חג פסח שמח!

The 10k on Thursday went well.  I ended up clocking in at 48:34, which was good considering the hills, higher altitude, and more polluted air in Jerusalem that I wasn't used to yet.  The race itself was well organized and well-worth it--we got two free t-shirts (you usually only get one) with interesting designs on them, as well as a keychain medal and some popsicles.  When we were first informed about this race a couple months ago, the first question people asked afterwards was whether or not there were going to be t-shirts.  It's funny how much of a motivator something as simple as a t-shirt can be: it seems like people, myself included, sometimes utilize them as their main motivation.  This was certainly true of this race (well, I probably would have run it either way, but I was also very intrigued at first as to the question of t-shirts), as the cause we were running for was lone soldiers--people who move to Israel and join the army without their immediate family here.  I can understand where they might need money, but I can think of much more important causes, especially in Israel.  Regardless, the whole experience was, as usual, good fun.



After this, I rushed home to go to Ulpan.  We had a test on Thursday that I found relatively easy, partly because I studied and partly because this is easily the most legitimate Ulpan class I've had all year.  From this one class I've already learned so many words that I'm actually incorporating into my conversation.  After this, I had my Creative Non-Fiction Writing class and then headed home.  That night, me, Nathan, Scott, and Andrew headed down to Ben Yehuda street and spent a while going in between bars before returning home.  When we finally got back to the apartment (at like 2:30), Jesse came upstairs and started trying to wake everyone up for no good reason whatsoever.  It was pretty obnoxious, but also quite hilarious.

Friday morning, I went with some other people to a scouts' seminar to talk to Israeli scouts who are going to be working at American camps this summer.  This basically just consisted of us answering their questions, which was good for them (although Adi later described it as "not going so well").  We got free lunch, and I got to meet the male scout coming to Midwest this summer, Amit--he is from the same tribe as Zohar, the female scout from last year.  I only got to talk to him for a minute or two, but he seemed like a nice guy.  That night lots of guys came over to our apartment and hung out, and we didn't do anything particularly special.

Saturday I woke up later than I anticipated (as usual) and managed to clean up a bit around the apartment as well as get some other chores done.  I went to campus for a little while to partake in a watermelon that ended up tasting awful before coming back home and spending a quiet evening in.

On Sunday, I went to volunteering and continued doing research on the Rachel Corrie case.  I returned home via  new shortcut that Chanya showed me--I cannot believe I took Emma's circuitous route to work for so long!  Upon arriving at home, I had lunch and relaxed for a bit before going to my Jewish Art class.  We began looking at many Jewish things from the 20th century, which were quite intriguing.  After this, I hung out on campus for a bit with people before going back to Derech Hebron to the gym.  After working out and eating dinner, Simon, Nathan, and I watched a movie called "Black Dynamite."  It's a satire of stereotypical black action films from the 70's, and was pretty good (Simon and I have been wanting to watch it for a while).

Monday was a truly full day.  I went to volunteering and worked more on Rachel Corrie, got shwarma there for lunch, and then rushed over to campus for something that WAS written on the schedule--optional Arabic class.  Once I got there, though, Mike was mysteriously absent, so I called him up and he came down.  In no mood to teach Arabic, he instead sat and sporcled with me for about a half an hour before Ulpan began.  (Sporcle is a trivia quiz website, I'd tell you more about it but you don't want to know more about it, trust me).  Mike promised that we would begin learning the Arabic alphabet after break, despite only me and two other people showing up.  In Ulpan, we learned some Hebrew and got our tests back, which was pleasant.  After Ulpan I once again went to writing class, which was business as usual.  I decided that, for our "magnum opus" for that class (because she wants us to have some big work to give to her at the end of the trimester), I'm just going to write the first chapter of a potential book about this year.

After class, I rushed home to grab some things and we had a quick mifgash dira before I went to campus to meet up with Moron (her actual name is Moran, but when you pronounce it really Americanly it sounds like moron) for a tour of the Musrara neighborhood in Jerusalem.  I had to call her and heckle her into it because nobody else was going to go--I'm so sick of optional activities being canceled here because not enough people show up!  In the end, I went with her, Chanya, and Emma to tour the neighborhood before we met up with many people (including all the madrichim except for Mike) at the comedy club across from Ben Yehuda street.  Oh, the neighborhood tour was fun and slightly informative, but mostly good for taking ridiculous pictures of Emma:



This is the woman currently responsible for the lives of 20-some 18 and 19 year olds.  Excellent. :P

Anyway, at the comedy club I did my first ever stand up routine.  It went over really well, but I have to question whether it was because I was actually funny or because so many of my friends were there.  Nathan videotaped the whole thing, so hopefully I'll be able to put that up sometime soon (along with some other videos I have from this year).  I think I wrote up too many things for the routine, as some of it seemed rehearsed--next time, I should just write down a few ideas and go up there and talk. I hope to do another one again soon when there are less people I know there and when there are less un-funny people before me:



After this, we hung out on Ben Yehuda for a very short period of time to celebrate Ben Yaniv's birthday, and then headed home.  Tuesday was Yom Sport--all three sections of Year Course met up at the Sportec in Tel Aviv to play volleyball, soccer ("football"), and basketball against each other.  We also played an intense game of frisbee in the afternoon for fun that Section 2 of course won.  We got free lunch, got to see Capoeira as entertainment (it's a dancing form of martial arts, it's quite cool, I'd suggest giving it a looksie if you've never heard of it), and got to see people from the other sections.  All in all, it was a good and funny day:


As you can see, our team color was green, which gave me a good chance to wear the koffiyah (Arab scarf) I brought with me to Israel--I knew it would pay off sooner or later.  We got home pretty late that day and did pretty much nothing.

