Finals, Spring Breakin', Falafel Time.

monday 3/22: My ulpan class went to the shuk, we had a paper with a bunch of things we were supposed to do and ask people, except I really just did my shopping for my apartment. There was lots of rainbow appliances, I took pictures. They were beautiful. We went back to class, don't think we really did much. Maybe some final review stuff. Had medical ethics and Tanach. Decided to do my ethics final paper on eugenics in jewish medical ethics. weirddd stuff. Tanach, not sure what I'm doing yet. Got my grades for last semester, can't remember if I posted them already. Ulpan- C, Jewish Philosophy- B-, Text and Tablet- C+.
stammmmm. A in Ulpan and one of the others ones, A- in the other one.

tuesday 3/23: Katie made shakshuka, a lot of it. We had like 3 minutes to eat since we were leaving for Tel Aviv. I managed haha. To my roomates looks of shock and horror. All 3 sections were meeting in Tel Aviv for sports day. As any of you reading this should know, I didn't participate in soccer or basketball or any of that nonsense. But I did try to climb the rock wall they had. Made it 3/4 up but couldn't climb anymore. Damn being out of shape and weak. Damn being too lazy to do anything about being out of shape and weak. Hung out with Shira-leh! (My scout from Bat Yam) So great to catch up. Nice to get out of Arad, even for the day.

wednesday 3/24: Lunch and Learn with real food! Chicken and other yumminess that I can't remember. Took two chickens home to use for the model seder we had that evening. Went home briefly and told roommates who didn't have class to please cook veggies for the seder like we were supposed to and heat up chickens before the seder. They didn't, idiots. Totally incompetent in all things domestic and otherwise. We sorted things out and had the seder at the school. Stayed up preparing for my hebrew final.

thursday 3/25: Ulpan final! Had to prepare a newspaper article, being able to speak about it and answer questions. It went really well. We were locked out of the building so we had our Tanach class at Ale's place. Went to give blood with Ale, Katie, Jessica, Rachel, and Joe Sacks. It was fun. Almost wasn't allowed because I thought the weight I gave them in kilos was what I should be in lbs but i was off. They had the blood donations in the middle of the mall next to the escalators, so people going up and down stared at us and asked if it hurt and told us we were great. Went home to cook stupid roommates dinner. Made burgers and potatoes and spinach. They still ate microwave shnitzel because they were going to be late for some party. Dinner was yum.

friday 3/26: Went to Ein Getti with Shevet. I went into the dead sea with Rachel and Jessica, it was so much fun. We became mud people and walked around terrifying children. But not really. We weren't actually mud people.....stamm yea it was gross and fun. Went to a hostel afterwards, on the bus I asked Yoni where his necklace with his ring from his girlfriend was and he realized he left it at the place we were just at. Bus driver took him back and he got it. Funny story, when I was last here with my mom I also lost a ring in a stop by Ein Getti and the bus driver took me back and I found it. :)
We got ready for Shabbat and napped. I found out Ale could come with me to seder, yay. Davening, Shabbat Dinner, Tish, sleep.

saturday 3/27: Slept in...Ate foods and went to an optional class about pesach. More food and packed up. Had some crazy time trying to figure out how to get to Jeru. Figured it out and Katie, Jessica, Cara, Rachel and I got to to Jeru. Hung out with Mendy and Joshey.

sunday 3/28: Went to the shuk in the morning and got food with Mendy. Pretended to work out at gan soccer. I walked to Beit Ar El and worked on my paper for a while, then walked back to Rechavia to get my stuff, then walked to the CBS and met up with Ale. We got sunflowers and got on a bus to Beit El. When we got there we hung out for a little bit but we were super tired so we went to bed soon after.

monday 3/29: Woke up and helped get ready for Pesach. We moved our stuff to the neighbor's, we were staying in one of their spare rooms. Pretty much waited around until the Seder and napped. The seder was nice, 99.9% in hebrew and I understood most of it. Stayed up until 2:30 cleaning up, but I wasn't tired really.

tuesday 3/30: Food (obviously hehe..) Hung out with some of the little ones at the park. Decided to stay overnight and leave in the morning.

