Sorry i thought i posted this yesterday...

Yesterday I had to wake up at 8:15..i only got 5 hours of sleep. I was exhausted and my throat was killing me. I poured myself some cereal, but there was no milk! So i put the cereal back and luckily there were some noodles, so i heated them up and put shredded cheese on it. I then went outside and waited for about 10 minutes for everyone to come. My group then walked to the bus stop and got on a bus to ben yehuda. After walking for about 15 minutes we get to the underground prison of jerusalem. The brits would catch people from the..shoot i cannot remember the name..help me out if you know--they wouldnt wait for people to attack them (before israel became a country) some people considered them to be terrorists. It was kind of interesting. It was so frustrating because people (mostly brits) would not shut up. I felt bad for our tour guide who was a 19 year old girl in the army. They were not respectful to her and she called them out on it multiple times. It was also weird how people would goof off when we were at a prison!

After the siyur, i came back to the apartment, ate apples and peanut butter and took a nap. Rach and britty woke me up when they got back and we all just hung out for a little. We also watched gossip girl! the entire thing. woo hoo!!! it was a good one! Kendall texted me saying she found her wallet. THANK HASHEM!! (inside joke with some: "hashem loves her") We then decided to go to Independence Park (instead of going back to the promenade!) Rach and I sat on a bench and did some homework, while britty and katie ran. It was 4:30ish and was starting to cool down. I was a little cold, but it was so nice there! We had to leave because we were invited to go to rachel's cousin's fiancé's house for dinner (she invited some other people too because she had a lot of extra food from the break fast). We showered and got ready to go. On the way we bought wine and there were 3 other people there (1 being rachel's brother). It was really good food. We also all told funny stories and just cracked up at each other. I really liked it. We left around 10ish and when we got home we got ready for bed. We were all exhausted. I was too tired to write in my blog. Oh i just remembered...i spent a lot of the time when i "hung out" uploading pictures and trying to figure out how to put them online. I figured it out! I wish it was in the same album, but it is a new album. The url is http://picasaweb.google.com/chitchatjess5

the new pictures are the ones in the album with the cover picture being "shana tova"

SUNDAY:

Today I woke up around 10ish and had to get ready to go to emek refiem to buy bagels for the apartment to break fast with. Some people were already going, but we decided to also go to grab dinner for ourselves. When we got there everything was starting to close! Luckily, there was a supermarket open and we met up with other girls from the apartment, grabbed food, paid, and left (because it was closing). We also were all trying to drink at least 2 liters of water...we were peeing non-stop! When we got home, i read my book for a little and then we began to cook our dinner. It was so weird because it was only 3:30ish! While we were making dinner, I ate lunch. Rachel was drinking so much water (she had 4 liters!) so she was going brain dead and needed to lie down.

After I took a shower, I called my mom and talked to her for a little, but had to go because dinner was ready! We all had pita on our plate and we had salads, noodles with tomato sauce, hummus, mini hotdogs, potato things, and schnitze. So much food! I was so stuffed. After dinner, we got ready for shul and went to the one we went to when we met up with our host family (for that one shabbas lunch). We had to sit downstairs at the other service. It was really hard to hear and so it was so difficult to follow. I did not enjoy it. After the service, people were going to be discussing something (im 99% sure it is called a tish? right?). Luckily, it was in english, but i had no clue what the woman was talking about. Neither did the other people I was with, so we decided to just leave.

On the way back from the short walk, we decided we wanted to go for a longer walk. When we got to our apartments, we changed into comfy clothes. It was so cool! We could just walk on the main road and huge intersections because it is illegal to drive during yom kippur! We laid down in the middle of a huge road (called derach hevron). We then walked and noticed that there were a lot of people at this one intersection, so we decide to walk there. A lot of kids are riding their bikes or scooters. The teens are hanging out and ah it was unbelievable!

We then walked back to our apartments and found out that people were going to walk to the kotel right then! We change into proper kotel clothing and off we went! We went through emek refiem and it was packed with israeli teens and a lot of dogs! i forgot to mention that this is the time to walk your dog! haha. It was about a 45 minute walk, but since it was dark out, it was chilly out. When we got to the kotel, it surprisingly wasnt too crowded! Not a lot of people were at the wall praying. Some of us prayed for a little and then rach and i just sat down on a chair like 20 feet from the kotel and just looked around. It was so nice! Also, when we decided to go find the group, we could walk backwards and look at the kotel (rather than having to turn our heads so we dont bump into a million people). We hung out with the group for a little and then we decided to head back. One brit, named simon, made a good point and said "we are at the holiest place on the holiest day of the year." sababa meod meod!!

