Sunday, April 22, 2012

Fridays, 2012 - Tales Of A Wanderer

While there were plenty of activities regarding me and the group, I also like to have some "me" time. It should also be pointed out that up until now, I always seemed to find my weekends spent in Modi'in, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but I wasn't getting the "full" experience that Tel Aviv had to offer me. Didn't help that everyone I knew told me to be spontaneous and to embrace the city. So how was it that I only spent two... maybe three weekends tops in Tel Aviv after being here for only a month and half is a mystery to me.

April 1 (3?), 2012
It was a Sunday afternoon after I was done from work when I was heading back to my bus stop. Routine being the same: Wake up, go to bus stop, go to work, flail, go to bus stop, head home. This was a procedure for almost a week and a half. Across from where I work is the Ayalon Mall (as stated previously in my journal about my journey to find the building) and I realized that up until now, I haven't even stepped foot in there. Which in itself was somewhat silly. Going with the "why the hell not" approach (a foreign concept to me, mind you) I showed my bag to the security and walked in. And it was packed. Christmas-like decorations hanging from the ceiling, people buzzing around to different stores, kids running around like lunatics. Yup. It's the mall. I wasn't really aiming to buy anything, I was merely walking around taking in the mall. I'm going to be living here for a few months, might as well know the mall like the back of my hand. I already knew that the malls of Israel were famous for having super markets in it, so it didn't take me long to find it, conveniently next to it was a super-pharm (the equivalent to a CVS in the States), but what made me the happiest was there being not one, but two book stores in the mall; something that made me upset that the mall back home decided to close down for yet another ridiculously expensive clothes store.

The thought hit me that I should look around for a movie theater, I mean... if there is a movie theater in the mall back home, there should be one here. It took me a while to realize that the escalator right in the beginning of the mall led to more floors. And not to more stores, rather, it was to an area of junk food, arcades (like... legit arcades, not the occasional game lying around in the lobby), and a giant play pen for kids to play around with. It looked like something straight out of the circus. It didn't surprise me that I saw yet another set of stairs and proceeded to climb up, curiosity being the one in charge at the moment. The smell of popcorn began to overwhelm me until I reached the top of the stairs.

The goal was achieved. I had found the movie theater.




I honestly had no idea how to react to this, as this was a much much neater layout compared to the one back home. I mean, yes, the second floor full of pre-movie activities and that in itself should have signaled me that this was an amazing theater, but the movie lobby itself was something else. My brother always mentioned that when going to the movies, it should be a special occasion, like you need to dress for it because you're about to go watch, experience, something out of this world. So when I see that there are cafe lounge chairs (the fancy kind you see in shows like Mad Men) and the lobby has a nice dim light to it, floor is clean, and tiled, and the posters hanging over the cashier cast a soft light... THIS was a sight to see. I didn't know what my face was doing, but I felt my my mouth slightly open. I took my ipod and quickly put it in reverse mode so I can take a picture and catch my expression. It basically captured how I felt in a good way.

The face of your tour guide through the Magical World of Israel


After taking in the sight, and chalking it up as a place to go for when I watch movies, I decided to head out. Of course... not before I grabbed myself a book and dinner.