On Wednesday, I spent most of my time at volunteering listening to a guest lecturer discuss the Jewish population in Philadelphia.  This was somewhat interesting, but not very relevant or exciting, which explains why all the interns were required to go--they wanted to boost attendance so as not to embarrass the speaker.  Upon returning from volunteering (we got Holy Bagel for lunch that day), I went with Jake and Nathan to the shuk, as we had almost no food in the apartment and very scarce money left on our stipend. We're not entirely sure we we came so close to running out, but we have to be more careful next month.  At Machane Yehuda, we got some dirt-cheap pita (something like 20 pitot for 15 shekels), some chicken cutlets, and some veggies.  I would call it a successful trip, and the first time that we actually went to the shuk to buy food for the apartment.

That night, we went to a reggae club on Ben Yehuda street.  The club ended up being fairly disappointing, and not at all reggae, which often seems to happen in Jerusalem.  Nathan was also telling me about something he went to last week that was supposed to be jazz but ended up being more like Latino/world music.  This reggae thing ended up being more like trance music...perhaps there is some code?  I'm not entirely sure yet.  In any case, we wandered around Ben Yehuda street for a bit after exiting the club before taking a bus home.

On Thursday, I spent most of my time at volunteering listening to an actually interesting speaker, Dore Gold, talk about the issue of Jerusalem and what's happening with Israel's policies there in regards to America's stance.  Granted, it was a fairly right-wing speech, as the center is very right, but it was interesting nonetheless.  The issue in Jerusalem is the building of Jewish housing and buildings in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as theirs and one day want as their nation's capital.  Of course, the U.S. wants Israel to halt all building there, and religious Jews want to build more so that more people can live there.  It's a sticky situation, to be sure.  Something interesting though, is that a lot of the time when people are heckling over "settlements in East Jerusalem" and "building" there, this could be something as simple as someone renovating or installing a new porch.  Because Gold is one of the center's main speakers, there was a big spread before the lecture that ended up being our lunch afterwards.

I got home and quickly rushed off to Ulpan, where we read an Israeli children's story about animals living in an apartment building and trying to rent out one of the apartments.  All these different animals come by and claim to be pleased by the apartment, but refuse to live in the building because of some of the habits of its residents (that, most of the time, do not interfere with or intrude upon their lives at all!).  A pig who comes even simply says "I can't live in this building, the cat is black."  In the end, a dove or something comes and says that they don't like the apartment itself so much, but will live there because they like the neighbors a lot.  It's an interesting message to send to Israeli kids--our teacher said that pretty much every kid in Israel knows this book, similar to the Green Eggs and Ham story.

After this I had writing class, and then went home and packed quickly to take a direct bus to Bat Yam.  That night, there was a birthday party on the beach that could have gone better, but it was nice to see the scouts and hang out in Bat Yam again.

On Friday, I went to the Tel Aviv central bus station and was picked up there by my cousin Gil, who lives in Kfar Saba.  I spent the night there at my aunt's house, and Saturday morning went to my cousin Yuval's Bar Mitzvah.  An Israeli Bar Mitzvah is interesting: most of the time, they just read from the Torah without trope (the musical part) and don't do any of the service, but Yuval did do it with trope and did a haftarah afterwards, something you don't usually see in Israeli Bar Mitzvot.  This was the second part of his Bar Mitzvah, I attended a ceremony at the Kotel for him the Tuesday before Sports Day.

Saturday night, I went with my cousin Gil and some of his friends to a local bar called "The Coffee Tree" and had a delicious Czechian beer called Krusciosciev or something of that nature.  It was a relaxing night.

Sunday, I woke up and Gil took me to see my grandfather's gravestone, which was an interesting experience.  I then went to my grandparent's retirement living kibbutz near Netanya and spent the rest of the day relaxing, being well fed, and typing some things up.  I went with them to a presentation of short clips of orchestras playing in their presentation hall that was kind of interesting, which I imagine means it was extraordinarily interesting for lots of the old people here.

Today, I have done nothing exciting.  I awoke late and am going in about an hour to celebrate the Passover seder at my uncle's house in Nirit, which I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about later.  I am supposed to be interviewed (via telephone) in about a half an hour for an Israeli radio station about what it means to me to be spending Passover in Israel, so I'm kind of in a rush.  Actually, I should really stop here and get going.

I hope you have a great Passover wherever you are!  I am on Passover break right now, and on Wednesday I'm going hiking, but until then I would love to talk to you, especially since I am not doing too much.  Take it easy, chag sameach!

It is so cold!

Saturday evening, Scott and I played some Euchre on campus before going out to dinner with Andrew's family--we went to Ben Yehuda street and had delicious shwarma, made even deliciouser by the Crompton family's good humor and insistence on paying for us.  We proceeded to spend some time in Andrew's parents' apartment before going to Aldo for ice cream (which was fantastic, particularly because we ate it in front of a competing ice cream store across the street).

Sunday morning, I went to volunteering in an excellent mood. ;)  Justus had me start looking into the case of Rachel Corrie, a kind of radical left-wing peace activist who came to Israel in 2003 and kneeled in front of a giant bulldozer.  Thus, the bulldozer did not see her and ran her over, accidentally killing her.  The point is, now her parents are trying to sue the Israeli government, saying that the bulldozer driver intentionally ran her over in cold blood.  So now I'm doing research into talking points about the situation so that Justus can speak about it should he go on a lecture circuit.  It's actually pretty interesting stuff.  Sunday was also the first day I stayed for lunch and actually got to eat it with other interns, which was pretty cool--we ended up getting Holy Bagel.

