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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)