Every Other Friday So Far

After my little escapade from the previous weeks, I decided that one weekend I'd stay in Tel Aviv. One weekend I got food poisoning (a story, while disgusting, I'll save for another journal entry), but the few hours before it kicked in, I went out with a bunch of people to find hummus and I can already tell that some of you out there are going "no sh*t you got food poisoning!" but do keep in mind that while I do speak Hebrew, have the Israeli citizenship, raised in an Israeli house, and have Israeli parents- I'm an idiot because of the fun fact that I was never raised in Israel (strike one). We grabbed some lunch at this hummus restaurant (strike two) when afterwards one of the people decided to... angrily proclaim that they wanted to be alone. And the proclamation wasn't told to anyone else. Just me. Taking the cue, I decided to ditch the group as a whole and venture off on my own. I'm twenty one, I'm not a kid anymore, and after being for two and a half years in a college that was on ghettoville, USA, I think I know how to handle myself. So I spent my day around the Artists' Alley. And ditching the group was easily the smartest move I've done thus far. It was a Friday, so naturally it was pack, but it also meant more street performers and artists for me to browse at. I knew some of the alley already because I was there every summer with my family and as stupid as this sounds, being an artist myself (at least, I'd like to think I'm one), it didn't feel in the slightest weird. I browsed the stands ranging from old Japanese comics turned wallets to custom made leather belts, all the way to cute flocks of sheep that looked like something straight out of Dr. Seuss. I passed a stand that were selling wooden instruments when a memory returned of a few summers ago when I was here.


I was with my mom in the summer when we passed a kiosk being watched over by an old man. He was selling an instrument called an ocarina, only these were special. These were special in a way that they were all clay made and shaped out to be in the form of animals.I was floored and fell in love with an elephant ocarina, and both me and my mom agreed to go back to it as soon as we were done strolling around (we usually spend a day in Tel Aviv for the Artists' Alley and then a restaurant before we left back to Rishon). Unfortunately, we forgot (but was totally made up when we ate at a restaurant where a celebrity was eating a few tables away from us) and the topic of the ocarina was never brought up again.


This was three years ago, so I couldn't help but ask present day the guy running the wooden instrument kiosk. He was also selling an ocarina but his was wooden, not the animal shaped on I fell in love with. Fortunately, he was really happy to help, saying the guy was a few streets down. I thanked him and let him know that if I couldn't find the guy, I'd come back to him (his stuff was really nice and I did take his instruments into consideration). After strolling around and passing many hand made items, I found him. I found the man from three years ago and his collection of animal ocarinas. I was grinning from ear to ear when I approached his stand and told him happily in Hebrew how I was so happy to find him again.

"I found you!"
"Oh, you did."
"I was looking forward to come back to your stand for almost three years now."
"Well, ha ha, I'm still here. Haven't left yet."

We had a pleasant conversation about ocarinas (he even showed me a trick or two) when I finally made my purchase. Unfortunately, the elephant sold out for a while now, but I found something else that caught my eye. It was small, simple, and had a minor shape of an alligator. When I asked the man what animal it was, he simply shrugged, gave a chuckle, and said he had no idea what animal it is, but it could be anything I want it to be. I thanked the man and walked away with my three years late ocarina. I felt a spring in my step when I heard a violin playing that reminded me of Pixar. I let my ears lead me when I came across a group of four standing with instruments in hand: One was playing the cello (or bass, please feel free to correct me), two playing Spanish guitars, and one of the with his violin. I stood around for a bit to take in the music, it was really ear pleasing that I couldn't help but record them. And of course, I gave them some money. I only give when I really feel like they deserve it.

                                                                               Amazing folk/jazz group


      
                                                 The Artist

I later left back for home as Shabbat came rolling in. For the next couple of weeks, (the few that I stayed in Tel Aviv), I spent my Fridays wandering around Tel Aviv, starting off always at the Artists' Alley but eventually I managed to spend a few of my Fridays looking for other restaurants to try out. Salads and Bars hardly count as "trying food" in my book and I like to explore in the morning where the majority of things are open. I'll get into food later with a different journal. So anyways, during one of my Fridays (the second Passover) I planned my day carefully. I already knew that things close early on Friday but because it was the second Passover, things were going to close extra early. I wandered around looking for a restaurant that was open (seeing as most of them were closed for Passover) when I came across the Disengoff Mall. I anyways needed to find a new pair of headphones, so what other place but the mall? I mean, Modi'in's mall was open during Passover eve, so it stands to reason that the mall here should be open as well.

I was horribly wrong.

