"Y'all are some bad mother fuckers, yes you are."

Nathan and I demolished our presentation on Wednesday--everything went super smooth, and Tomer even got to come and watch.  After the presentation, Sheldon shook my hand and said "top-rate," which was pretty cool.  After classes, I went to the Mohammed house alone because Cera was sick.  It was probably one of the best times I've ever had there--I played a memory game with them with new drawings about things in the kitchen.  While talking to the kids, Musa (the father) said my name and I turned around to see a table full of food.  He insisted that I eat before teaching the kids.  Dinner consisted of rice, chicken, and soup, which were all delicious. Zara, the mother, cooked everything, and told me that they were all traditional Sudanese foods.  There's some aspect of  Darfuri and Sudanese culture that demands both that hosts be highly hospitable, and that guests partake heartily in their hospitality.  Musa kept indulging me to eat more, even though I told him I was very full--I think it may be insulting to them not to finish something they offer you--when we go to the family center, Adam is always diligent about our drinking the juice he gives us after the lesson.  If we don't finish all of the juice, he asks us "what happened?"  It's very interesting, and I honestly can't say whether it's a cultural thing or just an anomaly in the group of people I've worked with (although the time that Yossein fed Nathan, Cera, Emilie and I dinner, he also insisted that we finish everything...).  As we ate, Musa and I discussed America and many other things--he told me that the Muslim holiday of Hajj is coming up this weekend.  I told he and Zara that I was familiar with it, and he began to describe to me how many Muslims were making pilgrimage to Mecca this weekend to see the kaaba, the holiest site in Islam.  As we continued to talk about it, I said that they circled around the cube 7 times, and Zara was taken aback, saying "oh, you really do know what Hajj is!"  It was pretty cool.

After that, I went to the family center and taught the Darfuri adults some English.  Almost no other volunteers showed up (I attribute this to Laura's being in charge, and Cera's debilitation), so they just had to talk in larger groups than they usually do.  It's a shame, really, because it was one of the last times we are going to be able to work with them.  In any case, on Wednesday, I worked with a weaker group than I normally do: up until then, I had only worked with the pre-intermediate group, who I always feel like know what I'm teaching them already but are too afraid to admit to it.  This time, though, I worked with the beginner group, so I had to kind of take them by the hand and show them the answers to the questions in the book.  We read together about Buenos Aires, Havana, and Seville, and then answered questions about each city.  It was more tedious yet also more satisfying to work with the beginner's class, because I felt that I was a bigger help.

In any case, I returned home that night, went for a run, and went to bed.  I woke up late Thursday and went to Sharet Elementary School to work with the kids once again.  I've started to see more and more of my kids around Bat Yam--a week or two ago, I saw one on the bus whose name I did not remember, and that was kind of embarrassing as he called me out ("Hi Ittai!").  Then, after volunteering on Thursday, Ephy and I went to the mall to make international student IDs (that say we are born in 1989), and I saw one of my favorite kids there, Or.  I also saw another kid with him whose name I do not recall :\ I would feel worse about not remembering some kids names, but, in the course of two weeks, I probably work with 30 or 40 kids, each for only 45 minutes or so.  And throughout the months they have changed the kids on me quite often, which makes it even harder.  Anywho, after Ephy and I got our IDs, I went to Ulpan and we had our Hebrew final.  I thought I was going to do pretty bad on it, and there were a lot of words in the reading section that I didn't know (and ended up asking our teacher about, I'm glad she translated many of them for me), but in the end I think I probably did fairly well (especially considering that the teacher, Hana, was standing over my shoulder for the last third of the test and going "mmm-hmmm" and helping me).  It's interesting, I'm not used to needing help with academia at all, but I just don't know as much written Hebrew as the rest of my class--indeed, I was the last person to finish the test.  I hope that, by the end of Arad, I am as good as most of the people in there.  We'll see.

After class I went to the Hangar and got an awesome winter jacket that Roie had bought earlier that day; it makes him look like a Russian mobster.  I then returned home and Ephy and I went over to Thanksgiving dinner at Eli Cohen 24 (also known as Simon's/Nathan's/BenJirik's/Scott's/Ohad's/Aaron's apartment [although Aaron was out of town for the weekend and Ohad was at a scout thing]).  It was pretty fantastic, we had turkey legs that Ephy and I cooked at our apartment as well as mashed potatoes, yams, cauliflower, stuffing, banana cake, and apple pie.  At the end I felt both full and American (two things that I think usually go together anyway :P).

Then I went over to Marissa and Karin's apartment, where we hung out for a while before watching Donnie Darko.  I left in the middle because I wanted to wake  up early on Friday to do the stair race at Azrieli towers.  Scott, Jake, I, and others had planned to take a 140 bus to Azrieli at 7:15 in the morning, seeing as the race started at 9 and the bus only comes once an hour or so.  Unfortunately, I woke up at 7:00 and told myself I could just sleep for a couple more minutes and then leave--I ended up sleeping in until about 1:30 or so.  Shortly after I awoke, I went for a run, and by the time I'd showered and cleaned up a bit, my cousin Gil came and picked me up.  We went to King George Street to buy tickets for the show last night, the Tabac Weekender.  Ben brought this up to me a couple weeks ago because we both like Saul Williams, and I was astounded that he was even in Tel Aviv.

In any case, Gil and I then went to his family's apartment and had a nice dinner before we picked Ben up at Shuk HaCarmel and headed to the show.  Saul was phenomenal--he is easily my favorite slam poet, and much of the slam poetry I've written has been heavily inspired by him.  I heard him recite quite a few poems that he's done at the National Slam Poetry competition, as well as a couple that I heard when he came to University of Kentucky a couple of years ago.  All in all, it was pretty phenomenal, although I don't know how much Gil enjoyed it.  After he finished, Ben and I came up to him and talked to him for a bit--Ben is from Poughkeepsie, where Saul also grew up.  Saul kind of smiled and laughed when Ben told him this; I always feel like he's just too wiped out to really comprehend anything after he performs.  We got a picture with him:



I mean, seriously, look at him.  He looks like he just gave birth, or is about to die, or something.  I would say he just doesn't photograph well, but I got plenty of great shots of him during the performance:


The only thing I didn't like about the performance was Saul's insistence to take breaks between poems and talk about what's going on over here as if he's actually knowledgeable.  He was making very liberal and somewhat ignorant comments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...at one point, in one of his poems, he asked "where my niggas at?" and then said "...would that be in the West Bank?"  Trying to equate the Palestinian situation to the situation of African Americans, at any point in America's history, is not only very one-sided but also quite ignorant and generally incorrect.  The first comment he made about his venue was something along the lines of "I never thought I'd be performing in Israel...y'all are some bad mother fuckers, yes you are."  Essentially, he talked about the situation as if it was as simple as deciding to make peace right now, as if Israel has not tried, and as if he was educated about it--which he clearly is not.  Something interesting he did say, though, that I kind of agreed with, is that Israel and America are kind of like boyfriend and girlfriend.  He said our peoples shared a certain cultural kinship that is also, unfortunately, often rooted in misdeed.  Anyway, aside from his political commentary, the show was excellent.

