Eight weeks in Israel...

...And that, my friends, is one big bunny.

2007-01-14T13:50:20Z

http://news.msn.co.il/news/Yellow/World/200701/20070114093947.htm

ארנבות הענק יאכילו את הצפון קוריאנים

מגדל ארנבות ענק מגרמניה התבקש על ידי שלטונות צפון קוריאה להקים חוות ארנבות במדינה כדי לפתור את בעיות הרעב במדינה. הגרמני כבר ארז את המזוודות והארנבות
סמולינסקי ובת טיפוחיו. (AP)

14/01/07 10:18
מאת: מערכת msn וסוכנויות הידיעות

פנסיונר גרמני המגדל ארנבות ענקיות, קיבל בקשה יוצאת דופן מהממשל הצפון קוריאני. החוואי החביב התבקש להקים חוות ארנבות ענק בצפון קוריאה כדי לספק מזון למדינה מוכת הרעב.

הכל החל כשקארל סמולינסקי, המגדל ב-47 השנה האחרונות ארנבות, זכה בפרס על גידול הארנבות הענקיות במשקל 10.5 ק"ג האחת. התמונות המרשימות של הארנבות בגודל של כלב ממוצע הופצו בכל רחבי העולם והגיעו אפילו אל מאחורי החומות הבצורות של פיונגיאנג, בירת צפון קוריאה הקומוניסטית והסגורה לעולם.

מדינת ציר הרשע רוצה לאכול

צפון קוריאה ידועה בעיקר כאחת ממדינות "ציר הרשע" המסוכסכות עם ארצות הברית בשל חתירתה להשגת נשק גרעיני. במדינה 23 מיליון תושבים ועל פי דיווחי האו"ם רבים מהם סובלים מרעב.

הצפון קוריאנים כנראה יודעים על מה הם מדברים, כי כל אחת מהארנבות מספקת שבעה ק"ג של בשר והיא עשירה בחלבונים ושומן.

סמולינסקי שהתרגש מהבקשה החליט לא רק להסכים לבקשה יוצאת הדופן אלא אפילו סידר לצפון קוריאנים מחיר נוח במיוחד.

סידר לצפון קוריאנים מחיר

במקום 250 יורו מחירה של הארנבת הוא החליט לגבות מהם 80 יורו בלבד - זיל הזול. עד כה הוא שלח לצפון קוריאה 12 ארנבות, שעדיין לא עשו את דרכן אל קיבות הרעבים. הן יחכו לסמולינסקי שיגיע בקרוב לצפון קוריאה כדי לייסד באמצעותן את חוות ארנבות הענק הצפון קוריאנית הראשונה.

Shabbat at the Park

2007-01-13T19:28:01Z

I awoke early in the morning with a start, a result of very disturbing dreams, along the lines of what I had almost every single night this past summer. Not fun at all.
And then went through my head, I have no idea at all, how when I came back from Costa Rica and I went through customs to get back in the states and the Customs Officer said "Welcome back to the States", and how I know it sounds really corny but it actually meant a great deal to me then, and for some reason that went through my head.
Anyway, I managed to get back to sleep and woke up again around 1200.
I rolled out of bed and went to the cafeteria in my pajamas looking like crap, to wolf down some terrible cafeteria shwarma and rice, and for our teacher David to find a dead fly in his spaghetti.
Isn't cafeteria food delightful?

I spent most of the day at the park, I walked by myself since a lot of the girls were sick. I stopped by the mall and was surprised to find Aroma was open. I was even more surprised that security didn't even look in my bag when I went in the mall.
Huzzah for profiling I guess.
I spent my time at the park reviewing for the core class final.

Shabbat on campus- again.

2007-01-12T17:44:26Z

Funny that I should use this particular userpic for today, it is perhaps the least accurately descript picture I could post. The weather here is gorgeous, hot even.

Ah, wonderful day of rest is finally upon us, almost.
Woke up at 0830, finished an American History test and turned it in to my tutor, that took roughly 10 minutes. Then went back to my room and tidied the room up to get my Shabbat cleaning done (a terrible habit I've developed here, cleaning my room before Shabbos...)
At 1000 I went to Chemistry and we did review for my final. Covalent bonding. *GAG*. I. HATE. COVALENT. BONDING.
I HATE IT. It is such a pain in the ass. I REALLY don't care about inter- and intra-molecular forces, and really won't ever need to know them. So this hour was spent shoving the material down my throat because even though I've read the chapter 4 times and my tutor has explained the material to me like 4 times, it goes in one ear and out the other pretty much. Because it is too complex for me to care, I have no motive to care, I really don't care about the physics of things to tiny for me to see, I see no application I will ever have that should cause me to care. And after 30 minutes of this, I told her quite flatly "I am never going to need to know this", and she told me, "Well maybe someday you will want to be a doctor." I told her I sincerely doubt it.
And what is it with everyone saying "Maybe you'll want to be a doctor" to me to study for EVERYTHING? Jesus. Is it really THAT prestigious a job that everyone thinks every student wants to be a doctor? Is it the money associated with it, or the education, or the simple fact of a lot of Jews being doctors? Sheesh. I swear, everytime I hear someone say "Maybe you'll want to be a doctor" I have to bite my tongue to avoid saying either "Fuck off" or "Yeah, and maybe someday I'll want to be a stripper too."
OY.
Anyway, now that I've had my little rant on having being a doctor shoved down my throat as well, back to the topic at hand, which is my rant on covalent bonding. Today seems to be working out as rant day.
Dipolar, van DerVells forces, resonance, coordinate covalent bonds, diffusion energy, quantum physics... I frankly don't give a shit about any of it. And drawing bonding diagrams... Ooooooooooh you have no idea how much I hate that. Normally I like chemistry and it comes... I wouldn't say fairly easily, so I'll just say that to me it is learnable. But I like more of the mix-mix-BOOM chemistry... Seriously though, I find chemistry interesting, and its more interesting when it is a little vague and I don't have to go into quantum physics.
-End rant-

From there I went to Algebra Two where I again focused on learning crap, or rather, faking that I learned the crap, that I am never ever going to have to use.
During which, I decided upon a new response to my typical conversation in math classes.

Me: I'm never going to have to use Trigonometry in my life.
Teacher: Well, say you built a triangular garden and you wanted to know all the angles and side lengths you needed to build a fence around it. Then you'd need it.
Me: Then, I'd hire someone to figure it out.
Teacher: But why waste the money when you can learn it yourself? (This is usually as far as it goes, never had a decent response to it though.
Me: Because money isn't everything. Aren't we always being told to go into a career that will make us happy? Well, my happiness includes not doing math. So paying someone to figure it out will as well make me happy. As well as paying someone to build the fence. Or, I could make the garden square like normal people do.

As I was saying though, math is still a royal pain. The only thing keeping me sane through that class is me being able to repeat over and over in my head this is the last year, this is the last year, this is the last year, all ya gotta do is pass the final exam and this is your last year....

Finally at 1200 I was done. I went into town as I "usually" do on Shabbat, and did a bit of shopping. First I explored a part of town I haven't gone to before, that was interesting. An old lady crossing the street with me started to talk to me, I told her I didn't speak Hebrew, but she kept talking anyway. Then when I went to cross Magdiel street near the Pizza Hut, at a crosswalk not at a light, where cars were stopped, I was quite almost hit by a car. ISRAELIS DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DRIVE. I don't know how I can possibly emphasize this more, because I'm sure I've bitched about it here in the past. So, traffic is stopped, and has been for a bit, and as I'm stepping into the crosswalk, the car poking into the crosswalk decides to pull left out of the right lane and blow through the crosswalk. The asshat almost got me killed, if I'd've been literally 6 inches further ahead I'd've not been walking for awhile.
*sigh*
Israelis suck at driving. Driving here is either a teen's dream, or a teen's nightmare. On the one hand, no rules of the road (if they even exist here) are followed. On the other hand, NO RULES OF THE ROAD ARE FOLLOWED. So trying to follow them seems to be useless. It's perfectly acceptable not to signal and cross four lanes of traffic at an unsafe speed. The driving here is, I shall say, "whacked."
I was stopped by some scouts here, starting to say "Shalom, anachnu-" I just cut him off and told him "S'lecha, ani lo m'daberet ivrit," so he wouldn't waste his breath.
I went to some different places, ended up getting plums, strawberries, two pomegranets, a chocolate bar, a 1.5 liter bottle of coke, and a coconut. I wanted to go to the bakery to get a Challah as well but by that time wasn't in much of a mood to cross the street so I just went back to the campus. The orange and avocado groves by the school are being harvested now, it smells so good outside. Nice and sunny and warm and smells of oranges. Reminds me of Florida. And the best part is, it's January.

From there I returned to the dorms (If I didn't mention this before, its an open Shabbat, and again I have no place to go so I am stuck on campus with a few other kids) and one of the teachers, Tuvia, was there with his kids. They have got to be the most adorable kids ever. Ellie's five and Aaron's two. I opened the coconut outside with the assistance of my new knife and the concrete, they had a good time watching that. Then I lost the thumb screw for the knife because it wasn't, well, screwed on tightly enough. So I spent 30 minutes looking for it and finally found it.
From there we just hung out at the dorms and we played cards and opened a pomegranet and ate coconut and I blew up some balloons for the kids to play with and some Balloonies as well, which they really loved.
Eventually they left and since then I've been here in the computer lab working on getting more blogging stuff done. I think I may end up just handing in this blog as my journal grade since I spend so much time on it.
Oh yeah, one more thing to add. I painted my nails silver today. Did not go so great. I really can't do that with my non-dominant hand at all. *sigh*

Ten days left in Eretz Yisrael...

