tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21210962499659086022024-02-06T19:39:14.014-08:00A Mickey Abroad: Israel EditionIt's like the show "An Idiot Abroad"... only not.Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-4671538828587325092012-07-24T01:35:00.001-07:002012-07-24T01:35:39.708-07:00Israel and Its Lack of Organizational People SkillsI apologize in advance for the massive amount of cursing there will be here, but it's Israel's motto and I have to be as close to the source as possible. This is a post I felt was mandatory to put up in case anyone out there is curious how "sharp" and "friendly" Israel is. Don't get me wrong, Israel had a strong army (I would use "has" but I'll get to that in a minute), their medical department is top notch, and... that's it. Everything else is pretty much crap service unless you're their best friends or family of family of family, seeing as Israel is one giant Mob family that will rob and beat you senseless should you give them the wrong tone of voice.<br />
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Never in my life had I ever dealt with assholes who refuse to help, smart ass waiters who are allowed to be complete jerks and expect a high tip, and have a highly complex form of organization from the program itself and it's partners. Someone should honestly point out the flat out stupidity this nation seems to run on.<br />
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<b>Customer Is, Was, And Will Always Be Right-- Unless You're In Israel.</b><br />
This is a train of thought that is almost impossible for any Israeli to notice. This could be argued seeing as my parents are both loving that train of thought and have successfully managed to snag amazing deals out of this (furniture, cars, bills, etc) because it's a simple train of thought, "You want money? You want a lot of money? Appease the customer, and the money will flow." But not in Israel, in Israel it's "Take the deal, or leave it. Fuck you, because I run this convenient store!" And the amount of time I had Israelis yell at me is psychotic. Forget the whole "but they love you like family" bullshit because, like I said, unless you're friend of the family's family, then you're just dirt to them. In the literal sense since one time my mom slipped on a wet floor in the mall (with no sign stating the floor was slippery) and injured her back, not a single Israeli came to pick her up. And only AFTER she fell did they put the sign up. We could sue to our hearts content but Israel has the whole "fuck you" attitude, so I don't recall if we succeeded or not in that case.<br />
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Another example of Israel and it's lack of Humanity was how I was ordering lunch one day, and I always had this one waitress who practically became my friend due to the massive amount of time I went there for lunch and showed me which menu to pick up to order. The other day I go to the same restaurant where there was a new waitress, an older lady who looks bored with her life. She sees me picking up the menu and yanks it out of my hand and shoves me a shitty take out version of the exact same menu. This version was harder to read and I honestly wished I photographed it to prove my point, so after a few minutes of struggling to find the meal I already saw in the other menu, the woman begins to shout at me that I'm taking to long and should just leave. I argued back saying why can't I just look at the other menu because this one is too hard to read, so she yanks my shitty take out menu, throws it on the counter and shoves the other one in to my hand and mutters "Happy, princess?" I ordered my meal and left.<br />
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Fuck you, you're not getting a tip from me, you old hag.<br />
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<b>The World's Best Army of High Schoolers </b><br />
Lies, lies, and more lies. Israel's foundation is that by the striking age of eighteen, boys and girls MUST join the armies; no ifs, ands, or buts. But here's the thing: eighteen. You're fresh out of high school, you're free form learning, and you're free from teachers hounding you night and day, and you're heading straight to boot camp. At eighteen the army has new recruits come in and take positions such as passports, visas, and new aliyahs (people who are moving to live permanently in Israel). Holy crap. I stated my story about my passport and why Israel is hell bent on my arrest (I'm cleared by the way, happy days after THREE YEARS), so when I handed my passport to a family friend to get it cleared we found it what was more or less the case why Israel was having the hardest time updating the computer.<br />
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So apparently, one of their solders, an eighteen year old one, managed to mistype my number. Mistype led to a mess up in the system which led to a mess up with the army and me. I have the paper, I'm legally in the clear, but it would be such a huge pain in the ass that come time I leave I have to be pulled aside, show the paper, answer a few questions and THEN bored the plane. I would much rather have it all done then and there. It really baffles me why it's so hard, in the digital age where everyone and their moms knows how to tweet and post a status on Facebook, to simply re-type my number in correctly. Israel is also known to be technologically advance, I should add.<br />
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<b>Just Answer The Fucking Question!</b><br />
<b><i>Warning: lots of use with the word "fuck".</i></b><br />
So this is geared more at my program and it's pathetic excuse that they call organizational adult skills, and really the bread and butter of this post. When we first came to the program they gave us cellphones to use in Israel because it's cheaper, however when it will come the time to leave (mine is Aug. 9 hopefully) I will need to return the phone. So today at a meeting I asked how the process of it goes; this resulted in everyone pretty calling me an idiot and saying so "obviously" that it's on my box in which I received the phone, and if not there then the website! DUH. Stupid twenty one year old American who interns at silly video games, how stupid is SHE? HAHAHAHAHA!<br />
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Allow me to show you why I asked this question because first of all, I ask questions because they, for the most part, have a huge purpose. I don't just pull this kind of questions out of the blue to hear myself speak:<br />
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First of all this, there are literally TWO numbers to call from! Which one do I call?! And it's not to the company, it's just the toll number to dial. So THAT'S not the numbers!<br />
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That's my number, I'm not stupid to call my own number.<br />
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Now THIS one was beautiful. There is literally <u style="font-weight: bold;">SIX</u> numbers to go by on that one piece of paper alone. And that small card on the right has <u style="font-weight: bold;">FOUR</u> numbers to work with. Yup! SO obvious!<br />
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So clearly the box has failed me, time to check the website! That should be easy!<br />
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That's the two pages it led me to when I clicked "Equipment Return", there is not a SINGLE phone line to contact.<br />
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I should check out the contact list, that should be helpful! I apologize here because this was when I lost hope in Israel and humanity.<br />
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BECAUSE THEY ARE ABOUT AS HELPFUL AS NEWBORN FUCKING BABY! WHICH NUMBER DO I CONTACT?!<br />
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CLEARLY just telling me which number to call is SO much work and me as an adult should be able to handle it just fine! I would say I would ask the main person in charge, but I did and what has transpired was the end result. I trusted her and she managed to successfully make me look like a freaking idiot for not understanding this rubix cube of numbers. So screw that noise, I'm going to call the head of the program as a whole, not Ricky. Hopefully I will get the proper response other wise I'm just going to throw this phone to the nearest hobo.Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-23728003700776867302012-07-22T10:12:00.003-07:002012-07-22T10:14:15.982-07:00April 6, 2012 - Passing PassoverNow I will say this, I haven't spent Passover in well over three years if only because my time was spent in the dark depths of the labs back at my college. Now that I'm in Israel, it only stood to reason I would finally celebrate it: Israel Style.<br />
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It was established in the beginning that I would be spending the break with my Aunt, after learning that my Grandma doesn't like the holidays and suddenly gets "sick" (an actual problem that exists, apparently). But from what I've heard, the people in Israel treat the Jewish new year and PO as if it's Christmas, ergo work places giving presents to their employees (some places at least, don't hold me word to it), and honestly I wasn't expecting anything big. Maybe a card, but nothing more. To my surprise, I got a gift card of 250 shekels from my boss (and in my stupidity, I mistook the expiration date as April 13 and not April 2013. Winner is me). With that sweet present, I finished my work and made my way to spend the weekend with the Aunt and Uncle. Again, like Christmas, you give presents to people... only not under a tree or anything botanic. With the help of my mom, I bought my uncle a CD and for the girls I bought them identical headbands (there was no way I was going to put up with the two arguing who's is better), with my aunt however, I went on the day of to the mall with a family friend's daughter to the mall so that I can pick up a bouquet of flowers for her as well as my aunt's mom (who was hosting me). While there we also picked up the headbands.<br />
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Totally like Christmas, it was jammed packed! Elbow to elbow, prices SKYROCKETING (honestly, 80 shekels for one bouquet?) and people pushing and shoving for the last item. People are crazy... so after helping my friend find some clothes and buying what I needed, I stopped by her place so I can FINALLY say hello to my second mom. We sat, chatted it up a bit, and caught up on several things, one of which was my friend's older brother who gave me what I consider the tightest hug ever since I came here. Like, spine bent in a weird way... might have something to do with him being incredibly tall now. He then made a dinosaur noise (it's... it's a long story) and left to play soccer with friends, at the same time I did meet his girlfriend, albeit very VERY briefly. Afterwards, I went back home so that I can change clothes and give the presents.<br />
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When I made it back to the apartment, I quietly opened the door and made it for my room (keep in mind, all of this taking place at my aunt and uncle's place). I quickly changed my clothes took out all the necessary presents. The girls finally found me when they heard the first floor bathroom in use and asked me their usual twenty one questions (with, of course, the predictable head butt that is the oldest one's version of a hug). I gave them their presents to which they both fell madly in love with and ran to my aunt, begging her to fix their hair according to the headband. With that done, I gave my aunt her flowers (the girls asked me if I had presents for my aunt and uncle earlier to which I said yes, but it was a surprise) and she loved them, and waited for my uncle to come downstairs so I can give him his present. We ended up driving while listening to the music on full blast. While driving, we Skyped call my mom to show her the crazy traffic that would only appear in Israel for Passover as well as wishing her a Happy Passover. I was already informed about the people we were going to, but I wasn't expecting what I got; the view was phenomenal and the apartment had a clean, modern, but home-y feel to it.<br />
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My aunt's parents were the sweetest hosts I've had the pleasure of meeting and apparently have already heard of me, to their surprise, I was speaking to them most of the time in Hebrew (the running theme of people from Israel is that only people from Israel can speak fluent Hebrew, the rest of the world is retarded when it comes to speaking Hebrew). I offered my help as much as I could to my aunt's mom before my uncle and my aunt's dad decided to show me the balcony. To which, again, view was phenomenal.<br />
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(...I seem to have lost the picture...)<br />
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After looking at the sight, we then went back inside when my aunt's brother and his wife and son (who was one) came. I was told that one of my aunt's sisters won't be able to show up because she is celebrating with her husband's in-laws, but I was alright with it because that saved the issue of which of the two they were calling (our name is the same). My aunt eventually showed up with her other sister (who's car was missing) and we all chatted a bit before heading to the dinner table.<br />
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My uncle stated it perfectly "It wasn't the Tower of Babel that got us mixed up with languages, it was the fifty Hagadahs".
