Back in Canada

My adventure has finally come to a close; I landed in Toronto Pearson Airport at 6 pm EST. This means that this is the last post in the blog.
Sad.

I may or may not start up another one; to find out the address, post a message here including your email, and when I do set one up, I'll let you know.

The last few days in Tel Aviv were amazing and fun-filled, but you can tell that the war hasn't really 'hit' Tel Aviv (heeee. Morbid-humour queen, right here). The streets are packed with people: Tel Avivim, normal summer vacationers from abroad, normal summer vacationers from Israel, and people who've left the North until things 'settle down'. There are no azakot, and so life carries on like normal. Which is good, because i wouldn't know where to find the bomb shelter if I tried from the hotel and we were on the 15th floor. But we were walking on the tayelet and suddenly hear sounds like gunshots and so we panicked and ducked down. Turns out it was fireworks. Can you spell 'shell-shock'? (again, heeee)

The flight was terrible, but when you're stuck in a tin box with screaming children and broken down flight movies and gross food (usually I like airplane food, but they served beef. Twice. Barf.) and rude flight attendants and a strange burning rubber smell emanating from the galley, it doesn't often make for frequent flyer fun.

Also, the plane brought me home, and I wish I could have stayed there. So that also didn't factor in the mad parties, either.

I hope I've been able to provide a small picture of exchange-student life in Israel. If you feel otherwise, then go yourself. It's a blast!

Hee hee hee...

-Jess

I'm a spokesblog!

LOOK!! I"M FAMOUS!!! I'm the "this one" that he talks about!
Me!
My blaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwg!!!!

Hah! And they said in high school that I'd never amount to anything.

Actually, they said in high school (my supposedly pluralistic religious high school) that I was on a "direct path to hell". Cause I believed in some crazy stuff, like, you know, gender equality and equal rights regardless of one's sexual preference and the idea that maybe, just maybe, 'all arabs are not evil'. Which apparently rubbed some of my teachers the wrong way. Though that (the direct-path-to-hell thing) was just the minority opinion, it strikes me as a fun thought: For all those who find themselves there, I'm throwing a big party in Hell and you're all invited. Except for Nasrallah. I hope you go to heaven and sleep with seventy virgins and they all have painful and uncurable venereal diseases and you realize that sleeping with virgins is not all that it's cracked up to be and oh my god you have to do it seventy times? Also, another question: Do you only get to do it once with each virgin, and then, like, that's it? You're done? Then what? Or do they re-virginize?
Whatever the outcome, that has to suck.

But I'm famous! Me! Famous!!!

-J

Le Sigh...

I have no idea if I've already got a post with the same title as this one, and I'm not entirely sure that I care enough to check. I don't know how much time I have at the computer given that the last three air raid sirens were twenty minutes apart, which, you know, doesn't leave much time for blogging. Or peeing.

And the bomb shelter's toilet is kind of raunchy. And, um, I don't do gross toilets. I barely do porta-potties.

There have been four or five azakot (alarms? this is not a literal translation. But when you hear the word azaka, it means "get your ass down to the bomb shelter") since the wee hours of the morning. And when it was rumored that the first one (at six in the morning. Bless their sweet little hearts...) was a false alarm, it's entirely possible that I might have said, "You bet your ass it's not a false alarm at six in the #$%*ing morning."

Dan (are you happy? I've mentioned you now...) went off to a friend's house to study and I went to Noa's to "study" (hee!) and order sushi and watch tv (guess which two out of the three goals actually happened? Come on, guess...). I got there, we ordered the sushi, popped in a Friend's DVD and heard two explosions. And then, thirty seconds later, the air raid siren. Now, technically, the air raid siren is supposed to give you 60 seconds warning before you hear the explosions. And for half an hour on the radio, people wouldn't freaking shut up about how the system didn't work, and how it didn't go off in time. And I suppose that it's bound to fail, especially if the terrorists were raised in a barn and didn't get the memo that they're supposed to give the Israeli public 60 seconds before they try to bomb the crap out of them, and clearly if you're going to go on jihad, you might as well be polite about it.

But they were better later, and the other five times, the siren went off a minute before the rockets, which is nice, I suppose.

Anyways, Noa and I started wondering whether or not we would need to call the restaurant to a)find out about the health of the delivery guy and b)find out if they could bring the order after the azaka finished. Five minutes later, the delivery guy shows up at the shelter with the order. Luckily, I brought money down with me because I'm paranoid that someone might steal it while we're out (think about it: wouldn't the best time to rob a house be during an air raid? You know everyone's out of the house. You might as well see if they left their valuables behind. God, I need to get out of the house more...), so we paid him, and he went off on his merry way.

Now that is what I call being dedicated to your job.

Another thing I would like to clear up is how the following statement: "Terrorists are missing the petrochemical plants on purpose. But they can hit it if they want to, so watch out". That is complete bullshit. They released a statement like that because they haven't hit the plants, not for lack of trying, I might add. But just because they can't aim correctly doesn't mean that they care. Let me try to explain. Put your left fist (let that be topographical Lebanon) on top of your right fist (let that be topographical Israel) (diagram not to scale) with the palms facing you (but your fingers still in a fist). Now, the terrorists operating in the left fist hate the entire right fist without exception. It would like to hit the right fist's knuckle on it's middle finger (let that be the petrochemical plant in Haifa). That would be a happy day. However, if it manages to hit other parts of the right fist's middle finger instead, or even anywhere else on the right fist, the left fist doesn't really care, because remember, they hate anything to do with the right fist, which means that the whole right fist is a nice target area. It would be great, in the left fist's opinion, if it could blow up the right fist's middle finger knuckle, but in all honesty, what's a finger here and there on the right fist? So some right-fistians die in the process; they have a bunch of other rockets to use, and they might as well try to wipe out all the right-fistians they can.

If this is hard to understand, well, I did the best I could. Let me know if you're still having problems.

The parents want me to come home early or go to a hotel in Tel Aviv, so we'll see what happens. Meanwhile, I'm all packed up at Safta's and just trying to study, god damn it, so I really wish Hezbollah would choose a better way to get rid of their excess testosterone, like, I don't know, go out and have a lot of sex, because I just want to freaking take the exam and pass it.
Hah! Like that will ever happen. The studying, I mean. I'm a professional student, as in, I don't study. And come out with straight A's. Because I'm just better than you, I suppose. Regardless, both the Technion and the University of Haifa have "closed until further notice", and exams won't be rescheduled until things are calmed down. Now, they can post the exam date within 48 hours of it's new time, but unless they post anything by tomorrow, which is seeming less and less likely as the day passes, I will probably not be writing the exam in Israel. Sigh. I'm a big fan of procrastinating when it comes to me doing the actual procrastinating, but I hate it when exams and tests are pushed off. Just cancel the whole thing all together and give me a pass on a pass/fail scale; otherwise, it just eats into the rest of my summer, and the Israeli school calendar where exams go into July is just plain ridiculous enough as it is.

-J

Lebanon can kiss my ass

Not going to lie: this kind of sucks.

Hezbollah has been firing on Israel for the better part of this week, and at 9 am this morning, they started up with Haifa. Which means that I have spent most of the day going down to the bomb shelter, going out of the bomb shelter, trying to eat lunch but stopping before the fork hits the plate because the air raid siren sounded and that means, you guessed it, going back down to the bomb shelter.

It's quieter now, and we're hoping for the best. But seeing arab "members of parliament" on TV (read: terrorists) laugh at how Haifa's Patriot Missile system isn't working (they're supposed to fire at enemy missiles and blow them up in the air before they land and cause damage and instead, they're, well, not working), well, it's kind of disheartening. And also, who the @$&* do you think you are to laugh when you're sending rockets into civilian areas? Does that make you a big man or something? Aren't there any puppies lying around Lebanon that you can kick or something instead of directing your aggression in my direction? Is this all really necessary?

The safta has taken off for Jerusalem, which means that I am all by myself in the big city preparing for my last exam, and I hope to God that it gets cancelled. I mean, hopefully things calm down enough by thursday that I can study for it and write it, but also, I kind of don't really want to have to study for it/write it, because who does?

God, packing is going to be such a nightmare...

-J

Ads and Other Things

I am a consumer whore. And how!*
If you glance above my post, and just below my title, you will notice an ad, powered by Google's AdSense. Pleasepleaseplease click on it. I get money, and you get carpal tunnel syndrome. Everybody wins!!! If you look carefully through my post, I will place subliminal messages convincing you that clicking on these ads is a good idea.
Click my ads!
*(reference: Dan Hertzfeldt's brilliant cartoon Rejected. Everyone must see it. Google it or something. You'll find it)
Well, it seems that I'm posting every thirty seconds, but don't worry, that will soon change. I'm just bored. And procrastinating. Obviously.
Click my ads!

I am back from Jerusalem, and since my ZenMicro died again, I had a lot of time to contemplate the situation in the Middle East. I have come to the following conclusion:
I hate all people who use the following phrase when asked how they will know when peace will come to the Middle East: "There will be peace when I can sit down with my Arab neighbor and we can eat Chumus together and call eachother 'brother'. "

Oh my freaking God: Do these people have any idea how utterly obnoxious and patronizing they sound? And this is not just one isolated incident; madrichim of all sorts of youth groups and organized trips use this expression in various permutations. As do youthful idealists, philosophers, and dreamers. Also, communists *cough* anyone in the Nacha"l *cough*.
Now. There is nothing wrong with being a youthful idealist. I mean, they're just plain stupid and completely unprepared for the real world, but hey, power to you. Everyone needs their dreams.
But here's my opinion: If you didn't learn to share in Kindergarten, it's not a skill you're going to pick up anytime soon. I for one, seem to have missed that class. I hate sharing. It makes my skin crawl. I would rather buy a person their own plate of fries rather than let them take one of mine. If you aren't one of the three and maybe four people on the planet with whom I begrudgingly share my food, stop touching my things.
Chumus and peace in the Middle East have nothing to do with eachother, other than the fact that chumus originated in the Middle East, and that we would like peace to start originating itself there as well.
What if I said that the US would have less trouble with it's South American illegal immigrants if they could get along over a plate of enchiladas? Nothing, that's what.
People who use this quote want to smack you in the face with their "sameness". Look! We both live in the Middle East! Look! We both enjoy the same food! We can totally stop hating eachother now! Let's eat! And hey, let's eat together! My brother! Chumus!