Then, this morning, Gil drove me over to Saba and Safta Bruno and Clara's place, and we ate lunch.  Now I am relaxing before returning to Bat Yam--tonight is Simon and I's final weigh-in for our competition, I need to go for a long run as soon as I get back.  The loser has to pay for the winner's dinner tonight at Papagaio.  Regardless of the outcome of the contest, tonight should be an excellent night.  I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving, and an even better week!  I'm sure I would love to hear from you sometime, feel free to contact me via any means!  Take it easy! :D

Dinner at Tom's

Monday morning, I went to Sharet elementary school to work with Israeli kids on English once again.  Something I need to make sure I do before I leave is to get a picture with Ronit, their teacher, and also to get a picture of all of them when she asks who wants to go out of class with me.  They always jump up and yell at her that they want to leave, sticking one of their fingers up in the air (I'm fairly certain this is the way Israelis are taught to raise their hands).  How crazy the kids get is almost surreal.

After volunteering, I returned home and had a quick lunch.  A couple days ago, Tomer, Roie, Ephy and I all went grocery shopping together for the first time in a while.  As we passed by the witch, we put our hands on each other's shoulders and made a choo-choo train to see what she said.  All she did was stare at us and (I'm certain) curse every one of us with some evil witch spell.  Tomer tried to say "shalom" to her, but, as usual, she just glared at him.  I've decided that sometime in the next two weeks I will go and ask her who she is and why she is always in front of the police station.  I demand answers, even if it means being hexed.

After lunch, I worked with Laura and Cera on volunteering with Garin Tzedek in Arad.  Nathan came over and he and I worked some more on our project before going to Ulpan.  We did a worksheet about different forms of the word "because" in Hebrew, something which I was previously completely ignorant of--apparently, there are some that are only used in a positive connotation, some in only a negative, and one that is only used when discussing holidays.  Weird.  I  had to leave Ulpan a bit early to set up for my David Project project, which was a play about how to raise awareness about a nuclear Iran on an apathetic campus.  At the end of the play, we simulated an evacuation into a shelter with air raid sirens.  The presentations were pretty much what I expected, and lived up exactly to the David Project.  Oh well.  At least it is almost over now.

Monday night was a disappointment--the tzofim had to cancel the movie night because the projector was locked up, so Nathan and I spent the entire night working on our project.  Lame.

Tuesday I woke up at 10 or so to go down to the Ulpan at 10:30.  We had a סיכום sikkum (closing discussion) about our volunteering placements here, and wrote letters to our coordinators.  I wrote mine to Ronit all in Hebrew, although I hope the spelling mistakes don't make it illegible.  After this, I returned home for a bit before going on the Migrant Workers siyur.  We were lead around the neighborhood of the תחנת מרכזית, the central bus station, by a woman named Yael from an organization named "Mesila" that wants to help the migrant workers (who are often illegal immigrants) and refugees who are here receive their basic human rights.  In some ways, it kind of reminded me of what Garin Tzedek is doing, but on a bigger scale and in a slightly different way.  The siyur was actually fairly mundane, as walking tour siyurim tend to be.  Afterwards, Nathan and I looked for some clothes to work on a costume for the talent show (which he and I are hosting, we just found out the other day when they were handing out flyers with this information).  We tried to buy a suit jacket from a guy, and he started at 350 shekels, claiming that it usually went for 8 or 9 hundred.  We got him down to 100 shekels, but I still didn't want to spend that much money on it--it is only 1/4th of the costume.  So we left.

When we got back to Bat Yam, I realized that I'd forgotten my apartment keys, so I was locked out and Nathan and I just messed around with this cat outside of my apartment before I had to go back into Tel Aviv to volunteer with the Mohammed family.  Before that, however, I was called by the Ma'ariv Newspaper for Bat Yam and Holon.  They did an interview with me over the phone about volunteering and Year Course in general, which was pretty cool...I hope I get a copy of this article, though.  When I did that TV thing earlier on in the year, I was promised a DVD of it or something, which I am yet to receive.

I met Cera in Tel Aviv and went to the Mohammed house, but, since I was locked out of my apartment earlier, we were missing most of our materials.  Thus we did a sundry activities with them before we left.  One of the things we did was have them draw a person and talk about the different parts of them in English--Musa drew a picture of me which is not too flattering, but funny nonetheless.  I finally got some photos with the family, which I will be sure to put up later.  We then went to the family center and I taught the adult Darfuris a fairly difficult English concept: the words as soon as, until, before, when, if, get, make, take, and do.  They seemed to understand it all by the end, which, of course, made me ecstatic.  They could even use the words in sentences of their own construction, which, when it comes down to it, is really what it's all about.

Right after this, Nofar and her boyfriend picked me up (along with Oren) from the central bus station, and we all went to Tom's house in Holon, where Karin and Liat already were.  We had a nice dinner and talked about many goings-on, as well as, of course, reminiscing some about camp.  It was one of the best nights I've had in a couple weeks.  I just enjoy the company of people older than me more than of those my same age, I think.  In any case, we laughed a lot, Karin and I learned a lot of new words in Hebrew, and Tom got a chance to come up and see my apartment when he drove me back.  Best of all, there were some burecases left over from dinner, so Tom gave Karin and me them to take back to the apartment--IN TUPPERWARE!  (I'm all about getting tupperware to take back to the apartment).  It was a great night, all around.

When I got back, Nathan and I finished our project, and today we present.  After today, I have my Ulpan final tomorrow, and then have to write essays for the final in Sheldon's class...and then we leave Bat Yam!  I am feeling a mix of anticipation and anxiety about our leaving.  I'm going to try not to think about it and just squeeze as many good memories out of here as I can before I leave.  I need to go to class soon, so have a good day everyone!

יום רישון

Last night, Simon, Ephy and I went to eat at Japanika and then I had a hot chocolate from Aroma--it is the first and last time I'll get anything from there.  It tasted like nothing more than warm milk the whole time, and, when I got to the bottom, there were just globs of chocolate syrup sitting there.  Ugh.  As we sat drinking our things near the beach, a man came up to us and asked us for money for food with a lit cigarette in his hand.  I really felt like telling him that he should've spent his money on food and not cigarettes if he cared, but the three of us just kept telling him we had no money.  The more we said this, the less crazy he acted, until he walked over to two guys he had been talking to before and acted totally normal.  People are so ridiculous.