When I got back from volunteering, Andrew was getting some beauty rest.  He is sitting next to me and insisted that I write that.  He was also particular about having me write "beauty rest" instead of "taking a nap," which is what I initially wrote.  In any case, I awoke him and we went to our second Introduction to Jewish Art class, which was pretty good.  We talked a lot about icons and images throughout Christian art history and started to get into Jewish art near the very end, which is what I've been waiting for.

Sunday was the first day the gym under Derech Hebron was open, so after class Nathan and I went down there and worked out for a while, which was good.  After that, we headed down to campus for a bit to say goodbye to the Kuma people who left for Poland for a week.

Monday morning, instead of going to volunteering, I went to Beit Ar-El to be part of a panel for some Hadassah fundraising people to ask us questions.  When I called Justus to inform him of this about a half an hour after I would usually get to volunteering, he told me that it was okay that I couldn't come, but I should try to make it in every day in the future, as people had been asking where I was ALL DAY.  I somehow doubt that, and I kind of chuckled when he told me that.  The Hadassah thing was fine, and afterwards I returned to the apartment and ate lunch before going to Ulpan and then Creative Non-Fiction Writing.  Both of these were good, except for the fact that in Ulpan our teacher told us we were having a big test Thursday (tomorrow).  In writing, we wrote a small piece about why Israel is a good place, and got our first real assignment, which is to write three pages about a specific thing on Year Course.  That class just seems to be getting better and better.

After class, we had mifgash dirah with Emma, which was hysterical as usual.  Then I went to the gym before going to sleep.

On Tuesday, instead of going to a siyur, I went to the Kotel and met my father's side of the family for my cousin Yuval's bar mitzvah.  It was pretty cool, and Tuesday was the first day it was cold here.  We met with a middle-aged religious guy who facilitated the whole thing across the mechitza.  The ceremony was quite different from what I'm used to in America, and only consisted of a couple prayers and the reading of four aliyot.  While we were there, Jews kept trying to go up to the temple mount (where the Dome of the Rock is) and I saw police grabbing them and literally throwing them back down the ramp up.  After the ceremony, we went to a museum next to the kotel about the chain of generations in Judaism that was fairly corny, but after that we went to a delicious lunch at a restaurant called Carma.  After lunch, my cousin Gil dropped me off at the top of Har Herzl, and I tried to find my way back with a bus.  I took one bus towards Jaffa gate, got off at the central bus station, took an 18 (which stops near home) heading the wrong way and ended up exactly where I had started, then took an 18 in the opposite direction and got off at a stop for a 71, which goes right to my apartment.  All in all, what should've taken something like half an hour took me three hours.  It was fun to be lost for a while though. :P

When I finally got back on Tuesday, I took my clothes down to Beit Ar-El to do some laundry with Andrew, and it ended up taking far longer than I expected.  We sat in a classroom for most of that time talking to Emma, which was good and quite funny.

Then today I awoke and went to volunteering, still working on the Rachel Corrie research.  We had some great shwarma for lunch and I then returned to the apartment.  Shortly after this, Nathan was down on campus and saw a great couch, so he called me and Scott and we went down to bring it up to the apartment.  It is much better and comfier than our old couch, and we put it down for a little while on the way back to sit on it in the middle of the street:



When we got back, we put our old couch in front of Abby's apartment door to barricade them in and brought the new one out to our porch.  It is fantastic so far, but there is concern among the apartment that on warmer days the fake leather will heat up and make it uncomfortable.  We'll see.

I went to the gym very briefly before going to meet with Nathan's grandfather to get a free dinner, which was excellent, especially considering that we are very low on money on our apartment's food budget.  When I got back, a lot of people in the building got in trouble for being belligerently drunk and then made their way away from the apartments.  I decided not to join them because I have a lot of work to do tonight, and also because I'm participating in a 10k race for lone soldiers tomorrow.  I haven't been training for it nearly as much as I had for the Nike Night Run or the Be'er Sheva 10k, but I hope I can maybe break 48 minutes--we'll see.

I hope you are doing well and that it is not nearly as cold wherever you are as it is here.  Take it easy!

The Apartments Smells a Lot like Fish...

...and I'm not entirely sure why.

Wednesday evening, after tossing frisbee for a while I attempted to go to a salsa club.  We went to a place called "The Yellow Submarine" only to find out that it was not there, and, after several phone calls, discovered that it was actually quite far away--so we decided to try for it another time.

Thursday morning was considerably more interesting than Wednesday.  Justus had me draft an e-mail for him a couple of times, organize his many post-it note business cards, and start doing some research about different Israel journals and talking points for a lecture.  He also asked me about youtube and myspace, which kind of made me chuckle.  I had to leave before lunch though because my first ulpan class started a bit earlier than it usually will.