Sure, they did let me in, but the sight of it was something straight out of a George A. Romano zombie flick. All the stores closed, floors completely empty of people, and 80's lite pop music playing and echoing throughout the deserted mall. I walked around trying to find anyone else, and I did. But there were only four of them, easily. Eventually I came across some stairs and decided to climb up, finding yet another movie theater, all those this one being less impressive than the one at Ayalon mall. After enough time listening to "Time Of Our Life", I decided to call it quits and head back home. Things were closing, and clearly I needed to leave. The weather was nice so the walk back wasn't bad, seeing as all the buses seemed to have vanished.

When I got home, I realized I liked Fridays. Not for Sabbatical reasons, but more for myself and traveling. Up until now I was going with groups, always being with someone, and always going to places I'd much rather not go. When wandering around by myself, I don't need to worry about the other person's entertainment, if their hungry and if so where should we go so they can have a good meal and within our budget. But when I'm on my own, I have to worry only for myself, and I get to go to places I would otherwise not go and eat whatever I want without even second guessing. So I officially declared Fridays as "Me Days" where I just go wherever my feet take me while listening to good music.

Just last week I managed to find a group of people standing and giving free hugs (something I really wanted for a while) as well as coming across a bunch of puppies. For breakfast I stopped by a cafe so I could have french toast with some coffee while reading a book, listening to a New Orleans-type jazz band. Eventually stopping by the mall (this time crazy full) and trying some homemade Dim Sum, Sweet Challah, and buying two awesome scarves. All of this at my own pace. I try to be as social as I can (and being stupidly bad at it, I should add), but being on my own for the day is fairly nice, especially when I have the whole morning/afternoon to myself.












Proof of my awesome Dim Sum.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

March 19/ 25 - Present, 2012 - Office Space

We end that journal for a more upbeat one: My Internship.

Allow me to refresh your memory of my history: For two and a half years, I spent my time studying Game Art and Design, with the original goal of becoming a Computer Animation major being shot after being told that the position was not in my favor and I should go to that or Motion Design (Motion Design is basically advertisement and title cards you see in shows and movies), I withdrew in December 2011 after being unable to handle the massive amount of stress the college environment was providing me.

So I joined the program a month later for an internship. There wasn't a CA company looking for an internship, but one video game company was. And only one video game company answered my resume, and it was Sidekick. When I talked to my boss (who in the Skype picture looked like a mix of Tony Soprano and Kelsey Grammar) he said I would be doing (most likely) website design and QA. Eager that I signed up, I confirmed my position as an intern for his company.

March 19, 2012
It wasn't our official day to work but it was the day in the two week orientation to go spend the day (or an hour) at our work place, and to basically navigate through Ricky's poorly done instructions (example being one person tried to find the bus stop they were suppose to take, only to find out it wasn't there). Ricky then explained to each of us what time our meeting with our employers was and how to dress accordingly, seeing as mine was a video game company, casual clothes would be fine.

I tend to over-do things.

So after spending the day figuring out what to wear (only ending up wearing a blue tank top underneath a long sleeve white v-neck shirt, puma sneakers, pocket watch necklace, blue beanie, and my suspender pants) I set my alarm clock for 8:38 am after making a minor bet with my dad regarding how long it takes to get to work. He said an hour, and I thought roughly 40 minutes and my meeting being at 11. The morning of the interview I walked with London to the bus stop to which she continued onward (roughly 15 minutes on foot for her to get to work) and I waited by the Ulpan bus stop (hilariously enough, the same bus I take to Ulpan was the one I needed to take to get to work). All I knew, according to my mom, was that I should ask the bus driver if he could drop me off at either:

A- Sela Building
B- A street name I can't remember at the moment
C- Alayon Mall.

So when I went on the bus, I quickly asked the bus driver if he could drop me off at Sela.

"Slicha?"
"Sela? You know where that is?"
"No."
"Okay... [street name here]?"
"What language are you speaking?"
"...Hebrew."
"...Never heard of the street."