I didn't end up hanging out with Tom last night; by the time I was finally free and called him, he was far too tired.  We need to make sure to hang out sometime soon, before I leave Bat Yam.  When I got home, I went for a brief run, and then worked on my David Project project over at Tani's apartment  until I finished it, then headed home.  This morning I woke up at about 11 and Nathan and I worked on our project for Arab Israeli Conflict before heading to a Garin Tzedek meeting and class (but not before getting delicious ten-shekel falafel near the office).  Then we had classes as usual, and then Cera and I went to the Mohammed house and played Bingo with the kids.  She got a chance to work some with the mom, which was pretty exciting.  Afterwards, we went to the Tel Aviv port to look for a records place Cera said she saw yesterday, but it disappeared...I am beginning to suspect that no records stores actually exist in Tel Aviv.

When we got home, I went for a run, and Nathan and I once again worked on our project.  Today was not very exciting, as days go, possibly largely because I had a slight drone of a headache in the back of my head the entire day.  Anyway, I hope you are enjoying yourself, wherever you may be--take it easy, friends!

Last Night...

...Scott and I had vodka and XL.  I have decided I will not do this again--it was my first time ever drinking an energy drink, and felt just as unhealthy as I suspected it would, despite making the vodka taste like apple juice.  We hung out for a while in Maya and Lizzy's apartment, after ANNIHILATING Miki and Anna at Euchre:

In the first 15 minutes, Scott and I were down 9-2.  Then, slowly but surely, we came all the way back to win 10-9, after Miki and Anna kept telling everyone else there to just "wait a minute or two" because the game would "be over after this hand."  It was a pretty triumphant moment for us.  Every time we're down in a game like that, Scott tells me that "this comeback is gonna be so amazing, they're going to have to make a Disney movie out of it."

At about 1:30 or so I came home and meandered around for a bit before going to bed.  Today, I woke up late and went to Zvi's son's house for lunch.  Zvi is my great uncle--my mom's uncle--and every time he calls me he thinks that I have forgotten who he is.  When I got the message on my phone from him yesterday inviting me to lunch today, he said "Ittai, this is Zvi.  I am your great uncle. I am your mother's uncle.  I am married to your grandmother's sister.  I am your mom's mom's brother-in-law."  And then he repeats the entire message in English, in case I did not understand it in Hebrew.  Tom Sela also did this the other day when he left me a message, so I left Tom a message back in Spanish, English, and then Hebrew.

Lunch was spectacular.  It was nice to see parts of my very distant family (ie twice removed cousins), and to eat some legitimate food.  I then returned to Bat Yam and went for a run with Scott--he wanted to see if he could do 6k in the time I did 4k.  I beat him by about 2 minutes.  Then we worked out in the park near Eli Cohen 24 (previously known as Simon's/Scott's/Nathan's/BenJirik's/Aaron's/Ohad's apartment), and some random lady asked us in English "what are you in August?" (because neither of us had shirts on).  I responded in Hebrew that it wasn't cold for us here right now, because where we live in America it is much colder than this.  I hate it when people come up to me here and start speaking in English.  I guess something about us just screamed AMERICAN.

And now I am back home.  Tom and I made plans yesterday to hang out tonight, but he IS NOT PICKING UP HIS PHONE.  We'll see how this goes.

Wow...

Shabbat is quickly closing in on Bat Yam--stores outside are closing, the sun is setting towards the sea, and long alleyways of broken-down apartments are being basted in the winter wind that feels like an American autumn gust.

I cannot believe it has been a whole week since I last wrote.  So much has happened, but it's not as though this week has been more particularly busy than any other--I supposed I just went out and did a couple of things I don't usually do rather than take the time to write things down.  Hopefully not too much of this past week's experience will be lost due to my laziness.

I think it's in the Bill Maher documentary "Religulous" that he asks whether fear or laziness is the most universal human trait: definitely laziness.  Although I do not consider myself lazy, I can think of no other thing to attribute my lack of writing in this past week to.

Friday night, in Noah's apartment in Arad, we had a great lettuce-wrap dinner.  Then we watched Anchorman, which, as always, was hilarious.  After, we went over to Joe's birthday party--Joe is 21 now, he is on Year Course because he went through rehab.  His father is 80-something.  Joe always says "yo yo yo yo" before starting a sentence, often says "you don't even know" when explaining about something he finds interesting or particularly intriguing, and, upon being asked a yes or no question, will always answer the opposite of what he means first (ie on his birthday: "Joe, are you 21 today?" Joe: "Nah...I mean, yeah, yeah."  Needless to say, we were over to Joe's party for about 5 minutes.

We then went to Muza, the main bar in Arad.  We ordered a thing of delicious french fries, and then spent about 20 minutes debating whether or not to ask the people next to us (who were clearly done with their fries and still had plenty left) if we could have them--Cera ended up standing up and going over to ask them very bluntly, which worked fairly well.  Unfortunately, she forget to ask if we could also have their sauce, so I went over there and finished the job.  We then got back to Noah's place, and it was there that I solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

What?!

Yeah, I solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Friday night.

I closed the screen door in Noah's apartment, which separates the bedrooms, toilet, and shower from the living room, kitchen, and lounge area.  I put a piece of duct tape on the door that said "Ittai's half of the apartment--keep out."  I also wrote "JEWS ONLY" on the screen door itself.  I then harangued Noah, Cera, JD, and Laura into that half of the apartment (the one missing the kitchen and living room).  I closed the lounge area, where Adam was, and duct-taped the doors.  I told him he was the West Bank, and I told the other group of people that they were Gaza, and if they wanted anything from the kitchen or living room, they had to ask me.  I also told them I could use their facilities (ie bathroom, shower room, bedrooms) without asking their permission, and that I would occasionally be bombing their parts of the apartment--oh, and, also, that they had no human rights.  I slowly made concessions, but they demanded the entire apartment for themselves, even after I gave them what they initially asked for.  They also tried to sneak people across the border to blow up my parts of the apartment.  They tried to protest, so I switched apartment sides with them several times, and I allowed Adam to "sleep with shoes on" in the West Bank (don't ask me why, that's what he wanted).  And thus it was solved--easy, right?

I don't know what BiBi Netanyahu is doing out there, but he should have just been in the apartment Friday night and the conflict would have been all over already.