2007-01-11T20:01:21Z

Well, another day, another day of classes... funny how it has almost become routine. Only in the sixth week of my being here do I feel like I've settled in, gotten used to the daily "routine", the people around me, the customs, even the weather... Just to be uprooted and sent back to the States and having to go through culture shock all over again.
I can't say I've seen this as being the last time I'll be here. Somehow through the entire trip my mind has been thinking in the scope of "When I'm here again..." and never really in the terms that I'm never going to see these places in the future.
In some sense, I've been almost completely isolated here. Haven't talked to my friends back home much, haven't been around ex's, or teachers, or the media, or the police or fire departments, or true American society. I'd say its kept me free of foreign influences, but that would be ridiculous, living in a foreign country, and a quite clearly Zionist school (sure, they say they are free of any religious or political movements, but I've come to see, as I suspected, that that is plainly not the case, despite our teachers' continual insistence that it is). But it has given me time to think to myself. To focus on myself. On my life. And not worry about the people around me. Well, there was a time when I did, but that person is no longer on this trip, and since then things have improved.
One of the things it has given me a lot of time to think about is post-high school decisions.
Now, I've been interested in Law Enforcement for quite some time now. But also in the past year or so I had the sneaking feeling its not quite for me... This experience has helped to clarify for me why I was doing what I was, why I got so deeply involved, and, during Holocaust week, helped me understand why I'm having such a hard time getting out of it.
It's helped me to see some things I enjoy in life, such as photography, volunteer work, and little kids.
It's also helped me discover and revive talents, such as drawing and creative writing. Oh, writing. How I've missed it. Rarely have I had an opportunity to actually use it. But now I have hundreds of stories to tell just from being here, each part of the day a seperate event, a seperate topic to write about. I wish now that I had applied again to the Teen Editorial Board of the Democrat and Chronicle. Even though I didn't, I think I am still going to once again pick up the pen, and if the pen is mightier than the sword, well then the world had best watch out.
However, back to post-high school plans, and how it ties into today's entry of general "class fluff".

I've been considering for quite some time now, and I do mean since before I came to Israel, taking a gap year. Maybe its part of my Aquarian rebellious nature, but I don't want to take the conventional path after I graduate. I see no reason to bend to societal pressure. This has become even more appealing to me on my trip, as while I clarify myself more clearly to myself (wow, that was an interesting sentence), it becomes increasingly clearer I have no true idea what I really want to do with my life. So I'd like to take a year off to relax from 12 years of study and hard work, to look into new things.
And I found it interesting that was our discussion this morning.
At 0800 we met in the Bet Knesset and a speaker came in preaching about the "gap year". Essentially, he covered everything I just mentioned. But know I had that in my head BEFORE today. And then in his talk he introduced SIACH, a new program at AMIIE, for gap year students to spend a year in Israel, and that's when the majority of us realized it was all a convenient commercial.
I'd been looking into that program BEFORE they told us about it. I'd been considering a gap year BEFORE they talked about it, and they didn't sway me one was or the other honestly. Yeah, I've looked into SIACH before. Seems pretty decent. Just not sure I'd want to spend a whole year of structured activity in Israel.

After about an hour of that, we move on to another speaker, named Avi. Avi was in the news a few years back because he was working security at a bar called "Mike's Place" in Tel Aviv next to the American Embassy, when a suicide bomber tried to run into the bar. Avi pushed the man outside and jumped on him, and then the bomber set off the explosives. Three people were killed and ~70 were wounded, but Avi miraculously survived, and is pretty much the only known person to have jumped on a suicide bomber and have lived.

We had an hour-long break then back in the Bet Knesset for our teacher David to talk about his experience in the Six-Day War. From his description of it, it's hard to believe it lasted for, well, just six days.

I went to lunch, and because the "HSI table" was filled and no one was leaving, started a second HSI table. I've forgotten how clique cafeterias can be. Well, another guy passed by and I could tell his school's table was filled to, so I gave him a smile a he sat down. And so I met Eliot, my second friend from Akiba. Sad that only now I'm starting to make friends. So we sat and talked and ate and pretty much everyone else was gone, then my teacher David, and my madrich David both joined us.

I went for a walk in town and went to the so-called "two-shekel store" and got a couple of things, then went back to campus. Nothing worth mentioning happened in any of my sequentials. Really. Nothing worth mentioning at all. Don't really have work left. Well, that's a lie. I have work left, but the things I've had left will be a lot easier to work at at home in the States with my own computer and harddrive, so I'll just do them when I get back and enjoy the last two weeks as much as I can.

I ate dinner with Eliot again, since the same thing happened as at lunch, and spent the rest of the night doing pretty much nothing until I went to watch the guys play soccer and just got the ball when they kicked it out of the cage.

Right now, I'm looking up things to write for. I missed writing for myself, school had pretty much completely squashed the love of writing out of me.

Well that's about it. Oh yeah, the quote of the day: "Where do the Chinese people come from?"

Sleep deprivation grinds my nerves.

2007-01-07T17:18:57Z

Well, thanks to a *certain* roommate, the sleep I managed to catch up on on Shabbat has now been... cancelled out.
But first things first.

Since I'm doing pretty well with getting blog entries done on time now, there's a bit of stuff that happens in the evenings that gets left out.
Such as yesterday. We had a meeting at 2230 and our madrichim got upset with us and just stopped the meeting. Normally they have to drag us to go to our group Havdalah, but last night after the both of them left we all got the candles and sidur and spices and grape juice and whatnot and got in a circle and did the whole thing and chanted all the prayers and whatnot. And honestly, I think it was awesome. To me, its the time we've been most unified. Everyone was there of their own will and happy about it and laughing and singing, just a very powerful moment. I'm sure everyone else felt it too, because afterwards everyone was hugging eachother.
And our madrich walked by while we were doing this and though he tried not to, I could see that he did actually smile seeing us.

Afterwards I got the knife I bought the other day and opened my first pomegranate. It was so much fun. And so tasty. Its really cool because it tastes like cranberry, which I can't really have because it bothers my stomach.
I'd initially been having doubts about the knife when I got it, but after using it I actually really like it. It has a lot wider blade, its a lot easier to slice things with than my other knife. I just hope I don't lose it to customs -NO, I'm not bringing it ON me on the plane, I'm not dumb.-

And I went to bed around 0000. Can't fall asleep much, possibly from the sugar of the pomegranet, but I eventually start to get tired. But at 0100 I'm still hearing voices in the main room of our room, so I get up and leave the bedroom and go there and two of my roommates are talking. Rather than being nasty and being "what the fuck are you doing up?" I ask them "Not goin' to bed huh?" And then I ended up eating two pears because I was still hungry and I was up anyway and I'm a midnight snacker. I go back to bed. One of my roommates goes with me. Then at 0115 my other roommate, the one I've had problems with in the past, comes in... with a girl from another dorm. And so they get in the same bunk and are whispering and giggling. I tell them "Hey, go to sleep." My roommate asks me if its OK for her to whisper. I really want them to just SHUT UP but that's clearly not gonna happen. I tell them just don't wake Emma, my other roommate, up.
0130 comes around, I can still hear them gossipping, and I really want to sleep. I tell them to hesh. They say a few more minutes. 0140 comes by. I tell them go to sleep. They say they are. 0150 comes by, I start losing my patience, I tell them to sheket. 0200 is there and I hear them laughing, I'm still trying to sleep, I get real pissed and hiss at them "IT'S FUCKING TWO IN THE MORNING. GO TO SLEEP!"
At 0210 they finally shut up.
I don't get to sleep until 0230.
And so I am now sufficiently pissed.

I woke up at 0700, finished homework up. Went to the Bet Knesset at 0755 for a "meeting"... it turned out to be a talk from a crew member of a ship used in the Aliyah Bet, the clandestine (I love that word, heheheh) immigration to Palestine after WWII to evade the British. He told us how he turned down the offer he was given of the boat now known as The Exodus, because he didn't find it fit for ocean-going travel. And he was helping all these Jews when he was only 18, that is so cool. Its really cool learning how all these young people have had such a huge impact on Jewish history.
We had a brief break, then core class, and then a break from 1030-1130. I went to the computer lab and then Ofer's to get my customary bagel with cream cheese. 16 sheks a bagel, its crazy. Also, it should NOT take 20 minutes to make a bagel! Food service is incredibly slow here, so slow it's painful.
Then class again, and we watched segments from The Exodus. I recall a few years back when I missed seeing it in religious school so they made me watch it at home, and because of that I hated the movie so much. I think now I may like to see it again, when it's MY choice instead of being shoved down my throat, when I have background knowledge, and when I'm old enough to actually appreciate it.

We got out at 1245, I went to lunch, tried shwarma for the first time. Upon first taste it was OK, but then quickly turned gross as I'd envisioned it would be. However, cafeteria food can't be representative of ANY food, so I suppose I should not be too quick to judge. Still, IMHO, the idea of shwarma is disgusting. Its like you put a big slab of cow (I think that's what it is, anyway) on a rotating skewer (wow, when's the last time I used that word?) and then when you order some, they take a circular saw and shave off bits of the meat. I dunno. I just find it gross. But to each his own. Or however the saying goes.