Shut the hell up! And click on my ad!

FYI: Just because you eat the same food doesn't make you the same. And why do you want to be the same, anyways? Diversity is more interesting. Sameness is boring.

People don't need to resort to pithy little statements about food to achieve peace. They need to stop teaching hatred to their children for one, which, by the way, does not require that they teach their children to love "the enemy" (though it would be nice).

Here's the secret that I learned in Kindergarten (shhhhhh....don't tell): You don't have to like a person/nation/religion/ethnic group to get along with them. In fact, you can totally hate them, because that's your own business. It's kind of sad that you hate them, but really, there's nothing I can do about it to change your mind. All you have to do is respect them, expect the same from them and leave them the hell alone. Because peace does not require love for the enemy; it requires love for oneself to overpower your need to destroy your enemy.

God, didn't anyone ever see War Games? Fighting doesn't work, so stay the hell in your own backyard, and leave me in peace.

In the end, someone will probably poison the chumus anyways.

Click my ads!

-J

I'm fine, thanks for asking

So it seems we're at war with Lebanon.
Note to my parents: I'm fine and safe, thanks for calling to check. Oh, except that you didn't.
A terrorist group fires Katyusha's and god knows what else on Northern Israel and you don't pick up the phone to call your only daughter? Are you kidding?

But don't worry; I'm safe and totally fine. And it's probably for the best that I decided to visit a friend in Metullah last weekend as opposed to going up there tomorrow. Because spending the night in the bomb shelter is not really my idea of a rocking good time. Though I suppose we'd have good conversations for lack of anything better to do.

I spent the day in Jerusalem yesterday and slept the night at my cousins' place. And I got my homework mostly done! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (Sorry, it just happens so rarely...). The bus-ride into town was interesting, in that it sucked. For some reason, I seem to get stuck with the ghetto-fabulous busses where the air-conditioning breaks down just in time for the Mediterranean July (nb: we are not amused), where the seats look so dirty that you just know you're crawling with body-lice the minute you exit the bus, and where the whole thing has a faint smell of, I don't know, garbage/feces/urine/feet/unwashed overweight men. Seriously, why do a large majority of religious men have an aversion to deodorant? Is there a passage in the Torah that I missed? "Thou shalt not smell like you shower once a day"? Seriously, this is something that needs to be taken care of. People! After the age of, like, 11 and a half, you must shower once a day (every other day if you're really stuck, but don't make a habit of it), and you must wear deodorant! And, come to think of it, you must brush your teeth! God, why are people so disgusting? And yes, I'm OCD, but good lord, something must be done! Can't this be one of those lessons you get at the absorption centre when you land in the country? I'm going to contact the Jewish Agency. Where's my phone?

The whole thing makes me itch. And to top it off, the driver had a huge Betar Yerushalayim (virulently racist soccer team) scarf strung across the windshield, which I guess meant that somewhere into the trip, we were going to stop off in Sakhnin and beat up the Arabs. I suppose it's always good to mix it up a little. Keeps the road-rage suppressed and all. At least the driver was polite, which is more than I can say for the jerk who drove the bus back to Haifa from Metullah: Because I knew that the bus was the kind that goes from Metullah to Haifa via every tiny little village on the way, and I needed to arrange for someone to come pick me up at the station, I ask him (and very nicely; I'm such a doormat when I speak in Hebrew to strangers. I speak very softly and use the word bevakasha a lot. It confuses the hell out of Israelis. And Russian Israelis, who yell at me to speak up. In Russian. YANI PANI MAY PA RUSSKI, BITCHES!!!) if he can tell me when we might get into Haifa. And he says "nagiyah bashalom" , which for the unilingual among you means "We'll get there in peace". Which is totally not an answer involving any period of time.
Jackass.

Le sigh.
Hopefully everything will turn out for the best. Lebanon, bus-drivers and all.

-J

Josephus Flavius Rocks My Socks Off

My faithful readers/stalkers (CNN: Why don't you call? Why don't you write? Has our love affair wilted so quickly into the Great Beyond? I pine for the day where you will ask me to be on your staff so I can ask your editors the questions that burn inside me but which can be summed up with the following acronym: WTF? ) will remember previous posts in which I write about avoiding studying for such and such exam so that I can update the world as to my goings-on.

Today is no different!

Instead of studying for my Introduction to Semitic Linguistics exam, I will take the time to brief you on everything that has been happening lately. Galileo was wrong; the world, in fact, revolves around me.

1. Haifa U Study Tour: Three weeks of sitting in a class/touring the country learning about Israel and the Jewish People from the time of Abraham until the Modern Age. Actually, I would have learned about the Modern Age had I not skipped the very last Friday class, but seriously, after spending eight hours moving all of my stuff into my aunt's apartment the night before, I'm not actually going to wake up at 6:30 to make it to the university in time for a 7:30 class on a Friday. Actually, I probably wouldn't have gone to the class any other day of the week.
So to amend my statement, I have learned about Israel and the Jewish People from the time of Abraham until the end of the Six Day War. In three weeks. Which is approximately 15% more material than was covered over four years in Jewish History classes at the Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto. Which makes you question the quality of the Jewish education you're paying for these days.
1. Back to the Study Tour: But yeah, the trips were great. To your left, there is a pile of rocks. And to your right, a bigger pile of rocks. Placed there by Josephus Flavius. I have learned that you can always work Josephus Flavius into any conversation. In fact, Josephus Flavius is my homeboy.
We went to all sorts of places, but I think my favorite by far is a tie between my thirty-second camel ride and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. My camel buddy for the day was Sascha, and we named our camel Louis. Louis was a fine camel, if not a little PMS-y. Fun fact! Most camels who participate in camel-rides are female. Because the males have territorial issues. Kind of like Ismail Haniyeh. (ssssssssssnap!) And Louis is totally comfortable in her sexual identity, despite her seemingly masculine name, thank you for asking. But when you take Louis's picture, she gets kind of grumpy. Suffice it to say that even if we died at the hooves of Louis, which we almost did, we'd have awesome photos. As for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where before this trip I have only ever seen the outer courtyard, it was totally awesome. And I even got a good photo of Jesus's grave. Which is kind of gross, I think. There was no body, because he rose from the dead, duh.
Tee hee hee.
Whatever, it was cool. And freaking huge and artistic and medieval and such. So my recommendation is "go!". Fun for the whole family.
I left the tour-week early with a few other people to study (hah!) for the exam, so the bus dropped us off in Dimona where we were to catch a bus to Beer Sheva and from there take the train to Haifa.
A word about Dimona: Hm.
That's it. That's my word. I don't think that anyone actually wants to live in Dimona. I mean, the whole thing is basically sand and disappointed immigrants. And, you know, the nuclear reactor. None of this "flower of the desert" stuff. Also, it's really dirty. As in, you know it's dirty when you look out the bus window to see a girl sweeping the dirt out of her house into the dirt in her yard, and she looks like she just needs a good bath. And then you realize that she's not sweeping the dirt out of her house into the yard, but rather she is..sweeping the sand in the yard, at which point you become sad and lose faith in humanity but especially in the youth of Dimona, like, you're in the middle of a desert, get a clue.
My final thought on the Study Tour: Auditing is awesome; all the perks and none of the assignments. Sweet.

2. Gilad Shalit and the Situation in Gaza: Well, it's a really tragic story, but in answer to all those inquiring about my health and safety in Israel right now, don't worry. My health and safety in Israel couldn't be better. That doesn't mean that I would envy your average Gazan at the moment. It's probably not on Expedia.com's top ten vacationing lists. But I the beaches are overrun with jellyfish this time of the year anyways.

3. Packing: I AM GOING TO DO IT!! I'm going to get all of my stuff home! You thought it couldn't be done! You thought I had too much stuff! Which I do! But I also have a great plan: Send most of it home with unwitting family/family friends, take two/three suitcases myself, and keep the rest in my delusional world of "It Will All Totally Fit in My Suitcase, SHUT UP, I HATE YOU!".
My long-term plan is to take all the stuff I won't wear/use anymore back in Toronto and sell it at one of those garage sales. 5$ a top, 10$ a pair of pants. Keep checking back to find out more on the grand opening of "L'Armoire de Jess", coming soon to a thrift shop near you.

More has probably happened in my fabulously important and irrepressibly desirable life, but I can't put off the procrastinating any longer, so wish me luck!
-J

Mes Aventures en Israёl

First off, I would like to thank those of you who write comments. It makes me feel as if people actually read this blog. However; please leave your name or some hint which lets me know who you are.
Unless y'all are just a bunch of stalkers. You know who you are.

To update, since my last post about nearly getting killed by the busses, I have been to the Technion's Yom Hastudent, and can I just say, it rocked. All of it. From the concert monday night to the pool party tuesday afternoon to the second concert tuesday night, and after seeing Ivri Leder, Bet Habubot, Miri Mesika (who, fyi: Honey, if you're nominated singer of the year, and you hit a flat note? You're totally fired.), HaYehudim, HaGirafot, and Aviv Gefen, let me just say: Wow. Fabulous. Infinitely better than Haifa U's. Those techie geeks have money to throw around.

