I'm alive! And still in Israel! It's like two in one... :)
Wow, I’m a terrible person. Actually I wouldn’t go that far, but I’ve been really lazy and haven’t updated this thing. Even though I said I would-at least I think that I did. Either way, here’s my entry, all apologies aside.
5/5/06 AKA CINCO DE MAYO!
So today I took the ACT. Standardized testing and I have never really been on the greatest of terms and this test only widened our prolonged rift. I have the flu, didn’t sleep last night, no eraser, calculator broke. Consequently, I failed the ACT if that is at all possible. And it was so so boring. So the test ended-I may not be heading to Harvard after that brilliant performance, but I really didn’t want to go there anyways. Community college all the way! Oh CLC…
So that’s really about it for today seeing as it’s only 3.
Alright, so I’m finishing up this post at around 2 AM (Saturday) my time so I’m adding a bit more to the day. At 6 we left for services in Jerusalem. Every so often, EIE will arrange for us to go to Friday night services off of the Kibbutz in various Synagogues around Israel. Seeing as there are 98 of us or however many, we are generally given a few options as to which place we go. This time around I signed up for an Orthodox service. It was quite the cultural experience-I’ve only been to a few Orthodox services in my time and so I was rather excited. Moral of the night being that I’m surprisingly a huge fan of the female/male praying division. Backing up a bit, in the Orthodox tradition, men and women are separated during services. The reasoning behind this being that gender separation provides for fewer distractions and thus an overall more focused and intense praying experience type of deal. There’s probably some biblical/Talmudic rationalization for this that I just don’t know and am too lazy to find out, but that was my take on it. So the whole gender separation-the way that this Synagogue was set up was that a white curtain was hung across the middle of the room with the women in the back and the men in front. I immensely disliked the whole women in the back of the room thing-from what I hear, some other places have their curtain down the middle with the women on either the left or right and the men on the other side. For some reason though, the segregated services have some huge potential. Next Shabbat, some of us are trying to get the girls to do their own service-I’m curious as to how it goes.
Friday nights! Our room and the one across the hall had this huge country dance party-one of my roommates is from the South and knows all of these crazy country dance which I learned last night, but since I’m rhythmically challenged and all that fun stuff, I still can’t do any of them. We used my speakers and ipod and blasted Sweet Home Alabama for about 4 hours straight. ---thanks mom and dad for said speakers/ipod!!
5/4/06 Thursday-full day of school
Got the flu? Or food poisoning? Either way, not my favorite day on EIE. I’m feeling better now though (now being today)--always a plus.
5/3/06 Wednesday-Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day-same thing as our 4th/2nd of July)
I’m beginning with the morning, but by morning I actually mean 12:30 AM. We left at 10:30 PM the day before for a concert in Rananas or whatever the name of the place was. Apparently, they had this big free concert fair thingy that EIE was going to take us to. So we get there, only to discover that all of the entrances had been turned into exits by the police because it became too crowded. Anyways, a whole bunch of us went running from gate to gate trying to get in, but to no avail. After that whole affair, we decided that it was a perfect time to create our own entrance! Apparently about 400 others agreed too. And thus a bunch of crazy Israelis and the remainder of EIE created their entrance by scaling the nice 12 foot fence surrounding the concert. Except I didn’t end up scaling any fences that night (morning?). The police came and did their little Hebrew thing and we got way out of there and went and ate crepes for the next few hours. We got back to the Kibbutz at around 5 AM with no intention of sleeping-we still had about an hour to go before we crashed from the sugar. All round super fun night/morning. And a major cultural experience. I feel as if that whole police/fence part is something I probably should not have written about here, but oh well.
At 10 AM (same day) we left for a beach right outside of Tel Aviv. Such a relaxing, content day. We had a BBQ, played in the sand, swam in the Med., slept, ate, slept some more---nothing really of much substance, but such an enjoyable day. Only downside would be when my intelligence shone through after the sun fried my entire back, front, shoulders, etc. It wasn’t my fault at all! Suntan lotion is overrated anyways--the blame should be entirely directed at the sun. A sign is in the process of being made urging people not to hit me on the back or really anywhere for that matter. Greatest idea ever-I’m going to have to remember that one next time I get sunburn.