The walk back was a lot shorter. But because the fast started so early, it felt so late! I felt like I was walking to the kotel at 2 in the morning, not 9 at night! We sang songs on the way back and it was fun. When we got back to the apartment, rach and i read for a little (im really enjoying the book) and then went to sleep.

MONDAY:

Today I woke up a couple of times. I woke up at 8:30 because i really had to pee (".") and when i came back in, I could hear people praying. It was such a nice sound! My throat was really hurting so i decided to take out my retainers. Some people have sore throats/strep...hopefully i dont have it! I then fell back asleep and woke up at 11:30ish. I had the weirdest dreams that night! 2 of my dreams involved me making food and not realizing i accidentally broke the fast until after i have eaten. Both times i decide that i can still fast because i didnt remember or do it intentionally. My other dream was sarah, drey (short for andrea), steph, mom, and me were at the beach. Steph and drey were playing volleyball and i wanted to play. they wouldnt let me though. They let sarah play and when i ask her to pass me the ball she just pushes me out the way! They wouldnt let me play! I tell my mom and then sarah for some reason is lying down so i shove sand into her face. It gets in her eyes and so my mom comes over and helps her get the sand out of her eyes. I keep on apologizing and then my mom sees some glass stuck in sarah's eye! She takes it out, but it doesnt end up as a small piece of glass, it is a huge knife! Sarah is fine and so is her eye. I also vaguely remember that men were watching and chasing after my family and I saw them while we were at the beach on a ship. but i knew they werent going to hurt us so when i told my mom, she started to panic, but i told her not to. ah so weird!

anyways, Rach also woke up so we decided to just read in bed for a couple of hours. Around 1:30ish, britty comes in because she got back from shul. she went to a different shul with some people and loved it. I think we will start to go there for shabbat and other services. People then come into our room and we all just talk, read, and some nap. My throat is still hurting whenever i swallow. it sucks! At 3, emilie lets us know that in a half hour people are going to leave for the kotel. We slowly get out of bed, get dressed and ready to go. Rach makes bagels with cream cheese for her, me, and britty. so nice of her :) I carry the food in my bag along with a water bottle and my bus pass. The walk isnt too bad, but we are all just drained. I forgot to mention how nice it was outside. It was windy and such a nice temperature. unbelievable! We finally get to the kotel and sit for only a couple of minutes.

We then go to where aish people were praying. so many steps! we couldnt find the women's section though so some of us decided just to go overlook the kotel. It was beautiful because all of the men were wearing white (tallits). We end up walking back down and me and nickola find a place to sit on the ground. I had rachel's machzur (she wasnt with us) so nickola and i read stuff in english. More and more people from our program gathered around us in a circle and we all just sat there, counting down until the fast was over, like it was new years! Some people were asked to pass snacks out to people. there were so many people there and i doubt everyone got food. it was cool that the kotel had food, though. Rach's brother walked past our group and we chilled with us for a little and me, rach, and britty decided to follow him back up the steps to aish to say the shema, hear the shofar, and then break the fast!

We davined for a little and after we heard the shofar (even though aish had food), we ran outside and right when we were about to devour our bagels, someone said that we first have to do havdallah..huh?! havdallah finished, so then we ate and rachels brother went into the mob and came out with a huge water bottle and a big handful of ruggulah. it was delicious. We also saw chelsea so we hung out with her for a little. Rachel's brother knew where a break fast meal was so we walked about 2 minutes and there was fruit and ruggulah and cookies and other yummy things. We took a lot and sat outside. Ill let you know whose house it was in the next blog. We were all stuffed! After a long time, we decided to split up and head back to our places. Rach, Britty, and me were all so happy we brought our bus passes. We had to wait so long for a couple of busses and it was cold out. We get on our 2nd bus to take us to emek refiem and all of the sudden...i see...KENDALL! ah!!!!! We talk until she has to get off and she invited me over to stay with her and her fam for sukkot. Im gonna figure something out so i can at least stop by! She left her book on the bus but we stopped the bus to give it to her. We were cracking up because right before she got off the bus she dropped her cell phone and it slid around! When we got back to the apartment, one of kendall's friends from camp, Orly, told me that kendall left her wallet on the bus. oy! I dont think she ended up finding it.

I was supposed to meet up with kendall, rachel brown, orly, and shoshie tonight, but it didnt end up working out. I then went on my computer and skyped with my great grandma (bubbe shayna) and my family!!!! She was so taken aback because she didnt understand what was going on! It was really nice to see her. But to talk to her, i had to call my house to tell my mom to allow steph to go on the computer...how did i know steph and everyone was home?! ha...i wont tell everything steph, ill just say it was luck?! I also talked to rachel brown for a little, which was nice.