My patience was running a bit thin, I mean, the bus driver doesn't know the street name?! Either he's a moron, or I'm royally messing up the Hebrew language. And something told me the bus driver was being a moron. I sighed with annoyance and asked about the mall, to which he goes "Ahh yes! This I know!" in his obviously broken English. Swiped my card and went to find a spot. As I sat there watch buildings zoom by, I kept wondering exactly how far the place was. I checked my pocket watch and saw that the ten minutes become twenty. Then thirty. And it didn't help that each time the bus reached a city-like area, I was ready to get off, but not once did the announcer call out about Ayalon Mall. I saw the signs on the street kept aiming upwards so I only followed based on the sign. Luckily after five minutes, the announcement went off and I hopped off the bus. To a construction site. And a crapton of Rabbis.

Like a lost lamb (and on an adventure, as both Ricky and my mom said), I went to the nearest shopping plaza and tried to find the street name. I walked into a store and asked the clerk if she spoke English (just to double check for myself), she said barely, so I went with Hebrew. I asked for the street name (still thinking I was butchering the name) and she goes "Oh! Continue straight from here, make a left, and it's right there!"

Yup. Bus driver was an idiot.

I thanked the lady, wished her a good day and made off to her directions. And lo and behold, I found it.


Now, out of respect for the company, I can not and will not show or discuss any pictures of their on going projects. I'll slip every now and again, but they are usually, for the most part, pictures of my cubicle. Sorry in advance.

So anyways, I go into the building and ask which floor Sidekick was on, the guard tells me the first floor, so I hop into the elevator with a pregnant lady, a rabbi, and a mailman. Yes, it does sounds like an opening to a really bad joke. So I go to the first floor, doors open and the first thing I see is a giant clown.

On the floor.

Taking up the entire said floor.

I carefully walked around and made my way to a sign written in hebrew. It read Sidekick and no indication of an arrow, but it doesn't take one to piece two and two together when the only sign is on the left side leading to a hallway with one clear door.

Made my way in and was greeted by one of the people who worked there, Guy (my employer) was expecting me and had the door open. Walked in and everything clicked perfectly. And after showing me the tour of the area (the guy who greeted me was called Tal, the producer) and noticed something interesting about my work place. There was not a single girl working. All males, and I was the only girl there. Weird, but for some reason I felt like this could work, and speaking of it, I went straight into work, doing QA.

Little did I know that QA was not what I thought it was. When I asked Guy if I was going to be doing anything publicly, he smiled and said no, but I was doing QA for sure. For most people, QA is "Questions and Answers", so I was a bit shocked that I was going to be doing that. When Guy lead me to my cubicle, I looked at the laptop they handed me to browse around their website to get to know them more, I was met with another person working there, Elad. He's in charge of QA. So obviously I asked what in all that is holy is QA. 

"Quality Assistance."
"...Come again?"
"Basically, you'll be trying all of our games and such, and help us see if there are any problems like bugs-"
"...Bugs?"
"Yeah, in games. Basically you're a play tester."

So I wasn't doing any public relations work. I'm going to intern by playing games. All day. As well as fix the website, but that was briefly covered on my first day. I left my work at around 4:30 leaving a nice impression on the guys by showing them that I actually do play games and know how to respond accordingly (and occasionally throwing a gamer joke here and there) as well as feeling horribly sore. But I had a huge smile knowing that for five months this was my "job".

And I was a-okay with this.

Fast Forward To Present
So it has been roughly three weeks since my first day. And so far they were right, I've been playing two games over and over and over and over again finding bugs, timing the length of time it takes the game to load, throwing fits of rage when the game does some really stupid bug (and believe me, there were PLENTY). Most of the people on the team are nice, some are interesting characters in and of themselves, and others I'm still trying to understand how their minds work. One moment they are nice, and other moments they are getting really angry that it's impossible to get through to them. I also learned that in order to make a point with some, you HAVE to be angry and yell. It's aggravating to say the least, but it gets the work done.