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What transpired was easily one of the more amusing PO I ever had in my life. I mean, sure I had my friend with me to make the night bearable and always managed to entertain myself, but this time there was something amusing about it. The running joke about PO which I'm pretty sure is in everyone else's household, is that there are more than ten different versions of the haggadah in possession... this house literally had ten different versions so between my aunt's dad reading from a sixty (that's right, 60) year old, Arabic haggadah, my two cousins shouting for the afikoman, my uncle sitting there talking about the death of Mac, me completely zoning out due to the amount of Hebrew I've never heard in my life (or if I did, had NO idea what it meant), my aunt's youngest sister yelling that her dad is using an ancient book, and my aunt's mom trying to be as calm as possible, we spent easily four hours trying to get passed Ma Nistana.<br />
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Once we passed one of the parts in the haggadah, as we were jumping back and forth with none of us having a single clue where we're suppose to be on, the girls got impatient and decided now was the perfect time to be as obnoxious as possible for the afikoman. The way they do it, or at least this is their train of thought of how things work to get things, is to take both index fingers, pushed them as hard as possible on both sides of their cheeks (the harder, the more insistent) while smiling, head tilting to the side, and in their squeakiness (not even cute squeaky, I should add) repeat "Bevakasha" which is "Please" in Hebrew. If you should say no, they will only repeat this with pushing in the cheeks harder, tilt the head more, move in closer, and raise the squeakiness of their voice. My aunt's dad (whom I'll just call Sir because that's easier to type over and over again) sighed and kept his cool the whole time, clearly he's use to this kind of shit, in which case, I applaud him. When he finally made it to the matza segment (and matza = afikoman) the girls went apeshit and were telling him-- more like demanding really, where he was planning on hiding the afikoman (by the way, the afikoman is a broken half of the matza during the dinner, one part stays on the dinner table, and the other gets hidden for the youngest children to go search. First one to find it gets a present, but in full honesty, all the kids get presents, so it's more for the pride of it, if anything), deciding to be helpful I asked the oldest if I could have a hug (she headbutts my stomach so her eyes are usually smashed into my stomach) seeing as my Aunt called the middle one over. It worked perfectly, so one headbutt later, the two girls went running off to find the golden cracker.<br />
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Several seconds later we hear yelling, shouting, and crying. Emerging from one of the rooms, the oldest one leaves crying her eyes out because the middle one was "cheating" by following her everywhere. So once we were able to calm them down (seriously, all of this over a freaking cracker that tastes like moldy cardboard box) they went back into the fray (it was honestly just those two) with the victor being the oldest, middle one coming in chiming that she helped. So those two, the one year old, and even the baby got presents (dollar store material if you asked me) that consisted of balloon making equipment, clay, and markers. I'll get into that in a minute because those three gifts truly were the highlight of the night.<br />
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The weird thing about the PO sedar here was that their train of though was that we should eat and enjoy the meal first, THEN read the haggadah (and those four hours of trying to figure out where the hell we were didn't count in the slightest... apparently) because your mind won't be on the food, but rather on the haggadah itself. While that makes complete sense (believe me, I loved that idea), it also ruins the whole point of why to even do a sedar. It's to relive what the Jews in Egypt had to go through so we can appreciate the meal. Once we finished eating (the meal was exquisite), the kids went off to play while my aunt fed the baby cousin. Which now brings me to their three gifts.<br />
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<b><u>Markers</u></b><br />
The oldest loves to draw. I found this out when she came running to me one day begging me to teach her how to draw (she heard her big cousin draws, why not get a proper lesson?) so when she she got markers, she started to draw a lot. The third youngest (the one year old), is still learning how to walk and grab at the same time, so as he walked over to her, he picked up her marker and began to make a run for it. Confusing her chasing for a game, he started giggling while clinging crazy hard to her marker, this resulted with the oldest one getting aggravated, which ended with her yelling and crying that he was stealing from her, not getting that he was simply learning how to run and grab. This was the less severe of the two stories that transpired.<br />
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<b><u>Clay</u></b><br />
I love play-doe, I think it's the best thing that the world has created. And if I like it, then it's only obvious that the girls love it as well. Oldest one was making a turtle and was proud of it, middle one was trying to imitate the oldest one, and out of boredom, I made for the both of them a rose (it's the only thing I remember how to make). Eventually I made my way to the dinner table to join the rest of the adults, cause the oldest one clearly wanted to use all the clay for whatever her artistic mind had in store. Sitting there while we were talking about who knows what (I couldn't keep up with what was going on between Sir reading and talking to himself and my uncle proclaiming that Mac is dead), the oldest runs to my aunt to show her her newest creation, she was really proud of it so my aunt smile and said it was fantastic. With the middle one though... she suddenly felt her creation wasn't as good as the oldest one (she copied to a T what the oldest one made) so she instead asked my aunt to fix it to match perfectly to the oldest one. And every single iteration my aunt did, the middle one threw a tantrum how it was nothing like the oldest one, she got too extreme regarding this that she just ended up taking it and smashing it into a multi-color blob, screaming the whole way about how she (my aunt) ruined the clay, how it's horrible, and so on. Her tantrum got so severe that she flew herself to the floor screaming profanity at the young age of five. My uncle went to her and tried to calm her down by she just screamed louder and shrieked that my uncle should go away and how she hated him (all this, mind you, for a freaking play-doe) we all were mortified by the behavior that my uncle and aunt decided to go with the ignore approach to show the middle one that that kind of action won't do her any good. Eventually my aunt's younger sister took care of the middle one that the middle kid calmed down for a bit.<br />
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<b><u>Balloon Animals</u></b><br />
This was the climax of the night, with the oldest one sitting on the reclining chair with my uncle on the balcony (did I mention how amazing the view was?) the middle one began to play with the balloon equipment, attempting to make simple balloon animals that she saw the oldest one do earlier. It screwed up and she started to throw fits of rage about it but we all thought it would blow over. My aunt's youngest sister, a make up artist, started to paint all the girls' finger nails as a tradition that it's to give good luck. So while the kids were doing whatever it was kids do, the guys just sitting around and chilling, us girls had our finger nails done by my aunt's sister. During my aunt's turn, the middle one stormed over to my aunt demanding her to fix the balloon animal, an attempt my aunt failed almost a half hour ago. She started off with "in a few minutes" but the middle one would have none of that and demanded it right then and there, so instead of dealing with her constant screams, she told her to go to my uncle. He knows how to.<br />
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He doesn't.<br />
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So when the middle one went to the balcony, where my uncle and oldest was cuddling under a blanket in a comfy chair staring at the view, my back was to the window waiting for my nails to dry. Shortly what happened later, not going to lie, I'm laughing right now as I type this; my aunt breaks out laughing incredibly hard. We all thought she finally lost her mind, but she pointed towards the balcony, tears streaming down her face, and I turned around out of curiosity. Lo an behold, my uncle, still in the chair with the oldest one cuddling up next to him, attempting to do an animal balloon and to his side, the middle one shrieking, face turning red, and veins nearly popping out of her neck. Everyone in the house couldn't help but break out laughing. She eventually stomped in holding a little piece of a balloon and yelling that her dad is ruining her life as well as the balloon and stormed out. Aunt's sister chased after her shortly when my uncle came in, slightly daze, and a smirk on his face. He holds the small remaining part of the balloon.<br />
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"Wiener dog."<br />
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And then we all couldn't stop laughing.Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-81904010181924759302012-07-22T09:56:00.002-07:002012-07-22T09:56:42.018-07:00Tall Tales Part 1<br />
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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!</div>
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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.</div>
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<b>I'll Show You How You Get Things Done.</b></div>
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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 </div>
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"I don't know what kind of slutty bimbos you slept with, but some women actually have class".</div>
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So the next time you think all Americans are drunken retards, remember my face and how I practically owned your ass.</div>
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<b>My Roommates, My Program, My Self Esteem</b>.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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<b>Multi-Culture Advocate</b></div>
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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: </div>
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1- Insinuate all English speakers as naive, stupid, Americans.</div>
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2- Insinuate all English speakers are speakers for Obama</div>
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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".</div>
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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. </div>
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<b>Make Way For Miami's Israeli Speaker!</b></div>
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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. </div>
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The man was shocked and started gushing how he wants to visit Miami and how it's the coolest state in America. </div>
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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!</div>
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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.</div>
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<b>I'm Not Just Pulling This Out Of My Ass</b></div>
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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. </div>
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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.</div>
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I have to thank my college and my teacher, cause I'm truly their bitch forever.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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. </div>
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Helps to check out my resume the next time you need someone to do some technical work or fixing up an event.</div>
Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-22603935436369012712012-06-23T13:35:00.000-07:002012-06-23T13:35:06.787-07:00June 23, 2012 - The OfficeIsrael has finally finished it's holiday extravaganza, the winter has officially diminished, and the sun has become more brutal. So much so that if I sit in the sun for an hour, I'm guaranteed a sun burn of ungodly proportions and coming back from the local AM:PM is like coming back from swimming in the ocean. Soon jelly fish season will start and I will be unable to swim in the ocean (which I have learned, no body in Israel sees the beach as a swimming place and more of a mating place. Go figure.) so that leaves me the option of finding the pool, my goal is now to find the local Gordon Pool... in the sun... joy.<br />
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<b>Life In The Office</b><br />
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<b>Avenging Madonna</b><br />
<b><i>May 31, 2012</i></b><br />
The fun thing about my work place is it's location. It's right across the street from the soccer stadium (where a few weeks ago was a soccer match between Tel Aviv and Haifa), and right next to the stadium is the Ayalon Mall. So when news of The Avengers came out, I had to go see it... of course waiting almost two weeks after it's initial launch in the States. Desperate to see the movie once it was released in the states, I asked around if people were willing to see it. Either they saw it already (via bootleg) or don't care. Luckily, my work place is filled with geeks. So I asked around and the programmer of the company agreed to see it with me because neither of us saw it while everyone else in the office have. We agreed on May 31 to see it together, completely forgetting that at the same time, there was to be a Madonna concert.<br />
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On the day of the movie date (honestly, we were seeing it as friends and nothing more, so don't get any ideas) while waiting for the clock to move forward, we heard her. Madonna, right across the street from us, was rehearsing one more time before her big show, and while I'm not a big fan of Madonna, I will say that it was beyond awesome to hear her and knowing that she was <i>right across the street</i> from me. The guys in the office groaned (apparently the last time they heard a singer rehearse was Justin Bieber, and that was brutal) but I found the amazingness of it all. Time passed, and I left for the mall, only having to wait for an hour for the programmer to come.<br />
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Once we bought our tickets (and him getting popcorn for the both of us), we took our spots they assigned us and enjoyed the movie for what it had to offer us (and yes, I was more excited for the movie then anything else. Also it was an amazing movie). Once it ended, he had things to do and I wanted to head home, we bid each other good night and left. Madonna made sure the block off the streets so I had to walk an extra fifteen minutes to the nearest bus stop when I heard <i>her</i>. And the shouts and cheers of her fans. I quickly took out my iPod and just recorded her song. What I FAILED at doing, was catching the end where she yells out to her adoring fans "SHALOM TEL AVIV!!"<br />
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<b>We Made It Big</b><br />
<b><i>June 5, 2012</i></b><br />
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At my work place, we have officially launched the game I've been play testing. Meaning now I can state it's name, which is Mini Ninja Adventures for the Xbox Kinect (it's a download-only game). I was sitting in my space when one of the guys came in and was freaking out about the announcement. My boss, creative director (been having issues with him a bit), and my QA "boss" all flew out to L.A for E3 (a big event for video games) leaving a few amount of people. We all ran to the nearest computer (as for me, scooted my chair closer to my desk) to look at our website for the news and lo and behold; my website design was up and running. With big changes. I originally told them to lose the black and dark background in place of a brighter, cleaner, approach, all this basing off of the design of one website they really liked as well as telling them to put a video instead of a slideshow of pictures because people want something in their face, not something that requires them to sit and read.<br />
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What I got instead was almost a kick to the face.<br />
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We got their brighter background, as I instructed, and we got the moving graphics in the menu (again, something I instructed), but instead of a white, clean, and neutral color... I got a big fat graphic of the Mini Ninjas game. Okay, I showed them my design of a Mini Ninja-esque website to show at E3, but it was so in the face that I didn't know how to react. And the video... the video made me want to head desk so hard. When I asked who was the idiot that thought that the video was to be a slideshow of the pictures (which, by the way, COMPLETELY DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF A VIDEO), one of the people in the office told me, in a very "obvious" tone, that it was the Creative Director.<br />
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I wanted to punch a wall.<br />
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Taking a deep breath and counting till 10 (a technique my aunt taught me when dealing with my uncle) I simply (really attempted) shrugged it off as a "heat of the moment" technical thing, we were already a month behind the deadline of the website so the day of E3 and needing a website, it made sense that the video was a complete pile of shit. When they came back two weeks later (after my own week off... that's in a video) we threw a huge party for the success of the game's launch and had sushi (to the disgust of one of the workers who helped me throughout the website ordeal... he was in China the whole week) and got some "swag". I got a huge T-shit, four buttons, and a sticker. To be perfectly honest, this is probably the closest I'll ever get to E3, and I cherish each item greatly.<br />
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<b>www.sidekick.co.il </b>(Website Name Just In Case...)<br />
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<b>The New Intern</b><br />
<b><i>June 2012-Present</i></b><br />
Prior to my Boss leaving for E3, he told me that we would be getting a new intern who was also from the states and he was to help us with the website because he knows how to code and program websites.<br />
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About. Time.<br />
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If this meant that I didn't have to deal with those idiots back at the website company ever again, then I'll be happy forever. I will admit, at first I was a bit jealous that my Boss brought in someone new and probably more useful than an art student and will get the best out of this guy, but I shortly found out why he told me. It was because I was about to work and almost be this guy's boss. I did the creative design of the website, and I needed the tools... now comes this guy who knows the tools but not the design, meaning he will need me to tell him what I want to see on the website.<br />
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So now that the guy is here, I found out who he was and the one thing we had in common (aside from both of us being from the states and are only here because of a Jewish program) is that we both worked with UDK. And I can only say that when he brought it up, THAT felt like I was finally reunited with an old friend. Up until that point he would only come up to me and talk to me about how drunk he was and all the bars he goes to... something that is completely far from my interests. I already deal with drunks in my own program, I sure as hell didn't need it in my internship. So when he slipped that he worked once at UDK as an intern, I finally found something to talk to him about. And we would spend hours talking about it and how it's amazing.<br />