At 1400 I find out that American History is cancelled, and English didn't start until 1530. I BS my way through the lesson, I'm tired. My tutor tells me the sequential coordinator is making me do an essay for English outside of what Brighton assigned. This pisses me off and I am going to fight it. I have enough shit to worry about without unnecessary foreign requirements being loaded onto it.
At 1600 I go to Chemistry, finish up a quiz, and then move on to covalent bonding. After I do a couple pages on it, I just have to BS my way through the last 15 minutes because I'm so exhausted, and spend that time fantasizing about getting revenge on my roommate.
Went to math at 1700, I SO did not want to go. But I've got some small sense of accomplishment because I was able to do a couple of proofs. Whoopie.
But oh man, I am SOOOOOOOO screwed in math when I get back to Brighton. It's not even funny. I'll just BS my way through though, it's what I was planning to do for the last year anyway. I just need a third passing math credit to get into Averett. Brighton makes a big deal about if you take a third year of math you get a "Regeants Diploma with Advanced Designation", but ya know what? Honestly that is a whole bunch of bullshit, a diploma is a diploma, and I've talked to counselors and they admit, yeah, it really doesn't matter.
But whatever, I'm taking a third year anyway. But no way in hell am I taking a fourth year. I'll make up for doing the so-called "minimum" in math in other ways. I don't think I'm gonna have much trouble getting into college. With my public service and this Israel trip and my decent grades and hopefully the summer National Exploring Academy, I think I've got college pretty much in the bag. And if not, so what? I'll go to MCC for a couple years, or take a gap year. I'm not concerned. So I don't feel terribly guilty about BSing this course.

Then I went to dinner, where I had a potatoe bareka and some spicy potatoe dish and what I think was cream of mushroom soup. It was tolerable.

And so now I sit here writing, uploading pictures, and hoping I don't get charged with assault on my roommate in the next two weeks.
Two weeks.... it seems like such a long time to still be here, but it flies so fast.

First Real Day Off

2007-01-06T17:56:47Z

If I had to pack for this trip all over again, I know what I'd bring a lot more of: Hot drink mixes, and MUSIC. Yeah, I brought like 15 CD's with me. And I bought another three while I was here (one of which was stolen, grrrr). But I'm sick of all of them for the time being, because I've listened to them over and over and OVER again. And this is even with the school policy of us not being allowed to listen to our music on the bus.
*sigh*
But my American music has kept me more or less sane while I'm here, so I suppose it did its job... more or less. It's not like they don't play US music here, quite the contrary, and I was surprised to find how popular Rihanna, Sean Paul, and Gwen Stephani are here, but there is simply a greater variety of it when I'm in the States. The music here, in addition to Israeli music of course, is from countries all over the world, since Israel is a country of immigrants. I like the mix, I'd like it more if I bought like a radio mix and could listen to the actual words and whatnot of all the songs, but oh well. I still miss hearing the newest songs, I have no idea what the Top 40 is right now, and I haven't heard Evanesence's song Call Me When You're Sober or Nickleback's Faraway (awesome music video, that one, check it out, similarly, for other Rescue Workers, check out Simple Plan's Untitled), which I both really like.

That, however, has not much to do with today.
Today is my first real day off in six weeks. Yeah, there have been other Shabbats, but on all of them I've either been doing something with the group somewhere in the country, or for two of them I was with a host family and we were doing stuff, so no real time to just do whatever I want.

I slept until 1100 which felt soooo good. Went into Ruth's room with the other kids who stayed behind for the weekend, and she made us Challah French Toast. Which was also soooo good. We all chatted while we were there, and Aaron and I got into another argument. He's the same kid I got in a big argument over law enforcement... last week I think. Well, first he was saying that religious charities should get no public funding because of seperation of church and state. I told him that by denying funding to religious charities but funding other ones is a form of discrimination against religion. So he changed his arguement to that charities with a religious requirement i.e. having to attend church, should not recieve funding.
I told him no charities should recieve public funding. It should be an individual's obligation of conscience to give charity, not an order of the government through taxation. (Yes, I know its Jewish law of Tzedkah to give charity, but again, seperation of church and state. Let people be responsible for fulfilling that obligation, not the government.) And furthermore it should be a person's choice which charities to give money to.
So then he asked sarcastically whether I thought there shouldn't be welfare.
I said no, there shouldn't be government welfare. If people need to get help they should go to charities.
So we started to get into an arguement on welfare and the size of governement, and I insisted government is too big and inefficient and wastes a lot of money, and insisted government size needs to be increased, and it was around then that Ruth turned from the hot plate she was making the French Toast on and said to us "Unless you're fine with getting all angry and having one of you storming out of the room, stop this conversation NOW."
Aaron said he had no problem with storming out. I remained silent.
Ruth went back to the toast. And the conversation ceased.

We ate the toast which was so good. And at 1330 I turned in for another nap, taking advantage of having no roommates for the weekend to catch up on sleep. Slept until 1600. Then I started on homework to try to catch up on THAT. Read a chapter of American History and read a short story for English. Then found out the only batteries I bought in Israel were leaking, which pissed me off because batteries are expensive here. So I threw them out and washed the battery acid off my hands and looked around until I found a pair that had a bit of power left in them for my CD player.
That's another thing I'd bring if I could pack again, more batteries.

At 1845 I went to the computer lab, where I am now. I'm working on uploading pictures I took in Haifa. Unfortunatly I don't feel they are representative of the city. For the record, I don't like Haifa. In addition to other things, it looks like a rundown piece of crap. Maybe that's from being bombed for a couple of months, I don't know, I didn't see it before the war. And I didn't take any pictures of the destroyed buildings, the shots I did take were of relatively nice ones. But I'm uploading them anyway.
Beside that, I've got 6 journal entries due for class tomorrow on the Shoah in addition to a homework assignment involving movie quotes, and I got some sequential work due tomorrow. *sigh*

Man, when I get back I'm going to have SO much free time. Comparitively, anyway.

Well, off to write those journal assignments.
PS, quote of the day:
"Flak was quickly adopted by the Allies because in the time it took to say Flugzeugabwehrkanone over the radio, you'd probably already be dead."

Tiyul- Haifa and Acco

2007-01-04T19:26:32Z

Today we drove to Haifa again, not my favorite city but oh well. I'd rather be in Jerusalem. We went to the navy museum, which was pretty interesting, I liked seeing all the insignia on display and took a fair number of pictures. When the lady there was telling us the story of the missing submarine I was amazed at how long Israel spent looking for the damn thing.
Acco prison was interesting as well. It was quite different from the other prisons I've been to. No, David, TO, not in. In the execution room it was a bit morbid where they wrote Hatikvah on the room, as one of the lines just ended in dots. I guess maybe that's as far as they to singing before they got the "short drop and a sudden stop."

I loved going to the grottos, the water is gorgeous. I find it interesting that while I HATE being in water and am afraid of it a bit, that it is one of my favorite things to photograph.
Then we went to the border of "no man's land", I felt kinda awkward being there with the soldier guards staring at us.
I was real happy we got to see The Green Mile, considering it is my favorite book AND movie.
On the way to DOTS at Ra'anana I saw a nasty car accident on the side of the road and a person in pretty bad shape being loaded on a stretcher. It reminded me of working vehicle extrication at my FD, and if I further pursue firefighting I think I'd like to specialize in Rescue/EMS.

Tiyul- Atlit and The Ghetto Fighters Museum

2007-01-03T17:46:07Z

We woke up this morning, left at 0715. Had about a 90-minute bus ride to the base of a "mountain" overlooking Atlit, where Hannah Shenesh (http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=1376) lived. Of course, we hiked up it. As we were hiking, I commented "geeze... this feels like Masada all over again..." and when we get to the top, we have a long class, and Tuvia explains that the Jews had a plan to fight off the Nazis if they came into Palestine, on this mountain, and they called it "the Masada Plan".

Then we drove another 40 minutes to the Ghetto Fighters Museum, where we had lunch outside, and then went inside to learn about the Jewish resistance within the ghettos and the partisans. Soldiers from the Golani Infantry were there too, it was really cool to get to see them. We watched a video last week about Golani training. Craziness.

We learn about the failed uprisings, and the successful ones, and the tortures for penalties. We learn about the Nazis at Treblinka. How it wasn't enough for them to merely kill Jews, but they had fun with it. They called the walk to the gas chambers "The Path to Heaven", and labeled the gas chambers with a giant Star of David, and in the holding rooms for those doomed to die they labeled it "Chai" which means "life". They have games. Its not enough to have Jews wheelbarrow the bodies of dead Jews to the graves (there were no ovens in Treblinka), they got bored of that. They'd play a game called "Mark". A Jew would have to carry the body of a dead Jew on his back while running to the grave. Meanwhile the SS officers would snap a whip at him, trying to get his face. The slightest scratch would result in the Jew being "marked". At roll call the next day, those marked would have to step forward and be shot. Any marked that did not step forward would be beaten to death with shovels. Some stepped forward because they did not know if they had something that would be considered a "mark" or not on them.
And when Jews had to make a 150 meter run naked to the gas chambers, one of the head SS officers would play another game. He'd take a bayonet and chop off limbs of Jews running by from time to time. Or pluck out eyeballs. And when he was in a "really good mood", rape a 9 or 10-year old girl on the steps of the chambers in front of everyone.
He also trained his horse to trample, and every morning at roll call he would have his horse trample several prisoners.
On the whole, another Shoah Museum. I can tell this unit is impacting me, it makes me really angry. Not just the Nazis, but at the States as well, and my school. I don't recall ever learning about the Shoah in High School, and every tiny unit we had about it before then was all extremely sanitized. And it disgusts me. And the United States disgusts me as well. It likes to pretend it was so "in the right" in the war. That is such bullshit. Total bullshit. And FDR is full of bullshit. Saying the deathcamps are an "unimportant side issue"? BULLSHIT. Bullshit.
I'm not gonna go into more of the USA that pisses me off. Don't feel like getting worked up now.
So I'll end on that note, the United States failed the Jews of World War Two, and without further adeu, the pictures.

