Things I Did On My Passover Vacation
So, I had last week completely off. Obviously I went through the standard routine of working like mad before the holiday (as did all my colleagues, things were super extra hectic before my entire organization went on vacation for a week) and telling myself I'll make it up with lots of rest and relaxation during the holiday week. Which then obviously didn't happen.
Due to the extreme hecticness at work I'd left a lot of errands and chores for the holiday - classic rookie mistake, I know - such as cleaning inside my car (I've needed to do this for months and months), re-organizing my closet and putting away winter clothes, putting up the curtains in my room which I recently laundered, replacing the shower head that's quickly gone from malfunctioning to broken, and just generally cleaning the apartment, doing laundry, etc, as I do every weekend.
*
Friday (the first day of the weekend here) was also the actual Passover evening holiday meal, which in my family literally is just an extended family meal with no semblance of ritual (also known as a Seder) and this year we had it at 4pm. So, bleary and exhausted after an awful work week, I woke up on Friday just in time to make myself breakfast and then head over to my parents' where we spent - I kid you not - 6 hours at the dinner table.
Which is not unusual! But I feel like always surprises locals. Yes we spend 6 hours at the dinner table for Passover without reciting a single prayer or singing a single song or eating things from a special plate. (We didn't even have matza at the table.) It's just how we generally roll. (It's how Russian speakers here generally roll, but you know.)
*
Anyway, I woke up the next day and told myself - it's fine! I can do an activity instead of resting! So my parents and I went to the national museum for the day, in Jerusalem. It's currently having the first ever major exhibition of art from a Russian speaking Israeli artist roughly my age, which was really amazing to see in person. I highly recommend it, if you're local. A lot of Zoya Cherkaskaya's paintings look like they were lifted directly from my brain.
I also mummies and Odysseus fanart from 500 CE and stuff, you know. The usual.
After coming home I honestly just... collapsed. Like I passed out for over an hour, I, someone who DOES NOT TAKE NAPS no matter how hard she tries. My brain is only wired to sleep at night. But when I'm just at the end of my rope my body just... shuts down. I was watching a show, and then I wasn't anymore.
*
In the evening I went home to Tel Aviv and the next morning woke up early-ish again to go to writing group. Which I kind of knew wouldn't be productive writing-wise (I was too exhausted and the edits I'm working on are too complicated) but I wanted the social hang out time, so that was nice at least. Then I went to PT/pilates class, and then to
roga's house to hang out. We hadn't seen each other in AGES and I was very keen to catch up with her through something other than texts and very short phone calls.
*
On Monday I thought I'd have a restful day, but in reality I spent most of it cooking, doing chores and preparing for the major SFF convention that was happening the next day. I left the house by 6pm to go a dress rehearsal for the con's main play, which is apparently something you can do when you're a lecturer? Friends only clued me in about it recently and I wanted to try it out.
The play was... very well made but very poorly written, in my opinion, and I made a note not to recommend it to anyone. Afterwards a group of people I already knew and people I hadn't yet met went out for dinner, which was great fun but bottom line I got home after midnight, so in fact my con started a day earlier than I'd planned.
*
On Tuesday the con officially began! I was scheduled to be on a panel at 8pm, but I arrived at 2pm for lectures and events and hangouts. Friends who came from far away, who I TOLD IN ADVANCE TO BUY TICKETS ONLINE DURING THE PRE-SALE did not in fact buy tickets of course, and the cool events were sold out, and as a result I gave up some of my (free) tickets to lectures to hang out with them instead. We had ramen! I met
lea_hazel! It was great.
At 4pm I went to a lecture on Miyazaki that was... fine? It didn't blow me away and it wasn't awful, and I'd wanted to meet the lecturer for a while (he'd been very kind to me and attended all my lectures before, so I wanted to see him at work as well).
At 6pm I rejoined my friends and we ended up walking around a small second-hand market nearby and then getting dessert which consisted of blueberry pancakes. By 7:30 my friends had to go home, back up north on the train, and instead I was joined by different friends, the after-work crowd, including
roga!