Today I started the first day of Haifa U's Overseas Student Study Tour, where I audit courses (i.e: I don't have to take notes or write a paper...yessssssssssss) in Judeo-Israeli History and tour around the country like I ought to have been doing all year, but haven't. But it's kind of a sad reflection on my Jewish high school that in five hours today, we basically covered all the Jewish history that I learned over four years in Jewish History class. So, C.H.A.T, you suck.

Tangent: When people ask what the one thing I took with me from high school is, I answer, my typing skills from computers class in grade nine. The rest was all filler. I'm very Bet Hillel in this regard. (Get the reference? Anyone? Torah while standing on one foot? Love your neighbor, the rest is all commentary? Nothing? God, you're all such bad Jews.)

Back to the study tour: I've made friends! And been social! And not stayed cooped up in my room! Kol HaKavod to me!!! In fact, we're going out (!) (God, I'm such a loser...) in ten minutes, so yalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllah.

Update: We went to Sha'altiEli, a nargila bar on the beach. At the barbeque dinner earlier, everyone was all "Hey, wanna go out? Yeah, let's go out! Yeah, let's go to the beach! Hey Jess, what's at the beach at night?" And I was all "...Sand..." and then "oh, wait, there's a nargila bar!" and everyone was all "Awesooooooooooooome!". So after a misunderstanding (read: getting ripped off) in the shared taxi where he told us 50 shekel and then heard our English and changed the price to 60 (....), and having kind of bad service at Sha'altiEli (but then, this is Israel. "What, you want me to, like, actually wait on your table?"), and worrying about the bill, we had a generally great time. And then people wanted to chillz on the beach, and in my opinion, unless you got a really great fire going, it just becomes a getting-sand-and-dirt-on-you adventure. In the dark. In the scenic dark. Whatever. So I peaced out. Goodnight.

Love to my stalkers and kisses to the rest of you,
J

It's Non-Stop Excitement at Haifa U

The Bus-stop at the University: Convenience or Death Trap?

People ask me if I worry about my safety on an Israeli bus.
I worry more about my safety off the Israeli bus.

I take the bus at least once a day, and every time upon my return to the University, I take my life into my own hands. Or rather, the hands of the busdriver speeding along his merry way.
(Because in Israel, the speed limit is just a friendly suggestion).

To explain my predicament, I have taken the time to draw a helpful diagram (not to scale). And yes, I actually spent half an hour on the damn thing. So appreciate it.

Okay, so here's the legend:

The cross-shaped structure is the Guard booth= Your Final Destination. This is the structure that any resident/visitor to the dorms must pass through to actually get into the dorms. It is usually the final destination of students taking the bus towards the dormitories, though often, students may get off at the bus stop (small green structure marked on the bottom left of the picture) and follow the yellow path towards other buildings on campus.

The red line marks the path of incoming busses (buses?), which whip around the traffic circle 45 seconds after dropping people off and heads toward the bus station and into the bus lane.

Note: Cars do not use the bus lanes. There is only one lane (the middle lane) for cars. It is, in fact, not a two way street, but rather, a two-way lane.

The yellow line marks the path of incoming cars hoping to park in the dorms parking lot.

The blue line marks the path of cars exiting the dorms parking lot.

Visibility to the rest of the road is blocked by a bush, which means cars making the right turn on the blue line cannot see A)oncoming traffic entering the parking lot on the yellow line, B)busses/buses backing up to get a good position on the red line to get into the bus lane next to the bus station, or C)people crossing on the pink line. The bush also means that oncoming traffic/pedestrians cannot see cars about to make the right turn on the blue line.

The pink line marks the average path of people getting off at the bus stop and heading towards the final destination: guard booth.

The white arrows painted in the middle lane by the Israeli Roads Authority, obscured by the pink, red, blue and yellow lines, point in both directions because Israel is apparently a third world country.

It must be mentioned that cars travelling the yellow line usually take a tight left turn, often crossing into the path of the blue line.

Conclusions to be drawn from the diagram: At any given point in the day, every single line upon which travels a car/bus/pedestrian, will intersect at the black starburst of doom

Consequences for me: vehicular manslaughter

To get to the bus station coming from the dorms through the guard booth, I must:
a) cross my fingers and take the long way around, crossing over both car lanes, going behind and around the bus station, and

or b) cross my fingers and then cross both car lanes, the bus lane/free-for-all-middle-lane

To get to the dorms through the guard booth coming from the bus stop, I must:
a) be faster than the bus who dropped me off as he takes 45 seconds to whip around the traffic circle (note: it takes a good 48 seconds to get from the bus stop to the bush, depending on if the bus waits to leave the bus stop right after dropping you off. 50 seconds if he doesn't wait.), cross the bus lane, cross the free-for-all-middle lane, cross both car lanes, and get onto the sidewalk and into the guard booth

or b) die.

Linguistics Majors (read: Big dorks) and the Israeli Media

The giant 20 foot ad on top of the Chorev Mall is one of the things that makes this country great.
It features an adolescent girl sprawled suggestively across the poster, in a skimpy bikini which barely covers her chest, an unfortunate corporate name on the bottom right corner ("The Banana", which I take to be the name of the bathing suit brand), and the following words written in close proximity to the girl's prominent bosom (which isn't so much prominent as it is a flat bosom covered by a bikini that's a good size or two too small):

ת'ציצי בפנים
(Transliterated: Ta'tseetsee beef-neem)

Now. Next to the first letter, a taf,(reading from right to left, remember) is an apostrophe which can be ignored, giving us the following translation:
"Peek inside!" (a command for a girl), which the perverted among us can take to mean "[hey, you girl over there,] Peek inside my bikini!", but which I would prefer to mean "[hey, lady,] Peek inside our store!".

Or. The apostrophe remains an apostrophe, the taf is interpreted as the Israeli slang form of the word - את ה, eht-ha (which marks a direct object of a verb), for example: ta'kufsa (the box): Ani mekhapeset ta'kufsa ("I'm looking for the box) (As opposed to eht ha-kufsa).
Using this interpretation of the spelling (as the ad-designer wishes us to do), we get the translation:
"The boob inside"

The clever ambiguity created on purpose by the ad company catches you between the feminine imperative form of the verb להציץ, (leh-hatsits) to peek (תציצי!-tatsitsi! peek!), and the Israeli slang word for breast, ציצי (tsitsi) (ת'ציצי-ta'tsitsi-The boobie).

So:
Peek inside!
The boob inside!

What a beautiful country.

Yom HaStudent

At all Israeli universities (and some colleges), there is a fabulous institution known as Yom Hastudent, or "Student Day". This is when all of the students of a particular university or college get a day off of school that has been pre-selected by their respective Student Union (Hereby known as the Agudat Hastudentim, or, just the ****ing Agudah), and then later in the day, they attend a fun-filled event, also planned by their ****ing Agudah, where they will get lots of free stuff from different sponsors, eat lots of (junk) food, and attend concerts by famous Israeli musicians.

Such is the background to the events planned yesterday, May 25th, by the University of Haifa's ****ing Agudah, who's slogan, kan bishvilcha/bishvilech(here for you), is a big joke.

**Disclaimer: The term ****ing Agudah only applies to the Agudat Hastudent at the University of Haifa. I'm told the ones at the Technion and at Tel Aviv University are pretty awesome.

In September, I paid the ****ing Agudah (who was not the ****ing Agudah at the time, but rather just the Agudat Hastudentim) money to become a member, which got me, for starters, a great backpack and an agenda, but also promises of free/discounted entry to all events planned by the Agudah.
They kept their promise when it came to the 8% discount at the bookstore
They kept their promise with their weekly concerts of relatively famous musicians/bands every wednesday accompanied with free (!) beer
They kept their promise with the fantastically discounted 5-month bus-pass
They kept their promise with the wildly cheap after-school activities like dancing and yoga.
But they royally screwed me over when it came to Yom Hastudent, and so my 10 month-long love affair with the ****ing Agudah came to an end.

On all the signs around the university promoting Shlomo Artzi! Tzvika Pik! Sarit Hadad! Shotei Hanevua! Mashina!, were also the words "Free for members of the Agudah". And 60 shekels for soldiers/other students.
So on the day they began ticket sales, I went down with my card and asked for the free agudah ticket. But the girl at the desk looked at my card and said "Oh, you're an overseas student. I'm sorry, but you don't get it for free. You need to pay 60 shekels". And I said "No, you're mistaken, because the very fact that I have this card is because I am a member of the Agudah." And she said "Well, I can't find you in the system, so my hands are tied, but go down to the Agudah office and I'm sure they'll take care of it". So I go downstairs to the office, and politely describe the situation to the secretary, in English, because when it comes to administrative problems, I like to be able to fully understand what's going on. She turns to her boss and explains the situation to her. And the boss totally flips out. In Hebrew. At me.
"Oh, I hate these overseas students! They're so spoiled, and they're always demanding things, and I caved when they wanted membership to the Agudah, and I gave in to them with the bus pass which they shouldn't have gotten, but I won't give in to the Yom Hastudent tickets, because they don't pay nearly as much as our students, and they don't pay student fees, and the answer is no!"
And she storms out of the office to, I don't know, photocopy something.