After the conflict ended, which, now that I think of it, had started with us locking Laura in the pantry closet, we headed back over to Joe's party to each use the bathroom for exactly 3 minutes, and then left again.  We thought this was pretty funny.

Saturday morning, we naturally woke up very late, and went to see the Sudanese community in various places throughout Arad.  I am very excited for our move there--although we have a lot of work to do with them, they seem much more organized and motivated than the Darfuri community in Tel Aviv.  They have their own board of representatives that each have specific tasks, which is encouraging.

That day we also spent an hour or two at Felicia, Maddie, Shosh, and Arielle's apartment, which was fantastic--I miss all of those people, and getting to see them for a bit was refreshing.  Sometimes I think about how much it sucks that we're not all in the same city, but that's just the way things work out, I suppose--no point in getting pouty about it.

Saturday night we returned to Bat Yam, and, by the time we got home, I was so tired I just clonked out and went to sleep.  Sunday morning, I woke up fairly late and made lunch, then went to a meeting with Sheldon--Nathan didn't manage to make it because he was still stuck in Herzliya, so Sheldon and I talked about a bit about a our project before we started just talking about me and my beliefs for a while, which was kind of strange but also highly interesting.  After classes, Cera and I went to the Mohammed house to teach Talala, Musa, and Shaima English, which was pretty much business as usual.  Their father (whose name I am fairly certain is also Musa) has started speaking to me much more when I come.  I don't know if he is practicing his Hebrew, or just wants to get to know me better, but, either way, it's pretty cool.  When we got there on Sunday, Musa (the father) and a friend of his (who ended up being the kids' uncle) were having dinner, and they offered us some--it was some delicious mixture of chicken with rolls of bread, and Musa said it was a Sudanese dish.  I had an interesting conversation with his brother about languages, particularly Arabic, and Arabic art before the two of them went into another room and we started working with the kids.

Some days, the kids don't have the focus to learn at all, and just jump around like rambunctious hedgehogs.  But, to be honest, I'm happy as long as the kids are happy.  Sure, they should be learning English, but if I can show up a couple times a week and make them have fun, I'll also feel good.  After all they've been through, they deserve that much at the very least--I remember, before we started working with the Mohammed kids, when we were just meeting Darfuri families and their kids, one of the kids, Fouzi, who Nathan and Emilie now work with, told me about the trip over from Darfur to Israel (which he made three years prior).  He said that it was just a short, four-hour walk.  Now, from talking to adult Darfuris and from having a basic comprehension of the geography of the region, I know that this is impossible.  Either it was so long ago and he was so little that he doesn't really remember what happened, or it was so terrible that he blocked out what actually happened.  It's interesting--Andrew Fretwell, from  Young Judaea in America, sent Noah and I an e-mail suggesting that we got the stories of Darfuris on tape and put them on the Garin Tzedek blog to raise awareness--and I don't think he thought about sensitivity issues.  I did ask Adam, the English teacher, yesterday, if I could possibly have an interview with him in front of a camera for this purpose, and he agreed.  Cera noted that the whole time he and I were talking about it, even though he was agreeing, he looked much more somber, and was digging his fingers into the back of his computer screen, as though restraining himself.  We finally watched the video documentary he gave us the other day, and, in it, he explained about how he was struck by Egyptian soldiers with a sword.  I had always suspected the scar on his face was from something of this nature.

Sunday night, after working with the Mohammed family, I got home and hung out with various people before going to bed.  Monday morning, I woke up and went to Sharet elementary school to work with the kids on their English, which was pretty much the same thing it always is.  When I got off at 12:45, Scott and I went into Tel Aviv to hang out at the thrift area on King George street--he bought a new pair of kickin' Adidas shoes, as well as a rocking flannel shirt for "flannel Fridays."  I got a Fight Club hoodie, and ate at a delicious falafel place.  I then met with Etane Berman in the central bus station to pick up my laptop charger (which I had forgotten in Arad), before we headed home because we initially thought we didn't have Ulpan class and then found out we did.  We ended up being about an hour late, which was no big deal--I explained it to our teacher quickly in Hebrew and she didn't even seem mad.

Monday night, I went over to Cera's apartment and her, Lior, and I all watched "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."  (Although Lior fell asleep like 5 minutes in).  I ended up sleeping over there because the movie ended pretty late.  We thought Beth wasn't coming home from Uganda until Tuesday night, so I slept in her bed--next morning I found out she returned at 4 AM to me in her bed (OOPS!).  I apologized to her the next day and offered to clean her sheets, but she didn't seem to care too much.  Anywho, I woke up Tuesday morning and rushed over to my apartment.  We went on a siyur to Rothschild Street in Tel Aviv, where we were escorted around and taught by Avi Rose, a madrich from Jerusalem.  He showed us the influence of eclectic,somewhat baroque-like architecture on Rothschild, as well as the enormous amount of Bauhaus style houses farther down that were established by German, Jewish intellectuals who moved here in the 1930's.  After our tour of the street, we went to a small art museum near the end of Rothschild.  Unfortunately, I was so tired from the night before that I fell asleep while the woman was talking about her family, which is a shame, because it was fairly interesting--apparently, some of the characters in the film "Schindler's List" are representative of her father and mother.  Also, the art in the museum was intriguing--I truly regret falling asleep.  Typically, that sort of thing wouldn't happen to me, but I had sunglasses on and told myself that nobody could see my eyes, so I might as well...and then I did.

After I awoke and we left, I, Simon, Ephy, Jake, and Cera went to the Japanika at the intersection of Rothschild and Allenby, which was a cool kind of kiosk/corner cafe thing.  It took me a while to order, though, because I sat in the worst possible spot behind one of the columns and didn't want to yell too loud and be a rude Israeli.  After waiting 15 minutes or so to order, repeatedly asking, I asked the guy once again if I could order and he said "why, of course" as if all I'd had to do the whole time was ask.  It didn't matter, though, it ended up being delicious.  After this, Cera and I went to look for the record store we'd seen in Jaffo a couple of times on our way home from the Mohammed family's house.  Somehow, we got lost and couldn't find the place, so we ended up going to the port in Jaffo.  We saw this giant hill covered in grass next to the port that looked like something out of a dream.  We climbed up it and sat in a circle of benches to see the sun set over the sea.  I need to go back to this place as soon as I can, it was absolutely amazing:



We then went to the Mohammed house to tutor Talal, Musa, and Shaima, and then went to the Darfuri family center to teach an English class and lead discussions.  It was, as always, satisfying, but also conflicting.  The section of the workbook I was helping the class go through was about gender equality in the workforce, which is something I'm pretty sure they don't believe in.  Some of them were actually saying that they didn't believe women were capable of being firemen (well, technically, they would be firewomen, but whatever) [funny side note: I have spell check on, and it claims that "firewomen" is not a word] or builders.  It just lended credibility to an idea that I've been thinking about for a couple of weeks: the Darfuris we go and volunteer with consider women inferior.  I started to think this based on the way that they look at and treat the girls who come with us to volunteer--not badly, just differently.