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I stated earlier in my entries that when I came to work and seeing everyone talking about Maya and Photoshop felt like home for me, having someone to talk to about UDK was walking through memory lane. Memory lane without the anger I felt when I got the e-mail from my professor. It was only the good times I had with it, the struggle of textures and such. Finally was someone I could talk to about and share stories about the time UDK crashed, or how much of a pain it was to transfer textures... but the end results was the same, and the sensation of joy that we created something with our own hands.<br />
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But all things must come to an end, cause every time I tried to bring back UDK, he would go back to talking about the arak, to my annoyance. I finally bit the bullet and asked how old he was (I know, I know, hypocrite move of me) because this was a conversation I needed to clear up to understand why he was so hell bent into talking about alcohol. Turns out he recently turned twenty, and the legal age in the states is twenty one where as in Israel it's I think sixteen.<br />
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Totally. Freaking. Sense.<br />
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It was his first time being "legal" and he's here until August, so why not take the most advantage of it? Once I understood why he was constantly insisting talking about bars, I broke the news to him that I simply do not care about the bars in Israel and would much rather focus my money on food and clothes as oppose to taxi rides, club fees, and alcohol.<br />
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Still, he's a brilliant guy and helped getting the website ready. I... did butt heads a lot with the Creative Director because I wanted certain things on the website where as he wanted to add more chaos into it. God bless my Boss for intervening and leaving the website's life in mine and the Intern's hands.Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-17923124452913696452012-05-24T15:23:00.000-07:002012-05-24T16:35:58.824-07:00May 24, 2012 - Webisode One, Mickey's Debut!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Other wise known as "Why it took forever for Mickey to upload a new journal entry." It should be noted that it takes forever to edit videos. It was worth it, so expect more!</div>
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<br />Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-42583913557232004642012-05-02T11:09:00.000-07:002012-05-02T11:09:05.537-07:00The Good, The Bad, and The Angry pt.2<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>The World's Worst Drivers</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br clear="all" /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I've seen it first hand. I've seen the psychotic-ness of Israeli drivers. And he takes the form of my dad. Ever since I was little, my dad was the type who drove in very fast and very jerky manner. I mean, he's a safe driver and hasn't killed or run through anything, and he's always the one driving on trips, but when there's road rage. He's the epitome of it. It was during a drive back from the dentist when we encountered really bad rush hour when he nonchalantly comments "This is why I wish I had rockets attached to the car. So I can blow them up and drive right through..." I joked about how I would just use a flying car to which he goes "...A flying car with rockets."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">So imagine my reaction to the crazy Israeli drivers that roam the sidewalks. My mom even pointed out that she would never be caught driving in Israel BECAUSE of said crazy drivers. While my dad simply mutters with annoyance, occasionally honks, and grunts in frustration, Israeli drivers are like that. Only a million times worse. Ranging from trying to run me over, claiming it's their right of way even though I'm the one with the green light and they are the ones on red, and god forbid actually using the the sidewalk. Israeli drivers, are, bar non, the worst things to have happened in Israel. There is nothing good about them aside from road rage. In fact, Israel is the only place where if you fender bender someone, it's perfectly normal, but using the crosswalk to get to the other side of the road? You're just being selfish and stupid.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">One night after Ulpan, a bunch of us were heading to the bus stop to take from home (you could walk and it would take roughly the same amount of time), we looked to see if any cars were coming our way but it was almost a dead street, as we were walking, we noticed a car coming by, and we were thinking that it was probably going by the speed limit. Until we heard it stepping on the gas pedal, causing the engine to roar. We whipped our heads to the car and noticed it was speeding at a dangerous speed and aiming at us, not even thinking twice we ran for the side walk and jumped as fast as we could away from the car. What basically happened was the same treatment we were giving to the stray cats, only instead of kicking with our feet in the air, the car tried to run us over.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Israelis' also don't believe in the concept of turning around for anything. Like backing up. The building where I work, as mentioned before, is on a street of nothing but car shops, so naturally there will be a lot of cars going in and out either backwards or forward. So when I'm walking, I usually have to keep 100% attention to where everything is, because all the cars love to backup and not even look behind themselves, I got bumped, honked, and yelled at for walking by them and for yelling at them to watch where they're going for once in their stupid life. One day in particular I was coming back from the mall to grab some food (something other than pasta) when I noticed there was a lot of traffic. Meaning I can walk between the cars without the fear of being ran over, if I went quickly enough. As I was making my way through, I see a car ZOOMING at me (convinced it's the same guy who's trying to run me over or back up into me) when he screeches and honks, his window being rolled up, I only hear the muffle yells from his angry red face. I turn around and just shrugged at him. He shouldn't be driving like Evil Kanevil and expect me to move out of my way for him. And there isn't exactly a big enough sidewalk. In fact there's only ONE sidewalk. And it was the one I was trying to get to avoid people like him. He zooms to the building I pass by, slams the door open and proceeds to yell to a stranger about "THE STUPID FUCKING [word too vulgar to be online] WHO HAS THE FUCKING HEADPHONES!" Although in my defense, the headphones were around my neck so I can hear the honking. So I smiled, flicked him off, and made my way back to the building where I work.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Hey, when in Rome...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">And speaking of sidewalks! Scooter and Motorcycle riders. They believe that just because the vehicle they are riding is two wheels and in the open, justifies the reason why they are allowed to ride the sidewalk like a normal cyclist. I get honked at for being on the sidewalk and blocking their way. Any other time, if it was in the movies for example, I would think it's cool that they defy the law and ride on the sidewalk. This isn't the movies and it sure as hell is a pain to hear them honking and yelling at you to get out of the way. Granted, their yelling is just them putting more pressure on the gas and the smell is a dead giveaway, but never the less. Nothing is safe and everything is trying to run you over.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I honestly believe if we send the Israeli drivers to war, preferably in their own cars and guaranteed with full on road rage, we would win hands down every time. Every time.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>Kids, Shut Up!</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">From what I was told, parents put their kids on pedestals. And who can blame them? It's their flesh and blood, it's their livelihood, it's their branch to the ever growing family tree. Any parent around the world, no matter what, will always look at their kids at theirs. Now what makes Israel's kids different is the fact that they are, to put it bluntly, spoiled. They get everything by throwing a tantrum, calling their parents stupid, disobeying authoritative figures (e.g. teachers), and basically thinking that the world is theirs and there by they deserve everything. It</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i>could</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">be theirs, if they knew the right tone of voice to use. But sadly, they don't, and they look like a great big bag of crap while doing it. To put it in perspective, if the show "Keeping Up With The Kardasians" married "Toddlers and Tiaras" and had a love affair with "Jersey Shore", that would basically be Israeli kids. In the states (or any other country in the world for that matter) had spoiled kids, they wouldn't take it, they would punish them (be it physically or vocally) and nip it at the bud. Parents are your friends, but you had to know the line which not to pass; refusing the chore you were given was right there a sure guarantee for a scolding. Calling them stupid, idiots, and telling them to stop being parents however? That was earned with a nice smack and a "go to your room and think what you've done."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I experienced the spoiled kids with my cousins for the few times I was around. The oldest one played this online game constantly, ever since I came to Israel, she was caught playing that game and would cry her eyes out whenever she was told to stop playing. Neither of the girls would listen to their dad and would blatantly ignore him when he called their names, showering the newborn with affection. I figured it was them being sisterly and loving the new born, but at one point it got way over board. The middle child just follows what the oldest one does, and the oldest one is spoiled rotten.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">One day I was changing clothes, (had to go to the bathroom because she practically stole my room to play her online game), I hear the youngest one is crying like crazy with my uncle trying to calm him but needing to do other things. The middle child was trying her best to help my uncle out while he was calling for the oldest one to come and help as well. The sisterly affection thing, I pointed out earlier. She didn't even bother saying "what", so when my uncle told the middle one to get her, she went into the room and told her to come out and help, still, ignored. My uncle then put the baby down, and told the middle one to keep an eye on him and to try to cheer him up while he went to scold the oldest. What ended up happening was him threatening to take her computer away and her bawling her eyes out, begging, not to have the laptop taken away, as if child services came to take her kid. So when my uncle ask if she was going to help and actually answer him when he asks for her, she answered back:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"I don't have to... stop it dad."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Laptop privileges revoked. Hysterical crying ensued. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Don't get me wrong, the middle child has her moments as well, but they aren't as severe as the older child, usually the whines from the middle originate from an action the oldest has done. The worst she's done (from what I've seen) was her trying to clean the tent one picnic and the oldest didn't do anything, so the middle one, feeling unjustified, begins to yell at the top of her lungs about how her parents are worthless and aren't helping her. When the dad and mom insist she's doing a wonderful job, the middle one just simply yells and cries. I'm guessing she would rather see the older one do her fair share over her parents' approval.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Doesn't help that across the street from me there a family with, what I assume, a single mom and three kids. They look roughly the same ages of my cousins, and are bad, if not worse. One night I was dreaming I was on a train touring Switzerland, it was nice, coach, and very luxurious, when suddenly the room points focus on a little girl screaming at the top of her lungs as she is holding on as long as she can to the carpet so as not to fly off the train to the barbed wire for tracks below as the female train conductor came yelling at the girl in a language I couldn't understand as the girl screamed louder, crying. I got scared, I had no idea what was going on and jolted myself awake with the scream of the conductor and the girl still going on. But I wasn't dreaming? How is it possible that I still hear them? I shuffled out of my bed and to the source of the sound which was by my window and lo and behold. The woman (conductor) yelling, holding the baby in her arms and the middle child on her leg, while the (what I assume) oldest is yelling and crying at the woman. The subconscious works in weird ways. One of things I noticed was in my dream, I didn't understand the language they were speaking in, but looking at them, I realized they were refugees, and were speaking the language of their homeland. The mom was yelling at the boy and walked in big strides to him as the kid ran another ten feet away from her, keeping a distance between them. He then came running back and proceeded to smack his mother with his hand until the mom yelled (I admit, I was terrified myself) and the boy ran again, only five feet instead of ten). They stared at each other as the middle child stayed by his mom when the oldest charged at them and proceeded to whip them (and by extension, the baby she was holding) with his blanket. Fortunately, the mom caught it in the first swing and with one powerful tug, yanked it out of the boy's arm and did a gesture I thought was extinct in Israel:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">She raised her arm up, clearly ready to bring it down hard.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The boy cries, and runs away as fast as he can as she takes quick stride hand still ready to collide with the child's face, calling the middle child to follow suit so she can, what I assume, take them to school (their school bags was a give away).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">But with every bad kid, there are good ones. One of the people's kids at my internship came by twice since I was here and both times she say quietly watching whatever movie her dad had at the time. She had amazing taste for she picked Mary Poppins over a Barbie movie, resulting with her dad going "Again Mary Poppin?" She just nodded her head, grabbed a coloring book, and proceeded to watch and draw at the same time. And then there's my baby cousin, I mentioned him before in a previous journal how his smile and laugh can steal your heart. I just hope he retains that good nature as he gets older, only time can tell.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">See you guys in my next journal entry.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>"Don't Panic."</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i> -Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</i></span>Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-78536063172132311432012-05-02T11:07:00.001-07:002012-05-02T11:07:58.564-07:00The Good, The Bad, and The Angry pt.1<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Israelis: notorious for being loud, crazy, selfish, and yet motherly and welcoming. It has been now almost two full months since I've been here and I still get shocked by the behavior I receive from the folks of Israel. Israelis have their own "knack" of showing who they are towards their fellow man, and most of the time, they are just really really pissed off. And who can blame them? When half the world hates them and the guy right next to them is cursing their mother for cutting him off at a green light, and yet when the time calls for it, they can join hand in hand as friends like nothing happened. Until the bastard decides to walk in the middle of the street while the other is doing 90 in a 20 mile zone trying to beat the unbeatable red light.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I already discussed the amazing capabilities of Israeli way back in the beginning regarding the awesome flight crew helping me find my passports, but I've never gone into full details about the remaining citizens. I was planning on writing about them with each journal entry, but then it would have become a common motif if it happens daily, so I thought "why not do a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><b>whole journal entry</b> </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">about them?" and as I was writing down the pros and cons of them: it filled up two pages.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Two.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><u><b>PAGES</b></u></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Meaning two journal entries about people. That's two pages why I think that the American style of raising a kid is a MILLION times better then the Israeli way, two pages why the elderly truly and royally piss me off and I completely respect my dad's job, and two pages of the behavior the Jewish Nation has and why I think they are the most brilliant, yet stupidly messed up nation and how it's truly a miracle we are surviving as long as we are doing it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>Obey The Elderly. </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The elderly people here are weird. REALLY weird, like, not even comedic weird. I always heard fun (or really interesting) stories from my dad about his patients and how some of them can either be the sweetest, the funniest, or the scariest (one story consist of a patient threatening my dad with a shotgun. Don't hold me word to it) so I was expecting some odd behavior from them.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">And odd behavior I got!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>April 4, 2012</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The night before I was working on a huge presentation that I was to present to the company in regards to an updated website, and as an artist (hate that word), how I would make it better to get more people to look at the website. I'm OCD, so I was up till three in the morning coloring each page (roughly ten slides in the presentation) and double checking my typos. I have my alarm set to eight each morning so I can start my day and have time to eat and fix my bed, but today was the one day I decided "screw it" and just changed, washed up, and left for the bus stop. By the time I reached my bus, I put on my headphones and drifted off for a quick snooze, seeing as it was a thirty minute bus ride and today the bus was being extra slow, meaning it was a forty minute bus ride. When I woke up to see where I was (and remember, only five hours of sleep), I was thrown off to where I was that I hopped off my chair and went to the front of the bus in hopes to ask the bus drive to stop to see if I can get off. I go to the driver and said "Slicha" ("sorry" in Hebrew) when I felt a shove and an old man (roughly 70 by the look of him and his cane) glancing at me. I was holding on the rails of the bus so I wouldn't fly to the back seeing as the bus is jerky (balance is non-existent), and I was already unbalanced enough as it is. The guy then proceeded to scold me:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Sorry? SORRY?! Do you see us?! We're here waiting, who do you think you are? Just because you said sorry you automatically assume you're PERMITTED to go in front of us?"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">He then proceeded to smack my hand off the railing and yelled at me to go to the back of the bus. I was completely thrown off as to what the hell just happened that I couldn't retort back to him. I did find out however, that I was just reaching my stop, and it was just my exhaustion that threw me off.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>April 5, 2012</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">This was a day after the bus incident, but it didn't ruin my whole day, because today was the day I presented and was on cloud nine. So I went to celebrate by going all out and getting a great dinner, which consisted of salmon, salad, and delicious bread. I also decided to buy some cake as a treat for myself. So my hands are getting full (as I went to get some milk as well seeing that I had enough for a half a cup of it) and I waited for my bus to arrive, the amount of people on there was insane, there were so many people.Luckily I found a spot where a woman placed her groceries on the chair next to her. Sitting across from her, I did the same thing and both of us enjoyed the ride home. I learn my mistake last time: and that is to NEVER sit in the front, so I made it my business to always sit in the back. Hilariously enough, all the youth (up to ages 30 something) are in the back while orthodox and elderly were in the front.