I'd bought a local author's debut novel (a paranormal queer romance!) earlier at the con (my friends took turns carrying it for me lol because disability means I can't really lug things around anymore unless they fit in my pocket) and at 7:30pm I stopped by her book launch to get her to sign it and to say hi.
Little did I know book launches at local cons work very differently than I'm used to? Like, YOU COULDN'T BUY THE BOOK AT THE LAUNCH for one thing, which was super weird to me, and then it also wasn't really a hang out/signing line kind of thing but a real lecture, with speeches from the author and from the editor of the book.
Since I walked in halfway through it (it started at 7pm) and I had to be on a panel by 8pm I basically opened the door to the room, took in the sight, the author smiled and invited me in, I panicked at the PACKED room and the formality of the circumstances, said "so sorry! I'll see you later!" and shut the door and left.
THAT WENT OVER WELL and everyone I knew who'd been in that room totally didn't come up to me later to ask what the hell happened and whether I was OK. LOLOL.
Anyway, I was on a panel! It was filmed! Which is weird because it's weird watching myself on film! But I was a replacement for a different panelist and apparently the panel had already agreed that the con would film the event, and well. It is what it is I guess.
The panel was really fun for me to do (my first time doing it in Hebrew!) and my friends at least said it was also fun to watch (not that they're in the least bit biased of course).
The aftermath of the panel though really was kind of overwhelming. Although it ended at 10pm, so relatively late, they still put us in the biggest auditorium the con had to offer, and aside from myself the other panelists were very well known people in the local SFF community, with pretty big followings.
So the aftermath was just... I've gotten used to lectures, where people come up to me to talk afterwards, but we get kicked out of the room pretty quickly for the next event, and like 10 minutes later, tops, I'm back to just chilling with my friends (who've thankfully been really great about coming to cons to support me and hang out).
But this time there was the initial talking to people post panel, and then there was hanging out with the other panelists and taking pictures and things (panels are relatively rare at local cons, so it's more of a Big Deal I guess?) and then there was MORE talking to people after, and THEN we left the big auditorium and went into the lobby where MORE PEOPLE were waiting to talk to me (and to others? IDK, I was too swamped with my own thing) including people who couldn't make it to the panel but came to say hi and ask how it went anyway, and THEN there were 3 separate groups who were going to do separate things and wanted to know if I wanted to come, and well...
I just felt really bad because I couldn't really talk to anyone properly and kept getting distracted and there were so many people and so many decisions, and my poor friends who just wanted to know what my plans were or what's happening next and I was just swamped (or at least felt swamped). But, I did at least say hi to everyone I wanted to say hi to and I did get the author from before to actually SIGN MY BOOK that I'd bought for basically that purpose.
It was all really great and I managed to make decisions and everything was fine, but I just... really wasn't prepared for that amount of people and interaction after the panel. I will be next time I guess? This is all still a learning experience. I'm grateful! It's great to have so many people who want to tell you they like you and want more of your time! But it was just... a lot, for this introvert.
Anyway, afterwards
roga and I went to say hi to another friend who was having an event at the same time as the panel (the scheduling is up to the con, of course), and I got to hug that friend and say hi and we exchanged experiences.
Then
roga and I went to join one of the groups that had gone off to have dinner, except
roga said hi and went home shortly after. I hung out with some of the other panelists and their friends and talked more about Black Sails and the LOTR sequels by Nick Perumov and Kushiel's Dart (all of which I'd mentioned during the panel).
It was super fun, but again I got home after midnight.
*
The next day I woke up utterly exhausted, barely had time to feed myself, get dressed, do some prep and then go back to the con in time for my writing workshop at 4pm, which I was due to teach with a local Big Deal in SFF author who's also a friend.
The writing workshop was... really great. I'd never taught one before, but I like teaching, and even though I prepared meticulously beforehand (it was the kind of workshop where participants sent us materials in advance) I also learned that I... know quite a bit about writing. At least on the 101 level. Especially the psychological aspect of writing, meaning how do you train yourself to get results on the page, how do you handle being stuck, etc. I obviously have no perspective on this, but I felt like I really managed to help some people with my advice.