Tuesday night, Scott, Nathan and I went over to Karin's apartment.  Before we left, Scott and Nathan each covered one of their hands with duct tape to make "metal hands."  Nathan was convinced for the rest of the night that he could punch through anything, and kept threatening to.  We negotiated with Karin for pieces of turkey in her apartment for a while before I left, because I figured I should actually get some sleep for once.

Wednesday morning, I woke up and did the dishes before going to class.  In class, Sheldon asked us about racism.  Cari said that she thinks racism stems from fear (fear of what?), and then I said that I think racism stems from miseducation and what parents tell their kids when they are young and/or how they act towards people of different "races" (I put quotations around this because race does not really exist, it is a perception thing--but I don't want to get into this, perhaps another time when I have less to write about.  It is a lengthy discussion).  And I said that, while to me and others who are raised a certain way, this racism seems wrong, to the kids who are raised this way, it is not wrong.  Right and wrong are relative concepts in the first place, and there is no absolute that weighs them.  Apparently, though, some people took this to mean that I thought racism was justified.  I heard that Anna told Cari later that day "Oh my god, did you hear how Ittai was justifying racism today?" and Cari nodded in somber agreement, convinced of my racism.  People are so ridiculous.

That night, we had a meeting with someone from American Jewish University, who was basically trying to convince us to come to AJU after Year Course.

OKAY.

Later, I went over to Marissa and Karin's, because they were having a fondue night.  It was pretty fun, Andrew and I drew ourselves pink, French mustaches:



Oh, that reminds me--I got my hair cut by Roie earlier in the week with some clippers, as short as I had it in middle school.  It has not been this short since middle school.  After that, Scott, Nathan, Ben Yaniv, Max and I went over to Maya and Lizzy's apartment.  I left a little while later and went to bed.

Thursday I woke up and went to volunteer at the school.  I spent a large chunk of time in the morning with a kid who has a speech impediment, which reminded me about Keren telling me that, much of the time, speech problems can be indicative that something is also wrong at home.  It's intersting--I'm sure a lot of the kids I work with do have problems at home.  The scouts that come to my school (Chen, Yoni, and Guy) get to work with the troubled kids, talking to them about their home and having a good time with them.  I wish I could spend some time doing this as well as teaching them English.

When I got home from the school, we cleaned up a bit before מפגש דרה (apartment meeting) with Noa.  It was a good one, she resolved to help us fix the window shutters and then she left.  Then we had Ulpan, where we took a pretty hard practice test in preparation for our final next Thursday.  I need to study with the tzofim, they are offering an open workshop the day before so we can study.  Thursday night I ended up watching "Requiem for a Dream" with Tani, Jordan Syatt, and Cera.  It was an exhilarating and intimidating movie.  Then we chilled for a little while, and it was late so I was pretty slaphappy (there is a word for slaphappy in Hebrew, מצב קפית, "spoon situation").  I left shortly after that and went to bed at about 3:30.  Then today I woke up at 12, had lunch, worked a bit on my David Project project with Ben and Ori, then went for a run, and then did the EPIC PRANK.

The other night, after Scott and Nathan made their metal hands, they got sick of them and wanted to take them off.  Nathan just ripped his off like an impatient child, but Scott meticulously slid the duct tape off of his hand, maintaining its perfect form.  He filled it with rice the next night and put it on top of his bed, as a trophy to his excellence.  It was so cool, he even took it to the art museum he volunteers at and they said it was impressive.  Anywho, last night, I was briefly over at Eli Cohen 24 (previously known as Simon's/Scott's/Nathan's/BenJirik's/Aaron's/Ohad's apartment) and Simon struck on a genius idea: steal the hand and leave a ransom note.  Thus I wrote an elaborate ransom note, with different letters and handwriting, instructing Scott to meet behind the Marlboro today at 6:32 PM if he ever wanted to see his hand again.  We made a pinky in the same fashion and half-filled it with rice, leaving it next to the note to let him know we weren't fucking around.  Simon took an excellent picture of the note that I will be sure to put up later.  Anywho, today, I took him there and we pelted him with water balloons.  It was kind of anticlimactic, but also pretty hilarious.

And then we had a joint Shabbat dinner of pasta with chicken sauce.  It was delicious!

I'm going to try to get back into the habit of writing daily or bi-daily, so that I don't lose any funny memories.  In the meantime, שבת שלום, friends, take it easy!

ערד

I am in Arad this weekend.  We haven't done much since we got here--Noah and I played a game of chess, and now we are preparing dinner.  I just thought I would post so soon because he and I just had an interesting discussion:

What if we joined the Israeli army at the end of Year Course?

I mean, it's not as if this is something I haven't considered before, but I've never given it any serious thought, to be honest with you.  I only tend to find myself thinking about when I sing or hear hatikva, the national anthem.  For some reason, though, when Noah brought it up just now, we had a pretty cool talk about it.  I could actually see us doing it: if 10 or more Year Coursers decided to be chayelim chobedim (lone soldiers) with us, we would likely be placed in apartments together, then go through the army experience, and then either reapply to colleges in the states or stay in Israel.  The thing about it is, I don't think that I would possibly want to return to college in America after having been in the Israeli army.  It's interesting...everyone who talks about making aliyah someday talks about maybe doing it after college, doing it after getting a job, doing it after establishing a family--doing it after dying, basically, because once you have all of those things in place, what is the likelihood that you're really going to uproot most of your life to move to Israel?

"If not now, when?"
"אם לא עכשיו, אימתי?"

Just something to think about.

Awww yeahhh...

...good week!

Tuesday night, I left the apartment shortly after writing and went over to Caf Tet Benovember 22.  I hung out with Cera and Ben Jirik for a while before Ben and I left.  On our way home, we cut through the park and found Nathan, Scott, Chanya, Sasha, Emilie, and a few others drinking.  We saw them from afar, so I suggested to Ben that we sneak up in our most stealth-like fashion (hence I yelled "ENTERING STEALTH MODE" at the top of my lungs [they did not notice]).  We ran from a wall to two separate trees, attempting to hide behind them--each one skinnier than our respective selves.  We then advanced farther up the line to two more thin trees closer to the group, but still they did not notice us.  I and Ben threw our flip-flops at the circled yet scattered group, and happened to miss everyone, which, of course, meant that they still did not notice.  Then Tomer suddenly appeared out of the bushes in a running outfit and yelled "Hey Emilie there are some Arsim throwing things at you...oh, wait, it's just Ittai and Ben."