Ooooh yeah. Let's go hiking.

Cave in the mountain.

View from halfway up.

Our "hikes" are more like rock climbing. The rocks were REALLY slippery today, not that much fun. Luckily no one fell, just a couple of slips, myself included.

You can see down by the Mediterranean the last crusader castle in Israel. Unfortunately we can't go down there, because it is used to train the Israeli Navy's SEALS.

Picture of me and Atlit in the background with the Mediterrenean. Yeah, that's a sweatshirt I bought yesterday. The writing is Hebrew script and reads "Mosenson" and "Hod Ha'Sharon."

An amenome.

Looking up after the hike.

A meeting spot outside the museum.

Aqueduct at the museum.

A purple rose at the museum.

A model of Treblinka, built by one of the very very few escapees.

An SS armband.

Signs from the extermination camp at Sobibor.

An SS Nazi uniform.

Artifacts from the Resistance.

We also drove through Haifa today. It looks like... well, it looks like its a city that's been bombed for a couple of months.

I am also putting in a design for our class t-shirt, art is something I've been exploring while I'm here. I mean, besides photography. As you can probably tell, I've been getting into photographing flowers. But I'm starting to draw as well. I'll post some of my drawings another day.

There are stars whose radiance is visible on earth
though they have long been extinct.
There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world
though they are no longer among the living.
These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark.
They light the way for mankind.
-From the writings of Hannah Senesh

Tiyul- Yad V'shem

2007-01-02T19:38:58Z

Today I woke up at 0715, quite pissed that the toran hadn't woken us, because I wanted to get some work done in the morning. Yeah, I should've set my alarm just in case, but my alarm clock has gone AWOL (along with one of the set of Infected Mushroom CD's I bought, which pisses me off a whole lot more).
So I woke up, dressed, packed for the day, stripped the sheets off the bed and went to the laundry. I figure if everyone washes their sheets it will smell less and be more healthy.
Unfortunately, it was only after I dropped off my laundry that I realized I dropped off ALL the sheets... and I don't have any to put on the bed until I get the laundry back on Thursday.
*headdesk*

Ran to the cafeteria at 0745 and packed my lunch- eggsalad sandwhiches with cheese, chocolate milk, and some of the awful Osem chips. Those "chips" come in the wierdest flavors- pizza, hamburger, barbeque, grill... and ya know what, none of them taste like ANYTHING. But I hoard them in case I'm starving and have nothing else to eat. Then I grab a couple of blintzes and wolf them down, even though I'm not hungry. I love blintz day. And it tends to be blintz day on tiyul days.
Then we have an hour and a half ride to Yad V'shem, a Holocaust museum right outside Jerusalem. With my improved Hebrew skills (and they're getting better every day, now I can converse a bit, I was able to say "Afo ha'autobus?" today, feel so proud of myself hahaha) I can tell you with a fair amount of confidence that means "Hand of the Name".
We walked through the newest museum, built in 2005, which is a... would it be too corny to call it an architectural gem? Perhaps.
The building is in the shape of a triangular prism, with the grey cement walls sloping sharply upwards towards a skinny glass ceiling. It creates a sense of claustraphobia, which is ended only at the end of the tour, where it is designed to open up wider on the sides and you can see the light outside. When you go in the museum, it is designed so that in order to get to the exit (except in the case of fire) you HAVE to see every single exhibit.

And outside view of the building at Yad V'shem.

There a guide takes us around, wearing a microphone and we all get recieving radios and ear pieces to wear, since the museum is designed so sound won't travel well. We see piles of books the Nazis burned, cartloads of shoes, clothes, eyeglasses, photographs, and even one of the cattle cars they brought the Jews in. There are screens everywhere showing video clips of the brutality shown to the Jews, gypsies, blacks, homosexuals, and disabled. Some show statements videotaped from survivors of their personal story.
One man tells how as a boy he found that someone had stolen his hat. He knew if he showed up the next morning to rollcall without one, the Nazis would kill him. So at the night he went pacing around the bunks for his "victim" as he put it. He considered the death camps a jungle, where only those who prey on the weaker survive, and those weaker prey on those still weaker, and on down the chain. When he finally found a sleeping man whose hat peaked just above the blankets, he lifted it up and was relieved the man did not wake up. He returned to his bed.
The next morning at roll call he had a hat. He passed inspection. As he was standing in line, he heard a single shot ring out and a man fall. He knew who that man was and could not bring himself to look.

There are seperate sections in the museum dedicated to Aushewitz, Treblinka, Dachau, and other death and work camps. I was really surprised to find that there had been 3,350,000 Jews in Poland, and that the Nazis killed 3,000,000 of them. I find that incomprehensible. And 1.5 million of the Jews killed were children under the age of 18.
We learned a lot of statistics.
At the end of this museum there was a circular room filled with thousands upon thousands of binders. Binders filled with witness statements of HaShoah. Millions of names. It was a huge room, and sooooo many books. Books from floor to cieling, and the room looked to be three stories high.

Some nice plants at the museum.

From there we went to The Valley of the Lost Communities, a huge stone memorial labyrinth with all the names of the communities, or kehillot, and shtetls carved into the walls. Some visitors have left stones or flowers at certain places there.

Pictures from the Valley of the Lost Communities

People leave flowers for their loved ones.

(I need to find out the name of this plant before I leave, I love it.)

Then we went to the children's memorial, a completely dark hall except for 5 candles lit. The entire corridor is covered in mirrors, and the flames go down through the floor, back through walls, up through the cieling going into infinity. Thousands upon thousands of reflected flames, the appearance of different distances, going on forever. While an eerie background dirge plays and a grave voice reads off the names, ages, and location of death of the children in Hebrew, English, and Russian.

Afterwards we look at some of the trees planted by the Righteous Gentiles, non-Jews who helped Jews in the Shoah.
We go to the dining area and are eating our bagged lunches for about 5-10 minutes before some administration comes to chase us away and tells us its a restaurant. Well, no one was sitting anywhere there anyway, and it must be a pretty crappy "restaurant" because all the tables were dirty anyway.

Then we got on the bus and left to return home. Our teacher David called us all up individually to talk to us on the bus. When I got called up, the first thing he wanted to discuss was my grade. I've got an 80, and from a quick peak at the paper I see its the second or third lowest grades in the class, something that doesn't have me thoroughly thrilled. He tells me he thinks I should be doing better, that I'm capable of it, and that of all the kids in the class I'm probably the one with the most insight, etc etc. He asks what news I've heard from home, how I'd grade my experience here, things like that. I spend some time talking to him and then return to my seat.

We get back at 1500 and I had to be in class at 1630 to watch the movie The Musicbox, another Shoah film. Since I have some time, and its light out, I go into town. I get some pears, some instant soup (I'm thoroughly addicted to it), a... oh damn what's it called... it'll come to me as soon as I'm done writting this... you eat the seeds from it... anyway, I got that and some gum and eggplant in a pita at that stand I like. (OH, that's what it is... pomegranet)
Went back, went to class.
Watched the movie until 1800. Its a film about the trial of a Hungarian for war crimes, with his daughter being his defense lawyer. I did not care for it.
Ate dinner, returned at 1830 and finished the movie around 1930.
From there, me and a bunch of other girls went into town. We wanted to get some of the Mosenson shirts, and only Maya knew where the store actually was. We got there, and I got myself a sweatshirt, a zip-up sweatshirt, and two t-shirts. After I bought that I absolutely fell in love with this jean jacket. It was 176 sheks, which is like... $35... I wouldn't have bought it if I didn't love it so much. Its got brass and silver studs outlining the pockets, what I think is an airforce symbol in gold on the left pocket, and a really nice sparkle design on the back.

I LOVE the store owners here. I LOVE them lol. They are soooo friendly, they crack me up. One of the workers in the store helping us, he got all our names (and remembered them), everyone there only really spoke Hebrew, but he's from France so he tried to get us to speak French. So him and I ended up getting into an odd conversation with me using Spanish, Hebrew, and a bit of English, while he used French and Hebrew.
I can really see how Yiddish and Ladino came into being from mixing languages.
And then he was asking us if we were single, he was totally pimping his son. He tells us he is "one and eight" years old, fighting in the army, in Iran. That's another thing that cracks me up. Everyone wants their kids to get an American girlfriend here, all these parents try to set us up with their kids. We politely as possible decline and tell him we are leaving in a couple weeks, and leave.

A great day, I love it. And I am totally in love with this jacket. Was not planning to buy one, but totally love it.

Holocaust Day

2007-01-01T18:52:57Z

Well, today was the longest day of the quin- Holocaust day. Actually, the Holocaust studies last pretty much 3.5 days, but this is THE day.
I woke up at 0745, went to class at 0800. We learn about Anti-Semitic triggers to World War Two, and a lot of review of things I learned last year in World History.
Or, rather, according to my AP score, DIDN'T learn last year in World History.
Also learned about the Krystalnacht, that was... interesting.

We had a 45-minute break halfway through class, then at 1245 we got out of class, meeting again at 1400 at the Bet Knesset for a speaker. The speaker was a survivor of Aushwetz, survived when he was 16 by pretending to be a boxer. I didn't care for the speech, I know it sounds terrible but I didn't find it moving. Mostly all he talked about was how he had no idea how to box but some world champion taught him to fake it, then he would go off on getting some Jewish Sports Hall of Fame Award in Los Angelos and speaking for 45 minutes and getting a standing ovation, and would go off-topic for so long, and very little of it was about the actual camp.
Then we went BACK to class, which we continued by watching Escape from Sobibor until 1800, when we ate dinner, returning at 1845 to finish the movie for another hour, then CONTINUE with class, until finally being released at 2030.
12 hours of class.