My only regret is that I had no idea how important time management would be, and my experienced co-teacher told me from previous workshops it wouldn't be very important and we'd manage to get through everything we wanted with no problem, and so I kind of let that go and... the time aspect ended up being a clusterfuck. We ran over and still didn't have time to finish working with everyone, which was exactly what I'd been afraid of.
Anyway, I learned my lesson for the future (always let your most pedantic self be in charge of the time!) and my co-teacher said it was an anomaly for a workshop to go like this, and also said that she really enjoyed teaching with me, which is really amazing to hear from an author who's published over 40 stories and won like 7 awards.
After the workshop we all went to a lecture that was... yet again fine, but not really interesting for me. I really love the lecturer, but I need to accept her lectures are just not that fun for me because they rehash a lot of things I already know.
After THAT it was 7pm and I was starving and I managed to convince the host of the panel from the day before (who I barely know) to have dinner with me somewhere nearby. We ended up having bagels (not affected by Passover! Praise the lord) and another friend joined us and it was a lovely 40 minute break.
After that they went back to the con for more content and I headed to
roga's so we could watch the John Legend version of Jesus Christ Superstar.
I took the bus home (I drove to the con on Tuesday and on Wednesday was like NEVER AGAIN) and then planned to take my car to
roga's but... my phone died ;___________; I dropped it into the toilet, let's be honest. It happened and I'm to blame and everything about it was awful.
I took it to
roga's and we put it in some rice (I'm pretty sure I did the research on that once and it was useless but I was so exhausted and desperate by then I didn't care) while we watched the musical. I again came home around midnight and went to sleep around 2am, sad and anxious because of my phone :(
*
On Thursday I had to get up early again and drive to my parents' so I could see them before they left for the weekend. My mom had asked that I come before 1pm, which didn't leave much time. But! I woke up and my roommate had already cooked breakfast for two for us (!!!) which was giant salads and toast with spreads. (AMAZING!)
So I had food and I went to my parents' for more food with my sad phone-in-rice. I don't know if it was the lack of a phone (which meant no access to facebook since I refuse to have the app on my tablet) or just my general exhaustion but I basically spent the evening reading the book I'd purchased, the paranormal queer romance. I ended up reading about 250 pages of it over the weekend.
*
The next morning I got up early to say hi to my parents before they left for the weekend. Thankfully after that I basically had an empty apartment with some ready snacks and no phone or distractions, so it was pretty great? I read a lot, but couldn't remotely focus on something creative like writing. My brain was just too tired and wired.
I used the magic of landlines to talk to
roga and we agreed to go for a short hike and then see a movie, the new Lara Croft one (I enjoyed it a lot! And was extra happy when they finally showed her with her twin pistols). After the movie I went home, still phone-less and feeling very disconnected and somewhat sad/anxious. I mean it was nice being disconnected when I was on vacation and basically alone with a book? But. It still sucked.
*
On Saturday I tried charging my phone and it was for sure, finally, awfully dead. So I resigned myself to spending the last day of my vacation stressed and anxious, found an old phone that belonged to my mom, packed up all my stuff and drove home.
The nearest phone labs would open on Saturday night, so I basically spent the day doing minor chores - putting away dirty clothes, cleaning up my room, putting up curtains, cleaning out parts of my car. When evening came
roga thankfully agreed to come with me to the nearest lab so they could take a look at my dead phone and also fit my sim card into my mom's old phone in the meantime.
So, that happened. I have a "new" phone now with none of my contacts, my calendar or almost any of my apps. So, that's fun. I'm supposed to hear back about my dead phone in the next couple of days, but I have a feeling I need to start calling them and asking what's up to get them to process it quicker.
After submitting my poor phone we did a little shopping, had tea, and then headed home. I ended up falling asleep at 1am and then sleeping very poorly the whole night. Partially because I managed to do something to my neck and it basically meant a screaming headache for the past day or so.