I then got ready to go to ben yehuda for a little. I decided to try out my clubbing shoes again, this time though, i forgot my sandals. lo tov! It was so painful for me to walk and after splitting a yummy crepe (with nutella and colored sprinkles) rach walked me to the bus stop and i went home. but i forgot to mention that i bumped into orly on ben yehuda! it was really nice to see her, but i felt uncomfortable wearing high heels. I cant wait until we all just meet at a beit cafe and catch up. it was nice to get home early-ish? (not early, but just earlier than everyone else). I got to talk to a lot of my extended family on skype because it was their break fast. i dont miss home, but i do miss seeing everyone and just being with everyone! i have an idea...everyone come visit me during pesach!!! ah it is 2:30am and i have to be ready to go at 9. people are just getting back...i dont know how they are going to get up in the morning.

Today I wanted to wake up at 9 so i could leave to go to shul at 9:30. I was too tired though and woke up at 1 something!!! I needed it. I then had lunch, which was leftovers but so good (soup, chicken, fruit, salads). I then read for a couple of hours. Ive read almost 150 pages. I really like the book! The movie leaves out a lot..the book is so good. I then watched "breakfast at tiffany's" for the first time with britty. Britty liked it a lot more than me. If you have seen it..you remember the cat? Well, right after the movie, a friend comes in with a stray cat that looks exactly like it!!! So funny! it was a kitten and also looked like puss from shrek! haha. I didnt touch the kitten but it was kind of cute (even though i really do not like cats.) I then got ready to go to ben yehuda, but i just brought my water an drank that. I need to drink a lot of water because tomorrow night the fast starts! It starts at 5:50. Some interesting things happened at ben yehuda, but it all worked out. haha. We were there for a couple of hours and then came back. Today was such a nice, chill day! Sorry about the short post! Hope everyone who is fasting has a nice, easy fast!

Today I woke up at 10ish and Katie made all of us pancakes!!! People had them with chocolate spread, but i passed on that. too early! Then people were going to the shuk, but we all decided i would not be useful AT ALL. I was just gonna start the book "The Time Traveler's Wife." We need toilet paper so i was in charge of getting that. When I got ready to go, i asked if others wanted to join. they said they were going to get the toilet paper later, but i was in the mood to be productive, so i just went alone. Rach needed some things they couldnt find at the shuk. I tried to look for the things..so difficult! I got mostly everything they needed, but a few things i either couldnt find or they didnt sell. I kept on asking different people for help. Some were nice, others were not so nice (and they worked at the store!) I went to 2 grocery places looking for things and i was gone for like 2 hours and only came back with a few things. It was hot out and was annoying to walk back with the groceries (used my trader joe's bag!) and a pack of 48 toilet paper rolls. Oh, I forgot to mention that this morning i woke up and i have lost my voice! Katie lost hers a couple of days ago. It was so hard when i asked for things because sometimes they couldnt hear me and when i would call rachel she sometimes couldnt hear me. ahhh. so annoying.

In the first grocery store i went to, i was looking at vegetables and all of the sudden there is a huge rat running across the ground into the food and then runs back out. IT WAS HUGE. A woman told someone who works here and the person who worked there just shrugged her shoulders!

Anyways, when i got back to the apartment, the people who went to the shuk were back. We then started to prepare dinner. We started to chop vegetables for the salads. I attempted to cut cucumbers and carrots. By the end of the trip i will be a pro (hopefully)! I gave up and decided to read "The Time Traveler's Wife" and after a little i decided to take a nap. Rach woke me up asking if i wanted to shower, because if so i had to get up and take one. I forced myself to get up and took a shower (it was almost hot, and then it got cold). I got ready for shabbas and then we went to shul. The services were a little long, but it wasnt terrible. Someone gave a long sermon though and a lot of us were really bored because we had no clue what he was talking about! I then decided to try and listen for the words i knew and guess what he is talking about. that was kind of fun. When we got back we had a GREAT shabbas dinner. so yummy. We then went into someone's apartment and just hung out, talked, and played games for a really long time. it was so nice! it is 1:20 and i want to go to shul tomorrow. shabbat shalom!

btws, what were the sermons the rabbis said for rosh hashanah? and let me know about the yom kippur ones!! (otherwise i wont be hearing any sermon...i am assuming all of the sermons given during yom kippur will be in hebrew....)

