no news is good news, right?

hello hello

 

thought id update since i havent since the beginning of study tour... basically things are fine. nothing too thrilling to report as yet.  things have gotten more tolerable- turns out 2 of the kids in my class arent as weird as i thought, i was jsut grouping them with the third, who legitimately is unbeleivably weird. by this i mean that they are good kids and ive been hanging out with them, which has been fun. their names are austen and liz. they take a lot of pictures (i dont), so once i steal some from them, ill post an awkward one so you can have a visual/see us downing beers during the 10 minute break from class...what? did i say that? this blog makes me look like more of an alcoholic than is actually the case (though nothing like ashwin advani's abroad emails...), but let's jsut say the class has not gotten any better, and i must do what i can to make it toelrable...

 

one thing that has made it tolerable was the discovery of wireless internet in the classroom...this has been both glorious and my biggest downfall...because for the life of me, i cannot force myself to care waht this man thinks of me... im clearly not paying attention in class, w/ or w/o a laptop... w/ laptop at least i get to do something productive...like post pictures or write emails or draw things on "paint" instead of spending my time trying not to fall asleep with just a notebook in front of me.  now the challenge is to make it look like im taking notes on my computer when i blatantly am not.  im getting ebtter... though i have certainly not perfected this skill yet... oh well. the things i have to turn in will be well-written and i manage to chime in with at least 3-4 inspired remarks each class period, so i should be ok... or something.

 

the daytrips have been getting better too... or at least, there is usually at least one enjoyable part of them that leaves a positive impression instead of recalling the preceeding 8 hours of boredom "on site."  last week we went to tzippori, nazareth and tzfat one day, and then did a hike in the gilboa, went to some other places in the galilee that i dont remember (clearly remarkable) and i dont rememebr what we did on that day that was the highlight... so basically week 1 sucked. oh well. this week, we went to the ghetto fighters museum on tuesday (which was definitely not the highlight of anything) and then to zichron yaakov that evening w/ eliad, the madrich (social activities guide) and without the weird/smelly girl or the professor.  this was enjoyable because the company was decent, btu more because the food was amazing. we went to this restaurant owned, operated, waitressed, chef'ed, etc all by one woman... nira.  she was a badass like none other and her house specialty was unbelievable. she gave us her cards and i defintiely put her number in my phone... worth the trek. called "shaweesha"- it was like some sort of heavenly pita-esque dough w/ filling wrapped up and lightly fried to a blonde crisp...mine had sweet potato, leek and goat cheese, and came with several deligthful side salads...basically im obsessed with that dinner, and with nira...naturally.

 

today we were in yodvat (some boring josephus flavius place i think), the some old syrian bunker in the golan, and then went on a hike that led us to an unbeleivably beautiful waterfall, where we had a well-deserved afternoon swim. im not going to lie. it was cold. there was a giant snake (perhaps a water moccasin) in the water, but we went in anyway, and went under thw waterfall (shoutout to arielle @ nahal david...last time i jumped under a waterfall in israel was in december...THAT was cold).  anyway, it was great.  highlight of today's trip for sure.

 

aside from class, yesterday austen, liz and i adventured to netanya after class to meet up with a friend of austen's.  it was quite random, and i cant say that we actually did antyhign in netanya (we didnt even EAT, what weer we thinking?!?) but jsut walked around, but it was a fun lil' adventure. more to come.

 

now im back and hungry (suprised?) and trying to figure otu waht im doing tonight/this weekend/on my break... hopefully good things in store. specifically food. right now. mmm.

 

sorry this wasnt so funny. im tired and hungry, but alive and well and glad to be in israel right now. starting sunday our program is in jerusalem for a few days and we move south, and then as of next thursday (a week from today!) we're done! that means 4 more credits in the bank for me, which means only 29 left to graduate, which, if you know anything about my college credit-earning situation, is unbelievably exciting.

 

thats the good word from here. going to go make food. excited about that. be in touch. ill work on being funnier instead of boring.

