hard work.

heres whats happening here: (in list- my favorite form)

1) it has not stopped raining and thundering and lightening since yesterday morning. its grey and wet and dirty and grimey out. ani lo sameach im ha geshem.

2) i really like working with the kids, although it is quite exhausting. yesterday i worked first with the around 1 year old kids for a few hours, and then got moved to oren, the 3/4 year olds. that is when it started to rain, and the kids ran out to see it, all excited.

3) it is too cold for the clothes i have. i need a scarf, and i am hopefully going to get one soon from a shook in jerusalem, where you can get 2 very pretty scarves for 30nis (about $8)

4)next weekend i am hoping to go visit marsha elentuck in karmi'el.

5)on november 9, i have my big oral test. at the end of the ulpan, i have to take a test so i can get a certificate that says i was in class for 500 hours, and my score and level for the class. i need it to get credits for college. (how many credits do you think i can get for 500 hours?) i am not very good at speaking hebrew. i mean, comprehention i am pretty good at, and writing i am even better. i can conjugate and understand. we have been practicing the reading part of the test by reading old short stories and answering the questions in class. thats what i have to do on the 26th of nov. ive also been practicing the writing part (also on the 26th) by writing sipurchiks (short stories) on specific topics. batia (my teacher) gave us a list of the possible topics we will get on test day, so i have exactly what i need to study for that. but speaking, i am not quite as good, and its sooner so i am more nervous. i have to spend a few minutes telling two people from jerusalem about an exciting trip i went on. i have to write out what i want to say this weekend, and my teacher is going to correct it on monday. then i can memorize it, and practice with batia, and all should be well. but the jerusalem people are going to ask me questions, and i may not be able to answer them. so i am kinda freaking out just a little.

6) on nov. 11 we go on another tiul to the negev. we ride camels, sleep in a Bedouin village, the whole shebang. its an over-night tiul. im excited.

7) i was thinking that weekend (the 13th) i would go to jerusalem with my roommate Melissa. but i feel bad missing a day of class for a tiul, and then a day of class for me in one week, and soo close to the test. but i REALLY want to go, so i dont know what to do. im going to talk to Melissa about it and see what she thinks.

8)its almost the end. tomorrow is the last day of october. then its november, and in no time i will be home. wow.

Jerusalem, if i forget you, let my right hand forget what it's supposed to do

yesterday i went to jerusalem on my טיול (trip) with the ulpan. there was a lot of traffic because there were riots there, but dont worry. the most we saw were a whole bunch of soldiers in riot gear. not on rock or rioting looking person. it was totally safe. but we were late. it took about an extra hour to get there.

our first stop was mt. herzel. that is where all the important people are burried- all the soldiers who die in battle, and most all the important politicians. we were only there for 1/2 hour cause we were soo late, and it kinda sucked cause we barely had time to see everything.

then we went to the 'Jerusalem Time Elevator'. it is a disney style 'ride' where the seats move and you watch a movie about the history of Jerusalem. it was kinda stupid, but the information was good.

we went to lunch at this look-out point. we could see all of Jerusalem. if you look way to the right, you can just see a grey line on top of the hill. that is the wall separating the west bank from east jerusalem. fun fact, that wall was built by the same people who build the border wall between mexico and the us. i learned that at the United States Social Forum, not here in israel.

after that we went to the old city and saw the cotel (western/wailing wall). i didnt realize it was segregated. that kinda pissed me off. there were a bunch of women praying there, and only a few men. but because of the segregation, the proportions of the wall allotted for men to women is about 2:1. ( can you see the partition?) so all the women were cramped in a little section and the men had way too much room. but i went up and stuck my prayer in the wall. it was cool. you are supposed to walk backwards from the wall- not to turn your back, so corrine, mayan, alexis and i tried for a while. i was the only one looking over my sholder and leading us all so we didnt run into people. after a good enough distance we gave up and walked away.

we met Chris at the wall too. Chris used to be on the ulpan, but decided he wanted to study judaism more than hebrew, so he moved to a yeshiva in jerusalem. he is also the older brother of james, a boy still on the ulpan. Chrish is the one who gave me the phone i have been using here. we were all happy to see him, and he came with us to ben yehuda st.
(This is Chris giving us his 'shimshum shady' on the bus. he rapped slim shady on the Tel Aviv tiul, but as he is more jewish now and shimshum (sampson in hebrew) is his hebrew name, he did the shimshum shady rap. will the real shim shady please stand up. please stand up)
we were dropped of near ben yehuda st and given an hour to roam. it was a lot of fun, no a lot of time. i ended up buying hannah's Hanukkah present, and 3 pairs of earrings (3 for 25 shekles! thats like 3 for 6.75!) and they're really pretty. then i got some food and we made it back to the bus just in time.

the ride home was long and we were tired, but we made it back finally and i fell into bed.