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Of course, that one old lady HAD to come to the back. Because the front was too empty (a handful of elderly folks were there). There was so much room in the front, that the lady (who was in her late 60's early 70's) had to shove my groceries onto my lap so she can sit. Not even in the back am I safe from the wrath of the walkers, the lady I sat across from gave me a "sucks to be you" look. As revenge, I got off early to made the old lady stand up and move. Giving her some exercise and what not.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>April 23, 2012</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">This is where I draw the line to the elderly (or as my mom gladly pointed out, bus riders), left work early so I could meet with my Ulpan group to watch live in theater "Fiddler on the Roof", so I was in a bit a time crunch and looking for the bus. When one of my buses arrived, I was trying to make my way through, but a sea of people came pouring out of the doors like fishes being free from a net. As such, the swarm pushed me a bit further away from the doors and more to the front where and old lady decided she was more important and the life of her fat-ass outweighed the needs of the youth...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">...and shoved me to the front of the bus.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Thank God the bus wasn't moving, otherwise I would've been a goner. But I had it with the old thinking they are the best and are stupidly rotten spoiled (like the kids, which I will get into), and the Israeli mentality officially pissed off the American in me, so I did the most patriotic thing imaginable:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I shoved her fat ass into the back of her bus she was running to*.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I then climbed into the overly packed bus and made my way to the theater. The show must go on, after all.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Being already in a pissed off state of mind, I got off at the wrong stop, a fifteen minute run but nothing too bad. I stopped for directions of any sorts when I came across to old ladies. Again, being pissed and nearly killing one not a few moments ago, I bit the bullet and asked if they knew where the theater was.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Oh! You're going to see Fiddler on the Roof too?" One of them asked.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Uh... yeah. You know where it is?" I replied</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Yes! We're actually on our way there now, come join us!" The second on piped in.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The walk there was pleasant as I chatted with the two older women. They figured that my sense of direction (not my accent) gave me away as someone not from Tel Aviv, so I replied that I was from Miami. "Ah, so you really AREN'T Tel Avivian!" one of them joked, they then proceeded to ask me what it's like and what on earth I was doing so far away from home. I explained (to the best of my abilities) what my program was about till we reached the stairs to the theater. I thanked them for the walk and both of them smiled and said "No problem, enjoy the show and your time in Israel."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Okay, so not all of the old people are asses. Just those riding the goddamn bus.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>The Rules of the Bus</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I mentioned this at one point on Facebook during my travels on the bus (in fact, you can almost be guarantee some form of shenanigans while I'm on the bus) but I have picked up on several unspoken rules on the bus.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">1- The front belong to the elderly. Touch it, and be prepared to get the scolded stare the whole bus ride.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">2- Don't EVER go in front of the elderly when trying to get off the bus, because that's just being a dick.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">3- If you were in the front, get behind them, because they don't take to kindly to young whippersnappers who are ahead of them.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">4- Don't bother apolo</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span>gizing. You're going to fly, and crash, into every single person the moment the bus starts when trying to find a spot to sit.<br />5- There's a 99% chance that anyone who is on the phone is using a Nokia. The default ringtone is bound to go off.<br />6- On special occasions, you get to meet really interesting people on the bus e.g a Rabbi playing Angry Birds on his smart phone or an angry drunk that would put Rush Limbaugh to shame.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Unlike the elderly, I can't remember the exact dates but the stories I can tell from there... oh the stories...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>The Drunk</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">It should be pointed out that the majority of the bus tales are usually spanned from to and from work, seeing as I usually walk everywhere when I'm in Tel Aviv. So during one of my trips back from work, I waited at my usual bus stop waiting for it to arrive with a bunch of other people when I noticed a few... interesting characters. One of them looked like a lost old man, another looked confused, and one was stumbling around and talking to them. I naturally chalked it up to the three knowing each other, otherwise how else would they all look terribly lost and confused? When the bus arrived, a bunch of us climbed aboard and swiped our cards to the bus, the only available spot on the bus was somewhere near the front, and a few sketchy places in the back, luckily there was only on old lady but she was no where near me. The stumbling man climbed up as well, tripping everywhere and proceeding to converse with the bus driver, I decided to tune him out because, again, I assumed that this guy was just a very, very, VERY talkative people-person. The bus started and the man flew in a stumbling manner to the back. I wish I was more observant earlier because I didn't know he was holding a bottle in his hand when I heard a couple of feet rushing towards where I was. I looked up (I was listening to my ipod) and noticed two girls quickly taking the two vacant seats in front of me and looking scared, so I naturally turned around to see why they did what they did, and noticed that the stumbling man was nothing short of a raging drunk, yelling at the two girls, and shortly after the remaining women in the back who followed suit shortly later to the front. With no women to yell at, the drunk proceeded to "sing" at the top of his lungs mizrachi music. If anyone out there knows me well enough, they know I can not STAND mizrachi music if only because it sounds like dying cats to me. On top of that he sung off key and as a drunk so the combination was less than stellar. Eventually we reached a bus stop and the drunk fell off the bus and we drove on, not talking at all about what transpired.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>Fem Fatal</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Again, on the bus on the way home listening to my music. We were a smaller group this time around, a handful of old people, two rabbis, a woman who looked disgruntled, a business man with slick back hair, some Tel Avivians, and myself. We were reaching at one of the many bus stops for people to climb up and on when the business man (who sat all the way in the back, three rows away from me) proceeded to climb down to get to his stop. With the bus being jerky enough as it was, he stumbled a bit and missed grabbing the bar and ended up grabbing the disgruntled woman's shoulder. He quickly apologized for his action but fell it on deaf ears as the woman proceeded to scream as loud as she can</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"YOU FUCKING TOUCHED ME! YOU WANT ME TO CALL THE COPS ON YOUR FUCKING PERVERTED ASS?! I'LL CALL THE COPS, GODDAMMIT I WILL!!"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Everyone froze as we stared at the woman yelling and shouting, the bus driver quickly shut the doors so as no one can leave or enter and looked through the mirror to see what the commotion was about. I pitied the business man because he honestly had no idea what was going on, he whipped his arms up like how the police would force you to be and with eyes widen in confusion. He glanced around at all of us as to help him comprehend as to what the hell just happened. We all stared back on the same level of confusion. With the arms up, and keeping a good distance from her, he apologized:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause you such distress." the woman puffed and cruelly retorted with a pathetic "whatever" and crossed her arms, not even looking at the man who was giving a sincere apology he never had to do in the beginning. He looked at the bus driver who simply shrugged and opened the door, all of us knowing who was the real ass of the day. As he went through the door, he quickly turned around and calmly said the final word to the lady.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"I'm truly sorry, and have a wonderful day."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>Leisure Suit Pervert</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">About a few weeks ago, I was at my bus stop from work with a bag of drinks consisting of both milk and chocolate milk while drinking a small travel size version of ice coffee. I plugged in my headphones (you notice the running theme with me and buses, right?) and simply waited when I saw a man strolling up. I didn't pay much attention to him as I was drinking my ice coffee, but I did catch him glancing at what was in both my grocery bag and what I was holding. He proceeded to word something and staring at my direction so I pieced two and two together and realized he was talking to me. I paused my ipod and took off my headphones and asked him to repeat what he was saying.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Which bus goes to the Ben Gorian Airport?" he asked, albeit very quietly that I had to ask him to repeat twice.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Um... I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure you can ask the bus driver?"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Ah, you see I'm going to the airport." He repeated</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Yeeeeaaaahhh.... ask the bus driver, he should know." and with that, I put back my headphones and resumed listening to my music.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Again, his mouth was moving and he was looking at me. I sighed and gave up the attempt to listening to my music and once again took off my headphones. I asked him to repeat the question and he pointed at my grocery bag and asked if he can sit there. Not one to start up trouble for something silly, I moved my bag and allowed the man to sit. He stared at me for a few minutes while smiling (fun fact: I</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><u>loathe</u></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">when people stare at me, smiling, and not say anything for a long period of time) and dropped his Q&A act.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"I wanted to start a conversation with you." He said, still smiling and looking at me.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Oh...kay...? Why?" Stupid move on my part.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Because you're cute."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">This threw me back a bit, seeing as I normally don't get called "cute" or any form of flattery from the opposite gender. Excluding my dad and male relatives in the family, no one has openly told me I was cute (except my ex, but that doesn't count). I thanked him for the compliment and honestly felt flattered by this, but what he said next removed the flattery feel to quickly defensive.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Are you 18?" What. No one, and I mean, NO ONE ever simply asks if one is eighteen, usually you go around with "how old are you?" or the gentleman's approach by NOT BRINGING UP ONE'S AGE. ESPECIALLY if they're females! I looked at him and very quickly, and angrily, I replied with a no, he brightens up and eagerly goes "SIXTEEN?!" wearing a Cheshire Cat smile.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Fan-freaking-tastic. I'm dealing with a pervert. And not just any pervert. A pedophile, Just my luck.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">With even more rage, but holding back all my anger, I say no, and it gets worse, cause he goes lower to the point of fourteen. When I told him he was no where near my age, he frowns and goes "thirty two?" I decided to be an ass and make the pervert keep guessing as I glanced around looking for people who are older and stronger should things go sour. I found two built guys roughly in their twenties and a mother with a child. Not bad, in case I need to scream. He finally guessed my age and went on to ask another question. "Do you have a boyfriend?"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I lied and said kinda yes.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">His disgusting smile came back and he goes "Ah, but you said kinda. So you don't." I was quickly thinking of the description of a guy I know while mixing some traits of my dog when the bus finally showed up. I scowl and say I do have and made a mad dash to the two built guys and tried to hang around them as the pervert made his way closer to me. The doors open, I ran in, swiped my card and made it for a spot that was filled with people, leaving no room for the bastard to sit anywhere near me. When the bus began to movie, I looked to see that standing at the stop, and not in the bus, was the pervert. He wasn't riding the same bus I was. I sighed in relief, put on my headphones, and enjoyed the rest of the ride home.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The man was somewhere in his late thirties, early forties.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-47279653886529226962012-04-22T08:58:00.003-07:002012-04-22T10:03:05.092-07:00Fridays, 2012 - Tales Of A Wanderer<div class="adn ads" style="border-left-color: transparent; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 8px;">
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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.<br />
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<b>April 1 (3?), 2012</b><br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
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The goal was achieved. I had found the movie theater.</div>
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I honestly had no idea how to react to this, as this was a much <i>much</i> 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 <i>itself</i> 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.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>The face of your tour guide through the Magical World of Israel</i></span></div>
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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.<br />
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<b>Every Other Friday So Far</b></div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">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.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"I found you!"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Oh, you did."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"I was looking forward to come back to your stand for almost three years now."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Well, ha ha, I'm still here. Haven't left yet."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">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.</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw08UDSdV-XgWsrM3eWSsAnpmHnj55RQSbTYc8bJX6zbJha7QRY_kJ8I5vVuQEDPBtbGqVi-w2EtD5s_i4AFQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-size: xx-small;"><i> Amazing folk/jazz group</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><i> The Artist</i></span></div>
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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.<br />
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I was horribly wrong.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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Proof of my awesome Dim Sum.</div>
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</div>Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-54803859983132876702012-04-11T13:34:00.001-07:002012-04-11T13:34:06.166-07:00March 19/ 25 - Present, 2012 - Office SpaceWe end that journal for a more upbeat one: My Internship.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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<b>March 19, 2012</b><br />
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.<br />
<br />
I tend to over-do things.<br />
<br />
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:<br />
<br />
A- Sela Building<br />
B- A street name I can't remember at the moment<br />
C- Alayon Mall.<br />
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So when I went on the bus, I quickly asked the bus driver if he could drop me off at Sela.<br />
<br />
"Slicha?"<br />
"Sela? You know where that is?"<br />
"No."<br />
"Okay... [street name here]?"<br />
"What language are you speaking?"<br />
"...Hebrew."<br />
"...Never heard of the street."<br />
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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 <i>how</i> 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.<br />
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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!"<br />
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Yup. Bus driver was an idiot.<br />
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I thanked the lady, wished her a good day and made off to her directions. And lo and behold, I found it.<br />
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Now, out of respect for the company, <u style="font-weight: bold;">I can not and will not show or discuss any pictures of their on going projects.</u> I'll slip every now and again, but they are usually, for the most part, pictures of my cubicle. Sorry in advance.<br />
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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.<br />
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On the floor.<br />
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Taking up the entire said floor.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.</div>
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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. </div>
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"Quality Assistance."</div>
"...Come again?"<br />
"Basically, you'll be trying all of our games and such, and help us see if there are any problems like bugs-"<br />
"...Bugs?"<br />
"Yeah, in games. Basically you're a play tester."<br />
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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".<br />
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And I was a-okay with this.<br />
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<b>Fast Forward To Present</b><br />
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 <i style="font-weight: bold;">PLENTY</i>). 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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?<br />
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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.Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-19251734937141281872012-04-04T11:46:00.000-07:002012-04-04T11:46:00.231-07:00March 14 - 20, 2012 - Intensive Ulpan WeekThe 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.<br />
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<b>March 14, 2012</b><br />
Basically it was a <i style="font-weight: bold;">nine</i> 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.<br />
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Here's the photo of proof:<br />
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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.</div>
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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.<br />
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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<br />
A- Cared.<br />
and B- Knew what the heck was going on.<br />
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.<br />
Translation: We signed ourselves to whore out big time.<br />
Once that was done, we quickly zombied out to the nearest bus stop.<br />
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<b>March 15, 2012</b><br />