Ulpan was good; it's great to have a bigger class again now that all the marva kids are with us.  A couple of people have also moved up to my level, which is cool.  We didn't do too much the first day, but we did read a story by Etgar Karet (a very eclectic Israeli author) about a kid's piggy bank and then write our own endings to it, which was fun.  To give you an idea of what kind of author he is, the story was about a kid who wants his parents to buy him a doll, but his dad demands that he save up money for it so instead buys him a piggy bank.  Every morning, they force the kid to drink chocolate milk (which doesn't really seem like a punishment to me) and give him a shekel each time he does to put in the piggy bank.  When the kid finally has enough money, the dad comes up to his room with a hammer intending to break the pig open, but the kid's grown attached to it and doesn't want to break it, so he tells his dad that he wants to put one more shekel in the next day before they break it.  In the real ending to the story, he hides the pig, but in my ending, the kid pukes chocolate milk up on his father before they run up to his room as the father (now obsessed with the doll the child wanted earlier on in the story) violently swings at the pig, misses, and accidentally kills the kid.  When we were talking about the story afterwards, I insisted that the father was an "arse," an Israeli guido of sorts, and the teacher was just like "You made him that way!"  It should be a good class.

After that, I took a nap before going to Creative Non-Fiction writing, which was much better the second time around because we got many more chances to write.  When class ended, I hung around campus for a little bit before returning home.

Thursday night we went to Ben Yehuda street to check out this bar Carlos told us about.  It was nice but fairly empty, and had a couple good deals.  We hung out on Ben Yehuda for a while after that before we returned home.

On Friday, I woke up and went with Andrew, Scott, Nathan, and Simon to the mall for lunch.  We happened to see Emma there, and then Andrew and I saw her again shortly after that at the grocery store.  She looked at the two of us standing in front of the alcohol aisle and simply said "I hope you're not bringing that back to the apartment."  We reassured her that we of course were not, and then, a couple minutes later, I called her and asked if she could clarify what the Year Course policy was on alcohol in the apartments.  We're not supposed to have it in the apartment, it's pretty much the most well-known rule, so that's why this is funny (or obnoxious).

Upon arriving home, Scott and I took a bus to meet Jake and David Gans at Ben Yehuda street so we could walk to Gan Soccer, a giant park next to the Knesset (Israel's parliamentary building).  We met up there with 12 or so random Israelis who play ultimate frisbee every Friday.  They ended up being pretty decent, and we played for almost three hours.  The entire experience was excellent, not only because we had a really good game going, but also because I got to meet some Israelis my age and talk to them for a while afterwards.  Hopefully this'll become a weekly thing for us, as it was quite awesome.

We walked back home from there (buses had stopped running for Shabbat by the time we were done), and I went to Shabbat dinner at Jackie's apartment to celebrate Hannah's visiting/Simon's birthday.  All of Derech Hebron then relaxed on our porch for a while before we went to Ben Yehuda street.  We spent some time there at a nice bar called Zolli's before going to a dance bar called Herzl's before returning home.  All in all, it was a good night.

I woke up much later than I wanted to today, but then again, it is a Saturday.  I think I'm going to head over to campus in a bit and see what everyone else is up to.  I hope you're having an excellent Shabbat and a great weekend!

שבוע שלם ומספק בירושלים

Wednesday night we went to Beit Ar-El and had pizza while hanging out with the madrichim.  The tzevet here seems much more friendly and significantly more competent than the tzevet in Arad was, and they also appreciate good humor much more.  In the week or so I've been here, they've already done a good deal more for me than madrichim in Arad ever did.

On Thursday we had various orientation activities--in the morning we listened to a lot of speeches, one of which was from Mel Reisfeld, an uppity old man who used to work at Tel Yehuda.  When he first came in, he saw Chanya, shook her hand, and then said "You know, in Israel, over the age of 80, there is no such thing as sexual molestation."  Throughout the course of his lecture, he also got very mad at some people for talking and yelled at one person "hey stupid, be quiet."  At the end, he apologized to them, but also flicked another group of people off on his way out.  So I guess you could say he's a pretty crazy guy.  We also signed up for classes, which I'm very excited about--after going three months without any legitimate courses, I'm ready to learn some things again.  In this last trimester, I'm taking one class called Introduction to Jewish Art (with Avi Rose, who's the head of academics in Jerusalem and a great teacher from what I've heard and seen) and a class called Creative Non-fiction Writing.  We also found out our volunteering placements on Thursday--I'm working at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which was my second choice.  It's essentially a research internship which looks like it'll be a lot of fun.  I just figured that after 6 months of working with kids (almost 9, if you count the summer before I came), it was time for a change.

Thursday afternoon, after all the orientation activities were over, a bunch of guys (myself included) got on the roof of one of the Beit Ar-El buildings and started throwing a football from roof to roof.  This got obnoxious quickly, as every time the football didn't make it to another roof or balcony and fell instead onto the quad-type area, we would all yell "FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL!" until someone retrieved the ball and threw it back up.  This activity went on for about an hour, and included throwing the football onto our madricha Emma's porch against her will, yelling at the top of our lungs, and switching roofs a couple of times.  As ridiculous as it sounds, it's probably one of the most fun times I've had on Year Course.

After this, I went with a small group of people to check out the shuk in the old city.  To me, a successful trip to the shuk involves spending less than 100 shekels (about 25 dollars), but getting something that I'm going to utilize more than once.  This was not a successful trip to the shuk.

That night, we went to Ben Yehuda street.  Ben Yehuda street is one of Jerusalem's main attractions, where a lot of Americans go to buy things and get drunk.  If you're not going to do one of those two things, though, it's not a terribly interesting place to hang out--sure, there are religious Jews in the street doing dances and singing and sometimes an assortment of other tricks, but, to a large extent, Ben Yehuda represents everything I don't like about Jerusalem--touristy loud Americans.  It's still nice to hang out there every once in a while though.

