Sunday, July 22, 2012

Tall Tales Part 1


Well, it seems we have hit the final countdown of this blog. Many stories left unsaid and many more to come. Time for me to nutshell things up!

While I haven't been the best at updating period, allow me to explain what happened within the four months that has happened that I personally witness without the need of a written document. I felt myself grow as an individual, I learned how to stand up straight with my head held high (granted I may have my sob moment where I just break down into tears and wonder why I hate the world and everyone in it), how to not let people rain down on my parade, and just how to overall handle myself in various situations.

I'll Show You How You Get Things Done.
At my workplace, I mentioned the new intern. All the guys (primarily the one guy that has something with me) love him and trust him with all of the technical work. Something I was working at doing. Eventually all my projects were stolen from me and given to the guy by practically everyone in the office, leaving me with nothing to work on. Now this is where the growth kicks in. After two months of not working, I finally went to my boss and told him that I'm reaching a point where I'm finding it hard to come to work when I have nothing to do. I want to stay for the remaining time I have here but at this pace I'm slowly loosing motivation. Understanding where I'm coming from, he goes to the guy who is constantly stealing my work and tells him my new project (which was to go around and interview all the people who work in the office and ask what it was like to work on the game, an idea I had the moment my boss asked me how we can promote our game more), the guy, naturally, takes my idea, gives it to someone else and tells me it's basically written and done. I don't need to work on it. Growth number two kicks in. With no more office work left, me and my boss decided I will be the one to handle the party and arrangements, because clearly none of the guys know how to do it (claims it's girly), so as "girly" as it was, I was the one in charge of the launch party at the beach, I e-mailed everyone important, called some others, arranged the area, set up the machine, wrote the invitation, and fixed up the xbox kinect all for the party. Suck. On. That. It was a massive success and I felt proud that everyone was there drinking, getting drunk, and flailing their arms around in front of the projector because of me. Not that stupid intern. Whom, by the way, left the party before my boss handed out to all of those who worked on the project 40% alcohol shots. The following day he started admitting that ALL American girls are drunks who drink beer at the early age of eighteen and that everyone in America actually drinks beer, this coming after one of the guys in the office was asking me why I'm not drinking beer, and there by not putting it on my sandwich. Sorry party boy, I'm no letting you get away with that. Can't really blame me for loosing my patience when this kind of thing goes on for more than three weeks, mainly after party boy here started working with us. So I snapped my head and, very calmly I should add, a very honest remark 

"I don't know what kind of slutty bimbos you slept with, but some women actually have class".

So the next time you think all Americans are drunken retards, remember my face and how I practically owned your ass.

My Roommates, My Program, My Self Esteem.
I don't want to go further into this topic considering this is nothing short of a giant angst fest, however said angst-fest has also led to my dramatic growth. Up until now I was handled like a little kid, ignored constantly, talked down to a lot, and sometimes even flat out yelled at. And I admit, this greatly hurt me. On the Fourth of July I was yelled at for being too dependent on others, which I knew for a FACT was a flat out lie seeing as I was on my own for the majority of the trip (save for the occasional visits to my family and family friends), I had to learn my mistakes the hard way, deal with angry Israelis (don't… get me started on that), and overall jerks who's head is so far up their ass it would put a yoga instructor to shame. At some point, I was even ignored by the RA (who is infatuated with my roommates, so by default he would side with her with everything) and was told it was my responsibility to take care of everyone else, especially my roommate and not him. The head of the program, while sweet, talked down to me when I told her about the situation. I did break down into tears and I was (am) cursing out Israel for all of it's annoying-ness they tend to have considering up to that point, it was almost two weeks straight of a brutal critique why "I'm a flawed human being and should be ashamed I wake up every morning". A handful, at best, of Israelis can shake my world and make me feel like I was acting silly for raging out on Israel, but you know what they say; the loudest ones are the annoying ones. No avoiding it, and not wanting to deal with it, Tel Aviv and all of it's programmies (mainly my group) can quite frankly, go and fuck themselves.

Thank you program, for making me age up at double the rate and still make me feel like I'm insufficient, as well as making me grow what is probably the strongest back bone known to mankind.


Multi-Culture Advocate
So a running theme in Israel (not sure if I mentioned this in a previous post) is that the moment Israelis hear someone speak in English, they will either do one of three things: 

1- Insinuate all English speakers as naive, stupid, Americans.
2- Insinuate all English speakers are speakers for Obama
3- Speak to you in nothing but English and get agitated when you stare at them as they mess up the word "ate" and "eight".