 

just know that there was a lot of christina aguilera in my day. ok?

pictures? will you work? please?

this has taken entirely too much trial and error...more error than, uh, trial i guess. anyway, ive limited this to three, because that is all i can figure out how to do...but i will post more when i can figure it out/when i get some legitimate time/probably will put them on yahoophotos or something more efficient than this. but anyway, here are a few. enjoy!


this is from my birthday, at egon, the hookah bar we always seemed to end up at in jerusalem (seriously- i lived there for 3 weeks and was probably at this place 8 times). the picture is me, em, jess (emily's roommate... doesn't she look like haskell?? come on people), and devi, jess' best friend. please note the impressive tan lines- specifically, try to see if you can still see emily's sunglass tan. it was priceless.


moving on...
this is from the first week of ulpan in jerusalem, of drew and erik at aroma (a coffeeshop/sandwich chain, almost as common in israel as starbucks is...everywhere else) we were supposed to be doing homework/checking emails on aroma's free wireless/etc. instead, they pretended to play battleship. again let me remind you that erik is 28 years old. and drew is 21. aka neither one is 9.


this one is just one random one from europe, so you know i was actually there. its me and adam in front of a fountain in monaco. pretty cheezy... but in the thousands of pictures that adam and i have taken during the course of the last six years of friendship, well, its hard to come across one in which we both look like semi-socially acceptable human beings... aka we are painfully unphotogenic, specifically, incapable of taking a picture in which neither one of us look like we fear the camera may steal our souls... it's usually adam. but im pretty guilty too. this one we both look way too eager to have our souls stolen, but oh well. anyway, more europe pictures will come, but i only have 1/2 the pictures from the trip, adam has all the others. so, israeli postal service, we shall spar again... this time to deliver a disc... beware.

ok that was entirely too difficult. i will figure out another plan for pictures. for now, I HAVE MY PHONE BACK so please call/text it.

-am

this post is probably worthless

I HAVE MY PHONE BACK. it is a glorious feeling. i realize my dependence on technology is somewhat frightening...but it is what it is. and i have my phone back. and i now have my laptop. which doesn't really mean too many drastic changes, but it does mean that (in theory) i am now capable of posting pictures on this blog...if i can figure it out.

study tour still sucks. its really an exercise in trying to look like im paying attention when i am clearly not. i am not very good at this. perhaps i will improve. we had our first field study yesterday which wasn't awful, but wasn't thrilling in the least. we went to tzippori (ruins, mosaic floors, been there, done that, not as fun w/o any aarons to consecrate) then to nazareth to visit the church of annunciation. id never been to nazareth and the church was quite impressive. beautiful in fact, and really modern, which was unusual by comparison to the 20some other churches ive been to in the last 2 months. from there we went to tzfat, which is one of my favorite places on earth, but i really wasnt feelin it being there... nothing gained, nothing lost i guess.

tomorrow we have another trip, to the galilee and tiberias i think. i dont really know. i just know i have to meet at 8:30 am, and pray i dont have to sit next to the smelly girl (good thing the other kids are all kind of afraid of me, because they let me sit shotgun, even when i half-heartedly offer to sit in the back). not sure what's on the docket for the weekend... and next week is more class and field study in and around the north, followed by hopefully a weekend in tel aviv with friends, and then the final week of the study tour (thank goodness its only 3) is in jerusalem and the south. somehow its rosh ha shana right after that (what?!?) and starts my 3 week break. travel plans still tbd, hopefully exciting news to report on that soon.

ok. that was suitably boring. funny things you should know: the awkwardtons in my group are so intolerable that even the social activities guide/madrich, who is PAID to be friendly and likeable, needed to end off our walking tour the other night w/ a beer. he asked me if it would be inappropriate, or if i had any better suggestions. my best suggestion was to get one for me too.

its too hot in here to be funny. ill just try to post random pictures... enjoy.

 

ok just kidding i dont know how this works. separate post it shall be.

 

yes. worthless indeed.

-am

im an idiot...and hungry

i lost my phone.

 

saturday night, i lost my phone. so if you have tried to call or text me since saturday, and i havent responded, that is why. apparently i cant get a new one until wednesday, because the talk-n-save people accidentally delivered it to jerusalem instead of haifa. so thus, i must go 2 more days w/o being able to talk to anyone.  i hate that feeling more than most normal people probably would.

 

boo.