Big. Mistake. Just because I'm currently expressing myself in English does not mean I don't understand it when you are being a total heinous bitch to me in Hebrew. Also, like any other exchange student at any university on the planet, I pay a hell of a lot more money to attend this school than a regular Israeli university student. And I did pay all of my student activity fees, for more than regular Israeli students paid, I just happened to pay it to a different department. But I was too shocked to repeat all this to her also visibly shaken secretary. So I went upstairs and complained to the head of the overseas department, who promised to solve the matter. My counselor comes down to the office, and starts talking to Ms-I-Am-Overdue-For-A-Workshop-In-Customer-Relations (herein known as Ms IAOFAWICR), who backtracks on the whole "I totally lost it in front of a student" scene and explains that in fact, she's not giving me the free ticket for my own benefit, because the student card I have, which says that I am an Agudah member, is different from the normal agudah card, because they essentially gave us a glorified ISIC (International Student ID Card) card instead of the right card back in september, and they're worried that the guard at the gate won't recognize my card when I present it with my free agudah ticket.
To which I say, loudly, and not unobnoxiously, "So because you idiots screwed up in September, I have to pay 60 shekels?"
My counselor shushes me, and I say, again, and not unobnoxiously, "No, it's okay Eliad, she made it clear that she doesn't speak English when she was a total bitch yesterday in Hebrew."
He shushes me again, and I ask, "Well, if the problem is with our cards, which will work for the 60 shekel ticket, why not just tear off a couple of sixty shekel tickets off the top and hand them to us for free? That way, we get in for free and there won't be a problem with our cards at the gate"
And then Ms IAOFAWICR is all "No, the tickets have serial numbers, and if we report some as not being paid, we have a tax problem"
Because I totally care about your tax problems.
Give me my damn free ticket!
At the end of the day, and after letting it get all the way to the board of governors, the matter was not resolved, and I had to pay 60 shekels to get in. Which is not a terrible price; it was more the principle of the thing.

So after determining that The ****ing Agudah Must Die A Terrible Miserable Death, I went to the Mitcham Ketzef where Yom Hastudent was being held. The entire day was pretty great, except I have to admit I was disappointed when I found out that Mitcham Ketzef (which means Foam Premises) was just the name of the area, as opposed to being a Foam Room (cause I saw "Foam Room" and was all "this is the coolest university, ever, hands down. A FOAM room?!? Wow." And then I thought of CSI, where they had an episode with a bubble/foam room at a club and a guy gets stiletto-heel-through-the-necked to death and was all "hmmm...potential for disaster" because I learn everything I know from CSI, but I was still undeterred), so that was a little sad. But even though the concerts started 2 hours after schedule, and even though it was the hottest it's been so far (35 degrees because of the humidity), and even though there was no shade, and even though I harbor animosity toward the ****ing Agudah, and even though Mitcham Ketzef is really just a glorified outdoor ranch with packed dirt floors and NO shade from the sun that was beating down, and even though I have a nasty sore throat from the dirt, Yom Hastudent was AMAZING!

This is, of course, because of all the food stands, there was a thai noodles place.

I am also a closet Sarit Hadad fan. And Shlomo Artzi is nothing to sneeze at, either.

And Tuborg handed out clever little boxes where you pull a tab as if it is a beer can and out pops a lemon-flavored condom and the inside of the box says "taste the summer" and I love it when organizations pass out clever little condoms with clever little sayings (like how at Queen's, the Hillel passes out condoms that say on the wrapping "Israel needs protection and so do you". Brilliant!)

And there was a Playstation van where you could (and I did) play EA Sports! Soccer for as long as your heart desired. Though I must admit, I don't know how to play soccer on a video game for the life of me. But yelling at the screen/my controller/my opponent for a solid half hour without being told to "Please leave because Ma'am, you're making a scene", was awesome.

You know of course, that if it wasn't for the thai food/Sarit Hadad/clever condoms/Playstation van, that I would have been just as fine. But I still hate the ****ing Agudah. Because they're probably responsible for, like, the Middle East Conflict. And ecological disasters, like, global warming.

Jerks.

Next week: Yom Hastudent at the Technion! Which, proving that it is so many worlds more awesome than Haifa University, will be a two-day event featuring Shlomo Artzi (who is actually performing at a whole bunch of other university yom hastudents), Ivri Leider, Miri Mesika, Beit Habubotg, HaGiraffot, Galgalatz, the IDF bands, Aviv Gefen, Shalom Chanoch, Hayehudim, and a bunch of other artists I haven't heard of.
And hopefully, some thai food.

Israel: The Best and Worst of...

Our madrikh, Eliad, asked us all to fill in this survey so that he can make a suggestion book for future students. Here were my answers (keeping in mind that most restaurant suggestions, unless noted otherwise, are in and around Haifa)

Best Hiking Experiences:
1)Nachal Ammud, in the Galilee near Tzfat. This is for those of you who actually hate hiking trips, like me. Very easy and doable paths through a shade-filled forest with springs that you can swim in. Nice views of the Galilee

2)To Daliat Al Karmel; This can be done with a cab or the 022 bus from the university (which FYI, never comes), but the cool kids walk up the damn road (where on saturdays, a family sets up a Druzi Pita stand on the University side of the road), mainly because taxis are never going the right way, but also because the Carmel Forest is on the other side, and it's pretty scenic. I would try flagging a cab right around Bustan HaCarmel, a good 45 minutes-hour walk from the university and reportedly a good 3-4 hour walk from Dalia, because otherwise it's just too far. (though Daliya is only 20 minutes by car/bus/cab)
And by the way, there is no bus back from Dalia. Catch a Sherut near the Fox Plus store around 4, 4:30ish. Otherwise, you're shit out of luck. We've gotten all the way to Usufiya on foot before seeing a cab.

Best Places to Meet Israelis Off Campus:
Clubs, Bars, Museum, the Beach...Anywhere in Israel...Volunteer Programs...
Chof Hastudentim, two minute walk south along the tayelet from Chof Hacarmel.

Best Traveling outside the Country tips:
Shana suggests Issta Travels (Outside the Main Building of the University, next to the Post Office, where the bus stop is), because they have good student deals. I suggest Terminal One because my aunt works there.

Best Bars/Restaurants/Coffee Shops
-Dinerash (Dinner Rush...) in Merkaz Carmel: 25 shekels for all meals. Very cheap and yet surprisingly gourmet
-La Goffre in Merkaz Carmel: Belgian Waffles, Crepes, and Icecream.
-Pomodoro's Pizza in Merkaz Carmel: The sit-down is very good, DO NOT ORDER DELIVERY. They suck at delivery and the pizza from the Moadon at the dorms is probably cheaper.
-Aroma Cafe in Merkaz Carmel
-Greg's Cafe either at the upstairs strip of the university (be pushy) or in the Merkaz Carmel. The one in Merkaz Carmel has great food and is a good place for dinner
-Cafein, also in Merkaz Carmel, but they're nicer at the one in Chorev. Get the Chocolama if you are a chocolate fan.
-Litchi Japanese Restaurant in Merkaz Carmel
-Tatami Japanese Restaurant, between Chorev and Carmel
-Frangelico's Japanese Kiosk (you sit down at the bar) in the Grand Kanyon. If it's the bitchy waitress (she's the one who looks generally depressed with her life/job/hairstyle and who refuses to break larger bills), leave. Otherwise, the sushi is amazing, and the tempura vegetarian sushi rolls are awesome. Get the (freshly cooked) Agedashi Tofu soup, not the (microwaved) miso.
-Mandarin Cafe: The one in Chorev serves dinner/lunch/breakfast, and has more food options and is generally in less of a sketchy area than the one in Merkaz Carmel
-Broadway Bagel in the Chorev Mall. Kosher, so not open on Shabbat. Also, the food is really good, but let's just say that they aren't known for speedy service.
-Coffee to Go at Tel Aviv University, across from the Einstein dorms
-Shaltieli: Nargila Bar on the Chof Carmel Beach, right next to the Camel bar/restaurant, and above the natural amphitheater. Good Nargila, good alcohol, good fries, and good chummus+pita
Camel: Bar on the beach (Chof Carmel), great food, kind of pricy
Kadarim: Restaurant on the beach, north of Chof Carmel (just walk along the tayelet)
Misa'dat Achim Chalabi in Daliyat alCarmel. Great place, HUGE amounts of very good middle eastern food for ridiculously cheap (2 people each ate 2 kebabs, 5 different types of salads, chumus, pitta, felafel balls, arab desserts, soda pop, rice, pickles, tea, and coffee...for 40 shekels. That's 10 bucks.), great service. Also, the Chalabis basically own Daliya, so whereever you eat will be good.