Today I didnt have to be outside until 9:15! Too bad my alarm didnt go off, so i woke up at 9:16. Luckily, i got ready quickly and everything was fine. We got to the school around 9:45 so it was perfect. We had nothing to do and Pamela didnt come for a little. When she finally came, she gave us a small task and we had so much extra time. We took a little nap and she told us what we should do the next time we come. It was so pointless for us to go!

When i got back to my apartment/flat (so used to the brits!), Simon, a guy in charge of jerusalem and originally started Shevet, was in our apartment. He had just talking to some brits who said they werent enjoying shevet programs. He talked to 3 americans (1 canadian, so 2 americans), about what we think. We all said we like everything. I just brought up how maybe more things should be optional because people are talking all the time and when it is optional, the people who come really want to be there. He then said that the talking is a problem and i just assumed that all brits just talk obsessively (like israelis), but he corrected me saying that it just seems to be this group. I then left to meet rach at emek refiem for...falafel!!!! I got a little lost, but it was only for 4 minutes. When i got there, rach forced me to order in hebrew (because we just practiced to order falafel in ulpan class), but the guy spoke to me in english. still, i just spoke in hebrew. rach and i split it. it was so so so yummy. On the way back we saw a little market across the street and i really wanted a peach. Rach also wanted one. We were each just gonna buy one but then we decided to buy a box. I was so happyyyyy. they werent ripe but they were still delicious. We wrote our name on the box and we know how many we have left. if someone eats one we will both have a freak out :)

When we got back to the apartment we had to go to class. I had a hebrew quiz. It wasnt too bad. I think i did well. it was great because right after we finished we could go. When i got back to the apartment i finished some reading/wrote the journal i had to do for my genesis parables class. The reading was really interesting and is all about reading the Bible figuratively, not literally. It was a little dense, but what made it more interesting was that our teacher wrote it! He is so smart. I also tried so so so hard to find some website so i can finish gossip girl. It took forever but i finally found one and i finished it! yay. I then went to class and it was an interesting class. Although it wasnt always about genesis, we discussed other stories in the Bible that should not be taken literally. it was really interesting.

After class I changed into pants and we went to the shuk for Kaparot. Oh em gee. I got pics that i will post. Mom, i am gonna post my pics tomorrow...hopefully! hehe. When we walked into the area it reeked and there were claws from the hens/roosters on the street! ahhh. We walk in and we see peope doing it and there are so many hens/roosters. There was a lot of blood. Some poeple did it. I passed. It was a cool enough experience without actually doing it. I watched people do it and then i watched the hen/rooster get killed. I was amazed. It was crazy! I couldnt help but stare! After a little rach and britty wanted to leave, so we waited for a bus and came back to our apartment. But i think i have been watching too much gossip girl because on the way to the bus stop i swear rufus humphrey walked past me!

When we got back we made dinner (pasta with broccoli) and for dessert we made pancakes with....chocolate spread!!! It was so good. and the biggest suprised...i made the pancakes (with the help of katie!). We were so focused on the size of the pancakes (we were making them huge), that we didnt realize there was smoke everywhere. All of the sudden the smoke alarm went off!!! We just opened windows and after about 20 seconds it shut off. oops! After dinner, we got ready to go to ben yehuda. I was hoping i would meet up with rachel brown, but we ended up not seeing each other at ben yehuda. The night was pretty fun and since we were out past 12, britty, katie, and i walked back to our apartment from ben yehuda. We got back at like 4 in the morning!!! I dont know why, but my nose isnt stuffy, but i have a sore throat...this order is the opposite order that colds usually happen (because usually you first get a sore throat/lose your voice, and then your nose gets stuffy). so happy it's the weekend!

to respond to your comment mom: it is at the place where we overlook jerusalem and say the shecheeanu...but it wasnt the exact place. I think where we go for that we are closer to the old city. Where we were, we were closer to the fence.

note to self: jhf

Today i woke up at 7:45 but didnt get out of bed until 7:55. We then waited for the bus, but because there is no shade on the bench, we sat on the GROUND because it was in the shade. It is so gross how i am not really grossed out by that! The bus comes at 8:40ish and we get to the school around 8:47. It is perfect! We are supposed to be there at 8:45, but Pamela doesnt care. When we got there i showed ashley the progress i have made and then we worked and worked and finished organizing all of the tapes! We then found Pamela and she didnt have anything else for us to do so we got to go home early! Plus, she isnt going to get to school until 10 tomorrow and since she wants to show us what to do next we dont have to be there until 9:45!!!! This is so great. Especially because i have a little cold and my eyes will not stop watering.