I didn't just play games, I'm also in the midst of fixing up the website with a guy named Dan. He knows more of the technical aspects while I know more of the artistic parts, and both Guy and he left me the responsibility of handling both the website and Facebook. So when I'm not jumping around like a headless chicken, I'm on the internet. Not too shabby. I also wowed them over with a powerpoint presentation basically explaining why and how the website can be a million times better with using mostly pictures over words (showing them that using just pictures isn't out of the realm of possibilities) and completely impressed the two of them (Guy, CEO and Dan, Web Designer) that they complimented me. And for the first time since I left my college, I honestly did feel like I was on cloud 9, like I made someone proud, but mainly I made myself proud knowing that I was good at something.

Sure, some days I'm so tired I don't want to get out of bed, the hassle of bus aggravates me (which I will write a whole journal entry about) and I just want to veg out, but at the end of it all, I'm happy. I'm always smiling when I'm working there, and the people make it fun. I had never experienced a whole floor of people yelling "THIS IS SPARTA", the boss blasting "Ride of the Valkyries" right behind me while mindlessly playing with his phone, and swords. Swords EVERYWHERE.
















Oh yes, and I did meet one girl. Just. One. And she is in charge of complaints. I met her briefly and she spoke crazy fast that I looked like a deer in headlights in regards to what she had to say. But I think she caught on shortly afterwards, shook my hand, and left. So... that makes two girls in an office filled with about fifteen guys. Could be worse I imagine?

So basically, so far it's been an amazing experience. The idea that the company trusts me with handling their websites, listening to my input, and having a serious yet fun atmosphere is grand. These next few months will be an adventure, that much I know for sure.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

March 14 - 20, 2012 - Intensive Ulpan Week

The fact that I'm stupidly late with updating and by far way too lazy to actually do the day by day thing (on top of my mom saying I write way too much for one day of events) made me go with a fast abridged version of the the past week. If only so I can write my next journal update about the trip with Jerusalem to the Galili (because writing Kineret on the computer makes it think I'm dumb and have no idea how to write Kinect). Anyways, let's speed things up and catch up what transpired.

March 14, 2012
Basically it was a nine hour seminar of who Israelis are and how they function. This basically translated for me as nine hours of how my family function. Been living with it for twenty one years, I'm pretty sure I got the gist of it. We were also informed on the "rules" of being late to group meetings and that if someone is late often, then they have to buy snacks. Me, New York, Belgium M, and Paris went to grab coffee and when we came back (and I should note, we had no idea how the area we were in functioned) we were a good two, maybe three, minutes late. So Ricky says we're late, to which I quickly made a tweet (another tool I use to update my shenanigans for you readers) that I hope the people here like bags of chocolate milk, cause there is no way in hell I'm paying so much for snacks most of them might not even eat. Once we hit the six hour mark, we were permitted to go and get coffee because we had two more speakers to go through. Belgium M was kind enough to make me a strong cup of coffee to last me for at least four hours.

Here's the photo of proof:

I feel I should also note that Ricky pointed out that the building we were at, which is a dance/theater studio, is where our Ulpan will be.

I'm going to be spending the next few days riding the same bus to this building. Meaning I better know the streets pretty damn well. No big deal.

One of our speakers opened up with making us go into groups, and from there we had to write one sentence and pass it on to the next person. This basically translated into a disaster seeing as no one in my group neither
A- Cared.
and B- Knew what the heck was going on.
We already passed the seven hour limit and our attention span was horrifyingly shot (I found out shortly after that most colleges don't have three hour classes, so I was somehow still in tact by the fifth hour). When we were done, we were to read what we wrote. Basically it was a disaster. Most of the groups were able to make a coherent story that was equally hilarious, whilst ours was... well, stupid. I won't go into the details but it was something I had to keep for myself. This opened up to the concept of documenting our stay. Guess who is a month ahead of the game? This one. It shortly translated into a pretty bad PR speech about how we should sell ourselves to the program. Clearly, the guy didn't read our contract because it said very clearly that the program is allowed to use our images as long as we're on the trip.
Translation: We signed ourselves to whore out big time.
Once that was done, we quickly zombied out to the nearest bus stop.