So, today I woke up to go back to work, half awake, with a giant headache, and not looking or feeling at all as if I'd just come back from vacation. My car is still filthy, our shower is still unusable, I still have no phone. Sigh.
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Due to the extreme hecticness at work I'd left a lot of errands and chores for the holiday - classic rookie mistake, I know - such as cleaning inside my car (I've needed to do this for months and months), re-organizing my closet and putting away winter clothes, putting up the curtains in my room which I recently laundered, replacing the shower head that's quickly gone from malfunctioning to broken, and just generally cleaning the apartment, doing laundry, etc, as I do every weekend.
*
Friday (the first day of the weekend here) was also the actual Passover evening holiday meal, which in my family literally is just an extended family meal with no semblance of ritual (also known as a Seder) and this year we had it at 4pm. So, bleary and exhausted after an awful work week, I woke up on Friday just in time to make myself breakfast and then head over to my parents' where we spent - I kid you not - 6 hours at the dinner table.
Which is not unusual! But I feel like always surprises locals. Yes we spend 6 hours at the dinner table for Passover without reciting a single prayer or singing a single song or eating things from a special plate. (We didn't even have matza at the table.) It's just how we generally roll. (It's how Russian speakers here generally roll, but you know.)
*
Anyway, I woke up the next day and told myself - it's fine! I can do an activity instead of resting! So my parents and I went to the national museum for the day, in Jerusalem. It's currently having the first ever major exhibition of art from a Russian speaking Israeli artist roughly my age, which was really amazing to see in person. I highly recommend it, if you're local. A lot of Zoya Cherkaskaya's paintings look like they were lifted directly from my brain.
I also mummies and Odysseus fanart from 500 CE and stuff, you know. The usual.
After coming home I honestly just... collapsed. Like I passed out for over an hour, I, someone who DOES NOT TAKE NAPS no matter how hard she tries. My brain is only wired to sleep at night. But when I'm just at the end of my rope my body just... shuts down. I was watching a show, and then I wasn't anymore.
*
In the evening I went home to Tel Aviv and the next morning woke up early-ish again to go to writing group. Which I kind of knew wouldn't be productive writing-wise (I was too exhausted and the edits I'm working on are too complicated) but I wanted the social hang out time, so that was nice at least. Then I went to PT/pilates class, and then to
roga's house to hang out. We hadn't seen each other in AGES and I was very keen to catch up with her through something other than texts and very short phone calls.
*
On Monday I thought I'd have a restful day, but in reality I spent most of it cooking, doing chores and preparing for the major SFF convention that was happening the next day. I left the house by 6pm to go a dress rehearsal for the con's main play, which is apparently something you can do when you're a lecturer? Friends only clued me in about it recently and I wanted to try it out.
The play was... very well made but very poorly written, in my opinion, and I made a note not to recommend it to anyone. Afterwards a group of people I already knew and people I hadn't yet met went out for dinner, which was great fun but bottom line I got home after midnight, so in fact my con started a day earlier than I'd planned.
*
On Tuesday the con officially began! I was scheduled to be on a panel at 8pm, but I arrived at 2pm for lectures and events and hangouts. Friends who came from far away, who I TOLD IN ADVANCE TO BUY TICKETS ONLINE DURING THE PRE-SALE did not in fact buy tickets of course, and the cool events were sold out, and as a result I gave up some of my (free) tickets to lectures to hang out with them instead. We had ramen! I met
lea_hazel! It was great.
At 4pm I went to a lecture on Miyazaki that was... fine? It didn't blow me away and it wasn't awful, and I'd wanted to meet the lecturer for a while (he'd been very kind to me and attended all my lectures before, so I wanted to see him at work as well).
At 6pm I rejoined my friends and we ended up walking around a small second-hand market nearby and then getting dessert which consisted of blueberry pancakes. By 7:30 my friends had to go home, back up north on the train, and instead I was joined by different friends, the after-work crowd, including
roga!
I'd bought a local author's debut novel (a paranormal queer romance!) earlier at the con (my friends took turns carrying it for me lol because disability means I can't really lug things around anymore unless they fit in my pocket) and at 7:30pm I stopped by her book launch to get her to sign it and to say hi.