When I got back to the apartment some people were eating lunch, but i packed a lunch and finished everything before 11am. I uploaded gossip girl, and it was going well, but then i wanted to skip ahead to where i was. bad idea. IT STOPPED WORKING. ahhhhh. so annoying. Rach and I waited for britty to come home and i started my homework and since people made tuna, i had some with crackers...so good!

Once britty came back from her volunteering, me, rach, and her went to the promenade. I love it there! We walked there from our apartment...it was only a 15 minute walk! We took some pictures and then sat down and started to either do readings for homework or just read. We were there for less than an hour when out of nowhere a beer bottle lands where we are sitting. Glass was all over. Glass got on us, but none of us were hurt (only britty had a little wound.) we looked around and saw people further up. They were kids. We just assume it was them. It definitely wasnt on accident that they threw it to where we were sitting (even though there was a wall and they couldnt see us from where we were sitting.) For some reason I wasnt affected by it. We all were calm, but for some reason i still want to go back there. Before this happened, we were planning on having picnics there once a week. We knew that we werent allowed there at night because there is violence, but i guess it is not safe during the day. so annoying because it is so pretty. Britty later told our madrich (named moran) and moran told us we shouldnt even go there during the day. ugh!

When we dropped our things back off at the apartment, Rach and I went to a nearby gas station to get ice cream! I hadnt bought it in such a long time. We (I) didnt want to go to the one right at the corner of our street because that ice cream is almost ALWAYS melted and not good. So, we walked further for the ice cream. I didnt get my normal kind, i decided to get one that was bigger and was like cookies n' cream for 10 sheks. It was soooo worth the extra walking. so good! Tomorrow, I am going to be taking out more money. I lasted 2 weeks on 100 sheks!! pretty good, huh?!

After the ice cream we had a shevet class. First we davined--we did special things because it is in between rosh hashanah and yom kippur. After davining, a man with a long beard spoke to us about kaparot (putting a chicken over your head, killing it, and giving it to a poor family). It was interesting when he talked about why a chicken or a hen and not something else. We use this specific animal because it can tell the difference between day and night. There is a physical day and night and a spiritual day and night. During a physical day, we can see, similarly, during a spiritual day we can also see (see God, see what is right, etc.). God placed us on earth that is in spiritual night and so it is so rewarding if we can get through this night. That was a mini side note that he brought up. Another reason why we have a chicken because it's name in hebrew is another name for a man. We raise the chicken over our head so God will kill the chicken, and keep us alive. Although this is not a necessary part of the things we have to do between the days of rosh hashanah and yom kippur (there are three things: tishuva, tzadukah, and tefillah). Some people are against it. Some people put tzadukah over their head. That was basically all we talked about but it was really annoying because so many people were talking. I still dont understand why they arent quiet!

Luckily, there was then an optional lesson (more like q and a time). Only about 10 of us stayed, but everyone was quiet! We talked about how important it is to fast on yom kippur. One does not even have to pray, if it means that they will then fast. On other fast days, one should eat if they dont feel good. If one doesnt feel good on yom kippur...take a nap! dont eat! I usually start the fast late and end early...but this time im gonna do it for the full 26 hours (or somewhere around that). It starts at 4 something and ends at 7 something. I have to eat dinner at 4 something! this is definitely not what we do at home! haha. We also talked about sukkot and stuff...i basically said things that i used from the d'var i wrote on it a year ago. I cannot believe it was a year ago! ha i spoke fast! steph, are you participating in those services?! you better be. We also talked a bit about kashrut things.

After that i tried gossip girl again and i got pretty far, but then it said i had been watching for too long. effff. we then had israeli salad, potatoes, and chicken. i then cleaned the dishes. before i swept 2 rooms. after dinner rachel started to organize my itunes. people have been giving me music...i now have 2426 songs. Before i had less than 400. I got more yael naim songs. i now have 9 songs. im so happy. so sarah, maybe you will be wanting songs from me?! haha-doubt it. I then washed the floors, showered, drank tea with katie, and got ready for bed. It is now almost 1, but luckily i can sleep in until 8:50. whatup!!!!

i am breaking out and sick and tired. i need to go to sleep so i dont take a nap after volunteering (so i can write a journal entry and study for a hebrew test..eek).

to respond to your comment (mom): yes, i am in the class i originally wanted to be in. i only need to write a one page paper, but he said i can just do it (along with others who just switched in) by monday. i did most of the reading that is due tomorrow and it is pretty interesting. ill talk about how class goes in my next blog entry.