today, i had to get up really early- 630! but it was so i could work at my NEW JOB in the gan yeladine! that means with the kids. i didnt know i eat breakfast with them too, so i got up early to eat. then corrine took me to the office, and then to Orin, the older kids. they were about 3/4 years old. very cute. when i got there, they were having their music lesson, so this (very pregnant) woman Ila and i (i got confused all day weather they were speaking to me or her cause our names are soo similar) cleaned the bedrooms (they have cute little bunkbeds for naptime! its sooo cute) after that, we sat on VERY short tiny chairs at VERY short tables and had breakfast. the adults sit with the kids and we all eat together. then we went outside to play. it was pretty intense cause the women dont speak much english, and the kids dont speak english at all, and speak really fast with baby voices like lisps and stuff. its hard enough understanding when babies talk in english. and when they cry its impossible. but there werent many crying or troublesome kids. they were mostly good. then they all went in to pee, and then to play inside. Ila and i cleaned the bathrooms. then i went to play with the kids, and dazzled a group of girls, especially this one names Leah, with my oragami skills (i can make a dog face, and a fortune cookie thing that was really popular in first and second grade back home) they loved it. then we all ate lunch, and i left.

i'll be gone till november

im sorry its been a while, to all my adoring fans out there i am sure you are quite upset with me. but the truth is not much has happened. i go to class on monday, wednesday, and friday. class is pretty good, except my only girl friend in that class just left. she decided it was too hard for her (which it was) and went down to kita alef. it was a good move for her, but im sad. i still have my roomate (who is very quiet) and Lena (the CRAZY russian girl) to fight the awful testosterone class. but its still not quite as good a class. i like the boys well enough, but put them together in a room for 8 hours and expect them to do work? i dont think so. melissa and i try really hard to concentrate and do our work, but every break we practically run out gasping for breath.

i go to work on sunday, tuesday, and thursday. i used to clean toilets, but i couldnt take it anymore. i had asked ari a few months ago if maybe i could change jobs, but he didnt really try to do anything about it and i wasnt dying so i didnt push it too hard. a few weeks ago i started dying. i really really REALLY dont like cleaning up after other people's nastyness. i am a clean person. i clean up after myself. spit and toothpaste on the sink, hair cloged in the drain, and pee on the toilet really grosses me out. especially when i have to clean it up and i know its not mine. so i started pestering Ari. today i came to work and corrine told me Lena was taking my job and would i show her what to do. on tuesday i start my new job, working in the Gan Yeladin! (thats the daycare/kindergarden type thing) i am very happy about it. i get to play with babies and spend time with actual human beings instead of listening to my ipod and scrubbing toilets! yay. so thats good.

other than that, i am going to jerusalem tomorrow on a tiul (trip). i am very excited. it will sadly, be my first time. we are not going to the holocaust museum, because it takes too long, but thats okay. i plan to spend about 3 days there out of my week after the ulpan. we are going to the cotel (the wall), ben yehuda st, and some museums. we get a disney style movie about the history of jerusalem. the chairs move and everything. it will be a lot of fun.

more pictures from turkey

(in a cave by the waterfalls on our hebrew tour. we met some very nice israelis)

(alexis and i at the other waterfall)


(the turkish bath in the hotel. we got bubble massages on the marble table. the blue thing is a foam pillow type thing)

(this was the only sea life at the Sea Life Resort. we decided to take part in the sea life theme...if you cant tell, we're making fishy faces)

(this is the entrance way to the hotel. )

gobble gobble!

(on of the 3 outdoor pools)


(making sea life faces infront of the only sea life there)
you know how different countries make different sounds for different animals? like in america dogs go bark, and other countries they go yip or arf or whatever. i wonder what a turkey makes in turkey? i should have asked, but the turks i met dont speak much english. americans dont go to turkey.

SUNDAY
this past sunday, my 2 friends sarah and alexis and i went to anatalia, turkey. we stayed at the Sea Life resort, right on the beach. there were also 3 outside pools, one inside pool, and 2 water slides. and it was all inclusive. i think i probably got all my money back just on the free diet cokes!

we arrived sunday night. we made friends with 2 girls who were on our tour with us (eshet tours) they lived near elat. they came with their parents and younger brother. they were really nice- the whole family, and they helped us out with all the hebrew that people were trying to communicate to us. when we got to the hotel, they gave us dinner and then we went to bed.

MONDAY
the next day we went on a tour of anatalia (a city in turkey) with our israeli group- kinda sucked that it was all in hebrew, but we worked it out, understood enough and the what we didnt understand there was a really nice woman who's brother moved to london, so she speaks english and she told us what was going on. we went to these really pretty waterfalls. it was pretty cool. really beautiful.

after that, we went to a turkish delight factory and got some turkish delight. then we went to a leather factory and they tried to sell us leather winter jackets. they didnt go over that great for all the israelis who dont need winter jackets cause it is never cold.

when we got back, we went to go to the inside pool, and ended up in the steam room, and then sauna. there we met these two brothers and a sister who live in boston! they took their mother here cause they are muslim and she always wanted to come here (they're pretty old, in their 40s and 50s). they told us that a group of people go out every night to this club. the hotel organizes it, and would we like to come. of course we said yes, and that was how we met tanya. tanya works for the hotel organizing fun things like concerts and getting a bus to go to clubs and stuff like that. shes from the ukraine but really wants to move to the US. she really liked us, the only americans there, and looked soooo sad on thursday when we told her we were leaving.

that night, there was a HUGE lightning storm. like huge. night turned to day huge. the hotel lost power several times, and water kept seeping in under the doors. the club was an outdoors club, so we couldnt go. but not to worry, the hotel has its own discoteque! it was just a tiny room, but everyone who wanted to go to the club that night just went downstairs to dance. there were a whole bunch of people who spoke english- a bunch of germans and some brits. everyone was really nice. we had a great time dancing, although we were pretty disappointed not to see the club.