They still did not notice us.  We walked up, briefly said hi, retrieved our shoes, and returned home.

Wednesday morning I woke up to go to the office for a Garin Tzedek meeting with Michal, Cera, Emilie, Nathan, and Laura--it was brief, but necessary and successful.  I then went for a strange run with Emilie, took a shower, did the dishes, and went to class.

Speaking of class, sometime last week, a girl in my Arab-Israeli conflict class asked Sheldon about the U.N. Partition Plan (Resolution 181, the Partition Plan for Palestine), and he began to talk about it, and then she asked what Israel would have looked like in it.

HOW DO YOU GET THIS FAR INTO A ZIONIST EDUCATION WITHOUT KNOWING, AT THE VERY LEAST, THE GENERAL GIST OF THE PARTITION PLAN?!

I'm pretty sure she only came to the realization that the plan split up the Israeli state into disconnected thirds after he explained it.  Yowza.

Anywho, Wednesday we had class, and then Cera and I went into Tel Aviv to work with the Mohammed family again (as we have practically every night this week).  We made them a new set of memory cards that are kitchen-specific items, and it was a bit harder for them to read and pick up on--but I'm sure they'll get it soon.  After, we went with another group of volunteers, consisting of some of the same from Tuesday but also some different ones, to the family center to have discussions with adults again.  It was pretty sweet, and everyone said they felt satisfied afterwards.  This is what I always envisioned the Garin being: an outlet for people to gain a sense of wholeness and appreciate another culture through extra volunteering--a chance to bond not only with each other but also with Darfuris.

After volunteering, we all went to a party at the Dancing Camel Brewery.  It was a fundraiser for the ARDC (African Refugee Development Center) in Tel Aviv, which has been out of food for a while.  With the money raised from the party, the ARDC sent three African refugee students to college at IDC Herzliya.  It was quite the good time--they had fantastically rich beer, and almost all of the scouts as well as plenty of other section 2 people came out to support the cause.  On the way home, Scott and I were fairly drunk, and were loudly singing Red Hot Chili Peppers songs near the highway.  We took the 140 bus home from Azrielli Towers, along with Nathan and Karin, and managed to beat all of the suckers who had taken the 19.  It was a good night.

Then, today, I woke up and went to volunteering.  This was more or less the same as usual, except for one thing:

There is a girl, Noi, who I have been working with for about a month and a half.  Every time I take her out of class, she just manages to cause trouble and distract the other kids.  About a month ago, I made her a chart that would allow her to know the sounds of English letters based on corresponding Hebrew ones.  I.E.: Aa א, Bb ב, Cc ק, except a bit more complicated.  Anyway, I guess she has been using it and actually studying somehow.  She used to not know how to read at all, but then, today, I went with her and a quiet girl out of the class and she was reading--not too well, but reading nonetheless, and getting a good portion of the words right.  It was fantastic, I don't think I've felt so proud since camp.  This is the sort of thing that makes volunteering at the school worth it, despite how bratty the kids can sometimes be.

After volunteering, I went to lunch with my family, Scott, and Nathan at El Goucho, a South American meat restaurant.  It was delicious, as usual, and it was nice for my parents and siblings to meet Scott and Nathan (as well as vice versa).  I bode them a final goodbye, since they are leaving tomorrow--although I'll see them in a month for Merav's bat mitzvah.  Scott, Nathan, and I then went to the Ulpan to have our bone marrow tested and put into the registry.  Arielle and Karin stayed late in order for us to come, since the drive had started during our lunch, which was nice of them.  It's interesting, apparently, there are thousands of different types of bone marrow, and they are pretty much all used for life-saving procedures.  The extraction of it from your system is supposed to hurt a good deal, but what does it really matter if you're going to save someone's life?  Besides, I also got a card that says I'm in the registry and can be called upon, as well as a lollipop.  Totally worth it.  After this, the 5 of us then went to the Hangar, a clothing store with novelty underwear.  I got a pair of boxer-briefs with a lion on them that looks eerily similar to the Young Judaea lion and says "One Love."

After this, I went back to the apartment, and then over to Adi's for a bit to meet some of her friends and give her my "Year Course Orientation 2009" shirt (which couldn't be uglier).  I then went for a quick run before I had an interview with Robin from CYJ Midwest about next year.  After this, I headed over to the art museum for the opening of the new exhibit--since Simon and Scott work there, they got to bar tend for the grand opening, which was pretty cool.  They were serving free vodka, and the art inside was intriguing, very post-modern stuff.  After this, Nathan, Scott, and I went over to Lizzy's apartment to hang out, and now I am back in the apartment.

I plan on going to Arad tomorrow to meet up with Noah and meet the Sudanese refugee community there, so that I do not enter into the situation in a vacuum without any knowledge or prior acquaintance.  It should be a fun weekend.  I hope you have a good one, take it easy, whoever you are!

שלום, חבר

Come Saturday, Nathan and I woke up at about 12 and worked on our project for Sheldon's class before my grandfather, Bruno, took us home.  On the way home, I came up with all of the assignments for the game of assassin that my section is now playing.  If you've never played assassin, it's a game where each person gets another person's name and a task that they have to do to kill that person--generally, the tasks are pretty person-specific--for instance, when I had long hair, the task to kill me one time was to get my permission to play with it.

Saturday night, we went to the Yitzhak Rabin memorial ceremony in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.  It was highly intriguing--the whole thing was very political, there were a lot of left-wing parties from the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) there trying to recruit people and many signs for parties were being held up.  Lots of people also held up "שלום עכשיו" (Peace Now) signs that I suppose were meant to honor Rabin's peace-loving spirit.  In case you're not too familiar with recent Israeli history, Rabin signed the Oslo Accords with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1994, a year before he was assassinated (hence the memorial ceremony).  The Oslo Accords were meant to be a positive step towards peace that more or less failed due to Arafat's calls for violence shortly after the signing of the documents, and the Israeli government's failure to do anything about this--rather than call Arafat out or renege on the deal, Israel went through with having Israeli soldiers leave many Palestinian towns and arm the Palestinian military.  It's unfortunate, but Rabin's decision to unilaterally carry through on the peace process has created a very strange and difficult dynamic to deal with today.  We are still feeling the effects to a great degree.  At the ceremony, there was also a (clearly pre-recorded) speech by Obama broadcast over the screens about wanting peace in which he said "The Israeli people have to realize that they won't have security until the Palestinians' legitimate grievances are acknowledged, and the Palestinians have to realize they won't have a state until Israel has security."  The whole speech came off as very two-faced in light of his recent history of Mid-East policy (criticizing Israel and getting closer to Iran).  Regardless, it was interesting.