wednesday 3/31: Mordechai drove us to the CBS and we walked from there to Katie's. We met up with Katie, Jessica, and Orly to go Boombamella shopping at the Shuk. Bought some veggies, fruits, and candy. Orly, Ale and I bought rainbow anklets and I got myself some pretty pants. Orly, Ale, Katie and I went to see the play Thirteen. It was so good. Afterwards I hung out with Rottner and Joshey and we reminisced about middle school and how much we all miss Ben hehe...We called him at 12a.m. Israel time to say happy 3 yr anniversary...

thursday: 4/1 anniversary! Called Ben at 12 his time. 3 years today :)<3. We got on a bus to Ashkolon, or so we thought...We ended up getting off somewhere called Kfar Silver and not having any idea how to get to Chof Nitzanim. Got another bus to somewhere and then walked 5-10 minutes to a place where people take cabs to get to the beach. All my friends got in cabs without me and there was no room. Nice right. But it's okay, I made friends and they ended up paying for the cab :) so there. Our friend Kochava from Section 3 had brought our tent, Katie Ale Orly and I were staying with her. So we found her, our tent was right by the beach and far enough from everything that it wasn't too loud. We walked around and went tanning and swimming. Lots of fun.

friday 4/2: Got up and went straight to the beach. Did a lot of hanging out. Called Dr. Abba for his bday. Went to Chabad for kabbalat shabbat and dinner. Met up with Shira and met her boyfriend and their friends.

saturday 4/3: More beaching. Played with mud. Saw that I had lobster legs and didn't know why, I was wearing sunscreen and the rest of me wasn't burned. Very weird. Later realized it was from my new shuk pants. Packed stuff up. Ate everyone's leftovers that they didn't want to carry out. I had been protein deprived after 3 days of matzah and cucumbers, sooo it was great. I carried garbage for a while because they told us on the way out we'd be compensated if we brought two bags of trash. Liars. Got a ride with some nice english speakers. I'm now pretty sure they were missionaries. Oops haha. But they gave me a ride to the Ashdod bus station and I got a bus to Jeru and met up with the girls and took a bus to Rechavia. They went out, I passed out. Woke up randomly to eat matzah with chocolate spread and speak to my dad and benjamin.

sunday 4/4: Went to Nokdim. On the way got some flowers, thinking it was prolly a better idea than food since I don't know what people like and whatevs....Well when I got there, there was about 6 boquets of flowrers around the house hehe. "Should've gotten chocolate." Hung out with Laura, made matzah pizza. Was gonna work on my paper but didn't really so much. Ate yummy diner. Hung out with Karine. Sleep.

monday 4/5:
Wanted to wake up around 9 but got up closer to 11. BBQ lunch with people Philippe works with. Yums. Tried to do some school work...More matzah pizza. Took a bus to Rechavia to Katie's and worked more on my paper.

tuesday 4/6: woke up at 4:30 to shower and pack. Ale and Orly took a cab to the bus station, Katie and I walked. We just made the bus, we were the last two people on. We had to sit in the aisle but it was fine and I studied for medical ethics. We got to Be'er Sheva and there was already a bus there for Arad. Got to Arad and slept for an hour, then went to a meeting with Alex. Basically did nothing. Found out again what volunteering I have- I'll be in a falafel store. ha. Went back home and made lunch and dinner. I made everybody eggs and made a sauce with Katie for dinner later. Fell asleep for a lil and then went to medical ethics. Had my oral final, it went very well. I showed the teacher my outline for my paper and he said it was good. The paper I should be working on right now, oops. After class went home for a while but couldn't sleep then went to Tanach and spoke about Naomi and Ruth. Went home and heated up dinner. Had mifgash dira. Possibly ingested glass. People piss me off. Katie and I went shopping. I was supposed to stay up late working on my paper but I fell asleep.

wednesday 4/7:
I really can't remember what transpired wednesday. Sorry, it prolly wasn't important anyway. If I remember later I'll put it up.

thursday 4/8:
All YC hike. Sort of. I got into a fight with two people within the span of 5 minutes 'cuz I'm dumb and their mean. But I got over it really fast and spent a lot of time with Orly. The hike wasn't too bad. There were different places where you had to either walk through yuckey green smelly water or climb across by putting your hands on one side and feet on the other. I managed to climb through both places, it was super hard and I almost fell on top of our guide...haha...well actually I did. After the hike we went to some Bedouin place for food and fun and eventually sleep.