I believe the proper Jewish term for this is "Oy ve!"

At the break, I was like the only one in the dorms, and I saw Tuvia there, which is unusual. So I followed him a bit. He just went through everyone's stuff, including mine. It pisses me off. I hate random drug inspections.

I struggled the whole day to stay awake, I got so little sleep last night, and then being in a dark room with old movies.... *snooze*
But, I did go to Ofer's briefly, and the lady there complimented me on my Israeli Police hat (I get so many compliments on it, I think its the funniest thing ever) and then tried to sell me some Ofer's/HSI stuff which I also found really funny and did not indulge in.

Now I'm sitting here in the computer lab, talking to friends, and being very tired. I'm going to try doing some more backdated entries because I know I'm really behind, but I'm catching up. I'm moving at a rate of about two entries per day, so *laughs* I should be caught up by the time I leave.

I think I'd like to go to Poland some times and see the death camps. Never struck me as something I'd want to do before today, more as something I'd NEVER want to do. Huh. Kinda like coming on this trip.

By the way, Happy New Year everyone! I hope you made your resolutions. :-)
I didn't make any, but I've been making a written list of different things I want to happen when I get back.

Wait...

2006-12-30T18:14:14Z

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16389128/?GT1=8816
Wait... they hung Saddam?
Where the fuck have I been?

Oh yeah. I forgot.

By the way, when they caught him, I was in Canada. Funny how things are sometimes.

And, his last words: "Palestine is Arab."

Zeh tov. Zeh tov meod.
///sarcasm.

We all need somebody to lean on.

2006-12-29T07:37:10Z

First there were 30...

...And then there were 29.

And who are YOU?!

2006-12-26T17:29:23Z

I'm so angry right now.
Just got in a big fight in my dorm. Kids harassing me for being police. General anti-LE. I'm sick of the shit. I'm not putting up with it. So I got pissed and slammed the door and left for a walk. It feels like the only time I'm spoken to here is when people complain to me about police.

Well Mr. Citizen, I guess you have me figured out. I seem to fit neatly into the category you place me in. I'm stereotyped, characterized, standardized, classified, grouped, and always typical. I'm the "lousy cop." Unfortunately, the reverse isn't true. I can never figure you out.

From birth you teach your children that I am the bogeyman, and then you're shocked when they identify me with my traditional enemy, the criminal. You accuse me of coddling juveniles, until I catch your kid doing something. You may take an hour for lunch, and have several coffee breaks each day, but point me out as a loafer if you see me having just one cup.

You pride yourself on your polished manners, but think nothing of interrupting my meals at noon with your troubles. You raise hell about the guy who cuts you off in traffic, but let me catch you doing the same thing and I'm picking on you. You know all the traffic laws, but never got a single ticket you deserved. You shout "foul" if you observe me driving fast enroute to an emergency call, but literally raise hell if I take more than ten seconds responding to your call!!!

You call it "part of the job" if someone strikes me, but it's "police brutality" if I strike back. You wouldn't think of telling your dentist how to pull a badly decayed tooth, or your doctor how to take out your appendix, but you are always willing to give me a few pointers on law enforcement. You talk to me in a manner and use language that would assure a bloody nose from anyone else, but you expect me to stand and take it without batting an eye.

You cry, "Something has to be done about all the crime!" but you can't be bothered with getting involved.

You've got no use for me at all, but, of course, it's OK if I change a tire for your wife, or deliver your baby in the back seat of my patrol car on the way to the hospital, or save your son's life with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, or work many hours over-time to find your lost daughter.

So Mr. Citizen, you stand there on your soapbox and rant and rave about the way I do my job, calling me every name in the book, but never stop a minute to think that your property, your family, or maybe your life might depend on one thing, ME, or one if my buddies.

"YES ME THE LOUSY COP"

Due to popular demand...

2006-12-24T19:12:20Z

...I bring you... the camel picture!

Unit Test Two

2006-12-22T08:47:52Z

We had inspections again this morning, so we woke up a bit early and got dressed. At 0715 our teacher David came into our room and this time we actually passed inspection. It helps we mopped at the right moment before he came in. He doesn't want to see a wet floor, he doesn't want to see a dry floor, he wants to see a drying floor.
I studied for a little bit and then went to the Beit Knesset to take the Unit Two Test. First were a long list of dates, about 15 of them. Well, I could not recall for the life of me about 5 of them. I finished the rest of the test, which were all fill-in-the blanks (we don't believe in multiple choice here, I miss that so much). I went to turn in my test, and David looked over it and went to the dates and kept trying to give me a hint as to what happened. Well, I'm not usually dumb as a rock but when it comes to foreign history I am. So he kept sending me back to my seat with my test for each hint, til I crossed out my answer and re-wrote it, to find it was wrong again, go up, get a hint, sit down, get it wrong, go up, etc... This happened about 15 times and got me pretty frustrated.
Then finally he stopped the torturous cycle and took my test and gave me the essays. He told us earlier we couldn't accomplish the tast in less than 5 pages each. Well, I'm sorry, but there is no way in hell I am writing 10 pages. Screw that. I wrote 2 pages each, like I did for my last test. Tuvia's class has a 2-page rule, you can't write more than two pages.
I handed my essay in, David looked at me and said "this is all?" Well, I took and told him that I had written all I wanted to say.

Here are my essays.

Essay 1.

At the height of Roman power and popularity, in the period known as the "Pax Romana", most nations readily accepted Roman rule and the benefits it offered. A glaring exception to this was the revolt of Am Yisrael against Rome in 66-70 CE called The Great Revolt.
A. Discuss the causes, major events, and results of The Great Revolt.
B. Masada which fell in 73 CE was the last Jewish fortress to fall in The Great Revolt. Use archaeological finds at Masada to discuss how the Siccari Zealots there lived according to Jewish traditions and values.
C. Why do you think the Siccari Zealots on Masada chose to die as they did?
D. Why is the slogan "Shenit Metzada Lo Tipol!" ("Masada shall not fall again!") so important to Am Yisrael today? How can we connect the lessons of ancient Masada with the modern State of Israel?

Although the Romans were a very strong empire, the Jews refused to accept Roman rule. Various offenses against their religion would lead them to rebel in The Great Revolt in 66-70 CE.

Religious oppression was the main cause of the revolt. The outlawing of circumcision, the basis of the covenant between man and G-d, was the biggest offense and trigger. This led the Jews to have a simultaneous attack on Masada and Jerusalem. The religious zealots stayed at the fort on Masada, originally built by King Herod, until 73 CE. The fall of Masada was the end of the Jewish resistance for the time being. As a result, hundreds and thousands of Jews in the revolt were killed but they had gained the respect of the Roman Empire.

The Siccari ("dagger") zealots were found to be non-secular when the site of Masada was excavated. A mikvah, or ritual bath, was found in the fortress, exactly matching today's standards. A beit knesset for prayer was also found, along with a geniza to house literature with G-d's name on it that was too old to use anymore. Ezekial's prophesy of "the dry bones" was also found seperately buried, after the mass suicide on the mountain.

With his people surrounded, the young Elezar ben Yair made a speech to the other Jews on Masada to kill eachother rather than let the Romans kill them. Had the Romans captured them, the Jews would be tortured, enslaved, and killed, and the women raped all to make an example of them to act as a deterrant against future rebellion. Rather than have them serve the Romans in this fashion, the men killed their families first and then eachother untill all but a couple forgotten widows and orphans were dead. This also immortalized their bravery and defiance against the Roman Empire.

"Shenit Metzada Lo Tipol," "Masada shall not fall again," is still important today, and is said by recruits for Tzhal. Masada symbolizes the determination of Jews to survive and guard their religion against opponents of all strengths, and also the country of Israel. By swearing that Masada will not fall, soldiers are swearing an oath to protect their country.

Although the Jews did not win the Great Revolt, they made their impression on the most powerful Empire as well as the rest of the world. By refusing to give in against all odds, it shows our people's dedication and trust in G-d, which has kept us surviving as a people for thousands of years.

Essay 2.
Describe the major ideas and principles of Islam. What is the legal status of Jews and Christians under Islam? Are there any aspects of the Islamic religion or culture as studied that in your opinion would influence politics in the 20th century, and if so how?

Although Muhammad was origionally friendly with Jews, when he declared himself prophet and Jew refused to convert, he fled to Mecca in a trip known as the Hejrah. He became Anti-Semetic and told all his new converts there could not be peace with any who do not accept Islam. This has become particularly influential in today's world atmosphere.

Islam, originally similar to Judaisum, has 5 Pillars of Faith. The first is to accept that there is one god and Muhammad is his prophet. Another is to give charity, and another is to pray 5 times a day. A pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime is also required, and Muslims cannot eat pork, or drink alcohol, and are to be circumcised at age 13.

It is also taught in Islam that there is to be "religion by the sword", forced conversion, that those who do not accept Muhammed are to be killed. The Christians and Jews, however, were considered aldhimmes, or protected people, under Muslim rule. The Doctrine of Umak and the Proclamation of Mawalitik had to be followed, which provided some limitations such as not being able to build shuls or churches higher than Mosques.

A major problem today with countries with Islamic fundamentalist leadership is the idea of peace. "Peace" in Arabic can be either a Sulch or a Salaam. A Sulch is an actual, binding peace. But a Salaam is a peace with the infidel, a temporary truce until the Muslims are strong enough to attack and destroy the enemy. The mistranslation of this word can give other countries the wrong impression of treaties.