Today I got out of bed at 6:15. fml. (haha i just realized that all of my posts begin the same way fmylife begins their posts!) I had some cereal and was ready to go by 6:45ish. We got on the bus and everyone passed out. I was listening to my ipod and it was great. We were up in the Golan Heights and we stopped at an old Syrian base. Our guide talked for WAY too long. The majority of us already knew everything he told us...we discussed the land we won in the 6 day war and we talked about the positives and negatives about giving back the land to Syria for peace. We finally got back on the bus after such a longgg time and we had 40 minutes until we got to our water hike called marsale maybe? It was really chill...we just walked through dirty water up to our knees (sometimes higher) for an hour. It was so hot out so the water felt pretty good. It was rocky, but since the water was dirty, it was impossible to see the rocks. I wasnt wearing close toed sandals, but luckily i didnt stub my toe. I brought my camera and took one picture and then gave my camera to one of the madrichs to hold in his dry sack.

After the hike we changed back into our clothes. (i changed into my bathing suit bottom on the bus...it was very difficult and nauseating). Then while i ate my lunch our tour guide started talking about the water in israel. I couldnt really hear him well. It is a problem how I am interested in those facts but am always grouchy on tours and never can focus and listen to what the tour guide is saying. I NEED to work on that asap! We then got onto the bus and headed for tiberias!

When we got to tiberias we were given more than an hour of free time! All of the other buses were there too so we met up with people from the other buses. rach and i really had to pee and instead of going to the mall which had "a 5 star bathroom" (i am quoting the information lady), we walked down to the plaza and went into a mcdonalds. It was a HUGE mcdonalds and we go to the 2nd level to the bathroom. In the hallway that leads to the bathrooms there is puke splattered on the floor that is a little chunky. Rachel and I turn around, but because we really have to go pee we walk past it! Luckily, it was not smelly. We go pee and then meet up with people. We walk around for a little and then some people decide to get fro-yo or smoothies. I wasnt hungry, so i didnt get! I am trying to only eat when i am hungry...not because i really like the taste! Then a big group of us watched people go banana boating. While they were out, some people took their clothes and brought it back to where everyone was sitting. They left their shoes though, it was so similar to the movie "The Parent Trap." Although none of the people were naked, only the girls had bathing suits on, the guys were just in their boxer briefs. It was so funny to see their reaction, but they found it funny/didnt care. I think it is a european thing for guys to feel comfortable to go swimming or get wet in their boxers.

We then went to another bathroom where i almost gagged because it smelled so bad. When we got back to the bus, Shevet and others who wanted to do Tashlich by the sea of galilee. We just said the prayers and that was it! I was hoping we would have bread crumbs to throw in, but apparently, it is not necessary and some people actually look down upon doing that. The reason why we do Tashlich (translation: "casting our sins into the depths of the sea") and it involves water because water is the symbol of life, of the Torah, and of continuity. There were some other things that we learned that was also interesting.

After Tashlich we got back on the bus and got back around 6:30ish. Today Rachel and I had bathroom duty, so rachel cleaned the toilets and floors. I watched her and cleaned the mirrors, sinks, and our foyer...if you can even call the entrance a foyer. People made dinner for us...it was so yummy. We then cleaned out room! I took a picture. i think ill upload pictures tomorrow. We then showered and watched some of gossip girl. I found out how much i really like rice cakes. they are so good! anyways, I am going to bed early tonight because i have been sneezing and my nose is stuffy. uh-oh. tomorrow i have to do laundry and my homework. i gotta get in the groove!

oh, and i forgot to say in my last blog that on my way back to jerusalem, we drove next to the security fence l and i thought that the number of terrorist attacks had just decreased immensely. Shlomo told me that there had been NO terrorist attacks since the fence was built. crazy.

Sorry I havent been blogging for the past couple of days, I have been at my family friends house for Rosh Hashanah. I'll try to summarize each day...but as most of you know i do not know how to summarize.

FRIDAY:

I had to wake up at 2:30am! We then met up in the beit midrash and there were some snacks there. Even though it was so early in the morning i obvi grabbed the diet coke and cake! Around 3am we got on the bus and headed to (i forget...ill find out tomorrow). It was a little annoying because people in our group stayed out all night and was drunk. I dont understand why they would bother coming if they were drunk..or since they knew they would be doing this, why they would feel the need to get drunk.