On Friday we woke up and took a bus to go to Abu Ghoush at Sam's request.  Abu Ghoush is both a small city nearby and a delicious hummus place, however, I am yet to go there, because the bus we took instead went to Ramot, a Jewish suburbia that is technically part of the West Bank.  Once we realized this, we got off the bus and headed to Machane Yehuda, a big shuk area in Jerusalem.  We got lunch there (probably one of the most crowded places I've ever been, and with some of the slowest walking people) and then headed home.

Upon getting back, we quickly prepared for Shabbat and then headed towards campus.  The entire section went to the Jerusalem "Great Synagogue" (that is its name, not its quality) for Kabbalat Shabbat services.  Initially we had been supposed to go to the Kotel for Friday night services, but during the afternoon on Friday some Arabs on the Temple Mount throw stones at police in a riot, so Year Course decided it wasn't worth the security risk.  Something interesting I read about that afternoon later on is that many Muslim people helped subdue the rioters throwing stones.

After the service ended, we had dinner at a place nearby and then headed home.  That night we had my Bar Mitzvah themed party, which, needless to say, was fantastic.  Nathan and Scott prepared speeches as my gay fathers and we had a candle lighting ceremony, the whole night was great.

Saturday, we woke up late and went to the promenade nearby with Andrew's family who are in town.  Technically, parts of the promenade are in the West Bank.  If you've ever seen pictures of Jerusalem, it's likely that they were taken from there, because it affords one of the best views of the old city and the Dome of the Rock.  When we got back I went for a run--running in Jerusalem is so much harder than it was in Arad for multiple reasons:

1. It is higher altitude here, so I have to breathe in more air to get the same amount of oxygen.
2. It is hotter here (mostly because it's turning into summer now all over the nation).
3. There are cars and buses everywhere that I have to stop and wait for at lights.
4. There are cars and buses everywhere that are polluting the air.
5. There's no magic in the air here.
6. There are always all these people in the streets I have to run around.
7. There are always these annoying people who are also trying to stay in shape running around the city.
8. On part of my loop, I run down Emek Refaim, a street infamous for delicious food, and it always smells fantastic.
9. It's hilly here.
10. People try to punch me as I run.
11. It's technically illegal to run on the sidewalks in Jerusalem, so every time I see a cop, I have to pretend I'm walking.
12. I have been running barefoot.
13. There are wild creatures running around whose natural prey are redheads.

Okay, so the last 4 reasons are bullshit, but you get my point.

Sunday morning I went to volunteering for the first time.  Because it's more like an internship than anything else, we were told to bring in resumes, so I updated one that I had from last year and brought it in.  We met the boss of the place, Justus Weiner, who's an international justice lawyer.  The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is a pretty right-wing place, and, although I don't quite agree with that, it seems like it'll be fun to work there.  They also order in lunch for free from Emek Refaim street every day, which is a definite plus.  After Justus talked to us for a while and found out what we each wanted to do (Chanya, Laura, Maya, Tal, and Josh are at this volunteering with me), we went to Tal Bagels for brunch.  It was tasty, but more expensive than I'd like it to be, so I am determined to find another bagel place.  In the afternoon  I went to my first class, Introduction to Jewish Art.  We discussed the idea of whether or not it's okay for Jews (and religions in general) to make images out of any part of their dogma, considering that idol worship is prohibited in most modern-day religions.  We also looked at some art and talked about the first and second commandments (that there are no other gods before god, and not to worship other false gods because god is jealous), which was a very interesting point, as they both seem to imply that there are a lot of other gods out there.  I guess that's particularly interesting because I tend to think of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as monotheistic religions, but these commandments (given from god) acknowledge the existence of other gods.  We spent most of that class talking about how the class was going to go and doing introductions, but it was still very interesting.

Sunday was Jake's birthday, so that night we went to Ben Yehuda street and just hung out for a while, not doing anything particularly special.  We played this game called "clusterfuck" that was a good deal of fun, and I want to make a point of remembering it.

On Monday I awoke much later than I wanted to via a call from Justus.  He wanted me to come in to do an interview and discuss my resume, and then we decided that I would come in for my first day on Wednesday.  I left JCPA for Beit Ar-El and went to a Garin Tzedek meeting discussing what we want to do this trimester in terms of trips and optional peulot during the week.  That afternoon I went to Creative Non-fiction Writing, which I'm not sure how I feel about yet.  We discussed a few basic writing concepts I'm already very familiar with from taking Creative Writing in high school, and then we did a rudimentary writing exercise where we wrote the first sentence of a story--hopefully it's going to pick up as the class progresses, but I'll be fine either way as long as we get chances to write. 

That night, I went to an English-speaking comedy club near Ben Yehuda street.  By the time we got there, it was just karaoke, which was a good deal of fun--Scott, Nathan, and I sang "Under the Bridge," which is kind of a tradition of ours.  Nathan and I have also been wanting to do karaoke since we came on Year Course, so it was about time.  The club also has open mic comedy night until 10:30 on Mondays, so I think I may go next week and see if I can do stand-up.  I'm pretty excited about it; I heard from the people who were in Jerusalem before us that it can be a good deal of fun if you go with a big group of people.  I also am anxious about the prospect of being good at stand-up, but we'll see how it goes.

Tuesday was the first siyur in Jerusalem.  We went to the Christian quarter and walked the via dolorosa, where Jesus walked on the way to his crucifixion.  It was pretty good as far as siyurim go, especially considering that I've never been to the Christian quarter and that me, Nathan, Scott, Max, and Andrew had some delicious shwarma afterwards.  We returned in the afternoon completely exhausted and pretty much everyone in the apartment took a nap.  When we woke up, we went shopping at Mega Bul--a grocery store brand that we loved in Arad--across the street.  It wasn't the haven of food that it had been in Arad, but it was still quite satisfying and cheaper than our earlier groceries.  We returned home and made a stir fry dinner, I went for a run, and then went to campus to watch "Wet Hot American Summer" before returning home to go to sleep.