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:<br />
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Level 1 - The basic alphabet, basically it's 1st grade hebrew.<br />
Level 2 - Learning more words, working more on the pronunciation and grammar, this is Middle School.<br />
Level 3 - Because we know hebrew, this refreshes basic things but teaches how to read the hebrew newspaper.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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Hell. Freaking. Yes.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<b>March 16, 2012</b><br />
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.<br />
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.<br />
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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 <i>real</i> 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<b>March 17, 2012</b><br />
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.<br />
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It looks like adult butter beer.</div>
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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 <i style="font-weight: bold;">five months</i> in Israel for a possibility of a career is SOOOOO immature and careless. But for someone who is twenty five and should <i style="font-weight: bold;">technically have a job</i> by now and know what the hell it is they are doing, quitting everything for an internship is totally mature.<br />
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Yup, I'm clearly confused.<br />
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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.<br />
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After winning the argument and defending Florida (cause if there is only one person who is allowed to bash it, it's people who <i style="font-weight: bold;">actually live in Florida</i>.) 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.Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-69918266849965597882012-03-18T11:52:00.002-07:002012-03-18T11:52:30.069-07:00March 13, 2012 - Shalom Tel Aviv!<br />
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Woke up at five in the morning to man shouting at what I assumed was a garbage truck. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but what I could figure out was that the man was pissed. And that truck deserved it in some twisted way. With my jet lag still being in full affect, the attempt of sleep ended up being futile when I woke up an hour later and decided to check the weather to base my outfit accordingly. </div>
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Low 70's and high 60's was the forecast, and remembering that we had grocery shopping, I figured a tank top, long sleeve shirt, a sweater, jeans and boots was the perfect ensemble. Since I woke up before London and Maryland, I was able to take my time picking an outfit (practical yet stylish is something hard to accomplish when most of your winter gear doesn't look anything remotely stylish, especially when layering) and getting overall ready. Eventually, they both woke up, got dressed, and all three of us went downstairs to meet up with everyone else. Ricky promised breakfast and coffee.</div>
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When we arrived downstairs, everyone was munching on these sweet bread rolls, and I made my way to counter where Belgium M was making some coffee. Ricky then gave us the rundown of what was going on and if there were any damages in the apartments not caused by us that we should be aware of. Maryland and I pointed out a few problems as well as a bunch of other people. Once it was all said and done, we were told to go upstairs to our apartments, and as roommates, we were to discuss how we should be standing financially. Thanks to a discussion we briefly covered the other night, we decided that when it came to the basic necessities (e.g. toilet paper, paper towels, milk, etc) then we will split the money, but for anything that we want for ourselves, then we need to pay for it ourselves. A reasonable point, in my opinion, seeing as this will prevent doubles of anything. We then started to talk so we can get to know each other more, and a common trait we had was we had a cleanliness OCD (although, Maryland not as severe as mine or London). Ricky called us down, and all of us headed to a bus stop.</div>
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The bus ride was packed, and most of us managed to snag a seat. I sat all the way in the back next to Belgium M and a guy who had my brother's name, but sticking with the land as name theme, he was Burkley. We drove for a good 20 minutes before we realized that the super we were going to (super big and super cheap, as claimed by Ricky) was a bit of a drive. We all chatted to each other and all, but the drive evolved to almost an hour drive. This could be because it was a public bus we were on, or the place was just god awful far, but either way, a bunch of us were getting antsy and wondered if the ride will ever stop. Some of us played musical chairs because we couldn't bring ourselves to stay in one place for long, but me and Burkley stayed and talked about the arts such as photography. When we finally arrived, I hopped off the bus going "Ah yes, legs, I have those." causing a girl (who is also from New York, but instead I'm going to go with Curly for reasons I'm not going to go into) to giggle a bit, replying "Yeah, those things attached to us that let us walk."</div>
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We were told we only had one hour to get our things and back to the bus, this time a private one so we could have room to put our stuff, and all of us went to the shopping carts to begin the shopping. I pulled out the list I wrote with London and Maryland earlier today and we went forth. Because my aunt already went with me and got me the basics that will last for the first two weeks and not expire, I didn't really need to do much shopping, I mainly got grape juice, lemons, red pepper, and a kinder egg. I still helped with the necessities, but I felt alright not having to go buy a lot of things. While we were shopping, I ended up being the translator when it came to food products that didn't have any english, I had to get my head back into the English-Hebrew translation because some of the words I didn't know, and yet I was alright with that because that meant I had actually read and understand. Good old brain usage. When we got the basics, we strolled around a bit when we came across Texas and his roommate who I forgot where he was from, so I'm just going to call him P. They were talking to us about how later on during the program, they want to do a barbecue because of the one we had on the roof. We continued on ward when we came across the laundry section, something both London and Maryland needed. I had a bit of a difficulty trying to figure out which was the detergent and such, luckily Ricky came by (if only as a reminder we were under a time limit) and helped out. I ended up translating some of things London said to hebrew for Ricky because there was clearly a language barrier going on.</div>
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When they got what they needed, we went to the check out to purchase our items. The clerk there was trying to ask something to Maryland, who was having a hard time understanding what he was asking. Again, language barrier. Turns out the clerk was asking her if she wanted to pay for her part in to two payments. After clearing up the confusion, we began to pay for the communal items as mentioned earlier. While we were trying to figure out how to split it between the three of us, the clerk and a guy behind me helped us with the math of what the outcome will pay to split the money between the three of us. Israelis are really nice people when they're aren't in a rush. Once we got our things, we headed over to the bus and began to put the things underneath, I went to return the cart as well as get the money back when I forgot how to get the money out. An old lady came by and told me how and waited till I succeeded in getting it out, again, nice people when not rushing. When I popped the coin out, it flew out of the socket and disappeared. I silently cursed because it was 5 shekel and it belonged to Maryland. Texas came by and helped me looked for it in the sea of shopping carts, but no dice as it was missing. He was kind enough to give me his 5 shekels to give to Maryland and refused that I should pay him back after I insisted that I would. We both went back to the group where I gave the coin to Maryland, who proceeded to return it to New York. The shekel apparently belonged to her. A chain of borrowing, go figure.</div>
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We hopped on the bus and began to drive back to our apartments, a lot of us were tired which made the bus ride quiet. We dropped off the people who lived in a different building first because they had a longer walk ahead of them, we then were dropped off a bit farther from them with only a block or so to walk. Normally, not a big deal because the weather was nice and good walk after 45 minutes is fantastic… but doing it with groceries? A whole different experience. So me, London, and Maryland began to split and take equal weight of each grocery so as to not make it seem that one is doing more than the other, when Florida (another guy who lived in my city, as well as attended the same school as me, I should point out) came and helped us with our huge pack of water. We finally made it back and began to unpack everything and putting it into place. We were told while driving back that we were going to be late to do the fire drill on time, so we would have to do it a bit later, none of us complained and made our lunches. I wasn't that hungry (thanks to jet lag which butchers my appetite) so I just munched on some of the sweet rolls we got this morning and chocolate milk.</div>
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We then went to the roof top to discuss in the events of a bomb attack where to go. For the people in the other building (who shortly came to our place after putting their groceries away), all they had to do was go to Florida's room. For the rest of us, next door was a music school that had underground bomb shelters. Ricky asked who, of the complex, was the most responsible. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle the pressure should such an event happen, but London accepted the role, taking into consideration that of the bunch, she was the most reliable. Ricky handed her the keys to the school's bomb shelter and told it to keep it somewhere accessible as well as safe. Afterwords, we went back to our rooms to do the fire drill, with only me and Spain getting out at a reasonable pace while everyone else sort of came along with garbage bags in hand. Because clearly there is enough time to run from a fire and take out the trash at the same time.</div>
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Shortly after the drill, we went next door to music school (which was also a cafe) to say hello to the owner and his wife who baked us cookies and made homemade tea. We went downstairs with our snacks to greet the old man who talked about the school's history. What was more impressive than the man's lecture (interesting subject, didn't much care if I'm going to be honest) was the bomb shelter's layout. If one was not to know it was a shelter, it would only be perceived as an underground jazz club. Drums, Saxophones, a bar with drinks neatly yet messily arranged. It was easily a very hip place to stay at (shortly me, Texas and P joked how when shit was to go down, we would just be chilling listening to good music getting drunk and having the wife's cookies). Belgium M began to talk to the man about making a band because she is a singer (as well as an actress) before Ricky said it was time to move on a tour around Tel Aviv.</div>
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We walked for two hours around Tel Aviv and getting to know the place while New York and I were keeping an eye out for a coffee shop. More like, she was searching for a place for ice coffee, and I just wanted to find a place to chill out that's out door and cool. The views were amazing, but I didn't want to stand out like a tourist when taking a picture so I took my iTouch instead and started to do quick snapshots of all the views that caught my attention, one of them being this old man playing amazing music on the accordion. </div>
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As we strolled around some more, I decided to try and get to know more of the people on the trip. It wasn't until I saw these views that made me stop talking for a bit to take pictures. Screw being all touristy, these were amazing views NOT worth to miss out taking pictures of! I was told that when in Tel Aviv to not "look down, keep looking up", and let me just say. It was worth looking up.</div>
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Looking up is definitely worth the amount of times I bumped into people, strollers, and dogs.</div>
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I could have sworn that my phone began to ring, and of course being unfamiliar with the ring tone being my own. I did a double check to find out that I wasn't hallucinating and that my phone was, in fact, buzzing. It was my uncle asking me how I was doing and when I should meet up with him, because he was holding on to my proper bed sheets that will fit on the bed as well as a better blanket that was much cozier than the one that the program gave me. I told him I wasn't sure but I should be able to find out within the hour, we agreed that he will call back and we would meet up after his second call.</div>
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I got to talk to P more while we were walking around, having found out we have common tastes in music (one of them being a musician for a video game I love) and discussed both of our favorite professions; his being music and mine video games. We were both very invested to what we had to say to each other. We were talking for a long time before Ricky announced that we were at Shuk HaCarmel and that we can spend as much time there because after that we were off to go home when we want to. P and I went our separate way with his to his friends and mine to New York and Belgium M. I met their new roommate that came that day, France. Very quiet and very friendly. We went to an ATM machine for Belgium M to withdraw money she owed New York while France took out some money to get a SIM card for her phone. After telling us that she was going to get a phone, Belgium M, New York, and myself went on the search for the Ice Coffee as well as abuse some photo taking of the scenery.</div>
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Once they got their money, we walked into the Artists Alley (the actual name escapes. Always.) and strolled around, admiring all the knick knacks being sold while making a mental note at the same time that I had to come back to buy some of said knick knacks. New York saw a mirror at a store and wanted to go in, to see if there were smaller ones inside. Belgium M went in first and I was about to follow when a woman dressed in black walked up next to me and gestured at my purse, clearly indicating for money because she was holding a small coupon size pamphlet. Remembering my cousin's stay in Japan, and how the Japanese don't say "no" but rather cross their arms to form an X to show a decline of a request or a politer (is that a word?) to say they don't have an item, I went ahead and did that while shaking my head no as oppose to flat out saying no. The woman, clearly upset and assuming that I was mocking her, glared at me menacingly before going for New York, who simply told her no. The woman in black stormed away at a failed attempt to snag our money.<br />
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When we went inside the store, New York went for the mirror while Belgium M and I strolled around in the store, eventually catching up to New York. While the place wasn't exactly massive, it was still filled to the brim with pictures, canopies, and silly statues to hang around the house. Again, made a mental note that I would have to come back here when time permits and I had more energy to actually shop for things. After coming to the same conclusion, New York followed suit with me and Belgium M to the coffee shop right across the store and decided to just relax there.<br />
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We sat down when the cafe owner's wife walked up to us to greet us, ready to take our order. New York asked for ice coffee, but the lady didn't have, as she told her. I pieced the two together and figured that the lady was thinking of the very smoothie-esque kind of ice coffee and not coffee with ice, so I quickly asked the lady if there was coffee with ice, not the smoothie. She smiled brightly and nodded that she gladly has it, so we ordered two for ourselves with Belgium M ordering for herself a cappachino. We didn't have to wait for long and got our drinks, delicious and didn't need any sugar in it at all, and began to people watch while getting to know each other a bit more. Two old ladies came by and glanced at our drinks before smiling to tell us that the drinks here are amazing, but that wasn't why they caught my attention. Rather, it was the bouquet of flowers they were holding: purple, pink, yellow, vivid greens, these were just the best colors I've seen on flowers and was tempted to take a picture of it, but figured it was for the best to not bother the two ladies for a picture of it.<br />
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Shortly after, my uncle called asking me when we should meet up, Belgium M and New York told me 45 minutes because the walk was about 15 and we were going to finish up in 10. Taking our time, we finished our drinks and Belgium M with her smoke, and we headed out while some of the stands were calling it a night. The walk back was chilly but pretty to look at all the people wondering the streets at night, as I was trying to keep up my pace while looking at all the buildings around me. It was also becoming quickly dark, so taking pictures of things now would be a waste of time, knowing the flash would kill it.<br />
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When we finally made it back to our apartment, I quickly called my uncle to let him know I was back in my apartment. He was quick, because I met him no sooner than 5 minutes later. We chatted for a bit as he handed me the bag with sheets as well as a wall scroll to hang on my wall. Apparently, my mom really insisted that I have some picture decorating my wall and relied on my uncle due to the same taste they had when it came to room decorations, so he gave me one of them that he didn't have hanging when he told me he honestly doesn't think he should be giving me one and would much rather I venture out to find one that suited my taste. I did look at the poster and hilariously enough, it fell somewhat on my taste. After some talking, he gave me a good night hug and went to drive back home.</div>
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I fixed up my room from how it looked previous and it stood out a thousand times better then before.</div>
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Figuring I still had some time on my hand, I finally called my grandma. I should mention, that I love my grandmas dearly. I honestly wish to be as eager to learn and still be a kid at heart when I grow old (actually, I really wish to be like Betty White when I grow old, but that's a whole different story) but anyways, grandma on my mom side, as I stated in a previous journal is... well... eccentric. I mean, I heard stories that she doesn't like to go out of her city, hates holidays, and tends to act way more of an old fart than she actually is, but she's the only old lady I know that will say "fuck you" and "I kill you!" in that order while my grandma on my dad's side talks about breast feeding and babies anytime the opportunity presents it self. Or whenever she feels </div>
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So so far killing and boobs run in my family. Could be worse.</div>
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Anyways, back to my trip: So I call my grandma and tell her to call my cell seeing as I predicted that she would go on endlessly if I didn't yell to call my phone as soon as possible. Luckily, she did as I instructed and that meant I didn't have to pay. And for the record, people who call me, it's free. Not so sure on the texting. Back on the topic! So My grandma starts laughing like the witch she is (compliment, I assure you readers) and starts asking me where I live. Like a scene from "Beginners", I heard her mumbling as she was clearly writing down the address on her notepad. I honestly didn't see the point of her writing considering she refuses to use the bus outside of Rishon knowing all too well she was going to ride with my aunt and uncle, and she asks-- let me rephrase that, she demands when she can come over. I had to convince her she couldn't today.</div>