Little did I know book launches at local cons work very differently than I'm used to? Like, YOU COULDN'T BUY THE BOOK AT THE LAUNCH for one thing, which was super weird to me, and then it also wasn't really a hang out/signing line kind of thing but a real lecture, with speeches from the author and from the editor of the book.
Since I walked in halfway through it (it started at 7pm) and I had to be on a panel by 8pm I basically opened the door to the room, took in the sight, the author smiled and invited me in, I panicked at the PACKED room and the formality of the circumstances, said "so sorry! I'll see you later!" and shut the door and left.
THAT WENT OVER WELL and everyone I knew who'd been in that room totally didn't come up to me later to ask what the hell happened and whether I was OK. LOLOL.
Anyway, I was on a panel! It was filmed! Which is weird because it's weird watching myself on film! But I was a replacement for a different panelist and apparently the panel had already agreed that the con would film the event, and well. It is what it is I guess.
The panel was really fun for me to do (my first time doing it in Hebrew!) and my friends at least said it was also fun to watch (not that they're in the least bit biased of course).
The aftermath of the panel though really was kind of overwhelming. Although it ended at 10pm, so relatively late, they still put us in the biggest auditorium the con had to offer, and aside from myself the other panelists were very well known people in the local SFF community, with pretty big followings.
So the aftermath was just... I've gotten used to lectures, where people come up to me to talk afterwards, but we get kicked out of the room pretty quickly for the next event, and like 10 minutes later, tops, I'm back to just chilling with my friends (who've thankfully been really great about coming to cons to support me and hang out).
But this time there was the initial talking to people post panel, and then there was hanging out with the other panelists and taking pictures and things (panels are relatively rare at local cons, so it's more of a Big Deal I guess?) and then there was MORE talking to people after, and THEN we left the big auditorium and went into the lobby where MORE PEOPLE were waiting to talk to me (and to others? IDK, I was too swamped with my own thing) including people who couldn't make it to the panel but came to say hi and ask how it went anyway, and THEN there were 3 separate groups who were going to do separate things and wanted to know if I wanted to come, and well...
I just felt really bad because I couldn't really talk to anyone properly and kept getting distracted and there were so many people and so many decisions, and my poor friends who just wanted to know what my plans were or what's happening next and I was just swamped (or at least felt swamped). But, I did at least say hi to everyone I wanted to say hi to and I did get the author from before to actually SIGN MY BOOK that I'd bought for basically that purpose.
It was all really great and I managed to make decisions and everything was fine, but I just... really wasn't prepared for that amount of people and interaction after the panel. I will be next time I guess? This is all still a learning experience. I'm grateful! It's great to have so many people who want to tell you they like you and want more of your time! But it was just... a lot, for this introvert.
Anyway, afterwards
roga and I went to say hi to another friend who was having an event at the same time as the panel (the scheduling is up to the con, of course), and I got to hug that friend and say hi and we exchanged experiences.
Then
roga and I went to join one of the groups that had gone off to have dinner, except
roga said hi and went home shortly after. I hung out with some of the other panelists and their friends and talked more about Black Sails and the LOTR sequels by Nick Perumov and Kushiel's Dart (all of which I'd mentioned during the panel).
It was super fun, but again I got home after midnight.
*
The next day I woke up utterly exhausted, barely had time to feed myself, get dressed, do some prep and then go back to the con in time for my writing workshop at 4pm, which I was due to teach with a local Big Deal in SFF author who's also a friend.
The writing workshop was... really great. I'd never taught one before, but I like teaching, and even though I prepared meticulously beforehand (it was the kind of workshop where participants sent us materials in advance) I also learned that I... know quite a bit about writing. At least on the 101 level. Especially the psychological aspect of writing, meaning how do you train yourself to get results on the page, how do you handle being stuck, etc. I obviously have no perspective on this, but I felt like I really managed to help some people with my advice.