When we got that area we had a tour guide, but since it is illegal to do tours during sleechot, we just pretended she wasnt our tour guide. We went to a bunch of different synogoges and ill post up some pics of them soon. They were all doing sleechot and it was really nice. Just an fyi (mom)--i found out that sleechot isnt only on the shabbat before Rosh Hashanah..it is done every single morning starting then. It was really nice because the shuls had tea, coffee, and cookies out for everyone. People were allowed to bring the drinks in! It was crazy how many shuls there were. Also, each little street was a different group of Jews--such as sphardic.

At about 5 am we all went to a bakery and Boaz (the shevet director) bought a lot of yummy things. When we reached our bus we all got some of the baked goods...rugula and other good chocolaty things. The bus then headed to the Kotel and when we got to the Kotel it was beautiful. The sun had just rised and it was packed! Rachel and I didnt get to touch the Kotel, but we said the Shema and Amidah together. We then had to go and go back at around 7:30ish. Shlomo said he would get there around 8:30 so I decided to make a quick run to either get him wine or flowers. On our way to the supermarket he calls me saying he got here early, but not to rush. I was thinking about turning around but decided to go get the flowers. I got pretty flowers and when I came back I saw him in his car on the street. I gave him the flowers and ran to my room to get my bag (which I packed the night before). It was really nice to see him and we talked for a little. I then passed out and woke up when we got to their house. Their house is so pretty! I should have taken pictures...I'll just take pictures the next time I am there. When I get there I say hi to everyone except Moran...she wasnt home. Drora and Shlomo then tell me to go to take a nap and so i do. They told me they would wake me up when Moran got home. She got home at 12 and i woke up at 5:30ish. I SLEPT FOR SO LONG! Moran and I hung out and got ready for dinner. I took a shower and it was so nice to take a shower in a clean shower! (i just said shower 3 times in 1 sentence....)

For Rosh Hashanah dinner, Drora and Shlomo's mom's were there, along with Shlomo's sister and her family. There was so much food! Drora made chicken noodle soup...that was the first time she has made it since passover. Everyone was looking forward to it. It was delic. I was full before the main dishes came out. But, everyone basically forced me to eat some of everything. It was all really good but I was so full! Moran and I were exhausted so we went to her room and I took a little nap while she was on her computer. We then went back downstairs for dessert, which was gleeda and apple strudel. YUM. Along with dessert I got my 3rd cup of wine! I felt so cool :) When Shlomo was giving me wine Drora was saying "sue and and mike would be so mad if they found out." she didnt realize i was legal. HOLLA'!! haha. Everyone then started to watch this weird movie and when Moran and I went to bed we finished it from her tv and we were so confused! I think it was called "The Upside of Anger." Moran and I shared her bed and she moves around so much in her sleep. At one point her arm was across me! She also sleep talks! It was in hebrew so i have no clue what she was saying.

note to self: balsamic vinegar from sasha's salad

SATURDAY:

Moran and I woke up at 12ish. I woke up at like 10 something for a second to look at the clock. I'm so used to army time and by subtracting 2 and then 10, i subtracted 2 from 10 and was thinking "i cant believe it is only 8!" i was so confused! When we woke up and went downstairs we were right in time for lunch. It was buffet style and it was leftovers...i was excited! The potatoes were so good but i was too full to finish them last night so i was really happy to be able to finish the potatoes on my plate for lunch. I was just thinking...maybe i should learn how to bake potatoes so then i can melt cheese on them for a healthy, delicious snack! how long does it take to bake a potato???? After lunch I had some more ice cream and turned down some wine. For the rest of the day I watched movies and tv. I watched "The Conspiracy Theory," "Wag the Dog," "Kong Fu Panda," and tv shows. The last thing I watched were the VMA's. Moran had it recorded 15 minutes after it started. We were so mad when we found out that we missed seeing Kanye interrupt Taylor. It was still entertaining to watch...especially because we could fast-forward the performers we didnt like! We also didnt have to worry about commercials. On channels that air american shows, there are no commericals...it is great!!

Before Kong Fu Panda and tv shows, we went to shul. It was at Degenia, which was the first kibbutz! It was engineered to be a circle so each person would get an equal slice of land. There was no rabbi so it was considered to be a congregation, rather than synagogue. I never really thought there was a difference between the 2 words until Shlomo pointed it out to me. Services were really nice...i only understood the parts that shlomo translated for me! Maybe after 9 months i will have a better understanding. I also forgot to mention that during the day...IT RAINED! Shlomo told me that he doesnt remember the last time it rained on rosh hashanah. I went outside for about 8 seconds. It was so nice! Hopefully, this is a sign that there will be rain this winter!