The inability of Islamic groups to have peace with Jews is another reason the Middle East is so hostile towards Israel. Iran openly calls for its destruction. However, secular governments are not so harsh, and Israel has had good ties to secular Turkey in the past years.

To further understand the hostilities between Islamic countires and Israel and the US, one has to examine the Muslim religion. It may not be possible to have a true peace with a government based on not having peace with different religions. Religion and history thousands of years old can thus be very influential in even current events.

He told me to come back at 1115, with everyone else, to grade the objective part of the test.
The time was approximately 0915.
From there, I went to the computer lab to work on some coding, and later returned to grade. I got an 81% on my test, I've posted my essays here. Now, most people get A's in the class, but honestly I am perfectly happy with a B. I'd rather not stress myself to death studying and get a B, than to stay up until 0400 and panic.

At 1300 the Hadassa came and brought me to her house in the Moshav for my free weekend. Its the same place I stayed at last time.
Didn't do much, met Ben's cousin and he took Ben and I to a nearby city, where Kodak is located, so he could pick up some stuff from work. Then we drove by the marina and then we went to the Mediterranean briefly. Just walked down to the sand and talked a bit, its gorgeous there at night.
Drove back, had curry and beef and rice for dinner which was soooo good, so much appreciated even more because I've had cafeteria food all the time.
Uploaded some pictures, and went to bed at 0000.

CODING!

2006-12-22T07:40:28Z

GAH!
I hate coding!
I hate it!
*deep breaths*
For my mood, take a look at the userpic for this entry. That about describes it.
OK, so apparently the pictures STILL are not working. Which is odd. Because I can see at least half of the pictures on Israeli computers, but apparently its not working over in the good ol' US of A.
Which pisses me off.
Have I mentioned I hate coding?
Grrrrrrrrr.

Update:
*sigh*
OK, I'm gonna try something different now. Can someone please go back to the Tel Gezer entry and tell me if you're starting to see a few pictures? Thanks.

Update two: OK, I discovered the error in my coding. I won't bother you guys with the details, just let's say that having ALL computers in the lab working off a single server is annoying. Anyway, the pictures should work for all computers now.

Coding fixed.

2006-12-21T18:38:51Z

Coding is fixed. I'm using KodakGallery instead of Photobucket.
Round one of photos is in, as is the write-up from the first Tiyul.
http://8weeksinisrael.livejournal.com/3571.html

I really want to update more, but it took me an two and a half hours to do that, and I have a huge test tomorrow I haven't studied enough for, and I just found out a member of my FD died and so really I guess I'm not in the mood anymore.

But please look at that entry, I put some work into it.

Grrrrr.

2006-12-18T18:39:16Z

Update coming soon, I got some pictures uploaded but I'm having trouble with my coding.
In fact, I don't even think its my coding that's the problem. Photobucket has changed a bit and I think their network is on the fritz right now. Regardless, when I post a picture it cuts half of it off. Annoying.

I finished my update on my first Shabbos, and I'm working on other updates as well.
Since everyone else is out smoking Hookah I'm here all by myself trying to fix my coding. *yawn*

Duck and Run

2006-12-14T11:40:50Z

To this world I’m unimportant just
Because I have nothing to give
So you call this your free country
Tell me why it cost so much to live
Tell me why

This world can turn me down
But I won’t turn away, oh no
I won’t turn around

All my work and endless measures
Never seem to get me very far
Walk a mile just to move an inch
Now even though I’m trying so
Damn hard
I’m trying so hard

This world can turn me down but I
Won’t turn away
And I won’t duck and run, cause
I’m not built that way
When everything is gone there is
Nothing there to fear
This world cannot bring me down
No cause I’m already here, oh no!

I am already here, down
On my knees
I am already here, on no, I am
Already here
I must have told you a thousand
Times I am not running away

I won’t duck and run
I won’t duck and run
I won’t duck and run
No I pass away

This world can turn me down but
I won’t turn away
And I won’t duck and run, cause
I’m not built that way
When everything is gone there is
Nothing there to fear
This world cannot bring me down
No cause I’m already here

This world can turn me down, but
I won’t turn away
And I won’t duck and run,
Cause I’m not built that way
When everything is gone there
Is nothing there to fear
This world cannot
Bring me down
No cause I’m already here

Unit Test One

2006-12-09T14:11:22Z

I woke up at 0715, got dressed. I skipped breakfast to do some cramming, but made some hot cocoa so I wouldn't be hungry. Then I went to the area we would be testing in and crammed in some studying.
At 0800 we started our unit one test, on Biblical times, and had until 1100 to finish.
I think I got the dates right, and the majority of the fill in the blanks. I think the ones I got wrong were questions about what some Hebrew meant. Also I didn't know the names of one of the biblical highways of the four valleys of Jerusalem. Then there was a "long essay" that was supposed to be 4-5 pages. I chose to write mine on the classical, transitional, and literary prophets. I feel I put a lot of info in it, but it only came to 2 pages.
Then for the "short essay" I was supposed to write 3-4 pages. I wrote mine on archaeological digs, and again it came out to be two pages.
Then I turned in my test before everyone else, and my teacher gave me back my journal entry because I only wrote about one day of the two-day tiyul.
Well, I sat back down and finished writing the journal. By the time I had handed that in, still no one else was finished. This made me nervous, because I'd studied less than everyone else, and my madrichim had kept nagging me asking if I studies, and that was all I heard from everyone was "have you studied"?

But the thing for me is this: My letter grade for this class is not that important to me. This is not to say that I don't care, just that I am here to live in Israel and for the experience, and enjoy myself while I'm here. As long as I know I've learned something, the grade to me is just a letter on paper.

So, I was finished around 0915-0930, I don't know exactly. I went back to the dorms. Apparently no one from Tuvia's class had finished either, because the whole place was completely empty. I figured this would be a good time for me to just be by myself, for "me" time. I don't get much of that with four roommates and 31 other people around the dorm. Not a lot of quiet time. Even in the late hours. And my quiet time is essential to my sanity.
Since we have periodic inspections for drugs and alcohol and they basically snoop through ALL your stuff, I decided to neaten up. And since we were told earlier we'd be having the "Inspection from Hell" Sunday at 0715, I figured I'd better clean. Because they also make sure your beds are made (HA, like I do that on non-inspection days) and just everything is orderly.
So I spent about an hour and a half on changing the sheets on my bed and getting my laundry (and, omigosh, they fold your laundry FOR you! I'm in heaven) and packing for later and tidying up.
Now, I'm no neat person, but honestly, my roommates are starting to piss me off a bit. (Mom and Dad, bet you were wondering how long it would be until that) Its not that I don't like 'em or anything, I mean we're friends... But, we've each got our own desk. And for some reason everyone throws their shit on my desk. I mean, there's books that aren't mine, there are chargers that aren't mine, there's a LAPTOP on there that I WISH was mine, along with an assortment of other shit. At least no one has touched my shelf.
I like my shelf. I put my sourcebooks on it and also a couple of CD cases and also a decorative candle and a cup with a couple flowers in it on there.
I digress.
Besides the desk thing, people seems to be unable to get trash, INTO the trash. So there is all this crap around the trash can. And then in our actual bedroom people just toss random clothes on the floor (this is starting to improve though). And one girl, the drawer that was under her bed that rolls out, it broke. And the new one they gave her doesn't fit under the bed. So it has to be on the floor. And of course she parked it right next to my bed. So there's all that shit right next to me.
I'm not saying I'm perfect, but come on. Me and another of my roommates agree the mess seems to come from one person- and no, its not me, and no, I'm not going to say who that person is.

Just when you are living in that small of a space with no alone time, the mess just starts to bother me.

I also spend some time in the computer room until 1300 when everyone goes to the main entrance for home hospitality. Because we all found someone to stay with, our madrichim get to go home for Shabbos as well. I am in a taxi with my roommate Zoe as well as Jess and Aaron. First we drop Jess and Aaron off at a house in Hod Ha'Sharon, then Zoe and I are taken to Moshav Adanim. A Moshav is like a kibbutz, but you can have private property.

Well, no one was waiting at the door for us, so the taxi driver called the house. A few calls later, and we look at the house again, and a man is standing there in his bathing robe and calling to us. Rather taken aback, Zoe and I get out and go inside. The man introduces himself as Ernest, and puts his hand on Zoe's face and kisses her on both cheeks. I somehow manage to get a handshake instead, which I was rather relieved of. He was very friendly, basically went over the whole "Mi casa es su casa" thing. Then he went back to a different room to finish the massage he'd been in the middle of when we arrived.
A few minutes later his 17-year old son Ben finished taking a bath and we met him. So we talked a bit until he had to leave to drive someone somewhere.
So we were by ourselves watching TV, something we haven't done for a while since we don't have a TV at the dorms, until later the mother, Haddassa arrived.

A few minutes later Ernest came out, dressed this time, and we moved our stuff in. Apparently we would be taking over Ben's room for the night.
Haddassa is from South Africa and Ernest is from Romania. He is a business owner, involved in construction.

We gave them some flowers and a challah as a host gift, and I gave them a box of chocolate-covered mint sticks I bought at Wegmans, but the treats are made in Buffalo.
Apparently the three of them all had the flu and are just about over it, but Ben is still sick with some stomach thing. Also, everyone in the house smokes, very bad for my asthma.
Ben did, however, point out the irony in that I want to be a firefighter but just cigarrette smoke bothers me.
I'd never thought of that before.

We had a meal with challah and bagels and some Israeli pastry things, then pretty much just chilled. We met the family's four dogs, who were so funny. I really liked "Bella" in particular. Pictures to come.

Hadassa made a delicious dinner with homemade macaroni and cheese and challah and barekas and other food, it was such a nice change from cafeteria crap.