TUESDAY
tuesday we went to the hotel's turkish bath. we all got a turkish peeling bubble massage, and then a regular massage. the peeling bubble massage was crazy cool. they lay us down on this big marble table thing and pour water over us. then the use this scrub glove thing to scrub our dead skin off. it was funny cause they didnt know much english so they kept saying 'here please lady', or 'okay lady? too hot lady?' (reffering to the water of course).

after the scrub glove thing, the took these light mesh bag things and filled them with bubble mixture, and then swung the bag around to make bubbles, and swept them over us. the bubbles just floated over us. it kinda tickled, but felt soooo cool. like a blanket of liquid air type thing. unfortunately, i wanted to watch, so my eyes were open and i got bubbles in my eye. it really stung so i tried to explain it to the guy utill he gave me a bowl of water to was the bubbles off my hand so i could rub my eye. after that i kept my eyes closed tight. my masseuse gave me a massage in the bubbles. it was really cool. then he had me sit up and rinsed all the bubbles off of me. in the turkish bath, there were little marble bowls with faucets for hot and cold above them. in them are metal bowls with which to scoop up the water and pour it on you. he poured bowl after bowl of water, mixing up the temperatures. sometimes it was sooo cold but quickly followed with nice and warm water. then he put a towel over my head and dried off my hair a little, dried my face, my ears, nose, eyes (like you would a 3 year old- i just stood there) and wrapped me in a towel.

then i got a regular massage with no bubbles. it was a full body massage, and felt mostly good. he said my shoulders were fucked up and much too tight (i think, his english was god aweful) and spent a good deal of time pushing all his weight on them, which kinda hurt. he even used his elbows! he also said it was strange that when he tried to push my feet into 1st position (heels together, toes pointing straight out) it was sooo much harder than when he did the opposite ( im pigeon toed but didnt know how to explain that). my masseuse was kind of a character. he liked to talk a lot, and gave me a short history of turkey, and asked me all kinds of questions about america. everyone at the hotel loved that we were american. of course i had to say i was from new york cause massachusets was 'in europe somewhere?'

after the massage, we went to the pool and hung out with our new friends from the last night at the hotel's disco. then we had dinner at the hotel's special mexican restaurant. it wasnt very mexican, but it was pretty yummy anyways, they had eggroll type things but with cheese in them, and some kind of soup and salad, and then fajitas. there was no ordering, they just brought course after course.

tonight we were going to go to the club. it was soooo much fun. i danced with a group of germans, and sarah and alexis found some israelis from a different hotel who came on the bus with us. we got home around 330 am and PASSED OUT.

WEDNESDAY
we just missed breakfast, which was only from 7-10 am. luckily, the snack bar opened at 11am, and at 1130, two women made these turkish style quesadillas. they were SOOOOOO good. we hug out by the pool pretty much all day. we did go to the beach for a bit. but mostly, we hung out by the pool, made friends with the 2 bartenders, and got diet coke after diet coke. after a while, when they saw us coming they just immediately started pouring 3 diet cokes, but then made us stay to talk to them. the girl bartender LOVED us cause we snuck her french fries. the boy bartender thought we were so strange. but he liked us too.

for dinner, we went back to the mexican restaurant, but this time it was an italian restaurant. we had made reservations both nights for 7pm, for mexican and then italian. apparently, the restaurant is whatever you reserve. different people got different styles of food. it was not quite as good as the mexican, i thought, but still pretty good. the salad had anchovies on it, and even though i took them off it made me gag to try to eat it. but other than that, it was pretty good.

we went to the club again that night, and met some more cool people. there was a group of guys from iraq. they were fun and danced with our group, but i could not understand a word they were saying. i had a good time, although sarah didnt feel great but went anyways. she slept on a couch outside the club for most of it, and alexis was dissapointed that the israelis from the night before didnt go. i danced with the brits and the germans, and the iraqis, and had a grand ole' time. we went home and went to sleep again.

THURSDAY
we woke up early, knowing we only had a little bit longer to be by the pool. we got breakfast quickly, and hit the deck. we read our books, lay in the sun, went on the waterslide a few times, had lunch with the iraqis, slept by the pool, and pounded back diet cokes. we played ping pong with ron from tel aviv and said goodbye to the brits and germans, and went to the airport with ron (who was on our tour) and the rest of the israelis to go back to israel. it was sad.

the flight was 1 hour, and we made it just in time to get on the 2 hour train ride to haifa. the train was FREEZING and i was going through diet coke withdrawl. i got home, watched an episode of bones and fell asleep.

god i have a hard life. :)