About the beach though-it was gorgeous-not just gorgeous, all adjectives with affirmative, positive connotations would be applicable to this beach. So it really wasn’t the beach actually, it was the seashells. There were entire natural walls of shells-instead of sandbanks, there were shellbanks or whatever you would call it. Either way, I now have about 10 pounds of said shells residing on a tie dye towel in my room. The roommates and I are in the process of making necklaces with some of them. Put in a word if you want one…and then you can consider that your gift from me to you all the way from Israel. Plus then I get out of picking you out an actual gift--not that that’s not for completely selfish and lazy reasons.
5/2/06 Tuesday-Yom HaZicaron (Israeli Remembrance Day of Fallen Soldiers)
In the morning, we went to a Tekes (ceremony) on the Kibbutz’s cemetery. I loved it-I mean, well loved isn’t exactly the right word, but the ceremony was so cultural for lack of better words. There was nothing set-up or touristy about it. The entire thing was in Hebrew, but I understood quite a bit. One man who talked read a letter from his twin brother who had been killed in Lebanon in 2002. Nearly half of the Kibbutzniks there just broke down. It was really one of the first times in Israel that I have been able to get a picture of the emotions behind all that goes on here-no screening, no TV or newspaper, nothing-I figured something out that day, and despite the fact that it was at a vigil and I knew not a single person of whom was talked about, it was still such an experience.
Something really cool in Israel that America should do but doesn’t: They have a siren! The entire country stops for 60 seconds at the same time-completely stops everything and stands in silence until it ends. They had one on Yom HaShoah and another on Yom HaZicaron-even the traffic stopped. Whoa.
That night, the Kibbutz made this crazy transition from mourning to merriment. Wow, merriment is on the list of words that I try to randomly fit into conversations for the fun of it-one of those that no one actually says though. Moving on, the Kibbutz held a party with dancing and food and fireworks right after dinner. EIE tried to join in with the Israeli dances, but ended up collectively looking like idiots since no one had the faintest clue as to how to do those dances. Post food and dancing, the greatest fireworks that I have ever seen were set off no more than 20 yards in front of us on the roof of the dining hall. Ash was falling on me during it. I’ve never seen such vibrant fireworks-whoa, come to Israel purely for the Independence Day fireworks, no other reasons necessary.
4/28/06-Friday
Friday morning we went on a Tzedakah project where we volunteered at different retirement homes. We spent the morning there singing and dancing with everyone there and ended up taking them to the park.
Some other Reform Movement college Israel programs came to visit for the weekend. I believe the programs were Netzer, Carmel, a few kids from Young Judea came who I knew from camp, and some other programs though I can’t remember their names.
So some intense weeks lie ahead-AP testing, Finals (including a 6 hour Jewish History final), and then a week in the Negev…I may just be even worse with keeping in touch with everyone, but I’ll try.
---Yom HaShoah was sometime last week-It’s nearly 2 AM so before I fall asleep, I’m going to try to get this online…
A whole bunch of random side comments:
**I’m working on getting pictures up
Side Comment #1: summer plans-Ramah art staff 2nd 4 weeks, some bbyo summer program in the beginning of the summer, and of course the few weeks where I lay at home and do nothing other than sleeping/eating. Maybe I’ll shower every so often. But nothing that requires any substantial effort.
Side Comment #2: bbyo summer programs---whoever from bbyo who reads this and is knowledgable on the whole 2 week summer programs deal-any suggestions? Volunteer vs. leadership? Oh how I love communication via this online blog because I'm too lazy to actually go and e-mail people individually…
Side Comment #3: Our room is haunted. Specifically our cubberd thingy-things will spontaneously fall off of our kitchen counter when no one is near it-we walked into the room the other night and a candle had been lit there, but it was none of us did it. And it makes noises. As in something lives under it. Ruach! That means ghost in Hebrew. Vocabulary word of the day. Actually, its probably just some animal, but that makes it sound 10 times more exciting.
Side Comment #4: Our internet has been down even more than usual--a tractor ran over the power lines and our wireless connections haven’t been the same since-so I’ll try to keep up with the e-mailing, but the whole lazy personality trait doesn’t really allow for much effort there, but I’m working on it…sort of…
Ok so I probably forgot a whole bunch of stuff, but either way I'll add that into another entry some other time. I figured that I'd get this up first.