General Tips About Israel:
-Dont assume that just because they're not speaking English at the moment, that they can't understand you when you try to speak about them behind their back.
-Totally go to the Haifa Film Festival! See as many films as possible. Free movies are played in the evening outdoors in Gan Ha'em in Merkaz haCarmel, and there are booths with fun things to buy in the park near the Cinematheque, at the entrance to Merkaz haCarmel.
-Get a cellphone. You may think you're being avant-garde and "free from distraction" without one, but in real life, you're just obnoxious. People like to get in touch with eachother. If you want to be free from technology, then just go without internet, but in Israel, everyone should have a cell-phone. Worrying parents like to get a hold of their kids, hint hint. Also, many israelis do without landlines and only have a cellphone. Or two.
-Israeli movie theatres sell assigned seat tickets and the movies have an intermission. Usually, it is not a problem to move your seat around after the movie has started if its not the opening weekend, but don't ever count on that. If you're going in a group, have one person buy a chunk of tickets and pay them back later, or if you're all there at the same time, you can ask the teller to seat you together but pay separately. Also, the time at which the intermission interrupts the movie is randomly selected. Watch out for it.
-If you must have a computer, bring a laptop with wireless capability
-Unless it's major traffic jam time, ALWAYS have the driver turn on the meter (taf'il et hamoneh, bevakasha)
If you take busses and you plan on using them every day, it's cheaper just to get a monthly pass
-Otherwise, get a kartisiya, ten rides at 80% of the price. Cheaper still if you're short and get the youth pass instead of the student pass, though not all bus drivers allow it if you're riding from the university or look too old.
-Don't tip the cab drivers, it's not done, and if they expect it, they're trying to rip you off
-Always tip your waitresses at least 10% if not 15%. The waitress is not paid by the hour by the restaurant, and only makes whatever you leave her in tips.
-There is no such thing as a drop-in appointment at the doctor's office in Israel. There is not a hebrew word for "walk-in" or "drop-in". Book in advance. If you're very sick, go to the receptionist early in the morning and cry a lot and hack like you have a seriously infectious disease.
-Most cafes have a shelf of free postcards with witty sayings and sometimes little foldy origami paper things. Take as many as possible.
-Superpharm always has the longest lines. If you don't need it right away, leave the store without it.
-Buy all housewares at the housewares store on the first floor of the chorev mall. They have power strips and surge protectors. FYI: there is not a single israeli who seems to know the word "surge protector" in hebrew. This is because different companies call it different things. Ask for a magen brah-kim. Otherwise, you can buy dishwares at any supermarket.
-While the minimarket in the dorms is more convenient, buy your vegetables and fruit at a real supermarket. Which is often cheaper
-Tampons and pads cost a hell of a lot more in this country, bring them from home
-Do not take the train to Jerusalem unless you want to go to the Malcha Mall. Take the bus otherwise. And the 940, not the 947, which stops at every village along the way and takes twice as long.
-Do take the train to Tel Aviv
-Israelis have an interesting concept of "the line", especially in the supermarket. They think that people will "save their place" (if they don't leave their cart) and then can waltz back 20 minutes later and cut in line and be all "but I was here first even though I didn't leave another person or my cart or my child". Don't allow this. Not even if they're little old ladies. Kick them while they're down. Defend your place to the death. And it might come to that. However, if you really were in line first, don't let other people get in front of you. Make a big scene.
-Don't be the ugly american. Nobody likes a sloppy drunk unless they are also a sloppy drunk. Europeans and Canadians are also quite capable of being "ugly americans".

Easy recipe for the Dorms Kitchen:
Pancakes: All ingredients can be obtained at the minimarket upstairs. Measurements can be inexact,and it will still taste good. So if you don't have measuring cups or spoons, use plastic drinking cups for the cup, soup spoons for tablespoons, and small spoons for teaspoons.If you want to double/triple the recipe, double/triple all proportions but NEVER ADD MORE BAKING POWDER/SODA
-Oil pan, put it on a burner, turn on the burner
-1 plastic cup full of flour
-same plastic cup full of milk or water, depending on if you are vegan/lactose intolerant
-tablespoon or two of white sugar, or more, to your taste
-teaspoon of oil
-teaspoon of vanilla or of vanilla sugar (vanilla sugar packets can be bought at the minimarket)
-teaspoon of baking powder/soda (also can be bought at the minimarket; if you buy it in packets, use about a third of the packet)
-1 egg
Stir vigorously and ladle onto sizzling hot frying pan that is well oiled. You must oil the pan for each pancake you make. Flip the pancake when bubbles start to form, or when you can get it on the spatula without things flying everywhere
Recipe makes about three big pancakes.

United States of Nobody Freaking Cares About How Much You Hate George W Bush

Although I was born in the United States and carry an American passport (and not a Canadian one, funny enough), I grew up in Canada, and therefore carry a Canadian perspective on most things. However, regardless of with which national heritage I choose to identify, I think we can all agree that being a mensch is something that transcends passports. And it's a department in which most Anti-Bush thinking and thinkers are seriously lacking.

Having heard complaints for a good six years at least, I'm ready to say it out loud:

I'm $%&*ing sick and tired of hearing about how much you hate George W. Bush

"Blah blah blah, he's power hungry"
As much as talkshows joke about it, American policy does not work as if it's something the President is chatting with his drinking buddies one day and gets really trashed on a couple of mojitos and is all, "hey, let's go shoot us some Ay-rabs, y'all! And ban abortions! And oppress minorities!" And Boom! It's the law. It takes due process, and a vote, in either the House or the Senate, I don't know which because I don't care. The outcome of this is that the fate of the country is not just determined by one man; it just so happens that the one man is the figurehead that you elected to office.

"Blah blah blah, he's such a right-winged Christian"
America is a country founded by Christians on Christian principles, which only influence the country in that it's countrymen only elect white, middle aged Christian men to office. At which point it has just become your own damn faults. If you don't like it, move. Or, use your constitutional right to protest. I don't care which one. Just stop blaming the system, get off your soapboxes (read:laz-e-boy-recliners) and do something about it.

"Blah blah blah, I hate the Republicans"
In a bipartisan system, it's a fifty-fifty toss up between Democrats and Republicans, so better luck next time.

"Blah blah blah, get out of Iraq/Israeli affairs/Afghanistan"
Unless you are a political science major who also holds advanced degrees in middle eastern studies/politics/history with a minor in American foreign policy, shut the hell up. Your uneducated analyses/dissertations without merit on the Middle Eastern conflict serve to make the general population dumber than it already is.

"Blah blah blah, he's stupid"
In this day and age, and in fact since the beginning of the American governmental system, the President has had people to write his speeches for him. And I have to say, GWBush's speeches are nothing less than awesome. Whether you agree with the content of the speeches is an election issue; you can't deny that unless you have massive education, you wouldn't be able to come up with a presidential address if you tried. But the fact is that to attack the President's character by calling him stupid is kind of like a whole pile of pots with a kettle for a leader. And also, it's just plain rude.
(The reference, if you missed it, is "Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black". But if you were too stupid to catch that, then you sure as hell better watch your tongue next time you make fun of your president...)

As I see it:The only onewho can hate the American President by virtue of his character/education/religion is his dog, if any of the aforementioned cause him to not be taken out for a walk.

This is not the first, but rather the second time that your country has elected this president to office. So he's got that going for him.

In a democratic system, the leader needs to win by the majority of the vote. Which means that if you are of the minority who did not vote for the current president, you are guaranteed to disagree with his policies assuming that is the reason you did not vote for him in the first place. So stop beating your dead horses and cross your fingers for the next time around.

That is all.

-J

*Disclaimer: You will note that I did not take any sides in the Bush Rocks!/Bush Sucks! debate. This is because I choose to get an education about the issue before taking any sort of stance. Which unfortunately, a good chunk of current debate goes without.

Lag Ba'Omer and Other Holidays Where Israelis Burn Stuff

Lag Ba'Omer Same'ach!

And, if you're Sephardi: Lag La'Omer Same'ach!

Why do they have a different greeting, you ask? Well, it turns out that Lag La'Omer Same'ach is in fact the accurate choice according to the grammatical rules of Hebrew as it was spoken before Israel came to be and changed the language, and so Sephardim get an A+ in Hebrew Grammar!

But I digress.

Lag Ba/La'Omer is the 33rd day of counting the Omer (which are sheaves of wheat. For ancient tax purposes, I think. No seriously, who would have thought that the Jews would have a few tax-related holidays? Actually, probaby the Crusaders would have hazarded a guess. Tu Bishvat is tax-related, too. I can just picture the dialogue in the Middle Ages: "Halt! Jew! We don't like you. We're going to come burn down your synagogues and kick you out of our country. Generic-Jews-And-Their-Money-Statement-Here. And you for sure have holidays about money." And the Jews are all "No we d-....Oh. Oh, right. Damn it." ), and once upon a time, there was a terrible plague and a lot of Torah scholars died but! Miraculously, on the 33rd of the Omer, the plague stopped, and so every year, Jews (at least Israelis) celebrate by...lighting bonfires. Because someone was all "This is a Good Idea." And if you're curious, that someone is probably the same someone who organized a bunch of university students to go out to the Carmel National Forest last night to light their bonfires (brilliant) and also the same someone who was all "Hey! Fireworks! Let's set them off! By the power plant!". How is it that natural selection hasn't weeded these people out, yet?

All day yesterday before dusk, there was an excess of dirty children scrabbling around looking for wood and cardboard and stuff that burns. I assume they got dirty in the process of scrabbling, and were and will continue to be ordinarily clean individuals. In Haifa, it was like the entire city was on fire, so it was quite pretty. And totally unrelated to a bunch of scholars who up and didn't die. And my question is, on the 34th day of the Omer, did they start dying again?

Whatever. Welcome to Israel. On wikipedia.com, Israel is not listed as having a national motto, and therefore I would like to put forth a suggestion: "Israel: We like to burn stuff with every opportunity that comes our way."

Case in point: Yom Ha'atzmaut! (Independance Day) The national barbeque-al ha esh-mangal day. Where more stuff is burned and set on fire (like the fireworks. Again, coincidentally close to the power plant because that is A Good Idea). Though this post is a little chronologically backwards, given that Yom Ha'atzmaut was two weeks ago. I was just too lazy to post anything. Sorry.

My Yom Ha'atzmaut: I watched the fireworks that were set off at various points around the city, which is eventful because Haifa is on a mountain, so you can see several different displays going on at the same time. Then off to a bar downtown with a bunch of friends (albeit in a really, really sketchy area of Haifa which I don't go to in the daytime and why the hell are we going all the way downtown to a bar called HaSimta which means "The Alley" because it's located in, well, an alley, and remind me why we decided that going to this bar was a wise choice?) to while the night away (read: get really, really drunk). The next morning was not quite yet "lounge on the beach" weather, but I went to the beach anyways where every square foot of lawn above the tayelet was occupied by a barbeque or a makeshift-grill and the whole beach smelled like barbequeing meat, which I really enjoy, except that it made me hungry, so we had to stop at an overpriced beach restaurant, but it was okay, because it had outside seating so I was free to people-watch, which is one of my favorite activities. Also, best humus in Haifa is on the beach boardwalks.