Fortunate for me, I can speak hebrew rather fluently kudos to my twelve years at a private Jewish school and my whole entire family being natives of Israel. However, being raised in the states, my grandma pointed out I have an accent when speaking hebrew… a very AMERICAN accent. Which resulted with me trying to limit my speaking whenever possible, the gods of language must have smiled down upon me whenever I opened my mouth because the first assumption Israelis think I'm from is either Spain or France, the latter being my favorite choice and my odd temptation to go around by my middle name 'Michelle'. In fact I almost admitted to being from France during one of my rare drunken escapade (bartenders are your bestest friends when completely shit faced and need a pick-me-up with three glasses of alcohol). Of course every now and again I have to advocate on behalf of America seeing as no one in my program is willing to and would love to see it up and burn to a crisp. Funny. In the States, I have to advocate for Israel and why it's worth defending, yet when I go to Israel, I have to defend the States from the continuous backlash it's "sister" country. But my favorite experience that has occurred so far in my stay was whenever someone, ANYONE, who isn't from the States, let alone Miami, would ask me a question or try to state a point, and asked for my take (those very rare occasions when asked a question), I would answer… You asked me a question, what kind of a response were you expecting?! Unless it was a rhetorical question in which case, for the purpose of not looking like a total bitch; STATE IT.  It wasn't until a few weeks ago where I just went "forget this crap!" and left it up for others to go at each other's throats. 


Make Way For Miami's Israeli Speaker!
And seeing as Israelis have a love/hate with America, me saying I'm from the States, and not only the states, but from MIAMI. OH LORD HAVE MERCY! Israelis would love it! To much of my roommates disgust, they would always introduced themselves as "England, she speaks BRITISH. Ohio, I'm AMERICAN. And that one… she speaks fluent Hebrew!" Yeah, not really much of a ground breaker when your in a country of hebrew speakers. It's kind of like saying "It's so cool that you can breathe on Earth that's filled with OXYGEN!" In fact, during one of our many trips, we went to a blind tour where we were literally blind for three hours. It was powerful, but that's digressing. The tour guide asked where we're all from, to which my roommate starts to show off how she and another girl from New York are Americans, South African, Australian, British… and then that one girl who speaks fluent hebrew. The guide asked me where I was from to which, at this point shamefully, muttered Miami. 

The man was shocked and started gushing how he wants to visit Miami and how it's the coolest state in America. 

The roommate tried to bring up how she's from Ohio and the other is from England, but the man gave two shits about it. Miami is, was, and always will be the hot spot, bitches! AND I just happened to speak Hebrew!

However when it comes to shopping, it's a whole different story. I figured if I speak in Hebrew, there will be less bullshit then usual, but here's the thing. The moment I slip just ONE mistake, they instantly know. Like sharks being attracted to blood in the ocean and know there's a meal waiting for them there, Israelis will start speaking to you English, no matter HOW much Hebrew you speak. You dropped your guard, and know they will have a field day with you in their somewhat broken English. Prepare the frustrations and constant eye rolls. And hope to God they're not informing the others that you're a foreigner. I understand that they love people who speak English because it gives them an excuse to speak English as well, but I can't help but feel that they are somewhat insulting me and complimenting me at the same time.

I'm Not Just Pulling This Out Of My Ass
It seems people here constantly forget that I came here not only to be an intern, but to intern at a Video Game company. Meaning lots and lots of computer work. Meaning you damn well better know the basics of the computer to work here. I sent in, what I think, is a pretty impressive resume from a certain stand point. Gotta start somewhere and all that jazz. I wrote, and constantly, that I have amazing organizational skills, a fast learner, and pretty skillful with the computer (say that to my updating skills Ba-Dum-DISH!) so imagine how annoying it is after a while that people STILL get shocked that I'm not some youngster idiot doing dumb things in Israel (okay, maybe I tend to do a lot of stupid things like crossing the streets when it's still a red light. Sue me!) and am actually pretty bright with things. With that said, with both work place and program, I figured that my way of thinking "actions speaks louder then words" goes into full blown affect around these people. 

We had a pitch party in my office a few days ago and a bunch of the guys gave me the chore of running around, collecting peoples' names, their pitch title, printing the paper and handing it out to them. Very 1950's but I did write I was very organized, when came time to the pitch party, I asked if I could go last (to my boss's humor, he made me second to last). The reason being was that when I saw the guys pitch (my boss being first) one of the guys quickly shot him down before his idea took off, and with each person, everyone tore their ideas down with why it wouldn't work and why it's broken. This mirrored my college experience too well to the point that I got nauseous and was almost having cold sweat. Memories of having to pitch under four minutes with a fancy presentation and such... I came here to avoid that trauma, and yet here I am smacked dab in the middle of it. When my turn finally came around, I took a deep breath, counted till five, and started.

I have to thank my college and my teacher, cause I'm truly their bitch forever.

I opened up by saying that I have no fancy presentations like the guys have, nor a drawing, or even a sketch good enough to be projected. Just a very simple idea I had running around for a while.

I sold the idea under four minutes like it was gold from El Dorado, these guys absolutely loved my idea and took off with it on how it's such an amazing idea that the idea practically became their own. The remaining six minutes was spent on how I thought up such a brilliant and unique idea, why I want the character to be a certain way (out of curiosity more so then a critique), and so on. They were amazed at how some random intern who almost does nothing but sits and does paper work can come out with an idea that, by their standard, is almost ground breaking.

A few weeks later, I took the new Intern's project (karma, asshole) and began to do sound and video editing like it was my second hand. The only thing holding me back was the pirated program the intern got that refused anyone from using it. The guys, again, were shocked that I was able to take a brand new program and within minutes use it like I have known it my whole life (...okay, so maybe I have used Premier before... it's been a while since I used it!), once again proving that my actions are louder. 

Helps to check out my resume the next time you need someone to do some technical work or fixing up an event.

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