Today was my first real day of volunteering.  I went in at about 8:40, but Justus didn't arrive until 9:15.  We spent most of the morning editing one of his research papers which is getting published.  This consisted of me reading it aloud to him, which included saying things like "comma, period, paragraph break, open quotes," etc.  I was then given 25 shekels to buy lunch, because I was one of the only interns who came today so they decided not to order in.  I went to Holy Bagel and got a card that entitles me to one free bagel after I buy ten, so this was easily the most exciting part of my day.  I stopped by Beit Ar-El on my way home and hung out for a while before coming back to Derech Hebron.  Wednesday afternoons are usually full of optional activities, but most of them have not existed today because it's the first real week.  Thus, Scott, Nathan and I are going to go down to campus now and play frisbee for a while.

I hope all is well with you, and that you are also enjoying frisbee or some other sport at the moment!  I'm sure I'd love to hear from you, especially if we've not talked in a while.  Take it easy!

Jerusalem ירושלים

Sunday the 14th was nothing particularly special, I awoke and went to volunteering.  It was interesting to be in Israel for Valentine's Day--I didn't expect anyone to be celebrating it, but I saw a good amount of Arad youth walking around with red balloons and roses.  That night, we had our service learning class for the last time, and three different groups gave presentations on different political campaigns in the US (mine was about gay rights).  This went pretty well.  The rest of that night was pretty laid-back--we went to Muza for a "last supper"  (I have had so many of those in the past year, yet still find calling them that wildly funny) for Lizzy since she left on Wednesday to get treatment for her ankles.

Monday morning there was an activity we thought was optional that we didn't go to (it ended up being mandatory).  That afternoon, I went to Ulpan--Nathan and I arrived earlier than usual, so we decided to sit outside for a while.  As the other people from our class arrived, they all joined us in sitting outside and inevitably Eti was forced to come and have class outside with us.  She had a cast on her arm and told us about how she slipped down the stairs at her son's school during the weekend and had to go the hospital.  We were supposed to have an oral exam that day, but she agreed that if we all just spoke in Hebrew for ten minutes during the class we'd all get 100's.  Near the end of class, all the Ulpan levels came together and had a party--before it started, one person from each level gave a speech thanking the teachers and talking about their Ulpan experience in Arad.  These actually ended up being pretty funny, as the person in the lowest level did theirs all in English and they slowly progressed into fluent Hebrew.  After that, in Immigration, we watched an interesting movie called "Crossing Boundaries."  I went home and fell asleep relatively early that night in order to prepare for the race the next day.

Tuesday was the Be'er Sheva 10k race.  Scott and I got up at around 6 and met up with Karin, Chanya, and Sasha at Ben Gurion University.  They placed Scott and I in the 20-29 age bracket because we were born in 1990, which was a bit frustrating--if we'd been in the age group we actually belonged to, Scott would've taken second in the 10k.  This was the first time I've done such a long run in the middle of the day (I usually run in the evening or night), but I still managed to finish under my goal time of 50 minutes--I crossed the end line at 49:55, which is a 10-minute cut from the Nike Night Run back in Bat Yam.  I'm pretty happy about this, especially because the t-shirts for this race (both the custom ones we made and the official ones we got) were awesome. :D

After the race, we walked around Ben Gurion's campus for a while, which is something I've been meaning to do--my dad went to med school there.  We had a light lunch and returned to Arad.  That night was Lizzy's last night, so it naturally ended up being pretty crazy.

Wednesday morning, I went to the gan for a bit before returning home.  We rushed to Ulpan to take our final exam/placement test for Jerusalem.  Whenever I think I'm starting to get a good grasp of Hebrew, something happens that reminds me how much I don't know, like this test.  It was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, but there was an entire page that I'm pretty sure I flopped on.  Even Karin, who I consider to have much better Hebrew than me, messed up--on the essay question about a book that we think is good, she thought it was asking about the qualities of a good storyteller.  After this, we went to Immigration class for the last time.  We talked for a bit about different situations around the world and the teacher, Inbar, decided she would e-mail us a multiple choice final the coming Monday (which ended up being easy).

Thursday we went on a siyur to the small forest right outside of Arad to do some low ropes activities.  It was fun, but we were all curious as to why we were doing trust-building exercises so late into our experience here.  We made lunch in the forest and played some tug-of-war before heading home.  I use the term "forest" lightly--what is called a forest in Israel would be referred to as a patch of trees in America; this is especially true in the desert Negev region.

That night, Cari, Miki, and Anna came over and we watched "Primal Fear."  It's Edward Norton's first movie, and I would highly suggest it.  Then again, he's my favorite actor

Friday morning, we left Arad to go on a trip to Mitzpe Ramon, the largest erosion crater in the world.  When we arrived, we hung out for a bit on the Albert Promenade, a trail running the rim of the crate, as we ate lunch.



After eating, we took jeeps down into the crater to where we were staying, the Be'erot Campsite.  It was basically an area with shacks run by Bedouins who were very friendly--the invited us into one of their tents for tea and gave us in-depth answers to pretty much every question we asked.  That night we made a bonfire and had some smores, as well as eating several delicious dinners (every time we go camping, for some reason, other Israelis always end up bringing us their leftovers. I don't know if it's because we look like we can't take care of ourselves or because they figure a bunch of rowdy teens would love to eat their food, but it's fantastic).  We went out into the desert and listened to music for a while.  I climbed up another hill as the cheshire-cat-smile moon began to set.  It was a beautiful night.