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"Why can't I come? Ha ha ha."</div>
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"Because I'm busy for the next... month?"</div>
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"Okay, I'll surprise you!"</div>
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"Why?"</div>
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"Because you don't have the keys to get passed the gate.</div>
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I did feel like a bitch, but at the same time, I prevented my grandma from looking silly if I wasn't home. So once I was done talking with her, she informed that my other aunt (the one living with her) was sick. The smart thing to do, when sick, is to let people rest and make sure they get plenty of liquid. Not my grandma. She made my aunt talk with me, and having a silent understanding, instead of gossiping, I told my aunt to go and get plenty of rest to which she thanked me greatly for for understanding that she wasn't in a position to talk. Couldn't blame her. We bid good night before my grandma took the phone again. I told her that I have my phone on me but for the next two weeks I'm going to be packed busy so I might not answer. Understanding completely, we said good night to each other as she quickly began to call my mom.</div>
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I decided then to be social again and went to the roof top where everyone else was. It was chilly that one needed a sweater, but not as cold that you just needed to put on sneakers. There I met London, Belgium M and D, New York, Curly, P, Texas, L.A, Puerto Rico and another girl who's location I forgot, I think she said also New York so I'm just going to go with Apple. Deal with it. We all were relaxing and talking a lot when two more people came, Hungary and another guy (I'm crap with names) which I'll just call L. L was new and he didn't know us too well, so we did a mini reintroduction of ourselves listening the night away to Michael Jackson. It was fun to get to know more people to just relax without the hectic of rushing around. We eventually bid good night to each other as we had to head back into get some shut eye. We had a big lesson worth nine hours ahead of us.</div>Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-18833823915801616382012-03-16T07:12:00.001-07:002012-03-17T13:08:49.859-07:00March 12, 2012 - The Official Beginning<br />
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First off: the last couple of days have been hectic. And trying to find a reasonable hour to type all of this and still sleep at a decent time is hard. But I succeeded. Next journal update should be soon. And not a week late.</div>
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Enough talk, let's get down to it.</div>
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I wake up yet again early in the morning, only this time at a reasonable six and not an ungodly eight. Decided to unplug the computer from the charger after an overnight charging so that I had enough battery to last me for the rest of the day to finish up typing the last journal entry. At around 7:30-8ish, I got dressed and went to the living room to let my aunt know I was already awake and she didn't need to wake me up.</div>
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We did a quick go over to see what else I needed, which resulted in a ton of towels coming at me (both body and face towels, so those of you IN Israel can be rest assured I'm covered in the towel department). My grandma called shorty before we started to move all the luggages (and while my aunt was feeding the baby) and asked that both she and my other aunt can come as well. My aunt (the one feeding the baby), quickly took the phone and declined the request stating that the car is small enough as it is, and with the baby, luggages, and food we were going to get, there was simply no way that she could come. Asking the uncle to drive the two was also out of the question if only because he was currently occupied with work and for the most part, he was mainly going to be the GPS for the day.</div>
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After shoving all the towels into the back pack my uncle allowed me to borrow while I'm here, we then went to place all the luggages in the car. The first heavy luggage, I stupidly decided to carry down the stairs, instead of putting it in the elevator, which my aunt did. The elevator door kept on smacking me while I was tugging the TV pillow out of it's spot from between my carry on and back pack, but I managed to preserver and get all the bags from the elevator with only one bruise on my thigh. </div>
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The car is fairly small to begin with, and with the baby and the baby seat to keep in mind, placing all the luggages in the car became a game of Professor Layton mixed with Tetris, a few good shoves was all it took, but the placement before shoving was what was important. We succeeded to place all the luggages and a comfortable spot for the baby (we arranged the placement based on the baby) and started to drive to the super market when my aunt realized she forgot the cloth she uses to carry the baby without the needs of hands. We opted that we get the stuff first, put her part groceries in the apartment really quick, and the drive off. I won't go into the detail of how we shopped, but we had to get two carts and I was watching the baby in the cart. The baby doesn't like really loud noises, but a very cheerful smile, a good distance, and quietly remarking how smart and strong he is was the ticket to win the baby over. Giggling and flailing around the room while giving me a huge smile.</div>
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We started to drive when we got a call from the oldest daughter's school, stating that she had a stomach ache and wished to be taken home. Aunt, while taking in the groceries and me watching the baby in the car, was talking on the phone and when she came back we drove straight to Tel Aviv, understanding that the kid was just asking to be with me. Made me wish I could give a proper bye but we both knew that it wasn't worth it cause I was bound to see them, hopefully, later on in the week. Traffic was clear, we chatted about how an amazing time I was about to go into, and listened to the directions from my uncle over the phone.</div>
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Once we made it to the street, we looked at the area. To be blunt, it looked like the slums. With only two people sitting outside drinking coffee, I asked in hebrew if this was the place to be for Wujs (the program I'm typing about), turns out it was and I was talking to the madrich (a.k.a the RA). We shook hands and I stepped in dog crap. "Don't worry! It means good luck!" He cheerfully tells me. Great first start. With my aunt unable to leave the car considering she was with the baby, me and the RA carried the luggages up to my room, which was on the third floor. I opened the door to this room </div>
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Spacious, nice, and it has all the basic kitchen equipments I need. While there, I was welcomed by two girls who are going to be my roommate for the next five months. I was relieved that I already (somewhat) met them online, making the actual in person meet up less awkward. </div>
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Instead of writing their names (and most of the other residents in the complex), I'm going to go with the state and/or city name. </div>
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So my two roommates were from London and Maryland, and were very happy to meet their third roommate (at least, I hope). The RA came and showed us that one floor above of us is the door to the rooftop.</div>
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I was more ecstatic at the sight of BBQ more than anything on the rooftop, knowing all too well that the first few weeks (and possibly month) was going to be cold and rainy, making rooftop shenanigans <i>almost</i> rare. I went downstairs and gave my aunt a grand hug as well as my thanks (to which she insists was a pleasure more so than anything) and drove off while I went back upstairs and commenced the unpacking.<br />
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Maryland asked which music we liked and we ended up listening to various genres: Techno, Coldplay, and Maroon 5. While unpacking and cleaning at the same time, we met our neighbors (females) who lived across our apartment; New York and Belgium. We talked for a bit and asked who was doing what internship when two more girls came upstairs, L.A and another girl from Belgium (this is going to get tricky… um. Okay. The Belgium girl who lives across from me will be Belgium M and the other one Belgium D. …Until I can think of a better nicknames for them). We talked for a bit before deciding that around two we would all go out to grab some lunch.</div>
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Some guys came up the stairs to discover more of the complex as well as get to their room, Texas, Hungry, and Indiana. Texas was very nice and home-y, Hungry was quiet, and Indiana didn't really speak much. Two hit, any attempts to try putting the bed sheet on my bed was shot and me, London, Maryland, New York, L.A, and Belgium D went downstairs. We met with Belgium D's roommate, a fellow Floridian who lived in the same city as me. Except that get's complicated, so I'm going to call her by the land she was born in which was Puerto Rico. We asked the RA for a good location and we just ended up walking around, meeting up with another girl living in the complex, Australia. </div>
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Yes, this sounds like a lot of women.</div>
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After walking one block away from a restaurant, we called it quits and went in to a cafe. Most of us got lemonana (lemonade with mint) and some meat related meal. We had to be back to the apartment at four so we can go as a group for the official meeting. When we came back, the group multiplied (meaning yes, more guys did show up) and we left for a youth building of contemporary art. After a good 15-20 min walk, we climbed four flights of stairs to a room with chairs in a circle. I sat down next to New York and a guy next to me from Spain. We played some ice breaker games such as things we would do for one day without getting into trouble or damage to our health, write questions on each others' backs (on paper, of course) and so on.</div>
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A man walked in a bit later and handed us our phones while Ricky handed us our packets the consisted of our keys, bus pass, phone card, directions to our workplace, and the itinerary for the next two weeks. Belgium M and I started giggling over our bus photos, grabbed any remaining boxes of pizza (there were plenty) and brought it back to the apartment. I stupidly brought the one with corn on it. </div>
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While walking home, a weird man came running at me yelling something at me, I quickly muttered "help me" and jogged to the group of boys that were with us and saw the guy running at me leave for anyone else. When we got back home, I left the box of pizza outside, and the three of us wished each other a good nights sleep. Cause we had to wake up at 9 tomorrow morning for a trip to the super market.</div>Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-37092265277093755892012-03-12T23:19:00.000-07:002012-03-12T23:19:07.083-07:00March 11, 2012 - Traveling Modi'inSo where in my last journal I was typing at five in the morning due to my jet lag, I never covered what transpired mainly because I felt it belonged for the next journal where it takes place you know, the next day.<br />
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So one of the many reasons I woke up was because of jet lag (and I slept an amazing eight hours) and the other reason was the sudden realization of not having been to the bathroom since I got off the plane. Stupid? Very and beyond unhealthy, but my body was just not ready to use the Israeli bathroom. But at five in the morning I rushed to the bathroom, keeping in mind not wake up anyone in the house (keep in mind, I was at my aunt and uncle's house and they have three kids, ages 7, 5, and five month old). As I closed the door as quietly as I can and turned on the light, I heard shuffling against the window and angry cooing, turns out it was a pigeon sitting on the window still, completely forgetting that my uncle told me not to open the window because of said pigeon. I named him Archimedes.<br />
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Afterwards, I head back to my bed and decided to cheek what's going on the other side of the world (thus resulting to the previous post) before I decided to attempt to go back to sleep. Woke up barely to hebrew Spongebob and the girls getting ready for school, zoned out again shortly afterwards. I finally pushed myself out of bed at around 8:30 where my aunt was with the baby. I have a record of being a ninja according to my previous roommate at college and my mom, as in, I tend to walk into room so quietly that no one will notice me. Blessing and a curse, I guess. So anyways, I walked in, and waved hi to my aunt, causing her to jump out of surprise that I startled her and I felt horrible for doing that. She shortly made for both of us coffee and a cheese and olive panini for me for breakfast keeping in mind that I haven't really eaten since I've came off the plane and we relaxed a bit before we got ready to leave the house to do some shopping for things I otherwise couldn't have brought with me from Miami.<br />
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As she went upstairs to take a shower, I was getting dressed when the baby became distraught a bit. She told me that if this should happen, to simply flip him to his back. So I did just that and he was clearly flailing his arm to be picked up, not wanting to hear him be upset again thanks to my experience the previous day, I picked him up and sort of jumped quietly to ease him up. He enjoyed it greatly that he began to play with my hair and rub his head against my shirt, giving the occasional smile. He was heavy, but my God was he precious. Shortly, he began to cry and wanted his mom, couldn't blame him, and waited till she came downstairs where apparently he was stuffed up and his rubbing on my shirt was him trying to get rid of the snot in his nose. Like I said, precious.<br />
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We made our way to the shopping complex where we went to the equivalent of wal-green to get all sorts soaps and such to put in my apartment. The carts in Israel are definitely smaller than that in America, but they can move in literally every direction with no problem... or maybe that was the one cart I happened to have? Either way, amazing. I nearly flipped out at the prices before I remembered that I had to divide it from 3.7 (or 4 for those nitpicking math people), never the less, it was still expensive and need to keep in mind prices in Israel. Credit card or not. We later went to a clothing store that my aunt has been sending me tunics from, it helps that she has the same taste in clothing as me. While browsing, there were these two clerks fixing up the clothing and just simply relaxin, one of them looked like brother's girlfriend so for a good minute I was convinced it her. She had a good sense in fashion that with both her and my aunt, I managed to find a nice shirt and tunic, as well as snagging a nice pocket watch necklace. My aunt bought herself a nice pair of pants.<br />
<br />
We browsed around in another clothes store, one called Castro, which I've heard is the hot spot for clothing (next to another called Fox) that had the fashion sense mixed between Gap, Old Navy, and The Limited. Tried on a couple of suits before I decided that none of them were sitting right, it was either too masculine or a suit from the 80's and so on. After Castro, we ventured to a store so that my aunt could get some clothes for the two girls. While she was getting assistance, I kept an eye on the baby, mainly keeping him entertained and not crying as well as not trying to make him feel uncomfortable. The last thing I needed to do was make him up. He giggled, she bought two dresses and socks, and then it was off to Aroma the Coffee Shop.<br />
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After drinking some coffee, my aunt made a stop at the ATM machine to withdraw some cash for me to walk around in (can't always rely on just a credit card, you know) and four times she pressed in the numbers, only to find out that she doesn't remember it. Apparently, a while ago she lost her phone that had everything important in it, namely people's numbers and other important documents. So we decided to drive off and worst case scenario would be the my uncle will withdraw money, and as we were pulling into a different shopping plaza, she got a bright idea to call someone from work, who could look at her desk. She quickly dialed and the guy managed to find the numbers and she thanked him for the huge help and we drove back to where the ATM machine was so she can punch in those numbers again.<br />
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Not wanting to go through the hassle of taking in and out the baby cart, she told me to stay in the car with the baby. Fun fact on the baby, he hates to stay in one place for too long. If he stays in one area or isn't moving for more than fifteen minutes, he begins to not just cry, but to yell. And in a car? Yeah. Ears were shot and I was trying the best that I could to hush the baby and not get crazy moms on my butt thinking I'm the worst. Aunt came back eventually and began to drive to hush the crying infant. We later decided to go out and eat sushi (she was craving for it) after dropping off the stuff.<br />
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When we reached back to the apartment, I took the challenge to shove all the things I got into my already huge luggage. Succeeded. She cleaned up the baby (who apparently, was crying for a change diaper on top of not moving) and put her own stuff away and decided that we'll walk, the weather was nice so why not? While walking we had a lovely girl to girl talk and catching up on things like what is going with my family, previous boyfriends I had (fun fact: the guy I dated, she dated three of them with the same name. All of them ended horribly. Clearly a horrible name for a boyfriend), and talking about both of my grandmas. When we finally reached the restaurant plaza, the sushi place was apparently closed on Sundays, so we went to the one right next to it, it was owned by the same guy.<br />
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It was a quiet sunday afternoon, so there wasn't a lot of people. Ordered an Anti Pesto and some salad while my aunt ordered some liver with jam... thing. There was more cheese than salad in my dish that I began to search for the actual meal in it. I also tried the liver thing for the first time, so for everyone back home who say I'm too nit picky and not daring enough to try new "exotic" food - take that! We chatted up a bit more and decided that it was time to head back home cause we needed to pick up the girls soon. With the weather being nice, the aunt decided that we should go to the park with everyone else when the get back. We reached the apartment, took a bathroom break, and left for the car to pick up the two girls. Aunt thought it would be awesome if I did it and surprised them, she would tell me which floor and what to look for on the door. The youngest of the two girls was grinning when I came through the door, she was practically glowing, the teacher, doing her job, was curious as to who I was until I told her that I'm the little one's cousin from Miami.<br />
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I'm popular there cause apparently the teacher goes "OH! You're THAT cousin from Miami!" to which I nodded and answered her question as to how I was related to the child. We then left for the car and drove to pick up the eldest of the two. While the younger one was glowing, this one looked startled, but happy at the same time. I offered to carry her bag which looked like would collapse on her at any moment, but she refused the offer and left for the car. While there, the aunt told them if they would like to go bike riding in the park today. They were fine with it, shortly after she called my uncle and asked as well, all he requested was something to eat cause he was starving, but he was more than up to go out doors. Sandwiches were made, watched more of the hebrew Spongebob (still hilariously stupid in my opinion), several fights between the two girls occurred in regards to two dresses (one was pink, one was white, you know... girly problems) and we eventually all left for a walk.<br />
