Credit card fraud and other holy adventures

Christ, it has been a loooooooooooooooooong week. Here’s a day by day update. Also, my computer mouse is refusing to work. Please excuse any major mistakes.

Friday, Sept 16th:
-I went with about 20 other people on a tour of a)the campus and b)haifa. Fun and hot and therefore sweaty, I saw the Carmelite church at Stella Maris, where the Carmelite sect claimed Elijah lived (and where I couldn’t enter because I was a Daughter of Israel who was inappropriately dressed-This is in reference to those old creepy men who walk through Jerusalem screaming, “Daughters of Israel, dress appropriately!”, and who look like they haven’t showered in a month, and you want to yell back “old-creepy-man, you know you liiiiiiiiike it”), and then we hiked down to the cave where everyone else on the planet believe he lived (if you aren’t a Carmelite, but are jewish, muslim, or some other Christian, then stick out your tongue at the Carmelites; they too, couldn’t read directions. But they build some pretty churches)

*Just looked at the blog. have already told everyone about the adventure on Friday. Moving right along...

-Na'ava and Yael took forever to get to safta's house, but a good time was had by all. Eventually.

Saturday, Sept 17th:
-went to the beach with Na'ava and Yael, split off from them when they had to return to Jerusalem, met up with the rest of the Haifa U people (let's play, "spot the foreigner!" But for serious, it's my favorite game). We then went to a bar that had disappointingly bad pina coladas...much too watery. Arielle, Anna, Jessie-Arielles-Roomate, Rebecca and I split off and walked a half hour to Aroma cafe, passing by numerous other cafes, simply because Aroma is the best, and also we were on a mission (I was on a mission for a bathroom, but topped off with the best coffee ever, so, yeah.) In line, this guy starts creeping me out, checking out my behind, making lewd comments to his friends, and finally, when Rebecca and I leave line to wait for our order, he comes up to me and says "You are pretty" in terribly accented english. I reply in Hebrew "I am not interesting" (i tried to say "i am not interested", failed, but i suppose that this was better). He then says "You have beeeoootifool eyes". At which point I just said "Ani nesoo'ah", or "I'm married".
Pow. Immediate backing off. Amazing what those words can do to a guy, eh? Think about it:
If you say.....he says:
"I'm not interested"...."don't worry, i'm a great guy, we'll get to know eachother"
"I have a boyfriend"..."but he's not here right now; i'll be your boyfriend for the night..*waggle eyebrows*"
"I'm a lesbian (not that there's anything wrong with that)"..."That is so totally hot, let's go back to my place right now and we'll call your girlfriend"
"I'm married"..."deafening silence"

So there you go. Guy repellant, made easy. Also, this is easier when you have a ring on your left hand ring finger, which I do.

Speaking of repellant, I had a sleepover party with Rebecca because a)i was still in the old dorms with an empty roommate bed and b)there are small swarms of sandfleas in her room. I don't know if the problem has been dealt with. Whatever.

Sunday, Sept 18th:
-Nothing very much exciting happened. Really boring and useless orientation discussion, after which Arielle and I went to Safta's for lunch, said goodbye to my parents and got some shiksa insurance. And a pot. You can't go wrong with a good sturdy pot. Except I need another, and also a spatula.
(oh my sweet christ, this mouse sucks)
-At night there was a nice opening bonfire/barbeque/drum circle event where I bonded with Andrea from Germany over really cheap white wine because...we got moved into the Talia dorms!
-Word of the day: Shidroog=upgrade.