The moral of the story: Lag Ba/La Omer, I just don't get you. Though you do indulge my pyromaniac tendencies. And Yom Ha'atzmaut, well, you're just awesome.

-J

Plot Hole!

So instead of doing Hebrew homework (of course), I'm watching Spiderman 2.
And I really have to take issue with one of the scenes here.

Peter Parker has hung up his Spiderman costume for what we are supposed to assume is "for good", in an effort to change his lifestyle back to a more normal pace. Because flying through the air while criminals fire submachine guns at you is apparently too stressful for the average superhero. Like, duh. So he passes three thugs pounding a kid in an alley, (a very brightly lit alley, considering it's New York, but I suppose you also have to realize that it's only the afternoon, so I'm not really sure why they picked a well-lit and easily accessible alley to beat up a guy in broad daylight) and the kid is screaming for help and Peter looks in, sighs, and carries on his merry way because he is no longer a superhero, and well, he's not the one getting beaten to a bloody pulp.

Plot hole 1: What the hell, man? Since when is it okay to let a guy get mugged in an alley in broad-freaking-daylight? Run for help! Call the police! Make a big racket! Find someone with a cellphone! It is people like you that get people like the Central Park Jogger raped in the middle of a crowd! Here, watch, it's easy: "Somebody call 911! Fire! Fire! Help! Help! Get the police!"


Peter finally goes to Mary Jane's play (The Importance of Being Earnest, which I think was a stupid movie, and from the thirty second shots I've seen of it, seems to be a stupid play, too), in which she is supposed to be "amazing", wonderful", "awesome", and when she notices him, she gets all flustered and misses her line.

Plot hole 2: This is the second time in the movie in which his presence/absence has caused her to screw up her lines in her play. Which tells me that maybe she's not such the great actress she's cracked up to be. Also? I've been on a stage, and you seriously can't see the audience for the stage lights, so unless it's a low-budget play with poor actors, I'm having issues stretching reality for the moment.

Anyways, Peter catches up with MJ after the play, who's all "oh, yay, you made it!". Like, scrape up a little more enthusiasm, babe. And he's all smiles, and invites her for chow mein, which she turns down with the line "Peter, I'm getting married."

Plot hole 3: So what? Since when did going for chow mein constitute a breach of marital vows? He'll probably pay! Like my uncle says, "Never turn down free food". Go for the freaking chow mein! Has "going for chow mein" turned into some sort of euphemism for "let's go have lots of hot sex behind your fiancé's back" while I was abroad? And why doesn't anyone keep me posted on these changes? And what happens if you're invited out for sushi? Imagine the possibilities!
Right, and then she's all "You think just because you saw my play, you can talk me out of getting married?"
Well, no, he thought you might be hungry and want to go for some good chinese food. Actually, chow mein isn't really all that great. He thought you might want to go for some mediocre chinese food.

And the best one of the day: In an effort to convince her that he's changed for the better, he says "MJ, I've changed! Punch me, I bleed!"

Plot hole 4: The best way to win a girl's heart is not by quoting Shylock from The Merchant of Venice, my friend. And also, I'm pretty sure that "Punch me, I bleed" is not actually in The Merchant of Venice. So, way to use a sucky line to misquote a play to a professional actress, dude. God, no wonder this guy is such a loser. He was better off in the red tights.


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. I hate plot holes. Get an competent director.

That is all.
-J

Because I know you were worried...

My Creative Zen Micro has woken up from it's temper tantrum and has finally decided to work.
Attn Customer Service/Tech Support at Creative: Snap! You guys suck at life.
I am transferring 2578 tracks back to the damn machine as we speak, after having left it alone for two weeks in the hopes that even though Creative Tech Support failed me (because they never freaking listen), everything would repair itself in the end if I just left it alone.

Kind of like a pimple. What an unbelievably appropriate comparison for a Creative product: Creative Zen Micro-a pus-filled blemish which brightly stands out on the otherwise comparatively scarless face of technology.

I say 'comparatively scarless' because my craptacular Dell computer joins my Creative Zen Micro in the blemish category. However, the Dell is less of an annoyance because Dell, unlike Creative, has a reasonably competent Tech Support team.

Back to my own technological genius: (and by the way, those who really know me should be frightened by that last statement. Doesn't it keep you up at night that a support staff is as in/competent as me?)

Anyways, I managed to unfreeze the damn thing (and I'm still not really sure what I did differently this time than before), and am reloading everything, but only as a temporary solution to the current situation in which I am waiting to buy an iPod.

There are a few morals that can be derived from this saga:
a)Creative products, while often superior in theory to other comparable brands, are ultimately worthless, given the quality of their customer service/tech support or lack thereof.
b)iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiPPPPPPPPPPod.
c)Considering that she was the last one to handle it before it crashed, Na'ava is not allowed near any electronic equipment of mine for some time to come. Although she has called 'dibs' on the Zen for when I ultimately acquire my iPod. So, whatever. If she wishes to burden herself with what is at times effectively a paperweight, power to her.
c)iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiPPPPPPPPPPod.
d)iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiPPPPPPPPPPod.

~Fin~

Holocaust Education

Going with the dominant theme of the day...

I read an article on Haaretz.com last week (though I can't retrieve it at the moment) that talked about the formation of a Holocaust education program which focusses on the lives of North African (read: Moroccan) Jewry during the period of the Holocaust. It seems that Sephardi students, many of whom are of North African descent, can't seem to understand what the Holocaust has to do with them. They see it as "Askhenazi" (read: white) history to which they have no connection. They question why they even have to study it at all.

What a phenomenally stupid question.

My reply: For the same reason that White, Jewish, Indian, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American students who live in America have to study Black History Month. It is an integral and inseparable part of American history, which affects all American students to some extent, just as the history of the Holocaust affects all Jews regardless of origin or geographical orientation at the time.

Though I do commend the Israeli Board of Education for creating this new program, my recommendation is that they do not limit it to the Sephardi community; just like the history of the "Ashkenazi" Holocaust is a requirement for all Israeli schoolchildren, the history of the Sephardic experience would be a welcome addition to the curriculum.

Yom HaShoah

Today is Yom HaShoah VeHagvurah (Holocaust and Heroism Day), at least in Israel, if not elsewhere in the world. Actually, it technically began late yesterday afternoon. It is the law that all places of entertainment, that is, restaurants, cafes, bars, clubs, and most stores (i'm not sure about the last one) close on Erev Yom HaShoah (the night before) up until the following night. I discovered this when I went for waffles and we got there just as the place closed. Le sigh. The radio has been playing slow, soft, and sad folk-songs all day long.

Even though my usual practice for a 10:15 class is to wake up at 9 and rush in just in time for class, I got up half an hour earlier (also so that I could eat a full breakfast as opposed to the usual tea and muffin...thank god for post-holiday grocery shopping) to be on campus in time for a special event. I got up to the main building two minutes before-hand, and met up with my friend Shana, and we waited outside in the crowd.

At 10 am, the air-raid siren went off all over the State of Israel for two minutes, and time literally froze. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stood absolutely still. It was like being in a photograph. You know the scene from the Matrix when Neo and Morpheus are in the training program and Neo gets distracted by the woman in the red dress and she turns into an agent and Morpheus stops the program and everyone freezes? Minus Keanu Reeves, it was exactly like that. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

I'm told that during the siren, all traffic stops, too, and people pull their cars over and stand outside them, even on the highway (which scares the hell out of me to even consider the logistics of that feat of driving. Note to self; if I immigrate, don't be caught out driving on days when they sound the siren).

But thirty seconds into the siren, a girl walked through the crowd, who did not part for her, and all you could hear was the siren and her heels clicking on the pavement. Noone looked up at her, and so even though she had on this defiant expression, I was the only one who noticed it, because everyone had their head bowed, and I kept my head up to watch. She was the only person moving; everyone else in the courtyard, Ashkenazi, Ethiopian, Sepharadi, Arab, and overseas student, was like a statue.

Now, I had been 'warned' last night by one of my roommates that Arab students are notorious for purposefully ignoring the siren, by walking, shouting, singing, playing music, or talking on their cellphones as if nothing is happening. Which, if you consider it, is violently rude. Like, put your political bullshit aside for two minutes out of the year. (Actually, six minutes. They will sound the siren twice more next week, on Remembrance Day. But seriously, six minutes. Take a valium if you have ADD and problems keeping still for that long. Otherwise, grow the hell up). first of all, I would like to point out that in no way was the walking girl symbolic of all Arabs who make up 20% of the population at Haifa University. The majority of them have a good head on their shoulders, and know what it means to respect another people's pain and memories. This is why I was not at all wary, like my roommate, who fretted about finding a quiet place where she could stand and not be bothered by the 'obnoxious arabs'. (Fun fact: Hebrew does not have a good word for 'obnoxious'. The closest I can find is docheh, which literally means 'repulsive', as in something you push away from you). .

The girl who refused to stop walking this morning (who was in fact Arab, by the way.) was exercising her right to refuse to observe a silence which is not mandatory by law, but rather by a code of etiquette which she clearly does not apply to herself. She was able to have her little temper tantrum against the 'fascist state' without disrupting anyone else's private moment. She did not push or shove anyone who stood quietly. She did not physically harm those standing, who clearly had a different worldview than her own. She was obnoxious, yes, but she did not put anyone who disagreed with her in danger.