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The baby fell asleep the whole way (which was adorable cause his face was hidden in some cloth that the aunt was wearing to hold him) and we had a pleasant walk. The older girl rides a bike like it's a part of her while the other one still had training wheels. When we arrived to the park, my uncle decided to make a joke how it's split between dads' park, women's park, and orthodox's park, hilariously enough... it was accurate. So while we were sitting and the two girls were running around, the aunt began to wonder who was going to play with baby when he grows up running around like an idiot as well. I also accidentally mixed coca-cola gum with a peanut butter granola bar... it was not the best thing in the world and tasted beyond weird. It was also pointed out that the two girls, when the parents aren't around, acted civil and almost like a tag team, but show them an adult, and it's back to bickering. Thus, the cycle of childhood. It was growing dark so we headed home for the night.<br />
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Once there, I had a mini Skype call with my mom and sister (showing them the little baby while I was in the same room and he was making "talking" sounds), shortly after my battery on my iTouch which was where I had the Skype call, died and needed to be recharged. My aunt left to go get ravioli leaving me and my uncle with the three kids, if only to make her shopping much faster. Played mancala with the two girls (the oldest one knew how to play the actual game, the youngest one was just tossing the marbles wherever you want), my uncle and I then talked if I still played the guitar to which, in full honesty, I only remember fully three songs. And they are amateurish at best. Eventually my aunt came back, the two of them prepared the meal while the two girls invited me to play in their tent that was on the balcony. Windy as hell and getting head smacked constantly by a tent prop wasn't my idea of fun, but because it was dark, breezy, and comfortable where I was sitting (when head ducking from said prop), I felt all the energy get drained. The girls were fun, but I was ready to call it a night.<br />
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We went back inside afterwards, washed our hands and proceeded to have dinner. Before we ate, we had a mini-thanks (word at the moment slipped me) and a lot of it was geared at me. It's weird, but I have no idea how to react when getting a ton of thanks without sounding like a total prick. Always had that problem, but I returned two folds my thanks for them letting me stay at their place and for helping me out so much in just the last two days. After grace (I think that's the word?) we ate, enjoyed the meal, and helped clean the table from the plates. I had to pick between a penguin lamp that belonged to my aunt and a regular lamp to put on my night stand, ultimately, I would've felt horrible if something bad was to happen to the penguin lamp, so I just ended up choosing the regular lamp. After sayings thanks again, I head back to the room I was staying in and decided to try the converter to charge my laptop and by extension my iPod. Had the hardest time figuring out something so simple that I ended up Skyping my mom and ended up talking to her for an hour. Turns out I wasn't applying enough pressure connecting the wire to the converter. Winner is, once again, me.<br />
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After a nice conversation, I decided to call it quit and went to sleep for the night. And with that done. I should really get to typing what happened the next day. Took me two days to write THIS up. Should be up hopefully tonight? We'll see. More pictures in the next update, I swear.Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-21266153790755859952012-03-11T14:15:00.000-07:002012-03-17T10:42:59.366-07:00March 10, 2012 - The Flight Process<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It is five in the morning Israel time (or is six because of daylights saving?) and I slept a good nine hours. I should technically still try and force myself to sleep, but I can't bring myself to do it. So instead, I decided to make a journal entry from the last post which consisted of me sitting on my butt waiting for the night flight. Let's do this.</span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">8:55 - JFK Terminal 6</span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So after my last post, I looked around to see which familiar faces I will be seeing for the next fourteen hours and noticed that they were all strikingly old people. Happy old people, but old folks none the less. After an instruction from my mom the day prior to my flight, I went over to the table to see if I was still eligible to change seats to an aisle seat. As it was, I was in the middle row in the middle chair, and seeing that I was going to be on a plane with the elderly, I would have preferred to not be a nuisance on them in case I had to go to the bathroom.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As I waited for my turn, I felt something hit me on the back of my leg. Turning around, I saw it was a woman who looked about in her mid-40's picking up pieces of paper. Piecing two together, I leaned over and helped pick her papers up; you know, because it's the polite thing to do. After I helped her, she smiled and said "Mercy", now I could be an idiot and mistook it as that instead of "Merci" but I decided to let it slide. She looked me over and asked if it was my first time going to Israel, to which I simply replied no and asked if it was hers. Turns out, it was. The group of old folks? A bunch of catholics going to Israel for the first time to see where Jesus Christ was born. I honestly found that to be the cutest thing ever, because they were all smiling and giddy like a bunch of three year olds going to Disney World, and as such, I responded like a<b> </b>mom saying stuff like "You're going to have so much fun, it's a beautiful place" and so on. Needless to say, the woman was glowing. She later complimented my hat.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">After being told that I couldn't because the plane was actually filled to the brim with people (seriously, it was a flight of 393 people). I went back to my wall and called up my parents to tell them I'm about to take off. There was this annoying lady who worked the airport, you know, the ones doing the announcements? And she had this frightful timing of making announcements whenever my mom was trying to tell me something. And it was just simple announcements, no, these were announcements over the microphone. Yelling. As if we couldn't hear her. She kept doing this until I hung up the phone.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So for those unfamiliar with how security works when traveling to Israel, you need to go through a second security check before boarding the actual plane. While it's the best thing to do in terms of security and making sure on safety (I'm all for it), people take a long time to through it. And like I said, half the plane consisted of the elderly. S instead of getting up and exhausting my legs just standing there, I decided to wait until the line went down. This was the plan of all the people who were ages 40 and younger. I met up with a family who all spoke hebrew and we all just sat there chilling like it was nothing while hoping at the same time the lines would go by faster but we eventually made it to the front.</span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">9:00 - Delta Airplane</span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">One of the things to do (which I'm guessing is new) is to show the receipt of any liquid products purchased at the terminal. Because I'm a hoarder of receipts (compliments to my dad who tells me to keep them so he can check when the bill comes in) I showed it to them no problem. I felt like a boss being all "BOOM! Here's the receipt! What's that? You want my I.D? Well here you go!"but I digress. And began to board the plane. And let me say this: The plane was PACKED. The guy wasn't lying, and I had to make it through to my seat. My seat was placed in a row of the catholic people (who I should once again point out, were beyond nice) and once I made my presence clear, the guy who sat on my right (that is to say, the aisle) quickly got up and helped place my carry on into an available overhead that was right across from me as well as my heavy winter coat.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I didn't ask for that.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Yet he did it without me asking. Clearly one of the nicest people I've met. So after I thanked him, I took out my magazine and began to read, waiting for the White Russian to go into full effect, when I heard the lady sitting in my aisle talking to the guy on my left about the bible. An elderly fangirl is the proper term I can think of for the two of them. It wasn't until she brought up Tel Aviv that I paid a bit more attention:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"It wasn't until I heard that there is gay pride in Tel Aviv, could you believe it? I mean, in the Holy Land, this isn't even glanced over? I'm surprised."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Clearly, this lady doesn't know that Israel isn't stuck in the Biblical ages, but I can't exactly blame her for assuming it is, taking into consideration that this was her first time going there and she's going off of the hype of the Bible. She also believed The Lorax isn't suitable for kids, so I tuned her out eventually, feeling the alcoholic effects going at full force. So I lowered my hat, and waited for the flight to commence.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As the plane took off into the air, they decided to play an in-flight movie. But due to being surrounded by HD for a good chunk, I mistook "Tower Heist" as an early 2000 movie. The two old ladies in front of my were dying of laughter of Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy's hijinks. Decided to watch an hour worth of it before I took the Advil PM and prayed to God that I wouldn't pull anything stupid in my drunken/drug induced state. Instead of watching more of Rattner's movie, I asked the guy who put my carry on if I could go through to go get it. He politely moved. And I began to curse that he put it way too far back. Eventually a flight attendant came by and helped me while I grabbed my sketch book and laptop with movies, but I had to move away from the food cart that was going through.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Ladies and Gentlemen, I nearly pulled a Kristen Wiig moment. Holding on to my things, I started walking away from the food cart only to be told to e told to keep going through when I looked at some of the passengers and gave them a glance if I could scoot over to where they were sitting until the food cart passed. But I kept walking all the way to the curtains that separate the classes. Not wanting to block the peoples' viewing of the movie, I was tempted to go through the curtains when a different flight attendant told me not to and to head back to my seat. I could've done so many things to make Bridesmaids proud, but I refrained. Worst thing I could've done was yell to everyone that there was an amish woman in colonial garb churning butter on the air place wing.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So once I sat down and passed the offer of airplane food (still being full form Chili's), I popped in the disk of "Puss in Boots" and watched that as everyone was slowly drifting off to sleep. After watching, I began my struggle of sleeping position without doing the following:</span><br />
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<ol>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Punching/kicking/smacking either gentlemen on my sides.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Pissing off the person in front of me for my constant kicking.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Pissing off the person behind me for reclining my chair far back.</span></li>
</ol>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">While I didn't piss off the people behind, in front, and to the left of me. I did accidentally slap the guy to my right, to which I quickly began to apologize before he went back to sleep. I did feel horrible for smacking a guy who was up till now being very nice to me. I can't say I remember much, but I did toss and turn a lot before I found an odd position to fall asleep in that didn't wake anyone up. And I didn't wake up until the flight attendants were done serving breakfast to the passengers.</span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">11:45 am - Ben Gorion Airport, Tel - Aviv </span></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Captain made the announcement that our flight will arrive early to Israel but it won't be for another two or so hours. I killed the first hour by listening to music and the second hour watching "Despicable Me" for the millionth time. Both men that sat with me were watching it as well. I was secretly hoping that they weren't judging me for watching it. I doubt it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As we were preparing to land, I was making sure everything was on me so I wouldn't forget my things. A tradition that comes with flying to Israel, is that people clap for the successful flight and landing from the captain, and usually, the people who clap are Israelis, at least that's what I've experienced it being. So per-tradition, ever Israeli (myself included) began to clap while the Catholics looked confused and we began to pick up are things. The nice man next to me, once again, taking down my carry on and coat for me. Thanked him for helping me close my bag after trying to shove my laptop into the bag and proceeded to walk.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I should mention this: I have two passports, one American, and one Israeli. The Israeli one has an official documented form that allows me to not take part any army related things during my stay in Israel. I got this paper after getting three letters from Israel regarding the army only because both of my parents are from Israel, and as such, I'm technically a citizen and have to join the army. I got one threatening letter that warned me that if I stepped foot into Israel, I will be arrested on the spot. It's all cleared up now, but still. This is important documentation.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As I was reaching the center of the terminal, I did a double check for my passport. I couldn't find it and a heart attack commenced. I ran back as fast I could to the airplane, praying that the people didn't clean it out yet. As I reached there I asked some of the flight attendants if they saw a black bag, and taking note that they were all speaking hebrew (and a trait I found out that I had, was that when stressed, I can speak fluent hebrew, and not the broken excuse of a mess that is my normal hebrew) and one of the guys there sat down with me, told me to take a deep breath, check my bags again to make sure it's not in between a crack or magazine before re-checking the plane. It wasn't in my bag, so we checked the plane. So through out the process we were all calling each other out in hebrew if we saw it. My brain hates me, so I mistook C39 as my seat when it was C29. Found it there, exactly how I left it, took in a huge deep breath, and thank the whole crew for putting up with me, to which they shrugged it off and told me to keep a better eye on it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">From then on, I had the passport bag around my neck like a necklace, not caring if I looked like a tourist. I didn't want to have another panic attack when I barely started the trip. I went to the passport check in, and went as an Israeli check in. The man looking through it told me that the army is looking for me, to which I answered as calmly as I could (still being on the adrenaline of the lost passport) that I have the paper to prove that I don't need to be in the army. He nodded and told me it would be in my best interest to call them up and tell them to update their files on me. He was nice.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I went to the baggage claim and saw nothing but flights from Germany. Again, I asked the people who worked there where are the luggages from America, and they pointed down saying there are a few bags left. And they were right, there were about... eight bags? I found both of mines the minute I laid eyes on the trail. And ran over grabbing it, leaving behind my carry on near a trolly as an announcement went off stating to not leave behind your luggages. Screw the rules, I have luggages to claim! Both bags weigh 45 and 38 pounds respectively, but I managed to pick both of them up. Separately, of course. After being placed on the trolley I made my way to the exit where most passengers wait for someone to pick them up or to go get a car, luckily my option was to wait for someone. According to my uncle, who came to pick me up with his two daughters, we didn't have to wait for each other. Perfect timing is perfect. I waved at them so they can spot me and was greeted to two shy girls and a big hug.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">According to him, they made a bet to see if my hair was curly or not (and for the record, my hair naturally is curly, the profile pick was because it was a fresh hair cut therefore a fresh blow dry). The girl with the curly hair cheered that she won. So we made our way through the car and drove from Tel Aviv to Rishon LeTzion, roughly a 15 minute drive (or longer, I am in a jet lag induce state of mind at the moment) to visit my grandma from my mom's side as well as my aunt who lives with her. We joked during the drive that while cities around Israel updated and/or changed, Rishon has remained exactly the same, give or take a few new buildings and a fresh coat of paint. We made it to the apartment where the aunt waved from the window, a scene that looked like something from Rapunzel. Made me curious as to how long she was standing there. As we began to walk to the front of the apartment (we parked in the back), we saw an older woman speed walking (or what I assume is her version of running) at us. Old lady was my grandma, and she gave me a tackle hug, causing my hat to fly off my head and my headphones to strangle me. Remember how I said I don't like people being upset? Well, she became very emotional. VERY emotional. Can't say I blame her, but there wasn't a need to make that big of a scene, I also took a mental note that within the two years I haven't been in Israel, I succeeded at becoming taller than her.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We went upstairs where we waited for my other aunt (uncle's wife) and the third infant so that we can eat. Within the time frame of her arriving and me stepping into the apartment, my grandma rushed to make a phone call to my mom, as promised before I flew, apparently. Uncle began to worry about the time difference seeing as it was between 3 and 4 in the afternoon our time, making it roughly 7 or 8 in the morning in Miami. Luckily, my mom happens to wake up at those hours on the weekend, which baffled my uncle as to why she wakes up that early. Told her the events that transpired as well as the instructions of what to do next from her, she then asked for my grandma and hung up after they spoke. I should mention that through my discussion with my mom, my grandma not only stole my hat, but she took a prop knife that you wear on your head (you know, like someone stabbed you in the head) and danced in front of me; I was beyond freaked out by this gesture, and not because I was jet lagged. Shortly afterwards, my aunt and the five month old child came in and gave me a hug hello.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My grandma has this disgusting vile doll that would put Chuckie to shame. For as long as I can remember, that stupid thing has been there giving a nasty look to everyone. Giving a face of disgust, I sat next to it so I can talk with both my aunt and uncle (the aunt who lives with my grandma being busy entertaining one of the girls). I pushed the doll away and said quietly how much I hated this doll. So did they. They told me that before their first born, my uncle asked why my grandma didn't throw it away yet to which she replied that "she won't throw it out until they have a baby", fast forward a few years later and they have a third newborn and yet that damned doll is still sitting on the couch. My uncle then said we should just toss into the garbage and tell her to get another dog.