Monday, Sept 19th:
-Took the hebrew entrance exam. I don't want to say "I aced it", because that implies that I got a mark. But I aced it. Or at least, I completed it, which is always a positive thing. Slovak Erik and Czech Jan helped me move my stuff into my brand new dorm, where I met North Dakota Kelly and my other Israeli roomies who are dear-hearts, Adi, Hila, and Karin. I checked my hebrew class level, and i am in level six, the highest level. Sweet. Shout out to Gila Sasson, who in grade twelve told me to go down a level in hebrew , in case I couldn't hack the regular level. Thank you, Gila, for keeping me so belligerent.
-I went to the volunteer-to-teach-english-to-small-obstinant-ethiopian-children thing, where the ethiopian children are small and obstinant. I had to explain to an unexplicably angry little boy why it is inappropriate to say "F.U", and I think that my tutee, Sara, is a bit of a hyperactive kid who really doesn't care. She's sweet, just a bit space-cadety. I'm going to have to try to talk my way out of this tutoring thing before next monday, while still being allowed to volunteer at a school for kids with cerebral palsy. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, Sept 20th:
First day of classes! Also first day of having absolutely nothing to do after class except go to the beach. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. Also, I should probably call safta and say "what up". But in real life, I went to the beach with Erik from Czech Republic (it's a good thing they changed the name, because i don't think i can spell czechoslovakia correctly), did my homework, navigated my way through the train station (which you have to pass under in order to get to the beach), got back to campus, and decided to call Hot! to have cable installed (though doesn't it sound more like a porn service than a cable company? This is something that they should have ran by their PR people). I gave my information to a sketchy guy named Adi, who always answers the phone like he hates to do his job and you're interrupting him on the one date where he's decided to propose to his girlfriend. (Allo....What? Huh? tsk....*sigh*....fiiiiiine, they'll hook it up in the morning...bye.)

Wednesday, Sept 21st:
-I woke up at 7, plodded over to my desk and saw....ants! tons and tons of ants! ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! It seems that I left the cup from my lemonade (minus the lemonade) on my desk and they found it! So after hosing down the cup, I returned and made the little bastards very very dead. With kleenex. Puffs plus is not just for achy noses, it also makes a good death-ray-for-bugs! They seem to not be returning, so the moral is either a)don't eat in my room or b)keep kleenex on hand.

-Mina, my hebrew teacher, bless her heart, has found a way for me to take both morphology and hebrew, even though they conflict; i get to skip hebrew class on mondays, but take home assignments and meet with her once a week to go over what I missed. Praise be to Allah, and also sweet Mina.

-As of today, I think I'm beginning to be able to navigate my way around campus rather well. It helps that there are signs, but it doesn’t help that they are all in Hebrew. I have no idea what a “Dikahnt Studehnt” is. It sounds like “student discount”, but I’m sure I’m totally interpreting that wrong. That being said, I’m not really interested in asking someone. It is not in my Oxford Hebrew-English/English-Hebrew dictionary, and so therefore, it is not a word. Until the day comes where I have to use whatever services are offered in the Dikahnt Studehnt, in which case I will just have to pretend that I know what I'm doing. It's all very shady.

-Another fun update is that Bezeq has been unable to fraudulently charge me because my credit card didn’t go through, since they don't accept overseas credit cards (but Barak does!). They asked for my bank account, which is so many levels of sketchy, i can't even begin to get into it. I feel like I let Bezeq Batya down when I politely but firmly told her that I would have to cancel their services. She sounded really upset

-But on the upside, I am now a proud customer of Barak, for only 35 NIS a month, and my new BFF is Barak Nasreen, who “gave me a present” of 10 whole overseas minutes a month to call anywhere in the world. Except that Cellcom is not letting any of those calls go through. Thank you, Cellcom. You rock my planet.

-My technician has come, installed the cable and the modem, and I am now updating this blog from a fully connected computer. On the downside: the computer's power connection is very very very hot. Is that supposed to happen? I feel like it isn't. But I am happy to report, that the computer technician did not steal any of my things while I was out of the room frying up some eggplants. Hurray for tech support.

-I have learned how to deal with customer service people, technicians, and tech support, entirely in hebrew. Also, how to give my credit card information in hebrew. The latter is not so exciting, while the former is just plain annoying.

I need a new computer mouse. Will deal with this later today...after I go do my homework on the beach!!! Jealous? You know you are.

-Jess