French friend from the kibbutz who, during the first few months of our knowing each other, was absolutely convinced that I was pure German from Germany. See, I think I look, sound and act American. I don’t think there is anything about me that is un-American even in the slightest, except maybe for the fact that I no longer live in the US (but I think the concept of immigration and learning to deal in a foreign society is an important concept in the history of the US).
I remember I was on a school trip in France in high school, and a bunch of us Americans were sitting around deciding which ethnicity everyone looked. It was like, “Oh, so-and-so, you totally look Greek!” or “You DEFINITELY look French, so-and-so.” I guess that’s the special thing about being from a place like the US, where everyone is the descendant of immigrants and everyone’s kind of a mutt, so you get to try to place where everyone’s from. Maybe it’s the same in Israel too since it’s an immigrant society. Anyway, my turn came and I eagerly awaited to hear which nationality I looked. And what was the unanimous response from the group?
“American.”
“Oh yeah, definitely American.”
“Yeah, I agree, American.”
So you can imagine that I find it extremely confusing when people don’t immediately recognize me as American.
Anyway, the best part of this story from work was that I even told it to my roommate and her response was the French equivalent of, “How the hell could anyone think YOU are English???”
My roommate continued, “Are you sad about it? It’s not good for Americans to be called English, eh? Don’t worry about it, she drank, she drank. She was drunk, it’s not a big deal.”
Actually, it’s already starting to happen. For example, when I turned back on my Israeli cell phone for the first time in 4 months, I found that I had a song on it that one guy on the kibbutz would always play. I think it’s called One Sign or something by Galleon…. Anyway, not only was it this guy’s ringtone, but he’d also walk around the kibbutz blasting the song from his phone. And he’d just strut around like he was about to go to a club. He was totally serious, but I thought it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, especially since I would see it at least twice a day—like not even with a different song. Same song, same guy. So now whenever I hear that song I think back on the things at the kibbutz that were funny and heartwarming or whatever. No, it’s not quite the same as memories of brothers or family or whatever, but it’s fond nostalgia all the same.
I think years from now I’ll hear songs from Grease and I’ll think of my current roommate singing completely incorrect pseudo-English lyrics to “Summer Lovin’” as she never tires of doing right now, and I won’t be able to stop smiling.
Okay, my big problem of the moment? Europeans and South Americans. Oh. My. G-d. Please stop touching me. I had the same problem on the kibbutz, but now I’m going through it all over again. Seriously, you do not need to hug me and do the MWAH MWAH cheek kiss thing just because we haven’t seen each other all day. If you want to do that after I’ve been stranded on an island for 10 years and suddenly see you again after being rescued….okay, maybe we can work something out in that case, I’m totally flexible. But on a day-to-day basis I don’t need to be hugged and touched and whatevered by people. Also, I’m having a lot of problems adjusting to how close certain people from certain cultures get when they’re talking to you. Certain people feel like they have to get close enough that they could whisper a secret, when really they’re just talking about what they did today or asking a question about how my day was.
Also, I gotta say that I’m really thankful I’m a lone immigrant. I know that sounds weird, especially since on this blog you’ll never cease to “hear” me complain about how lonely things like Shabbat are for people like me…..but living in this absorption center here and being surrounded by a lot of immigrant families, I’m so glad I’m doing this on my own. All I have to worry about is getting ME around a foreign country. I don’t have to worry about my children adapting and getting them around and dealing with all their shit on top of my shit. All I have to worry about here is if I am happy, not if my husband or one of my children is unhappy. If I want to stay, I can stay, and if I want to go I can go, and I don’t have to worry bout where anyone else wants to be.
Weird Work Story? So today a woman comes in and starts trying to get things accomplished in Hebrew. I can tell from her accent that she’s English, but because I know how hurt I get when people answer to me in English after I worked up the courage to speak Hebrew, I stuck to Hebrew. So after a couple basic sentences, the woman switches into English, and I follow her into English. She initially looks surprised, but we continue our conversation…. So we’re talking to each other in English for maybe 5 minutes, and at the end as she’s walking out she stops and turns around. And she asks in her cute little English accent, “I must ask, are you from England as well?”
WHAT? WHAT???? I mean, it’d be different if a Canadian asked me if I was also from Canada, because we have similar accents. But an English person asking me??? EXCUSE ME?? Do you not hear my nasal, harsh American accent? Do you not hear how I actually pronounce my R’s, instead of pretending that they don’t exist like you folks do?
I figured that if I told her that I lived my entire life, all my 20 years (except for four months in Israel), in the United States, she might get embarrassed that she had done such a horrific job of placing my accent. So instead I said, “Well, I was BORN in the United States….” Which, if you ask me, is slightly ambiguous. Sure, it’s a totally true statement, but the emphasis I placed within it suggested a lie. By placing the emphasis on “born” I somehow suggested that I had roots in the United States, so I was not in fact English, but the emphasis also suggested that I had lived most of my life elsewhere, making her mistaken accent placement an easy mistake to make. It did NOT suggest, however, that I had made aliyah all of two weeks ago.
Of course, I have NOT lived most of my life elsewhere, so I’m not sure why this woman thinks my accent is anything less than American…
I seriously don’t understand these Americans who think I’m an Israeli who doesn’t speak much English, or now these English people who think I’m one of them (G-d forbid!). Or even more bizarre was a French friend from the kibbutz who, during the first few months of our knowing each other, was absolutely convinced that I was pure German from Germany. See, I think I look, sound and act American. I don’t think there is anything about me that is un-American even in the slightest, except maybe for the fact that I no longer live in the US (but I think the concept of immigration and learning to deal in a foreign society is an important concept in the history of the US).
I remember I was on a school trip in France in high school, and a bunch of us Americans were sitting around deciding which ethnicity everyone looked. It was like, “Oh, so-and-so, you totally look Greek!” or “You DEFINITELY look French, so-and-so.” I guess that’s the special thing about being from a place like the US, where everyone is the descendant of immigrants and everyone’s kind of a mutt, so you get to try to place where everyone’s from. Maybe it’s the same in Israel too since it’s an immigrant society. Anyway, my turn came and I eagerly awaited to hear which nationality I looked. And what was the unanimous response from the group?
“American.”
“Oh yeah, definitely American.”
“Yeah, I agree, American.”
So you can imagine that I find it extremely confusing when people don’t immediately recognize me as American.
Anyway, the best part of this story from work was that I even told it to my roommate and her response was the French equivalent of, “How the hell could anyone think YOU are English???”
My roommate continued, “Are you sad about it? It’s not good for Americans to be called English, eh? Don’t worry about it, she drank, she drank. She was drunk, it’s not a big deal.”
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