In the evening Ben's friends came over and Zoe and I hung out with them for awhile.
Went to sleep pretty late, weren't any discotechs to go out to tonight so no where to go really.

Yoinked from Facebook

2006-12-09T12:29:56Z

You know you're from Rochester when...

1. "Waking up with the Wease" doesn't mean that you have a respiratory infection.
2. The thought of eating a "garbage plate" makes your mouth water.
3. The only thing at the annual May Lilac Festival is snow.
4. The worst four-letter word you could say is "Fuji".
5. You can't swim at the beach.
6. You thought that you had figured out that alternate-parking thing, but wind up with a ticket anyway.
7. Toronto is about 70 miles away, but it takes four hours to get there.
8. The name "Greater Rochester International Airport" is bigger than the airport itself.
9. There's an 800 number to report a pothole in the road.
10. You know that a "Can of Worms" is not something that you take fishing.
11. Your baby's first word is "Wegmans".
12. You ask lifetime residents where the George Eastman House is, but they don't know either.
13. In a city where it snows at least 90 inches a year, they build a new sports stadium with no roof on it.
14. It can be 70 degrees one day, below freezing the next, and you think nothing of it.
15. Your mother is buying outfits to wear to Wegmans.
16. Your low-fat diet is never low enough to exclude an Abbott's custard.
17. You order a white hot and a pop, and the counterman knows what you're talking about.
18. You can travel from Egypt to Greece in about a half-hour by car.
19. D&C is a newspaper, not a medical procedure.
20. You know who Vinnie and Angelo are.
21. You can go to any mall on a Saturday and see at least 5 people you either work with, went to school with or dated.
22. Your year has two seasons: Winter and Construction.
23. You awaken from a deep sleep, look at the clock and see that it's 6:00, but you have no idea whether it's AM or PM.
24. When 12+ inches of snow falls overnight, but you never thought of NOT going to work.
25. You are perplexed when friends from other cities come to visit and want to "see the sights"
26. A flagpole strung with white lights seems like an acceptable alternative to a municipal Christmas tree.
27. In winter if the temperature hits 45 degrees and the sun comes out, people walk around downtown wearing shades and no jackets.
28. There are places at the poles that seem to get more sunlight during the winter months than we do.
29. Wegmans is somewhere to go on a Friday night, for entertainment.
30. Half the change in your pocket is Canadian, eh.
31. You define summer as three months of bad sledding.
32. You think that people from Pennsylvania have an accent.
33. Halloween is snowed out with great regularity.
34. You have experienced frostbite and sunburn in the same week.
35. Your idea of a seven-course meal is a six pack of Genny and a bucket of Buffalo wings.
36. You believe that "down south" means Maryland.
37. You can compare Nick Tahoe's garbage plate to at least 3 other knock-offs in competing restaurants.
38. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Rochester, NY.

Sequential Classes Day #2. (Oh yeah, and Core class too.)

2006-12-07T13:56:52Z

Today I woke up at 0630. Wake-up call isn't until 0645, but with 21 girls and 3 showers I know the competition will be fierce and I'd rather not have to deal with that, and have the security of knowing the hot water isn't going to run out just as I've put all the shampoo in my hair.

This is one of the things that has surprised me while living here, is how easily (for the most part) it is for me to get going in the morning. I've never been a morning person. But I can think of some things that may explain it. Perhaps it is knowing if I don't get up on time I don't get fed, and food is rather hard to get ahold of here. Or maybe it is because I'm actually excited in what we are doing. Or maybe because I've always been a night person, and waking up here at 0600 is equivalent to waking up at 2300 at home. Or maybe my going to sleep occasionally at 2000 aids that.
Whatever it is, waking up is not so hard.
But I am sure that can change. (And actually KEEPING going, that is a different story!)

So I wake up and shower and get ready for the day. Breakfast for me is a cup of milk, three pieces of French toast, and a portion of cottage cheese smaller than the previous week.
When you eat something everyday, it loses its taste fast, even if it IS Israeli cheese.
I finish everything except half the cottage cheese and grab my books to go to core class at 0800.
We discuss our last tiyul and have a quiz. Then we learn some Hebrew we can use, as well as differences in gestures. For example, in America when someone interrupts you when you are talking to someone and you want to express to them to wait, you hold up your forefinger. In Israel, you use your hands like Italians in that you put together your thumb and first two fingers in sort of a snapping motion and flip your wrist a little bit. And there are variation on it to reflect your tone and if you are getting annoyed with the person.
That that was interesting to learn.
Then we learn about prophets, including traditional prophets such as Samuel and Nathan, and the transitional prophet Elijah, and then the literary prophets. We go over the story of Jonah and the Whale, and the prophet Asom.
I find his section in Nevi'im to be one of the most powerful and moving in the Tenakh.

We get our break at 1010 and I go to the computer lab, and am just about to start sending e-mails when our madrich David comes and tells us banking is during the break.
We have two times a week we can withdraw money from our accounts, and there is a limit on how much you can withdraw each time. So I get there. Get my sheks, and then I get back on the computer briefly to try blogging a bit.
Then off to rush to core class again at 1045.
Class continues until 1230, then we are let go.
Then I eat lunch in the cafeteria which for me was chicken shapes, rice (its pretty much the equivalent of cottage cheese for me at lunch), and I got some lettuce too because I figured I needed to eat some green stuff.
I'm finally beginning to adjust to the Israeli diet. I'm not saying I like it, but I am adjusting.

At 1300 I go to the computer lab and start blogging. At 1330 I call home and head towards the Bet Knesset for my meeting with Jill, the academic co-ordinator, for a meeting she had scheduled with me for 1345. I get there and find out she can't meet with me. So I go into the synogogue and start writing this entry in my notebook about the day. Jill met with me at 1405, and then my tutor arrived at 1415. (My class was supposed to start at 1400.
My tutor, Rachel, talks with me for a while to see how I'm liking school so far and whatnot, then has me just work as I have been. That's reading my textbook, filling out the packets, and listening to Nickleback. I study so much better when I am listening to music. Its especially helpful in the Bet Knesset, where all the different tutors are there and I'm hearing Hebrew, English, French, Spanish, and Russian thrown across the room. Otherwise it would be a bit distracting.
It's not helpful that she keeps telling me over and over again what a "crushing workload" I've recieved from Brighton. Not helping at all.
//breather//

1500-1600 is English tutoring. I got rather frustrated at the beginning with trying to clarify to her what Brighton's expectations were, and there was a lot of her being "What is this curriculum outline?" and me saying "Just work from the list of assignments" and her going on about the curriculum outline and then saying I have to read extra novels, and me getting quite annoyed and saying "No, just the list". She thinks the English workload from Brighton is pretty light.
I'll just say its not as much as my other classes.
So we discussed "The Story of an Hour" and she kept asking me all these critical thinking questions and stuff on literature of social criticism and I ended up feeling like such an idiot, the WHOLE session was a "WTF?!" moment.
But oh well.

1600-1700 is Chemistry tutoring. My tutor is English and talks VERY fast. Sometimes I have greater difficultly understanding her than I have with understanding those with a Hebrew or Russian accent. She thinks I'm really behind in my studies and keeps rushing me. Its annoying me. Then she pretty much tries to fill out the homeworks given to me by my Brighton teacher, which annoys me even more. She seems mostly concerned to getting me on paper to be where I should be. However I told her "Hey, getting me to where I'm 'supposed' to be will do NO good if I don't set the foundations and understand the basics."
She thinks the way I've been taught for electron configuration is low-level and I'm having difficulty understanding Quantum Mechanics (gee, as if THAT'S any surprise). Just the p, s, d, etc. sublevels are really confusing me and I was getting a bit frustrated because she wasn't explaining it so great. But I think after a couple more sessions with her I'll be OK.

1700-1800 was Math. It started out with me being rather frustrated, but I ended up using the technique I've used in a few situations. Which is, simply, to just STOP arguing, and just do it, even though I totally don't like it. Because the way she was sounding she was gonna teach me really isn't the way Core Plus is taught. But then I thought "Hey, back at Brighton, I always thought Core Plus was a bunch of crap anyway, so why am I arguing?" And ya know what? I learned something today!
Woot!
*does a happy dance*
I actually learned and was able to apply something. I feel accomplished :-) Squee!
So yeah, by biting my tongue I managed to learn how to do imaginary numbers.

1800-1810 I ate dinner which was hot dog. Two short thick turkey hot dogs on a big hamburger roll.
Someone totally has to come over here and teach Israelis how to make a proper hot dog. *shakes head*

1815 starts my review session for my core class with Uri and the rest of everyone back at the dorms, as we have a test tomorrow (I suspect this is the reason the computer lab, normally completely full, is empty. Everyone's studying. Which is probably what I SHOULD be doing now...). That review session lasted until 1915, and here I am typing!
So there, I have updated for the day.
Even if I really haven't done a whole lot, I still like to come in here and do a full entry for the day. For a few reasons. One, it gives me a sense of accomplishment if nothing else does. Two, it means I can look back on this day and know what I did. Three, it tests my memory, and I've discovered since I started blogging three years ago that it actually improves my memory.

So yeah, that was my day.

I hope everyone else at home is well.
Sorry about the snow... oh wait, no I'm not...ahahahahahahaha...