Love, Elaina
5/5/06 AKA CINCO DE MAYO!
So today I took the ACT. Standardized testing and I have never really been on the greatest of terms and this test only widened our prolonged rift. I have the flu, didn’t sleep last night, no eraser, calculator broke. Consequently, I failed the ACT if that is at all possible. And it was so so boring. So the test ended-I may not be heading to Harvard after that brilliant performance, but I really didn’t want to go there anyways. Community college all the way! Oh CLC…
So that’s really about it for today seeing as it’s only 3.
Alright, so I’m finishing up this post at around 2 AM (Saturday) my time so I’m adding a bit more to the day. At 6 we left for services in Jerusalem. Every so often, EIE will arrange for us to go to Friday night services off of the Kibbutz in various Synagogues around Israel. Seeing as there are 98 of us or however many, we are generally given a few options as to which place we go. This time around I signed up for an Orthodox service. It was quite the cultural experience-I’ve only been to a few Orthodox services in my time and so I was rather excited. Moral of the night being that I’m surprisingly a huge fan of the female/male praying division. Backing up a bit, in the Orthodox tradition, men and women are separated during services. The reasoning behind this being that gender separation provides for fewer distractions and thus an overall more focused and intense praying experience type of deal. There’s probably some biblical/Talmudic rationalization for this that I just don’t know and am too lazy to find out, but that was my take on it. So the whole gender separation-the way that this Synagogue was set up was that a white curtain was hung across the middle of the room with the women in the back and the men in front. I immensely disliked the whole women in the back of the room thing-from what I hear, some other places have their curtain down the middle with the women on either the left or right and the men on the other side. For some reason though, the segregated services have some huge potential. Next Shabbat, some of us are trying to get the girls to do their own service-I’m curious as to how it goes.
Friday nights! Our room and the one across the hall had this huge country dance party-one of my roommates is from the South and knows all of these crazy country dance which I learned last night, but since I’m rhythmically challenged and all that fun stuff, I still can’t do any of them. We used my speakers and ipod and blasted Sweet Home Alabama for about 4 hours straight. ---thanks mom and dad for said speakers/ipod!!
5/4/06 Thursday-full day of school
Got the flu? Or food poisoning? Either way, not my favorite day on EIE. I’m feeling better now though (now being today)--always a plus.
5/3/06 Wednesday-Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day-same thing as our 4th/2nd of July)
I’m beginning with the morning, but by morning I actually mean 12:30 AM. We left at 10:30 PM the day before for a concert in Rananas or whatever the name of the place was. Apparently, they had this big free concert fair thingy that EIE was going to take us to. So we get there, only to discover that all of the entrances had been turned into exits by the police because it became too crowded. Anyways, a whole bunch of us went running from gate to gate trying to get in, but to no avail. After that whole affair, we decided that it was a perfect time to create our own entrance! Apparently about 400 others agreed too. And thus a bunch of crazy Israelis and the remainder of EIE created their entrance by scaling the nice 12 foot fence surrounding the concert. Except I didn’t end up scaling any fences that night (morning?). The police came and did their little Hebrew thing and we got way out of there and went and ate crepes for the next few hours. We got back to the Kibbutz at around 5 AM with no intention of sleeping-we still had about an hour to go before we crashed from the sugar. All round super fun night/morning. And a major cultural experience. I feel as if that whole police/fence part is something I probably should not have written about here, but oh well.
At 10 AM (same day) we left for a beach right outside of Tel Aviv. Such a relaxing, content day. We had a BBQ, played in the sand, swam in the Med., slept, ate, slept some more---nothing really of much substance, but such an enjoyable day. Only downside would be when my intelligence shone through after the sun fried my entire back, front, shoulders, etc. It wasn’t my fault at all! Suntan lotion is overrated anyways--the blame should be entirely directed at the sun. A sign is in the process of being made urging people not to hit me on the back or really anywhere for that matter. Greatest idea ever-I’m going to have to remember that one next time I get sunburn.