While the total standstill that comes with the siren is one of the most powerful events that I have experienced, I believe that it is the walking Arab girl who symbolizes the moral of the outcomes of the Holocaust. In the State of Israel, where democracy and Judaism and Jewish History are so incredibly intertwined and so impossibly inseparable, and which so many claim is the direct outcome of the Holocaust, Jewish and Arab citizens alike have the unquestionable right, within a democratic framework, to choose to remember or to defiantly forget.

Prunes!

I've had a revelation and am freaking out:
Where does prune juice come from?
Think about it: Prunes are dried plums. Dried plums. Which means that there is no juice left in them. But you never hear of plum juice. Because there's only such a thing as prune juice.
But prunes have no juice! Where does this juice come from?

Clearly, there has been a massive cover up involving plums, prunes, and possibly the state of California. Because that's where I've decided that the prunes (and their not-so-innocuous juice) come from.

In other news: I have too much time on my hands. And I want a keeshond puppy. And an iPod. (in case you're trying to pick out a belated birthday present. hint. nudge. wink)

Israel during Pesach break? Partyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!
Cottage tomorrow!

-J

Dance, monkeys!

There's currently an unwritten competition among the staff of the cafes of Cafein, Aroma, and Elite to buy my love. Cafein is currently winning, because the guy looked at my punch card, which by all intents and purposes needed two more punches before I got the free coffee, and then he comped my coffee anyways. But the staff at Elite engage me in conversation and Avi from Aroma still goes down in history for the plate of whipped cream topped with chocolates (!!)
For those keeping track, the score is Elite: 5, Cafein: 10 (free stuff gets big points), and Aroma: 7006 (plate of whipped cream=7000 pts, chocolates=6 pts. I don't really like chocolate)

Spent the last two days "cleaning" house in Jerusalem where I will be spending the seders. The quotations around 'cleaning' show that I was not doing so of my own accord. But they asked nicely, and also feed me. And let me do my laundry at the house. And they don't have ants.
Weiner household=6000 points minus 80 for the cat. Me and the cat do not get along. Because I think he's stupid, and he thinks otherwise. Stupid cat.

Speaking of ants! The 60 or so that decided to take up residence in my room have met with liquid death. And after I bleached and cleaned my room, I cleaned the apartment, because I'm sick of living in a place where one can feasibly contract both cholera and diptheria by licking the floor. Which I wouldn't do, because it's so gross. (the floor, not the licking). Also, my roommates are never home, and so it usually goes like this: I clean, take out the trash, and wash the dishes. At the end of the week, my roommates come home for thirty minutes, and in that span of time, mess up the apartment beyond all measures of gross things. They then leave for the weekend, come back on monday or tuesday, and then have the gall to yell at me for not taking out the (read: their) trash or do the (read: their) dishes all weekend. So I've been on dish/trash strike for the last three weeks, and two nights ago, after bleach-deathing the ants, got so sick of the state of the apartment that I decided to bleach-death the cholera/diptheria, too.

That apartment is so gloriously clean. (The water from the floor was actually brown. I didn't know floors could get that dirty) And I just know that my roommates (or their gross 40 year old boyfriends who yes: have a key and no: I am not okay with that) are going to come home and mess it up but I NO LONGER CARE: I'm leaving at the end of July, and I will not eat in that kitchen any more and I left a threatening little note in Hebrew and English on the fridge to make my position clear.

Whatever. I'll get sick of the inevitable mess in three days and clean again.

But if I come home thursday and find the kitchen in an unlivable state, I'm getting the locks changed and gross-40-yr-old boyfriend can sleep outside on the porch.

Schedule of Passover Events!
Wednesday: Seder!
Thursday: Sleep (?)
Friday: Artist's Market in Tel Aviv
Saturday: Beach!
Sunday: Camping or visit family on Kibbutz. Which I hope works out. Because I? Don't camp.
Monday:Ibid.
Tuesday:Ibid.
Wednesday: Cottage in the Galilee! (for the hebrew speakers, a צימר)
Thursday: Ibid.
Friday: Reunion with camp Ramah people in Tel Aviv (?)
Saturday: Beach!
Sunday: Back to class.

חג שמח וכשר!
-J

Akhuy lahalo, wa mesh metjawez...

The title reads, in the Akko/Haifa dialect of Spoken Arabic: My brother is alone, and unmarried.
These are the kinds of things that I am learning to say in Spoken Arabic class. Because not only are they pertinent to real-life occurrences (it just so happens that my brother is, in fact, alone and unmarried), but they're great conversation starters. How many people can say that in four languages?

Yeah, you're jealous.

My homework, which is to construct paragraphs using our vocabulary, consists of paragraphs such as the following: (keeping in mind that today's lesson was on verb negation, and therefore, our homework paragraphs have to reflect that.)

"Today I go to the university, but yesterday was Saturday and I did not go to the lesson. I painted the house of my grandfather but the day after tomorrow I will not swim in the pool. My brother is alone and unmarried but he likes women. My sister likes flowers, but she does not like the flower from her boyfriend"

It's kind of like I snort lines of coke and then am all "time to do Arabic homework!"

Sweet. Sweet.

It's cold and rainy, cutting out beach plans for the week. Instead, I will stay at home and compose cracked-out passages in Arabic, stalk people on facebook.com, catch up on North American tv recaps on televisionwithoutpity.com, and only venture out to the occasional bar or toilet-paper-purchasing expedition. In that order. Note that "going to class" goes unmentioned. Not that I'm hinting at anything.

I turned 21 this Sunday (thank you, thank you) which means...absolutely nothing, except that I'm 21 years older than I was 21 years ago. I have been able to drive for 5 years, gamble for 3 years, and drink (legally) for 2 years (in Canada. 3 in Israel. Which is in no small part of why I am a Zionist). It is only the United States which has come up with the brilliant idea of limiting legal alcohol to the older half of it's university population while the younger, 18-20 year old half (who are clearly more resistant to temptation. Clearly) is expected to drink orange juice. For three years. Riiiiiiiiiiight. Israel and Canada have a better approach to the whole thing: If a) you're going to allow them to use guns which are meant to shoot (i.e: kill/maim/wound/permanently disfigure) human beings, you ought to allow them to drink when they're off-duty. And b) if you're going to toss them into an institution away from their parents/legal guardians, you don't seriously expect them to adhere to a 21 limit for three years out of the college experience. Hell no! Part of the "college experience" (even though, FYI, I managed to get into a university, which makes me better than you) is coming home completely trashed and partially disrobed at three in the morning, vomiting on your roommates brand-new-and-wildly-expensive-strappy-sandals in the front hall, and waking up to discover that pictures of the Mathlete team doing body shots off of your questionably-dressed-but-entirely-passed-out-midriff are circulating the psychology department's listserve, eliminating any chances you had of being selected for that thesis program. And knowing that you did it all legally (or at least legal under the liquor laws of your particular province. The jury is still out on the "public nudity" clause) makes it worth the heartache you will cause your poor mother, who fervently awaits your call. Alone. In the dark. With the heat shut off. Because they do that. It's a mother thing. It's like in their DNA or something

For those who care, my birthday was a weekend of fun events. Normal bar on Friday, sushi (!) and nargilah bar on Saturday, and shipudim (like shishkabob, but no vegetables and only the meat. So I guess like skewers) with the family on Sunday. Flowers, Sfat candles, beaded necklaces aside, the best present I got was from my parents: Makeup, jewelry, and money. They clearly know what I like. Thanks, and keep it coming!

So really, the only comment I have to make on turning 21 is this little song that I heard in a store in a Haifa mall, which disturbed me to no end and yet is stuck in my head. And it should be mentioned that the words I've written below are the only lyrics which appear in the song.

They only want you when you're seventeen

When you're twenty-one

You're no fun

They take a Polaroid and let you go

Say "they'll let you know"

So come on

(Repeat seven times to the beat of poorly mixed techno music. If you really want to reflect the pitch of the singer accurately, smoke heavily for 45 years. Extra points for smoking out of your tracheotomy catheter)

We only want you when you're seventeen

When you're twenty-one

You're no fun

At which point I left the dressing room, and my conversation with the saleswoman went something like this:

Me: "I'm sorry, but is that the Date Rape song, or the Statutory Rape song? I get them confused"
Her: "I think it's about models..."
Me: "So....the Statutory Rape song?"

PS: I googled it, and it seems that this song is called "Seventeen" by Ladytron.
PPS: Who cares?
PPPS: I can't even begin to describe how much more fun I am at twenty-one than I was at seventeen

New Title!

You'll notice that I'm no longer using the snarky title, [Insert Wildly Creative Title Here], rather, I have changed it to On the Honey and the Beesting, (al hadvash ve-al haoketz), after a popular Israeli song that I will liberally interpret as being about taking the good with the bad and sucking it up, or, the proverbial honey with the proverbial beesting. Actually, it's not really proverbial.
Lesson of the day: Something is only ever "proverbial" if it is mentioned in the Book of Proverbs. It does not mean "aforementioned/legendary". Stop using it to mean "aforementioned/legendary". You come off as dumb. If you're telling a really long story about a car that gets lost, and then at the end, your main character finds the car, he has not found the "proverbial car", because they didn't talk about any cars in the Book of Proverbs. So before you start sounding uneducated, as I did above (but then undid after I corrected myself and provided everyone with this bit of information), whip out your Bible and check your references.
Or, if you were a good Israeli and voted yesterday, Sha"s (Religious Sephardi party) supporters were handing out Sifrei Tehilim (Books of Proverbs) to those good Jews who asked.
I would be one of those good jews. Hee. Too bad for them that I can't vote, and when I did vote in the mock elections at the school where I volunteer, I voted for Meretz.