March 15, 2012
Went back to studio (after Ricky challenged us to be there on time and to get there on our own) and headed up to the second floor, we were then guided to go to the third floor so we can be sorted out who is going to what level of Ulpan. For those who don't know or are unfamiliar with Ulpan, basically it's a "school" for people who travel to Israel (e.g. my program) and need to learn basic hebrew to function. And there are three levels:

Level 1 - The basic alphabet, basically it's 1st grade hebrew.
Level 2 - Learning more words, working more on the pronunciation and grammar, this is Middle School.
Level 3 - Because we know hebrew, this refreshes basic things but teaches how to read the hebrew newspaper.

Before traveling to the program, we all had to take a test to show our hebrew capabilities. And on top of that, when we got there, we had to speak one on one with the woman in charge of Ulpan so she can verify our level. Now let me refresh your memory: I can speak hebrew, Jewish school, hebrew speaking family, the whole shpeal. When I'm panicking (like say, nearly loosing my passport which contains highly important documentations) I suddenly become a natural and nail every pronunciation and grammar. However, I tend to mix actual hebrew and "slang" hebrew as well as basic derp hebrew when speaking normally. So bring me in front of a "teacher", and I'll naturally revert back to Grade A talking.

Luckily it didn't go as terrible as I thought it would and I made it out in one piece and excelling my hebrew (of course, I royally messed up street and road, but that's more tomato tomahto. She was actually surprised by my level of speech and told me that (I apologize if I sound braggy, but this is a rare occasion for me) I had the highest score on the test with a 91%. So naturally I should be in level 3.

Hell. Freaking. Yes.

I later found out that four other people were going to be with me in level 3, and we high fived each other. The rest of the day was bland with more lectures and discovered that we had to get ready for Shabbat dinner. My room versus another apartment to see where we were going to do it, we won and the other apartment had to do it there. I also made the group laugh when we did an ice breaker, it revolved around talking for as long as the match was lit. Mine died quickly so I asked if I could light another, the guy doing the ice breaker said sure if I wanted to, so I quickly lit one and with a smile went "I'm also a pyromaniac." Laughter ensued. We move forward with the next day.

Oh yeah. And it rain pretty hard, and being someone who only comes to Israel during the summer when everything is practically dead, it was a bit of a culture shock for me.



March 16, 2012
Our first Shabbat dinner. After Ulpan (where we got out work book and got to know each other), me, my roommates, New York, and P went to the market place (a.k.a the shuk) to get some ingredients for Shabbat dinner. It was a bit drizzly, but nothing a good hoodie couldn't handle. So we wondered on through, and again, culture shock for little ol' me, and I had to grab some shots of Tel Aviv's friday.

I also went and bought myself some bread because the smell was irresistible. New York also bought some bread. After getting some veggies, and the day finally clearing up, we head back to our apartment and placed our groceries into the fridge. A nap was in order. I was planning on taking a shower, but the power to sleep overwhelmed. And I passed out.

When I woke up, I walked around the complex for a bit to see if anyone else was awake, and for the most part, they were all cooking. Belgium M then called for all the girls into her apartment so we can light the candles for Shabbat. One candle per girl, and once we were done, we said happy shabbat and went back to our respective apartment to get down to cooking. My apartment was making Israeli salad, with very VERY powerful onions. It literally put us all to tears, but the outcome was amazing. We then dressed up and headed down stairs to join everyone else for the dinner, which was amazing seeing as everyone brought their A-Game into this meal. The layout, however, was hilarious if anything.