Saturday, we woke up pretty early and went on a day-long hike.  We went up Har Ardon, a giant mountain towering over the crater.  The ascent was intense, but the descent was precarious, to say the least.  It ended up taking about 7 hours, but it was one of the cooler hikes I've been on--the view from the top was phenomenal, and walking through the scorched earth of the crater on the way back to the campsite was amazing.  We took jeeps back out of the crater to Mitzpe Ramon and got home late that night.


Sunday morning, I went to volunteering.  The kids that I worked with during the last month were not the same ones from the first month and a half or so:



This is Khartouma (Khartoum is the capital city of Sudan, so it's as if a girl's name was Washingtona).  She is cute and incapable of speech, but very capable of drooling.  She is one of the few children in the gan I've not put to sleep.






This is Appa, I think, but I'm not entirely sure.  I'm not sure because the two women who run the gan do not speak whatever language she speaks (clearly neither Dinka nor Arabic, then).  She can only speak some tribal language.  I suppose this wouldn't be such a big deal, except that she's easily the biggest troublemaker in the gan--she runs around pushing kids over for no apparent reason, hitting children and then crying when they fall down.  She constantly craves attention and hits children who get more than her.  It's also nearly impossible to discipline her because of the language barrier, too.  When she's done these things and I've told her "no" in every language I know, she just seems happy that I am giving her attention.  Lately I've resorted to ignoring her when she does something like that and then looks around, and it seems to work.  Maybe her parents don't give her enough attention or maybe something else is going on, but I find the whole situation and rationale behind it interesting.




As you may have guessed, this child is not Sudanese.  This is Natalie, the daughter of Rebecca, a somewhat crazy lady who helps the Sudanese community in Arad.  She is a Jew for Jesus and wants to convert all the Sudanese--one of the first days I was at the gan, Cecilia was sick, and Rebecca came in and rubbed oil on her face saying things along the lines of "we have to have faith, I'm sure you'll get better, because we are the only ones that are right and everyone else is wrong."  She then turned to me and said "no offense."  Anyway, her daughter, Natalie, is very pleasing and only knows the word "baby" in English.  She understands Hebrew and occasionally says things, and I have to wonder if she's picking up on Arabic or the Dinka tribal language by spending so much time in the gan.

That night, after volunteering, we had a bullet fight in our apartment with bullets that we had gotten at the army base siyur and some other, anonymous bullets that I cannot talk about.  This was inevitably loud, and the same woman who came and complained to us about our noise a week before made another visit.  This time there wasn't really any defending ourselves--we had made a lot of noise and it was a bit too late, but the frustrating thing was that she told us as we were trying to apologize that we "always ask for forgiveness"--this is literally the second time she has ever interacted with us.  The entire time, she was pregnant (obviously, that's not really something that changes in the course of conversation) and smoking a cigarette.  She also began yelling unreasonably loud, which undoubtedly awoke more people.  Several minutes after her tirade, a Russian man came over and yelled at us in Hebrew that he would come with "all of his friends" and "fuck us up" we "sons of bitches" if we made noise again.  He proceeded to slap Simon on the face a small bit in a typical Eastern European way.  All in all, it was pretty great.


Monday was a hike near the Dead Sea along a fault line, I think called "Rom Izrach."  It was nothing particularly special, and kind of paled in comparison to the Mitzpe Ramon hike I had gone on so recently.  In fact, the best part of the hike was afterwards, when Eli took me and Miki out to lunch at the only falafel place I still hadn't been to in Arad.


Later that afternoon, Nathan and I went to the police station to report our stolen bikes.  While we were waiting on the officer, a Sudanese man I knew from the gan came in.  Right before the officer saw us, he got into an argument with the Sudanese man that basically went like this:


Sudanese guy: "My landlord keeps cutting my lock on my door and I don't know why."
Officer: "Stop coming here, go see a lawyer."
Sudanese guy: "I did, he said to come here."
Officer: "LEAVE.  Stop coming here every day!"


Officer Moses then proceeded to see us.  Needless to say, I already had a bad impression of him, and this was only furthered when he could not possible comprehend how I could have an Israeli citizen identification number (תהודת זהות) without having a certificate of identification.  We eventually moved past this and he yelled at Nathan and I about things he didn't entirely understand while trying to get the information he needed for the report.  In the end, we finally got out with stolen bike reports, which was all we needed, but it was a highly unpleasant experience.


Tuesday was my last day at the gan.  It was pretty sad but also a lot of fun--I played with many kids, throwing them around and putting plenty to sleep.  At one point in the day, they all came and suddenly were very interested in me (as sometimes happens), so I taught them how to count from one to ten in English, Hebrew, Arabic, and Spanish.  I also bottle-fed a one-month-old and exchanged numbers with Cecilia.  Near the end of the day, these people came in and sang Purim songs with all the kids, which was nice but interesting--it's almost as if they are forcing the Jewish culture on these Christian kids just because they live in Israel.  It was good fun, though, and I got to keep a hat which I ended up using for my Purim costume.