Sunday morning, Nathan, Cera, Emilie and I went into Tel Aviv to have breakfast at 10 with Adam--he offered to cook us a barbecue breakfast last Thursday, and we gladly accepted.  It was pretty awesome.  We then returned and had classes, and the assassin game began that day.  That night I, Emilie, Cera, Simon, and Laura went to a dinner with some Year Course promoters to tell them how to get more people to come on the program.  The dinner was okay, although I felt kind of useless--at least it was free food.  When I got back home, I saw my father for the first time in 3 months or so as he and my cousin Gil came to the apartment to pick me up.  We went to my grandparents' in Netanya, where I also saw my mother and siblings, but not before stopping by my dad's mom's place in Kfar Saba.  I had a conversation with her about the Darfuris, and it basically boiled down to here being pretty racist and closed-minded--an interesting conversation to have, though.  I also discussed many things about Israeli politics and Middle Eastern relations with my dad, who is very right-wing in terms of Israel.  It was strange.

Monday morning, I went to my grandfather's funeral in Kfar Saba.  It was the first funeral I'd ever been to.  They wheeled his body out on a gurney, and he was covered with a body-sized tallas.  One of his close friends gave a speech, as did one of my aunts.  The whole thing was very surreal--my father was saying hello to all these people who lived near him or knew his dad that he hasn't seen since he left Israel almost 30 years ago.  I put a rock on the grave before we all left, and some people told me that I looked like him when he was younger--gingi hachazak, the strong redhead.  I will miss him.  He lived a full life, and always enjoyed himself.  My dad told me that he had said to him he wanted to go quickly, and, indeed, he did.

I then returned to Bat Yam and went to Zman Madrich and an evaluation of Noa with the rakezet of our section, Sharon.  We have no Ulpan this week, because many people are in Uganda for Olami.  After all of this, Cera and I went to the Mohammed house and taught Talal and Musa (Shaima was out with her mother).

Then, today, I woke up for a siyur with other tsofim on shnat sherut (year of service), like our tsofim.  We talked with them about our volunteering and what we hope to accomplish here.  We also saw a one-man play about a guy who is late to be a shaliach (Israeli ambassador to convince Jews in the diaspora to move to Israel) because of a terrorist attack where his daughter almost dies.  He portrayed Israeli culture very negatively, which isn't a perspective I often get.

After the siyur ended, I went for a 4k run, showered, had dinner, and went into Tel Aviv again to work with Talal, Musa, and Shaima.  Afterwards, I took a larger group of people to go work with the adult Darfuris at their community center.  Everyone paired off into groups and facilitated discussions, and it helped the Darfuris get some cathartic discussion in as well as improve their spoken English.  Everyone seemed to have an excellent time.

And now I'm home!

Something interesting that's been happening lately, is that, whenever Tomer and I are in the apartment after 12 or 1 or so, we walk around and talk like robots--it's so obnoxious, but so hilarious when it's that late.  Sometimes I lean out the window and yell "Pizza Bueno cooks with poison" and other such things (Pizza Bueno is the pizza establishment directly underneath our apartment).  One time, he and I opened the shutters, and I simply said "Pizza Bueno" in the robot voice, and a guy leaving the restaurant on a motorcycle (who probably works there) looked up at us with the death glare.  The robot thing is always hysterical.  Sometimes, when it's really late, Tomer just gets absolutely ridiculous, saying things like "I would rather drink the blood of Iraqi children than have Obama be in the White House.  McCain was the right choice--go go go go go go go go bomb Iraq.  YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH.  I just want to feel emotion and human love."

It's pretty preposterous.

Sometime two weekends ago, I was walking home alone at about 3 AM with a massive deluge of rain and a Moses (burger restaurant) knife in my backpack.  Adam stole it from the restaurant, so that I could have it in my apartment to legitimately cut things--it's interesting, I won't personally steal something, but I have no problem accepting something that someone else has stolen.  It was strange, however, because as I was walking home down a somewhat dark and deserted pathway, I kept considering getting the knife out just in case something happened.  This is a pathway that I often walk alone, often looking over my shoulder.  Yet it was very late, I was very tired, and it was very rainy, so I kept thinking about getting the knife out--but then I realized that I had to walk by the police station on the way back to my apartment, and I don't know how well a man wielding a knife at 3 AM in the morning walking by the police station would have gone over.  I ended up not getting it out of the backpack.  It's funny the way the mind works sometimes.

Anywho, I should get to bed--take it easy, my friends, I hope all is well with you!

"You are not leaving now."

On Monday night, after Ulpan, lots of people went over to Livorno 11 to watch "Adventureland."  Cera and I gave up on it, however, and we instead went for a walk as it began to rain, which was nice.  We had a pretty good long talk about morality, society, and perception before I headed home.  I ended up going to sleep fairly late that night, even though we had to be up and at Ulpan by 6:45 the next morning to leave for siyurim to the north.  I was initially supposed to be on a rappelling and hiking trip, but it got canceled on account of all of the rain in the days leading up to it.  Instead, we went to Rosh Hanikra and Acco (Acre).  This also ended up being pretty lame--Rosh Hanikra is a beautiful place next to the border with Lebanon that has many grottoes and caves next to the coast.  I went there on my Israel trip in the summer of 2008, and it was one of the coolest places I'd ever seen.  But, this time, it was closed due to all the rain in the past couple days--they said that the caves were flooded.  So we just sat outside of it for a little while, and took pictures of funny things:


After that, we went into Acco and basically spent the day chilling.  We had some time in the shuk before going to a tour of the old Turkish Bathhouse and some underground ruins.  It was pretty sweet.  At the shuk, Nathan, Ori, Ben and I bought matching flannel shirts:



After we returned from Acco, we went to a soccer game in Ramat Gan: Maccabi Haifa vs. Juventus.  Juventus won, but it was still a fun game--while I don't particularly like sports, it was an interesting experience:



I went home that night and did nothing particularly special, ended up sleeping over at Caf Tet Benovember 22, and woke up the next morning to return to my apartment and work on my Arab-Israeli conflict presentation with Nathan.  We ended up getting almost nothing done before going to class.  I did, however, do the dishes in my apartment.