My only regret is that I had no idea how important time management would be, and my experienced co-teacher told me from previous workshops it wouldn't be very important and we'd manage to get through everything we wanted with no problem, and so I kind of let that go and... the time aspect ended up being a clusterfuck. We ran over and still didn't have time to finish working with everyone, which was exactly what I'd been afraid of.
Anyway, I learned my lesson for the future (always let your most pedantic self be in charge of the time!) and my co-teacher said it was an anomaly for a workshop to go like this, and also said that she really enjoyed teaching with me, which is really amazing to hear from an author who's published over 40 stories and won like 7 awards.
After the workshop we all went to a lecture that was... yet again fine, but not really interesting for me. I really love the lecturer, but I need to accept her lectures are just not that fun for me because they rehash a lot of things I already know.
After THAT it was 7pm and I was starving and I managed to convince the host of the panel from the day before (who I barely know) to have dinner with me somewhere nearby. We ended up having bagels (not affected by Passover! Praise the lord) and another friend joined us and it was a lovely 40 minute break.
After that they went back to the con for more content and I headed to
roga's so we could watch the John Legend version of Jesus Christ Superstar.
I took the bus home (I drove to the con on Tuesday and on Wednesday was like NEVER AGAIN) and then planned to take my car to
roga's but... my phone died ;___________; I dropped it into the toilet, let's be honest. It happened and I'm to blame and everything about it was awful.
I took it to
roga's and we put it in some rice (I'm pretty sure I did the research on that once and it was useless but I was so exhausted and desperate by then I didn't care) while we watched the musical. I again came home around midnight and went to sleep around 2am, sad and anxious because of my phone :(
*
On Thursday I had to get up early again and drive to my parents' so I could see them before they left for the weekend. My mom had asked that I come before 1pm, which didn't leave much time. But! I woke up and my roommate had already cooked breakfast for two for us (!!!) which was giant salads and toast with spreads. (AMAZING!)
So I had food and I went to my parents' for more food with my sad phone-in-rice. I don't know if it was the lack of a phone (which meant no access to facebook since I refuse to have the app on my tablet) or just my general exhaustion but I basically spent the evening reading the book I'd purchased, the paranormal queer romance. I ended up reading about 250 pages of it over the weekend.
*
The next morning I got up early to say hi to my parents before they left for the weekend. Thankfully after that I basically had an empty apartment with some ready snacks and no phone or distractions, so it was pretty great? I read a lot, but couldn't remotely focus on something creative like writing. My brain was just too tired and wired.
I used the magic of landlines to talk to
roga and we agreed to go for a short hike and then see a movie, the new Lara Croft one (I enjoyed it a lot! And was extra happy when they finally showed her with her twin pistols). After the movie I went home, still phone-less and feeling very disconnected and somewhat sad/anxious. I mean it was nice being disconnected when I was on vacation and basically alone with a book? But. It still sucked.
*
On Saturday I tried charging my phone and it was for sure, finally, awfully dead. So I resigned myself to spending the last day of my vacation stressed and anxious, found an old phone that belonged to my mom, packed up all my stuff and drove home.
The nearest phone labs would open on Saturday night, so I basically spent the day doing minor chores - putting away dirty clothes, cleaning up my room, putting up curtains, cleaning out parts of my car. When evening came
roga thankfully agreed to come with me to the nearest lab so they could take a look at my dead phone and also fit my sim card into my mom's old phone in the meantime.
So, that happened. I have a "new" phone now with none of my contacts, my calendar or almost any of my apps. So, that's fun. I'm supposed to hear back about my dead phone in the next couple of days, but I have a feeling I need to start calling them and asking what's up to get them to process it quicker.
After submitting my poor phone we did a little shopping, had tea, and then headed home. I ended up falling asleep at 1am and then sleeping very poorly the whole night. Partially because I managed to do something to my neck and it basically meant a screaming headache for the past day or so.
So, today I woke up to go back to work, half awake, with a giant headache, and not looking or feeling at all as if I'd just come back from vacation. My car is still filthy, our shower is still unusable, I still have no phone. Sigh.
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