friday 4/9:
Got on a bus to Jerusalem. Ale wasn't talking to me. Chatted with Or, one of the madrichim from Jeru, sucha cutie. We were talking about hitchhiking and he said it was so easy to get rides in uniform. I said wait isn't it illegal for a soldier to hitchhike? He said yea but everyone does it anyway. I said what happens if you get caught. "Ehhh, you go to jail." Me-"Isn't that bad?" "Noo,army jail is fun." Me- "Have you been?" "No. but my friends tell me. You sit in tent and play sheshbesh all day." ahaha.
So we get to Jeru and Ale and I get off by the CBS and wait for the bus to Ramat Beit Shemesh. On the wrong side of the street. For 30 minutes. We crossed the street and waited some more, Ale realized she didn't have any money and I didn't have enough to get both of us there and home to Arad so we had to stop being mad at each other and figure it out. We worked some ideas out so we wouldn't get stranded anywhere. I was going to find an ATM at the CBS on the way home. We got to Ramat Beit Shemesh and asked for directions from people who wouldn't look us in the face. Ha. So we got to Diana's and were super gross form 2 days hiking and tenting so we showered. Yay. Then we ate foods. Yay again. Then we went to ride a motorcycle...yay? It was fun. Basically Amos and Haguy were the only kids home, and they were going to go on the bike so Ale and I went with. Attempted to learn how to ride it by myself. This lasted all of 30 seconds before moving scared me too much and I gave up. We went back and passed out until dinner. Ate foods. lots of foods. Then hung out and met people who know people I know. Fun times.

saturday 4/10:
Much sleeping. Some eating. Got my butt kicked in Checkers by Haguy. Some freaking out as to how to return to Arad. Ended up staying overnight again because the bus to get us to Jeru so we could a bus to Be'er Sheva wouldn't get us there in time to make the bus to Arad. (Sort of) Ate Burgers Bar and hung out. Watched some woman movie, can't remember the title.

sunday 4/11:
Left at 5ish and took a cab to the train station. Took a train to Lod. Took another train to Be'er Sheva. Took a bus to Arad. Walked home to Ben Yair 7. Found out that someone tried to break into our apartment the night before. A drunk scary someone. Freaked me out but don't worry we keep our door locked at all times and don't walk around by ourselves. Had a peula at 10 for basically no reason. Can't remember what I did the rest of the day...But I know that eventually we went grocery shopping.

monday 4/12:
Woke up at 7 and finished my paper. Went to volunteering, first day. Ehh we'll see about this one. It's a falafel store in the merkaz. I pretty much stood there for an hour or so soaking up the falafel smell into my pores, hair, and clothing. Not as pleasant as one might imagine. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

tuesday 4/13: We went to Sderot and Yad Mordechai. Saw a bunch of the missiles that had been shot into Sderot and a missile safe park for kids. Had free time and hung out at the Shuk, Orly and I got strawberries. We went to a museum at Yad Mordechai that was about the Holocaust and the Independence War. They showed us 20 minutes of the movie Uprising. I think that's a silly thing for a museum to do but whatevs. Went back to Arad and made chicken soup. And brownies. But we didn't cook them all the way. Oops.

wednesday 4/14:
Worked on my paper from 4-6a.m. (thanks abba) and spoke to Benjamin. Slept a few hours and then got up for Lunch and Learn. It was just Lunch, no Learn. Fun stuff. Afterwards I went home and worked on this thing for a bit, then we had an activity for IDF stuff and watched some videos. Then I made banana strawberry smoothies with Orly. Yums. Then we were supposed to all go for hebrew review but only 10 people went to so we sorta had a class together but we were all different levels so it didn't work out too well. Went home and heated up yesterdays soup. Also made amazing hot chocolate. And ate yesterdays brownies. Orly came over for dinner, all her roomies were gone. I spoke a lot to Ben, didn't do anything productive, and went to sleep.

I should read through this and check that it makes sense and doesn't overlap, but I'm lazy and it's too long and I've got stuff to do. Hope that's all right and there aren't too many silly errors.
<3

P.S. next time I have to talk about the pigeon
and how volunteering is working out