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We ate dinner (or what little I could stomach, not that her food was bad, but more of it being that I wasn't that hungry) and we had a pleasant dinner conversation, with my uncle giving me some rather hilarious commentary to my grandma. The little baby boy sat quietly as my aunt was eating when my grandma decided to pester him. I love my grandma, but one thing I know she does is she comes very, very, VERY close to your face when she's eccentric. She means well, but personal space is something that does not exist when she's hyper. She picks up the child who very clearly wanted his mom and began to, as my uncle state, make dog noises that eventually raises their pitch. He was dead on. The other aunt joined in, and the baby, with all good reasons, began to flip out and reach out for my aunt who was drinking, and she took me and hushed him quietly. I barely knew the baby, but already I can tell that he cries for all the right reasons and not for some excuse.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We sat for coffee and tea, with me declining coffee mainly because I did plan on sleeping that night and waited patiently for my uncle to finish his coffee (this should be noted, it was technically the second batch because the first one was sweet coffee, with vanilla milk, and extra sugar and my uncle being on a diet for health reason and not wanting to get diabetes for something disgustingly sweet). Grandma and other aunt began to pester the baby again, and clearly the baby wasn't going to take any more of that crap and being exhausted, he began to yell at the top of his baby lungs as a signal to get out now. It was ear deafening. Not taking any more chances, I said good night to my grandma and aunt and left with my aunt and uncle and their three kids and drove to Modi'in (about 15 to 30 minutes from Rishon, depending which road you take).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I was zoning out and my uncle was doing everything to keep me awake till at least eight at night. But we eventually made it to the apartment where I was greeted with pictures on the door welcoming me, all drawn by the two girls that even in my zombie-like state, I smiled in appreciation. I don't remember much cause I was drifting off to sleep, but eventually I made a list with my aunt for shopping the next day and eventually unpacked the presents I had for them. Two barbie dolls from Tangled for the two girls as well as these Little Pet Shop toys you throw on the ground and they pop open, earrings for the middle child, summer clothes, socks, and shoes for the baby, a tunic/dress with a nice scarf and a over shirt for my aunt, and three shirts for my uncle. If there was ever an experience of Christmas, this was it. They were all glowing and I felt like Santa. It finally hit nine, and I was so exhausted that I changed clothes and passed out. And now here I am at five in the morning typing all of this up.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Pictures weren't taken due to being a zombie, and of the few I've taken, will be posed up soon. So, until next time!</span>Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-35303521213601716442012-03-10T19:28:00.001-08:002012-03-17T10:45:50.085-07:00March 9, 2012 - The Journey Begins<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">Waking up today was not easy. It might have been because I was up till three in the morning putting music into my iPod I otherwise didn't have, or mainly because I was going through a wave a of emotions. Excited, nervous, eager, overwhelmed; it could be any of those things. Normally, I get nervous with and over powering sensation of excitement when I fly, but that's because I know that within a few weeks, I would be back in my bed at home. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">This is not the case. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">I'm spending five months overseas away from said bed and home. It didn't help that a few hours earlier I ended up breaking down into tears for reasons I was pretty sure was down right stupid but at the end of the day, it is a major step I'm about to do. When I first made my blog, I did it on the adrenaline that I'm about to do something life changing, exciting, and overall, a ton of fun. I was boosted up my friends and family that this is something great (jealousy was, supposedly, everywhere, however I found this uncomfortable) but when the days were closing in, and still being in this blissful ignorance, it was becoming apparent that this whole ordeal was turning from super special fun time to a bittersweet separation of sorts. Didn't help that I was constantly reminded to beware of rapists, robbers, stealers, and the possibility of moving permanently to Israel and the chance of my never coming back made me become scared to even go through with this whole trip.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">So the tears came pouring, hugs and words of reassurance surrounded me, and eventually I closed my eyes to sleep for the morning.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">That morning, I had the hardest time getting up. Again, might have been because of my late night endeavors, but I felt like it was mixed in with a bucket full of cold feet. I didn't want to say bye, I honestly hate that word more than anything, but I knew I had to do it. I already said it to my grandma, uncle, and friend the night before and that alone was a struggle to say. With a disgruntle toss, I got up, got dressed, packed the remaining laptop, chargers, and toothbrush into my bag and made my way downstairs for breakfast to Dr. Oz talking about women's periods and advocating on his show why birth control pills are the gift from the Gods because they can do various things like prevent cancer and calm the emotions. Probably one of the more disturbing breakfasts I had but that's something else. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">Hopped into the car with my brother and mom and drove down to the airport. I did the celebrity thing with the sunglasses to cover the face from showing emotions (though I'm pretty sure they do it for drug related reasons, except for Stevie Wonder who is blind and Cee-lo Green who I'm fairly certain has no eyes). As we drove, my mom brought up last minute reminders and the shenanigans she did to get our dog down the stairs (for those who don't know, my dog is old and cannot climb down the stairs, he can climb up it just find, but down? Forget it.) She then brought up how my sister begged to skip school to see me off and was apparently depressed. I already was trying to keep my mind focused from crying, but that did an excellent job and caused a crack on my somewhat wall of of emotions.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">I cried. She changed the topic as fast as she could by talking about the drug dealer who uses children and celebrities were too stupid to now check the background and endorse.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">When we got to the airport, I hugged my brother while holding back anymore tears to which he nonchalantly replied "It's only five months, we'll be seeing you sooner than you know." That was honestly the first time someone told me about the end coming faster as oppose to the usual "What happens in Israel, you will forever live in a Israel and never return." grim talk. All three of us took the two huge luggages and as my mom and I were about to go see if we can check it in outside (we shortly found out we couldn't cause it's international) the nice worker decided to help us bring it in, with my mom instructing my brother to go drive and wait till this is done so as to not cause traffic.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">As we checked in the bag with another lady helping us (after the nice man left), we walked to the security check in when I felt the waterworks coming up again. Being a fast one, my mom hugged me and reassured me once again that she will be visiting soon and this is the best decision I have made so far in my adult life (and for the record, I'm a huge baby when it comes to airplanes and travels. I believe I've mentioned it already earlier). So after I bawled like a child, I went over to the security and waited in a line that would've put both Universal Studios and Disney World to shame. Eventually I made it up to show my passport and I.D to a very nice security guard who told me to go all the way to the left because the line was shorter, with another security guard guiding me along the way.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">As per usual airport procedures, I went over to the empty bins to put my stuff through the x-ray machine. All the isles were going two at a time, as in, two people going at the same time in order to make things faster. So scurrying along, I reached out for a bin when I hear someone coughing for my attention. Looking up, there was a really tall sassy black man asking me what am I doing and giving me a rather nasty glare. Being to much an emotional wreck, I simply smiled at him and said meekly "Hello". Instead of just continuing to put his stuff in the empty bin he was already possessing, he continued to glare at me. Clearly, this man does not want some 5'5 white girl touching those bins around his presence. Giving a nervous chuckle I backed away, eyes of his being rolled as I stepped away and waited till he was a good five feet away from me. I was already depressed, I didn't need to start something as stupidly pointless as an issue with a bin.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">When I did finally put my three bins worth of stuff on the rolls (forgot the word at the moment) as well as the actual carry-on, an old lady behind me looked at me as well as my stuff and gave a chuckle.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">"You sure do have a lot of stuff." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">"Yeah… yeah I do. Heh." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">I asked to have a pat down instead of having to walk through the rotation machine and the lady there asked me if I had any sensitive areas she should be aware of, based on my previous experience with this question, I knew saying "I'm only ticklish" will usually result with a scoff, eye rolls, and a pat down. In that order. She was different, instead she simply smirked and proceeded to do her job. I laughed. She chuckled quietly to my laughing. I did warn her I was ticklish. Miami security guards are nice.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">After given the O.K, I continued on to my gate and waited for my flight. I had an hour to kill, so I plugged into my iPod, and stared aimlessly at the people sitting around me. They all seemed awfully young… almost like high school students. What's funny is if I didn't say anything, most people would have chalked me as another high school student on a trip to New York. Luckily, there was another college student sitting minding his own business, I made it an effort to let the guy sit next to me. I don't know if I'm right, but based on his Penn State folder, I think he was from Penn State. He was nice, but we didn't talk much. We both knew our priorities. </span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">12:30 - Delta Airplane</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">After boarding on to the plane, I was behind an old lady who had the heigh of a middle schooler and in front of a Willie Nelson/George Carlin gentleman with a heavy southern accent and stood a good 6' tall. We were greeted by the flight attendant and made our way to our seats. According to the news, some airlines are making the overhead compartment bigger so as to let carry ons easier to fit in, or something of that extent. Because of the expansion of that, that made the roof lower, leading to a lot of people smacking their heads against it as they make their way to their seats. I sighed and felt bad for them when I heard a thunk. Turning around, I saw Willie Carlin holding his forehead murmuring "Jesus Christ! The over head is big, but they made it so that only MIDGETS can walk to their seats." I was depressed earlier today, but that line alone made me laugh like an idiot. I covered my mouth so as not to make him mad (even if my laughter probably did the trick) but I saw him smiled back at me and laughed a bit himself. I made my way to my seat (which was four rows away from the butt end of the plane) and placed my carry on in the over head compartment hearing a crack happening as I did it. Not knowing what it was, I shrugged it off and made my way to my chair, shortly afterwards asked by a guy to switch spots so he can sit near his girlfriend. Both spots were aisle, so I didn't really care much for the change, so I smiled, switched spot, and successfully managed to smack my forehead into the overhead compartment and quoted Homer Simpson's "D'oh!"</span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">7:03 - John F. Kennedy International Airport</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">The flight from Ft. Lauderdale to New York is about two hours. The first half hour was spent listening to music and amusing a little kid who was mesmerized by my hat prior to take off. I don't know if airlines secretly put chloroform into their air vents during flight, but I found myself shortly after passing out, as well as the majority of the passengers. After falling asleep for an hour, I spent the remaining time listening to some more music. Because of the pilot, which I'm fairly certain was an adrenaline junkie, we managed to land at 3:08 as oppose to the original 3:30 time. Probably looking like a tourist, I gawked at everything and tried to imagine where Tom Hank's character from "The Terminal" was. It took place in JFK, so I tried to find familiar spots, trying to take a picture of a mustard packet. Couldn't find a packet without having to go into the restaurants or bars so I just walked around saying "Moosetard" and feeling like a total boss. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">Made a phone call back home that I made it safe and sound and told to stories that happened after my emotional wussification*. The head compartment thing made my mom proud because she said, as I quote, "That's my girl!" So after talking to her, my sister, and my dad for nearly 40 minutes, I walked around a bit the terminal, seeing as I had four hours to waste before boarding. As discussed with my mom on the phone, we decided that I should go to Chili's to get some Molten Chocolate Lava with some mudslides. Fajitas were a bonus (which I found hilarious because earlier that day we were talking about how one restaurant's fajitas was a thousand times better than Chili's).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">As I made my way to Chili's, I decided to get as plastered* as I physically can so as that I can pass out on the 14 hour flight. I should mention, I'm typing this drunk. My mom and I also discussed that I should get so drunk, that it would put Kristin Wigs' "Bridesmaids" airplane scene to shame (according to my mom, I would end up recreating Melissa McCarthy's scene in the airplane with the air marshall). They didn't have mudslides, but they did have White Russians which I heard was really strong. Win.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">After eating a good chunk of the cake and fajitas, I finished up my White Russian and felt like the Big Lebowski, minus the bowling and John Goodman. I looked around and wondered how many people drank to either drink away their misery or to get as sh*t plastered as they can so they can sleep the long flight ahead of them like me. There was this hispanic family on what seemed like a business trip laughing up and having a good time, one of the guy laughed like if Spongebob Squarepants was a fifty year old man and laughed every five minutes. But that aside, I figured they're drinking for happy reasons. Next to them was a college student raging out to this guy while drinking a beer, so she had to be rage drinking. Suddenly, the airport didn't feel much like an airport, and more like a starbucks / restaurants of sorts. Which I was alright with, a few minutes of not feeling homesick was good. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">Trying not to look like a total drunk, I walked into a magazine store and bought two magazines and a water bottle. I smiled and thanked the store clerk and walked to my gate where I sat down and decided to type up this journal. The one thing that was bothering me about this terminal was that while it wants you buy for internet connection, you need the internet to get it. For $7 to use an an internet I felt was a bit silly and decided to charge my iPod after my previous use as well as start up typing my journal in text format. No internet meant no updating journal. And I didn't want to forget minor details until I got internet back, most likely in Israel.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">So here I sit, on my butt on the floor charging my computer so it wouldn't die while I typed out this journal entry of day one. And already I have what I'm assuming, two pages worth of an entry. The plan on the plane is to wait an hour during the flight, swallow Advil PM and pass right out for, hopefully, a good chunk of the flight. I have my books and movies, but the less things to do and more sleep, the better. I know my neck will never forgive me cause of my sleep position, but hopefully I will be resourceful. I really do hate overnight flights… ugh. </span></div>Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2121096249965908602.post-79313619353240759342012-02-05T20:41:00.000-08:002012-02-05T20:41:05.191-08:00Hello,<br />
I told people that I won't have this thing up and running until the end of February, but considering that I have a somewhat hectic schedule ahead of me by the time I actually do decide to update this thing (again, at the end of February) I would have most likely have forgotten this, then freak out about the design, how do I hide old posts from way back when in college (don't worry, found out shortly that I was able to make a whole new blog but keep the account name! Sweet!) and so forth. I should probably write out the statement of sorts as to what this blog will be about.<br />
<br />
Now that I think about it... this will most likely be the F.A.Q* page.<br />
<br />
This is a documentation starting on March 9, 2012 of me flying to Israel to spend five months there as an intern for an animation company until August 14, 2012. I will be documenting it with either an essay of sorts with photos to show the viewers and the occasional webisodes* of myself. Why am I doing this? Well, for various reasons:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>To show friends and family what is going on without having rely on only phone calls and Skype calls, as well as to show them visual documentations as to what I'm describing.</li>
<li>Instead of just drawing and most likely not justifying what or where I have been, simple snapshots and videos can help illustrate. (Guess it kinda falls back to reason #1 doesn't it?)</li>
<li>It's also more of a personal journal for myself so that I can see myself the growth I will go through. People have always said how much suchandsuch has grown/change since whatever ordeal they've been through, so why not document it?</li>
<li>Because it's the hip thing to do nowadays. Seriously, everything is publicized for the viewing public. I'M BEATING THE PAPARAZZI TO THE PUNCH! YEAH!</li>
</ol>
Now with that out of the way, I'm sure the next question on the mind is why on earth did I pick what's probably the dumbest title out there? Isn't that from an already more successful show? Won't I get sued?<br />
<br />
Well... probably not last one, but the other two are most likely running around. The main reason I chose the title is because I love the show, it's a really funny show and I love that they send a clueless individual to places that are vastly different in culture. With that in mind, I've been told constantly (as I'm assuming, everyone else out there has also encountered) is that I'm "uncultured" and that I'm too "square and American" (seriously? Why is that considered as simplicity is beyond me...) and being sent to Israel, a place that is not as square and uncultured as America, I'll most likely end up looking like a deer in headlights. Even with friends and family there (I should also mention that yes, I have a family in Israel but I never actually <i>lived</i> in Israel, maximum I stayed there for about two week to a month, never more) I will most likely derp* around and looking like an idiot with a camera. Is it all clicking together now? Awesome! If not, watch the show, then come back here when I officially launch the documentation, you have till August to finally catch on to the joke.<br />
<br />
Well, that should cover most things. I'll see you guys on March 9 when I finally take off... see ya soon!!<br />
<br />
<u><b>Terminology for the Internet Illiterate:</b></u><br />
<br />
F.A.Q = Frequently Asked Question; Questions that are being asked on one too many occasions.<br />
<br />
Webisodes; Episodes that are shown online, like normal television shows.<br />
<br />
Derp; A moment of stupidity a.k.a* brain farting stupidity.<br />
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A.K.A = Also Known As; A title that has a different title.Mickey Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284853516564664701noreply@blogger.com0