Peace out.
~Amy

Add: Oh yeah. So, Yoni came in the computer lab, and at one of the computers found a bag. Filled with candy! No one else is in the lab. And I saw that bag earlier, on the break, but I thought it was just trash. Well, he took the sucking candies, and I get an "Elite" (that's the transliteration of it) chocolate bar with nuts. In case you don't know, that's the chocolate I was raving about a few days ago. So woohoo! They told us when we arrived here to be suspicious of unattended items, but somehow I seriously doubt that this chocolate bar in the middle of the lab is a bomb.
Hey, don't judge! When we came here, we all set down a rule of "No name, free game." If there's food left out anywhere, and your name ain't on it, its free game. Oh yeah.
I love chocolate.

...And so it begins...

2006-11-28T18:59:22Z

Well, I selected this userpic/avatar for a bit of comic relief.
It helps a bit, I guess.

Woke up at 0930 and took a shower. I hope the showers in Israel are decent. I remember that in Costa Rica they were not always the greatest. But oh well. Different countries, different showers I suppose.

Finished packing up. Each of my checked bags (2) and my carry-on (backpack) weigh 50 lbs each... I am so glad I packed ibuprofen. I'll be dragging more than my own body weight through the airport.
Added some money to my US cell to use at ROC and JFK, I'll most likely end up calling my friends at JFK.

Went to UPS Store to photocopy my English textbook. I see little sense in bringing the whole 1,200 page book if I'm only using 30 pages of it.

I don't know when I will be able to update next.
I have to leave for ROC in about an hour, hopefully everything will go alright. However apparently there is a strike in Tel Aviv of airline baggage handlers as of this morning so my luggage could be... dare I say it... delayed. (shhh!)
*mutters* Just my luck...

My flight leaves ~1700 out of ROC, I arrive at JFK ~1815. Have to get to El Al terminal at 1930 and my flight for Tel Aviv leaves at 2350.

Other than that... not much is happening right now. Been surfing the net for new updates, coming across some interesting articles:

Police: Baby might have been microwaved
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061128/ap_on_re_us/baby_death_microwave
(what is the world coming to...)

UPDATE: GLOBAL ANTI-SEMITISM ON THE RISE
http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/community_interactive/forums/?topic_id=74
(what else is new...)

POISON IS SPREADING
MORE NUKE TOXIN FOUND
AMID LONDON SPY PROBE
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11282006/news/worldnews/poison_is_spreading_worldnews_andy_soltis.htm
(And pretty soon we'll all be glowing green)

Not else much. Just send a shout-out to my buddies at BFD and MCSO, as well as all my family and Michael, Nathan, Adam, Jared, Kari, Nick, Corey, "Buddha", Cameron, "Superman", Jennifer, Suzanne, Will, "Inspector Gadget", and to the rest of my Explorer buddies.

Ya'lls rock!

Peace out, don't miss me TOO much! :-p
~Amy Lynn

Last Day in School

2006-11-28T03:40:06Z

Well, today was my last day in school.
Not too much happened.

Fairly straightforward. Wake up at 0715, get to school.

American History
Munching on hot salsa and Tostitos in class. My classmates are still amazed (and slightly disgusted, I am sure) at my ability to eat any food at any time of the day. Last year it was nachos and cheese in English… I’ve pretty much gotten away from all of that, however I had a salsa craving when I woke up today and… yeah… anyway…
Talking about Thomas Jefferson. And Louisiana Purchase. And Lewis and Clarke. And Northwest Passage. And how its impossible because rivers flow towards oceans, and downhill. Because of gravity. Oh yeah. I feel smart.

Got my essay, got a 15/20, yay! Lost those five points because I did not do my works cited. Why I did not do it I do not know, I know I actually DID do it, however for reasons which make sense (OK, they do not make sense) only to me, I did not print it, which was –yet again- dumb of me.
If I ever go into law, this is something I’m gonna have to rectify.

English
Talking about… Oh geeze I am not gonna spell this right… Transcendentalism… (Hey, woot, my spell check says I got it right! Good ol’ reliable spell check.) And, that guy, Emerson, who I recall for some reason, from I think Sociology, and his essays.

Free
Wandering around… not doing a whole lot. Finish up Math Tool Kit. Say goodbye to Jennifer *tear*.

Geometry
Working with polynomials, which (oh my god) I am actually somewhat comprehending. *shines with pride*
Unfortunately… that was pretty much stuff from LAST class. So we’re starting complex fractions, which (oh my god) I am also actually somewhat comprehending. They don’t seem to be too difficult, more of time-consuming with lots of room for error.
I come to realize I was –yet again- dumb and only did the MTK up to #6, when apparently it was assigned up to #7.
*headdesk*

Gym
Well, picking options again. Aerobics, weightroom, or basketball? Well, it does not matter. Aerobics is definitely out, honestly, I’d choose the weightroom if I was staying here for the unit, but seeing as how going once (and it most likely being an orientation) is not going to do much for me, may as well do basketball.
So, I was just saying to Buddha how I always get picked last and feel soooo unspeshul, when the teacher announced since we were going into teams of four and I was an extra, and seeing as how I was only gonna be there for one day, I’d be sh00ting hoops by myself.
*feels so unloved*

Free
Took and biked to the Brighton Library. Went on the computer awhile. Biked back to school. Got captured by various friends smothering me.
i.e. Will, Nick, Jon
Jon would not let me go so I was late to Chemistry.

Chemistry
Going over labs. I’m doing fine. Woot. Starting stuff with Quantum Physics. Seems… Fascinating. Yes, that’s the word for it… fascinating…

Free
Went to registrar’s office and finished filling out the forms/mailing my application for the National Law Enforcement Exploring Academy in July. I am really hoping to get into the Military Police one in Missouri, but I guess I’ll be OK if I get accepted to the DEA one in DC. ANYWAY. Found out, apparently I’ve been signed out of school since last Wednesday… So, I really didn’t *technically* have to come to school today. But whatever.
Then took a couple of trips biking home to get all my school stuff back i.e. textbooks. Then cashed my paycheck and got money from the bank for my trip.
*Has discovered, that if you save money, you will have it for spending later!*

End of school.
Went with Corey to Great Northern. Had to get my last Great Northern fix. Sauced Up Buffalo and Buffalo Blue Cheese (Can you tell I like chicken pizza?). Best stuff ever. Hits in the wallet hard too. But sooooo worth it. *drool*
Yeah, also got Starbucks… awesomeness. I just blew $20 going out for food with friends. But whatever. I earn my own money I can spend it how I want.

Went back home. Exhausted. Ready to take a nap, but decide to pack instead. Get a call from Michael, continue packing and talk. Then my pager goes off. Carbon monoxide call at Dansbury Circle. Now, I just KNOW that’s fairly close, I just can’t recall for the life of me where it is. So I’m talking on the phone and trying to keep listening to my pager while I am trying to dig up my map of Monroe County… which I never find… when there’s a knock on my door, and my brother Mike is there! Yay! So now I just figure oh to hell with it, tell Michael I’ll have to call him back, give up on the map search, and decide that I believe Dansbury Circle is in District 2, and since I’m only familiar really with the trucks in District 1, say oh well to the call. Seeing as how I don’t have a gear bag, it’d be hard to lug all my stuff to the call, not to mention looking slightly ridiculous (and uncomfortable) biking that far in full firefighting gear.
But I digress.

I’ve spent a good deal of time packing… I think I have just about everything… Only thing really left to do is photocopy some English stuff… No way am I taking TWO 1,200-page textbooks with me…

I’m in the process of looking at my luggage and thinking to myself “God have mercy…”
I put on my backpack/carry-on which has my mandatory stock of textbooks and school folders they won’t let me check in the luggage, and I quite promptly fell over backwards. Luckily, there was a bed there. So I happen to still be in one piece. I just know it will not be fun bringing that through the airport.
*gazes fondly at bottle of ibuprofen*

Well, it being more that I have written a lot today, more than it being late, I shall spare you the rest of the day, just to say there were no more calls really… a couple for natural gas, but I can’t go on those, and we just let RGE deal with those anyway.

Love ya’lls,
~Amy Lynn

PS I am going to miss you, Michael Robert Kellar.

First post

2006-11-27T03:58:26Z

Hey everyone...

As you can see, I've decided to get a *public* blog for the time-being while I am in Israel... As such, all comments will be screened.
For those of you not used to my writing style, it is thus:

1. I don't edit.
I write what I'm feeling at the time. If this happens to have some... language... then, frankly, cry me a river, build me a bridge, and GET OVER IT. I believe everyone who is reading this *at this point* knows my stance on censorship.

2. I like to scrapbook.
I throw in pictures, "quotes of the day", and surveys, etc.

3. I write. A lot.
I like to write. And seeing as how this is all self-centered media, I'm gonna damn well have my say if people are even bothering to read.

Also, I occasionally make mistakes when I'm doing some more advanced HTML coding (which I do, well, occasionally) so if I make a mistake and you spot it, pleeeeease let me know.

I am going to attempt to update everyother day... preferably daily, however my schedule is going to be very hectic over in Israel (moreso even than normal).

So. On to the actual entry, beyond the preface.
Today was a going-away party, this time with my family/neighbors (& Mike). It was nice to get to see everyone, finished up some packing. I'm 95% packed, woot! Now hopefully I'll be able to shove the Brighton schoolwork + textbooks *barf* into my backpack in addition to the luggage, which weighs more than I do.

And I have PICTURES!!!! from the going-away party with my friends last week!

Me, Kari, Suzanne, and Nathan.

Mike and I.

Nathan, me, Mike, and Jen. (You can see Buddha and Corey in the mirror... Buddha seems to be reaching for something... a beer? or Nirvana perhaps? It matters not, neither is to be attained :-p )

Adam and I.

I want to send out shout-outs today.

But I am going to have to peace out for now, must finish up the rest of my American History homework! Oh, the burdens of being a good student.

Love ya'lls,
~Amy Lynn