About the beach though-it was gorgeous-not just gorgeous, all adjectives with affirmative, positive connotations would be applicable to this beach. So it really wasn’t the beach actually, it was the seashells. There were entire natural walls of shells-instead of sandbanks, there were shellbanks or whatever you would call it. Either way, I now have about 10 pounds of said shells residing on a tie dye towel in my room. The roommates and I are in the process of making necklaces with some of them. Put in a word if you want one…and then you can consider that your gift from me to you all the way from Israel. Plus then I get out of picking you out an actual gift--not that that’s not for completely selfish and lazy reasons.
5/2/06 Tuesday-Yom HaZicaron (Israeli Remembrance Day of Fallen Soldiers)
In the morning, we went to a Tekes (ceremony) on the Kibbutz’s cemetery. I loved it-I mean, well loved isn’t exactly the right word, but the ceremony was so cultural for lack of better words. There was nothing set-up or touristy about it. The entire thing was in Hebrew, but I understood quite a bit. One man who talked read a letter from his twin brother who had been killed in Lebanon in 2002. Nearly half of the Kibbutzniks there just broke down. It was really one of the first times in Israel that I have been able to get a picture of the emotions behind all that goes on here-no screening, no TV or newspaper, nothing-I figured something out that day, and despite the fact that it was at a vigil and I knew not a single person of whom was talked about, it was still such an experience.
Something really cool in Israel that America should do but doesn’t: They have a siren! The entire country stops for 60 seconds at the same time-completely stops everything and stands in silence until it ends. They had one on Yom HaShoah and another on Yom HaZicaron-even the traffic stopped. Whoa.
That night, the Kibbutz made this crazy transition from mourning to merriment. Wow, merriment is on the list of words that I try to randomly fit into conversations for the fun of it-one of those that no one actually says though. Moving on, the Kibbutz held a party with dancing and food and fireworks right after dinner. EIE tried to join in with the Israeli dances, but ended up collectively looking like idiots since no one had the faintest clue as to how to do those dances. Post food and dancing, the greatest fireworks that I have ever seen were set off no more than 20 yards in front of us on the roof of the dining hall. Ash was falling on me during it. I’ve never seen such vibrant fireworks-whoa, come to Israel purely for the Independence Day fireworks, no other reasons necessary.
4/28/06-Friday
Friday morning we went on a Tzedakah project where we volunteered at different retirement homes. We spent the morning there singing and dancing with everyone there and ended up taking them to the park.
Some other Reform Movement college Israel programs came to visit for the weekend. I believe the programs were Netzer, Carmel, a few kids from Young Judea came who I knew from camp, and some other programs though I can’t remember their names.
So some intense weeks lie ahead-AP testing, Finals (including a 6 hour Jewish History final), and then a week in the Negev…I may just be even worse with keeping in touch with everyone, but I’ll try.
---Yom HaShoah was sometime last week-It’s nearly 2 AM so before I fall asleep, I’m going to try to get this online…
A whole bunch of random side comments:
**I’m working on getting pictures up
Side Comment #1: summer plans-Ramah art staff 2nd 4 weeks, some bbyo summer program in the beginning of the summer, and of course the few weeks where I lay at home and do nothing other than sleeping/eating. Maybe I’ll shower every so often. But nothing that requires any substantial effort.
Side Comment #2: bbyo summer programs---whoever from bbyo who reads this and is knowledgable on the whole 2 week summer programs deal-any suggestions? Volunteer vs. leadership? Oh how I love communication via this online blog because I'm too lazy to actually go and e-mail people individually…
Side Comment #3: Our room is haunted. Specifically our cubberd thingy-things will spontaneously fall off of our kitchen counter when no one is near it-we walked into the room the other night and a candle had been lit there, but it was none of us did it. And it makes noises. As in something lives under it. Ruach! That means ghost in Hebrew. Vocabulary word of the day. Actually, its probably just some animal, but that makes it sound 10 times more exciting.
Side Comment #4: Our internet has been down even more than usual--a tractor ran over the power lines and our wireless connections haven’t been the same since-so I’ll try to keep up with the e-mailing, but the whole lazy personality trait doesn’t really allow for much effort there, but I’m working on it…sort of…
Ok so I probably forgot a whole bunch of stuff, but either way I'll add that into another entry some other time. I figured that I'd get this up first.
Love, Elaina