One side was quiet, calm people, mildly discussing about things in general, then there was the middle (where I was) where it was mainly one girl who was talking about politics and would refuse to hear my input (something about my age or something, I don't recall) and then there was the other side. The other side was, to put it bluntly, a bunch of drunks. Five bottles of vodka, whisky, and two bottles of red wine as well as plenty of beer to put Homer Simpson to shame. And this was, according to them, only the pre PRE game. For those of you, like myself, that aren't aware of a pre-game, it is basically you drink your ass off before you go to a bar to drink even more. And most likely head for the club. Me, I'm not a club person, I don't mind the occasional drink, but no more then two MAYBE three drinks. And even then I'm picky with what it is exactly that I'm drinking.


Dinner ended, and we cleaned up the apartment (minus the floor) and left for the next apartment, so that they can pre game (take note how I only used one "pre"). Belgium M became an emotional wreck and techno was blasting while I sat there not knowing what the fuck was going on. Yes, I may not have had the drinking experience, but holy crap there is a lot of work that goes into drinking before drinking. We didn't leave until 11 (which is early) and we just bar hopped until we found what we were looking for. However the term "we" is loosely used seeing as we went as a big group and eventually broke into three smaller groups, mine heading towards one of the madrich's second work spot.

When we go in, a lot of them ordered beer, and I was post-dinner with a dessert craving. So I ordered a White Russian (remember the drink I had before I flew?) which resulted in confused glances as to what the hell I ordered. Clearly these people don't know drinks. It was also there that I learn that they don't actually "drink" but rather get completely plastered drunk with tequila and vodka to the point they get nasty hangovers and achieve black outs. Yup, I'm with real adults. Belgium M, after being an emotional wreck, then screamed in the bar how much she loved me and that I was the best thing to have ever happened on this trip, and to be honest, I never got that as a compliment from a complete stranger, it was actually nice.

To my disappointment, she was in a blackout when she was yelling that. Still, I was flattered even if it was a drunk fest yelling she was doing.

Once I finished my drink, me and another guy decided to call it a night and head home. I tried getting to know him better, but he clearly only talked in argument form, and after the politic shtick that happened at dinner, I was in no mood to argue. Not to mention the White Russian was kicking in at full speed. When we reached home (he lived in another building) I was on my way upstairs when I saw Maryland hanging out with P, Texas, and another british guy, to whom I will call Liver. I was really tired but Maryland insisted that I should stay a bit, and wanting to meet people and be more of a social butterfly, I complied. After thirty minutes, I said screw everything and went to bed.

March 17, 2012
I don't remember much, but I spent time my aunt, uncle, and their kids. We went to a place called Brewhouse (which is the equivalent to Yard House) and ordered some salmon and cider flavor beer with my uncle.

It looks like adult butter beer.

Ulpan, we never touched our book and had to stay in class for five hours. Thank god for my art classes where it is usually three hours, other wise I would've lost my shit. For our last intense class, we had to talk for five minutes in hebrew about anything, and for a while, I was constantly getting bashed on about my age and how I'm still the youngest and therefore 100% ignorant of my surrounding. Yes. Because at twenty one, still fresh in the world and making the decision to live for five months in Israel for a possibility of a career is SOOOOO immature and careless. But for someone who is twenty five and should technically have a job by now and know what the hell it is they are doing, quitting everything for an internship is totally mature.

Yup, I'm clearly confused.

So for the first two minutes, I basically gave a very angry lecture about how age should not factor a person's maturity. And if age is a major issue with people, clearly something is wrong with them. They tried to argue back but I made my point about how annoying it is and to shove off because I clearly am not the typical immature drunken twenty one year old discovering alcohol for the first time. I drank at sixteen, therefore, not rushing to drink. But I digress.

After winning the argument and defending Florida (cause if there is only one person who is allowed to bash it, it's people who actually live in Florida.) I spent the rest of my time saying the internship is home for me. To which leads me to the end of this journal so I may go into the next one to discuss about the internship. The actual juicy part of this trip.