"Meretz in the Left, People in the Centre!!"

I'm such a good little party supporter.

Because Meretz gave me stickers. Also, they're rather left-wing. And they support gay marriage, which is reflected on my two free stickers. But since I also support gay marriage, the stickers are chillzin' on my wall. Along with my Chada"sh stickers which support, in Arabic and Hebrew, a Jewish-Arab party.

The moral of the story: My love is totally for sale. Stickers are preferable to religious items.

Regardless, Meretz did not manage to get many seats, and Sha"s whupped them good.
Oh well. Next time.

A full update on my Israeli Elections experience will be posted shortly, but my caffeine levels are tapering off and so is, therefore, my attention span.

"Olmert: Nyet
Peretz: Nyet
Lieberman: Da
Nyet, Nyet, Da!"

(See? I'm totally fluent in Russian...)
-J

Why I shouldn't have caffeine after the sun has gone down

Okay, so when i was younger, like as in, before I left home for University (or as the American relatives call it, College, except, right. I got into University? So, um, yeah. ), my mom had this rule that I wasn't allowed to have coffee after 4 pm. And I never really understood that rule until now, because I stopped at Cafein (aptly named) and now I'm freaking wired.

And I have to get up at 7:15 tomorrow morning, or rather, in six hours, to go to volunteering. Which has gotten rather stressful because the person I'm shadowing seems to have forgotten that I volunteer and now thinks that I get paid to show up or something, as made obvious when she calls me at 9:30 in the morning on wednesdays to ask why the hell I'm not at the school yet because someone is doing work on her computer and she needs the disc that she lent me right away, whereupon I have to get up, in the middle of Hebrew class, fire off some lame excuse, grab a taxi to race to the school, only to find that it's just a computer technician updating her computer and he would appreciate the disc so that he could reinstall the program which, by the way, is something that I could have done on my own at noon, which is when I usually get to the school, which is something she would know if, instead of yelling at me for not coming in the morning, which I never do, she noticed that I always come on wednesdays at noon, so it's not like i've ever set a precedent for coming before noon, because i have school until then, and holy crap, instead of yelling at me, get a freaking clue.

In other news, when I was last in Toronto, a cousin of mine who spent a year in Israel and who also wrote a blog about it, mentioned how my blog is diametrically opposite from her own. Mainly because hers is all Israel-Fuzzy-Bunnies and mine is all Israel-Holy-Jesus-I'm-Tweaking-Out-In-This-ADD-Travesty-Of-A-Country. For example: (and I shall hilite the relevant portions of comparison) (and yes, you can spell it 'hilite')
Israel-Fuzzy-Bunnies: So, a bunch of us decided that we wanted to go to Tel Aviv for a couple of days after Yom Kippur, before Sukkot. It was SO much fun!! here are some of the cool moments and good times: paddle boating on the yarkon with Jen and Amnon-so much fun! We were taking lots of pictures by the little fake lake there and enjoying the palm trees and park area that was in the middle of the city of Tel Aviv. Our funky youth hostel was quite enjoyable! We stumbled upon fun Hindi pictures and decorations and enjoyed the lockers in the room.
Israel-Holy-Jesus-I'm-Tweaking-Out: You know that Israel is still a 'developing country' when they get a little inclement weather and the radio reception freaks the hell out. And for the love of all that's good and holy, someone needs to take Israeli women aside and teach them how to pee like civilized people and not, say, all over the seat and on the floor. Like, they're given guns at 18, shouldn't they know how to aim already? That's a scary thought. If their urinary habits are any reflection on their shooting ability, then it's no wonder that Amnesty International is all up in our faces.
Summary: My cousin's Israel is so much fun (Exclamation point! Another one!) , whereas my Israel needs to take a Ritalin.

But anyways, I decided to write a few fuzzy bunnies about Israel, just so people don't think I'm completely bitter and unloving. I'm Zionist-WHAT, okay? Ain't nobody more Zionist than me.

Israeli Fuzzy Bunnies:
-I love that I can go to the beach every day to a)do my homework (riiiiiight...) b)get a tan c)get picked up by men ages 18-60 d)chillz out and e) to be able to say 'so i went to the beach every day for three months straight' and make all my pasty-white-it's-called-vitamin-D-friends back home wicked jealous .

-I love that my university student union has a concert (with moderately to rather famous singers/bands) every wednesday at noon, so that even though classes are scheduled for that time anyways, they basically have to cancel them wednesdays at noon cause of the concerts. And I love that a good reason for cancelling class is 'dude. we got let out early cause of the concert'. Because a concert should totally be a valid reason.

-I love that the student union serves free Goldstar beer at the aforementioned concerts.

-I love how all the readings for the regular Israeli classes are in English so that I have an advantage in my "Introduction to Semitic Linguistics" class.

-I love how the falafel/shawarma lady in the Carmel Centre remembers that I like pickles packed in a separate bag, and how she sticks in a few pickled cauliflowers for good measure.

-I love how the barista guy at Cafein knows how I like my coffee. And how they have 'free samples' of their coffee-chocolates, and how the free samples are the size of two-dollar-coins and are white-chocolate-chocolate. And how I put like four circles of free chocolate in my coffee. And take seven more for the road. Mmmmm.

-I love how Israelis think their country is so huge and that it's such a pain to travel anywhere, but how for me, getting from Haifa to Jerusalem is just like driving to downtown Toronto in really bad traffic, except I don't have to tweak out, because I just bought an overpriced book at the bookstore at the Central Bus Station and I'm not the one driving.

-I love how I'm going to a Kelly Clarkson concert in Tel Aviv next weekend because her guitarist is Israeli and how I'm going to sing "Behind these Hazel Eyes" all the way to Tel Aviv on the train and probably be surrounded by screaming 14 year olds, but how I don't care because oh my god, Kelly Clarkson!!!

-I love how people in this country are raised on Bamba and actually think that it tastes good and not in fact like peanut covered feces.

-I love how a centimetre of snow shuts down cities and brings out army bulldozers to clear the roads, because shovels, what's that?

-I love the artists' market in Tel Aviv because I want to buy everything that they sell. Everything. Gorgeous.

-I love how dark jeans and a clean t-shirt is a completely acceptable outfit to wear at any function which would be black-tie-no-options in North America.

-I love getting conflicting and unsolicited philosophies of life from taxi drivers. Which helps to remind me why I don't want to be a taxi driver. Because then I would need a philosophy of life which goes beyond "I guess I'll marry rich and be barefoot and pregnant for the next twenty years", which wouldn't work out if I was a taxi driver, because I can't really drive barefoot. And if I was sandaled and pregnant, then I would totally be violating my philosophy of life, and I think there's like a rule against that in the taxi driver's handbook. Right under the rule that says that "You are Mario Andretti, and we will point and laugh at you if you drive under 100 km an hour and stop for stupid things like red lights."

-I love the people who go to clubs and wear their sunglasses inside. At two in the morning. When it's dark in the club. And who pop their collars. And who's friends tell them to unpop their collars cause it looks stupid while saying nothing about the sunglasses.

-I love how one can buy alcohol at the gas-station/supermarket/convenience store and rent porn from the Rent-A-DVD machines at the mall. Not that I've done either, because it just seems so white-trash and tacky, and I don't think I can get over the feelings that the gas-station/supermarket/convenience store alcohol screams 12 Step Program and how Rent-A-DVD machines are crawling with venereal diseases. But I love how the option is there for when I'm comfortable with it.

-I love how the security guard at the mall will determine that I am not armed and/or dangerous by lifting my purse for thirty nanoseconds with the palm of his hand and ignoring the metal detector wand when it beeps on my back. And I'm not actually sure why it beeps there. I think I have metal studs in my jeans. Regardless, they go ignored

-I love how post-army Israelis have to go 'find themselves' in India or Thailand. Cause, it's not like there's any spirituality in Israel or anything. I also love how after they land in India or Thailand, they seek out other Israelis. And only chillz with them. And by chillz, i mean 'do massive amounts of drugs'. And then come back and go to Yoga class and eat Pad Thai because now they're all cultured and worldly and stuff.


[fin]


That is all for now. There will probably not be any more passive-aggressive fuzzy bunnies for a while, because while it's been fun, I'm more of an actively-aggressive kind of person. But we'll see.
Goodnight.

Marks Update

0109.2140 ENGLISH SEMANTICS
Lecturer: Dr. G. ZUCKERMANN
Weekly hours: 4 Credits: 4
Number grade: 95

New Total Fall 2005 Average: 97.25

Marks

Did you know that apparently, what I've been calling "marks" is a Canadian thing, because Americans call them "grades"?
Stupid Americans.

Goldberg Jessica S G
Social Security: # Hah! You think I'd post that?
Passport#: See above snide comment
Fall 2005
Haifa U.
0109.2015 LEXICOLOGY AND LEXICOGRAPHY
Lecturer: Dr. G. ZUCKERMANN
Weekly hours: 4 Credits: 4
Number Grade: 100
0109.2140 ENGLISH SEMANTICS
Lecturer: Dr. G. ZUCKERMANN
Weekly hours: 4 Credits: 4
Number Grade: 91
0109.221 MORPHOLOGY
Lecturer: Dr. W. SANDLER
Weekly hours: 4 Credits: 4
Number Grade: 96
0702.3003 HEBREW LANGUAGE-ADVANCED 3
Lecturer: Mrs. M BEN-MEIR
Weekly hours: 8 Credits: 6
Number Grade: 98
************************************************
Hah!!
Suck on that!

Love,
J Whose Eternal Brilliance Shines Like the Morning Star With Whom She Shares a Close Resemblance in Splendor if not also in Glory and Magnitude.