Class on Wednesday got out pretty late, so Cera and I went almost immediately to the Muhammad house to work with Talal, Musa, and Shaima.  We played a memory game with English words, more "head, shoulders, knees and toes" as well as the hokey-pokie.  As we were about to leave, Musa said to me "אתם לא עוזבים עכשיו", "You (plural) are not leaving now."  It was touching that the kids never want us to leave--they often say this to us.  When we play the hokie-pokey with them, we do one at the end where you "put your whole self in" and then out, and then shake it all about, and the kids always crack up on the floor when I shake my whole self because I jump up and down.  It's satisfying to help kids who want to be helped.  It's still strange when I come in and they are sometimes watching Al-Jazeera, and I sometimes feel conflicted.  Regardless, I get a distinct sense that what I'm doing is very helpful.

After the Muhammad house, we went to the family center, where we met up with Nathan and Emilie to teach adult Darfuris English--this time, I sent them out in pairs with Cera, Nathan, and Emilie to work on conversational English.  This excites me, as we could start bringing a lot more people to help facilitate this on Wednesday nights, allowing more Year Coursers to volunteer hands-on with the Darfuris.  After this, the 4 of us went to a restaurant we've been looking for for a while called "24 Rupees."  It was a delicious Indian place that I am sure we'll return to sometime soon, and it was also cheap.  I will document it at the next available opportunity, as I will also do with Arlekino.  I need to make videos of these experiences before I leave.  We met some random people from Year Course 3 years ago who recently made Aliyah, which was pretty cool.  When we got home, I just went to sleep, because I had volunteering at the school on Thursday morning.

Thursday morning was business at usual at the school, except Melanie now volunteers there, and I have no clue where Lee went.  Melanie said she left her old school, where the kids had special needs, because a lot of the kids also had lice--she said that, to Israelis it seems, lice is not a big deal, and just a simple hygiene problem.  Anywho, after volunteering I came back to the apartment and made a quick lunch before heading to Ulpan early to help make signs for the Gan, although I personally didn't get around to making any (which is probably a good thing).  There was a disappointingly low turnout, we have to start thinking of how to get people involved again in Garin Tzedek.  I did, however, take some good pictures, and one of the best ones I've ever taken of a strange bug crawling on the ground:



I then went to Israel update with Noa, which ended up being an Israel downdate, as we talked about history.  It was interesting regardless, and a good review of Zionist history in general.  There was also falafel, which was nice.  Then we had Ulpan class, which was nothing special, but I am starting to read and write more and more quickly, which is exciting.  After Ulpan, I went back to my apartment before going to the Super Douche to by some materials for martinis for Ben Jirik's birthday.  I went for a run after this, and then Ben Jirik, Simon, Scott, and Nathan came over, and we all celebrated Ben's birthday with a martini toast.  We then went into Tel Aviv to go to Moses for Ben's birthday, which was, as always, delicious.  After, we went with Ethan Berman to the Flame (an interesting bar) for a bit before going back home.

This morning, I woke up at about 10 and Nathan came over.  My maternal grandfather, Saba Bruno, came at about 11 to take us up to my grandparents' place near Netanya.  We did some laundry, had lunch, and then took a nap.  When I awoke, my grandfather informed me that my paternal grandfather, Saba Shmulik, passed away today.  This is the first person in my family who I've actually known who's died...it's strange, one cannot hope to prepare themselves for the deaths of their predecessors, even though they are fairly inevitable.  We went and visited my dad's side of the family and I saw my paternal grandmother.  Shmulik died of a heart attack, and his wife has had heart problems for many years--somewhat somberly ironic, as my father is a heart doctor.  It's strange, I never want to feel too okay again after something like this happens, but I'm slowly coming to accept it.  This is not to say I'm not sad, but I'm happy that he lived a full life and didn't die suffering.  It would now appear as though much of my family will be coming here within a day or two for the funeral.  After I found out about his death, I went outside and said mourner's kaddish before we left--pretty much the first religious thing I have done in Israel since I arrived, excluding going to synagogue on Kol Nidre.  I saw him just two weeks ago, when we visited my cousin Dror's navy base.  I always had tremendous respect for Shmulik--he came from Austria to make aliyah to Israel, and helped found the nation.  He changed his last name to a more Israeli one (Eres) because he worked in the Israeli government abroad.  He had an amazing sense of humor and always made me feel at home in Israel.  שלום, חבר.

We then went to my Uncle Yuval's house for Shabbat dinner, and are now here.  Hopefully we'll get a lot of sleep tonight, something I have not done in a while.  שבת שלום, have a good one!

Nice Weather for Ducks

The rain has come back again--this morning I woke up to more heavy storm clouds that began their drizzle as I arrived at the school:


Yesterday, I woke up at about 11:30 and went to have a meeting with Sheldon at 12:45 about our presentation--Nathan and I are going to do ours on Operation Cast Lead.  After our meeting, Sheldon pulled me aside for a second to apologize to me about his snubbing a comment I made last class.  He told me that I said I wasn't sure whether Janjaweed forces (in the Darfur region of Sudan) would have the spine to fight American troops if they were sent in--I'm fairly certain I didn't say this, because I do think they would, so I told him that I appreciated it, although I didn't remember saying it.  Then he said that the point he was trying to get at was that he really appreciated my presence in class and how often I got to the heart of the matter.  That sort of thing always makes you feel like the shit, you know?

After, we had a גרעין צדק meeting that had a disappointing turnout.  Frankly, the way people have been treating the entire idea frustrates me.  A lot of Year Coursers, I think, just see the Garin as a way to go on special extra trips and potentially to switch out of volunteering that they don't like.  They expect it to be all set up for them, and for them to be involved with no effort.  I don't think people understand that it's something extra they choose to do, not just something to join "סתם", "just cause."  I want people to be more serious about it--you decide your level of involvement.

Anywho, then we had classes, and then Cera and I went to the Mohammed apartment to teach Musa, Talal, and Shaima some English.  We played a card-matching game with them, extended their knowledge of "head, shoulders, knees, and toes," and taught them the hokie-pokie.  We reconvened with Nathan and headed back to Bat Yam, where he and I went to the "18 in Israel" activity, which was just our madrichim talking about what they did in the army or as an alternative.  It was fairly interesting, regardless.  That ended late, so I went on a run real quick and then did nothing in the apartment until I went to sleep.

Last night, for the first time, it was cold enough for me to get under my covers.

Then this morning at the school was the same old stuff--except for working with Adir, the kid who actually cares and struggles a good deal.  That is always refreshing.  It's not the fact that kids have trouble that gets to me, it's that so many of them don't care.

And now I'm about to go to Ulpan.  The temperature outside is like the early whisperings of fall in Kentucky, which I love.  Take care, friends!