 

losing my phone was not so cool, but at least the rest of shabbat was.  my friend tamar from gw (a fellow make-up-your-own-major-er) just arrived on friday to spend the year at ben gurion univeristy in the negev. her family has a beautiful apartment in talpiot, an area of jerusalem, where we spent shabbat.  after spending the week in haifa and then returning to jerusalem, i was really pleased with the decision i made...i love haifa. and haifa is not infested with mechina girls and yeshiva boys (kids just out of high school who come to "yerushalayim" to "learn" for a year or 2... basically lots of long skirts and annoying attitudes. no. i dont miss that).  anyway, it was nice to be back and see emily and drew and erik (aka shimon peres) again, and it was soooo good to see tamar and jake, formerly of vegan-georgetown-etc fame, currently of tel aviv and awesomeness.  we went to services and then came back to tamars for delicious delieverd shabbas meal, with literally 6 different kugels...and there were only six of us.  sadly we did not each take down an entire kugel, though clealy we should have.  anyway, it was relaly fun and then jake an di stayed over at tamars through all of shabbat, emily came down again saturdya afternoon and the four of us just played and hung out ad were lazy and restful all of shabbat, which i think is what you are supposed to do.  so enjoyable.  then i lost my phone which sucked but whatever. and then eeearly sunday morning i came back to haifa to start this study tour program.

 

so far, ill be honest, i spend most of the time in class trying to look interested (and failing miserably, which is a problem since there are only 4 students sitting aroudn the equivalent of someones dining room table, minus the food) and scribbling reminders of why im there in the margins of my awkwardly sized israeli notebook.  4 credits. as i wrote in an email to a couple of friends yesterdya, i feel like im a 7th grade girl doodling the name of the boy i have a crush on.  that boys name is 4 credits. <3 <3 <3

 

seriously, the class is miserable. the three other people are each a rare breed of awkwardness....and while id say that each one is more awkward than the other, that is not true. one is far and above the others in terms of awkwardness. i can handle boy haircuts and questionable social protests on leg and armpit shaving (i did go to commie camp for 5 years), and i can even handle general weirdness from english majors at all women's colleges. what i cannot handle is when all of that is in one person, compounded with potentially mild to severe tourette's syndrome, manifesting itself in excessive blinking (like an opthomological stutter or something)...aaaand that this particular person smells.  i dotn mean to be picky about pesonal hygeine, and i could handle weird eye twitches and bad fashion/hair choices...but smelling is not ok when we are going to be in enclosed spaces for extended periods of time...aka a tiny classroom 6 hours a day, or worse yet, a 5-seater car filled with 5 people, one of whom smells, for each of our day trips....  this is problematic.

 

that and the fact that to call the professor an arrogant windbag would be an insult to his unique breed of pomposity.  his sheer stamina of self-importance for 6 hours each day is impressive in and of itself. not to mention that he wears faded black jeans... no no. we'll leave the fashion critiques for another day.

 

so we have awkward and uncomfortable other students, an abhorrent professor...whats left?  well while the syllabus and itinerary look fascinating, i can assure the class is not.  so far we're covering ancient jewish history and while the other students seem engaged, i think it is because they may have never learned anything like this before. i am the only one that speaks hebrew, which is fine, tihs isnt a hebrew-oriented program. but apparently im the only one with any judaic educational background, which is also fine, i hoep these awks kids get a lot out of the program...but all of tihs compounds to me being really bored, feeling like im wasting time that i could be spending eating/sleeping/playing/being on the beach/volunteering/eating again... 4 credits.  4 credits. 4 credits.

 

maybe the trips wont be so bad. we're going to some cool places... a lot ive been to...some i havent... i may have to take more kindly to substance abuse in order to make those days go by without taking my own life.... 4 credits.

 

tomorrow were going to tzippori (been there, relatively boring archaeological site), nazareth (new to me and im kind of excited, i just read a book about jesus' life growing up, thank you valerie, that was a- hilarious, and b- getting me in the spirit of learning more about jesus and pals), and to tzfat, which is probably my favorite city in the world... yet i kind of dont want to go. not with these people, not as the third stop on a day trip of cities that are far apart. but i guess ill suck it up and try to enjoy.  i really need to eat something, this is a dreadfully depressing entry... sorry kids.

 

ok. minimart here i come

-am