A note: Purim is a celebration of the Jews not being killed many many years ago.  It's observed similarly to Halloween in terms of costumes, but heavily favors drunkenness.  If you'd like to know more about it, I would love to talk with you sometime, my webcam mysteriously works again. ;)


Wednesday was a free day to clean up the apartment, so naturally we slept in late and did almost nothing.  In the afternoon, we went to the Marva ceremony to celebrate everyone graduating from the program.  Unfortunately, both of my roommates who were in it didn't graduate--Jake ended Marva in fiasco when he snuck out and made his way back to Arad after the first week only to receive the best volunteering (Masada), and Ben got kicked out literally 3 days before the program was over because a mefakedet (commander) asked him to pull his pants up and he, on his way to the bathroom, pulled them down.  Normally this wouldn't be grounds for dismissal, but it happened in front of the head commander at the base, so he got kicked off.


The ceremony itself was disappointing, to say the least.  It was fairly cheesy and involved the Marva kids doing the same thing over and over again.  It was also long, with many speeches that weren't particularly interesting.  Still, it was nice to go to Ben Gurion's grave in Sde Boker, and it was worth going and supporting everyone who graduated.


Thursday I went to do some laundry at the coin place in Arad.  That night, Scott, Nathan, and I left for Tel Aviv.  We were going to go to a MASA event and see the band Subliminal play, but ended up going to Bat Yam and then Tel Aviv for Ohad's birthday.  It was raining most of that night.  We went to the English Pub for a while and then on the ride home Nathan got into some very funny shenanigans. :P


On Friday we woke up late and went to the shuk in Yafo (שוק הפשפשים), the "Flea Market."  We didn't end up buying anything (we were looking for sunglasses, flannels, or possibly jackets), but we did go to the most amazing place in the port.  It's this giant green hill overlooking the ocean, and easily one of the strangest parks I've ever seen.  I went there one time when we lived in Bat Yam, it's an amazing place.  When we got back that night, the three of us got invited to Lior's house for dinner.  This was, of course, delicious and an excellent time.  Afterwards, we went to a Purim party in North Tel Aviv with Lior and some of her Israeli friends.  Frankly, this sucked--I was excited to go out with Israelis, but the atmosphere of the club just ended up being terrible.  It was too light and the DJ was terrible (he just had an iPod).  We returned to Bat Yam late that night and it was raining heavily. :)


On Saturday we woke up late and went to lunch at the mall, where we met Ansakew. an Ethiopian who we met at the Be'er Sheva race.  He and his family moved to Israel five years ago from their small village in Ethiopia.  It was really interesting to speak to him and hear his story.  In his family's village in Ethiopia, they literally had no semblance of modern society--when they saw planes flying overhead, they were confused and afraid.  Now Anaskew is just entering the army and is a soldier teacher at schools in Bat Yam, meaning that he talks to the kids about what to do in emergency situations.  I actually sat in on a class with a soldier teacher one time when I was volunteering at Moshe Sharet school and it was fairly interesting.  All the kids had workbooks that gave them instructions about how to survive a fire, a bombing, etc.  It's a revealing slice into Israeli society.


After that, we went to the beach for a while to hang out with some people.  Then we went to the Hangar to get some clothes (I ended up getting a pair of plaid shorts, the first ones I've gotten in a while).  Scott and Nathan stole something like 4 pairs of novelty boxers by wearing them in the changing room and then leaving.  That night was a big Purim party in Tel Aviv that was very crazy.  I went dressed up in the ridiculously small sweater that had shrunk in the Arad laundry.


Sunday morning we woke up late and returned to Arad.  Nathan, Simon and I watched Memento that night (yet another excellent movie that I highly suggest).


On Monday we had an end of trimester party at Max, a shady and essentially unused bar in Arad.  I made a video for the madrichim about two hours before the party that ended up being pretty funny, surprisingly.  The party was good, and Eli and I drank some together as we both opened up to each other.  Since Arad was ending, all of the madrichim were much friendlier and opener than they had been the entire time.


Tuesday morning Nathan and I woke up very early to go to the observation point for sunrise, something I have been meaning to do for all of Arad.  It was absolutely amazing, and we got some gorgeous photos before leaving.  We spent most of the rest of Tuesday cleaning--Eli came over and had pizza for lunch with us (that he bought!), and a couple hours after that he took his entire madrich group to a park near our apartment to have a picnic.  It was quaint and a fun way to end everything.  We got into a giant spaghetti fight, which was a lot of fun.  After this, Sheizaf 19 went to the mall to get our customized apartment t-shirts.  I will put up a picture of them soon, but essentially the front has 7 guys (us) chasing a shopping cart down a hill (for the time that we pushed a shopping cart down our street), and the back has the Young Judaea symbol and all of our names written in Hebrew.


That night we didn't do anything very exciting--we went to the bar Cadim and then came back home.


This morning, I woke up and felt quite a bit like P. Diddy.  We loaded our things into a truck and got on a bus to Jerusalem.


And now we are here.  I am in an apartment at the off-campus facility, a building known as Derech Hevron 80.  It's about a 5 minute walk from campus, and, while the apartments here are not as nice as the campus ones, they are still pretty nice, and I'm in a dream apartment with Scott, Nathan, Jake, and Andrew.  We met our madricha, Emma, who is British (meaning we have had tremendous fun making fun of her accent) and ate pizza on campus before going shopping for the first time.


Jerusalem is so beautiful.  It sucks that Year Course is 2/3rds over with, but I truly believe that these last three months here are going to be phenomenal.  The end of Arad is not so sad as it was in Bat Yam because we weren't leaving people behind, and to me it only signifies the beginning of a great ending.  I'm so excited, I just don't want to miss out on the opportunities presented to me here.


I would love to talk to you sometime, my webcam works again!  I hope all is well with you, and can only hope to be writing more often now that I'm living a more regimented lifestyle again!  Take it easy!