SUNDAY:

Moran and I woke up at 12. Luckily, she didnt move around too much last night! When we woke up we just went on the computer and sat around her room. All of the sudden Ido comes in saying that everyone is ready to go and will be waiting in the car! Moran and I were still in our pajamas! We quckily got ready and ran out the door, not knowing where we were even going. First, we went to Assaf Ramon's grave. It is crazy that it was only a 10 minute car ride. This cemetery over looks a major airbase. That is why both Ilan and Assaf are buried there, even though they are not from that area. It was weird because I have visited the cemetery before to see Ilan's grave and other people's graves. Assaf's grave was covered with wreafs (is that how you spell it) Towards the top there was a wreaf that said "Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit." How weird??

After we visited his grave, we drove through the Galilee. It was beautiful! We were on our way to the cave where Shimon bar Yochai supposedly hid in for years. We were going there to eat lunch! None of us had ever been there before and there was just so much food! It was good. I was stuffed, though. We then drove passed the Gamila Soap Collection store (it sells really nice soaps, oils, candles, and stuff like that). There apparently is emmy awards for soaps and this soap won something...it smells really good. Drora wanted to spoil me so she got me a smelly thing for my room (the one you put wooden sticks in), peeling soap, and a soap bar with a loofah inside it. Also, they got me a butterfly thing to hang up for my room for rosh hashanah. I soon will take pics of our room and you will see it! After the soap store we drove to an ice cream place but it was a long drive and i would drift in and out of sleeping. I was trying my hardest to not take a nap that day. That was one of my goals! I feel like a toddler!

We got to the ice cream place and it was gelato style. I was so used to walking passed gelato places to get my cheap ice cream. I got a mix of pomegranate and chocolate chip ice creams. SO good. but it was a problem because i wasnt even hungry in the first place! Then Shlomo took me to a grocery store where i got so so so much chocolate. I got a big bag of individual chocolates ( the kinds that are in the multi chocolate bags), chocolate wafers, and chocolate cookie things. This chocolate is in a shelf...i am only letting some people know about it :) When we got back Ido helped me study for my ulpan quiz. He showed me some dances he learned...they were so funnyyyyy. Then we watched Shrek the 3rd...what shrek movie is it where donkey says "Sugar Honey Iced Tea?" im embarrassed... is it in the 2nd one after shrek changes into a man? After the movie i showered and packed up. Moran had a spelling test the next day so i helped her with that. She was learning hard words!

At around 9 at night i left, but promising to return soon (probably during sukkot) with laundry! It is so funny how they live an hour and a half away but said that they are so close to me. Some of my israeli friends said that we are really far away and when i asked how far they are, they also said an hour and a half! haha. I got back around 11ish, just missing Nathan who was here for the holiday but was heading back to bat yam. Some people asked if i was gonna be going out...hell no! It was crazy that people were going out...i was so tired! I dont know how they go out every night! One thing that bugged was that there was no more food in our apartment. People went shopping 2 days ago! I got to bed around 1:30ish and had to wake up at 6:45...sababa.

MONDAY:

I talked to Ashley last night and she said she was going to be fasting the fast of Gedalliah and has a dentist appointment, which meant i would be going to volunteering alone. I really enjoyed it! I just listened to my ipod. I wasnt sure if i was gonna fast, but i ended up doing it! I decided that now is a perfect time for me to do all of the fasts (because im in israel.) Not too many people at school were fasting, but i just worked on organizing tapes...i made good progress! I wasnt hungry. It was an easy fast. The only thing was that I wanted to taste food. I think that is my problem. I really like the taste of food, but i am not hungry for it! I really liked working alone because i just listen to my ipod everywhere and i truly feel independent. I got to leave a little early because Pamela felt bad for me because i was fasting. When i got back from volunteering I took a 10 minute nap and then decided to work on my blog. I then checked my email and realized that I had a paragraph on my relationship with God due later that day. I then did that and i worked on my blog for a little.

At 1 i left to go to the beit midrash because there was going to be learning about why we are fasting. Gedalliah was not only killed by a Jew but because he was so strong with his opinions, his opinions not only killed him, but many others. After his and the other people's death, everyone left Israel for 70 years. We fast to remember that our actions will affect others...i think? It was really unclear because we had to interpret what something (maybe a midrash?) was saying. If anyone would like to tell me the real reason...feel free! At 1:30 i had to run to ulpan class. I was ready for the quiz, but we ended up not having it! She completely forgot...and since we finished our workbook today, we will be having a quiz on the entire book. There were some things at the end of the book i did not know. I think I am in the right class.

I then went back to the room and worked on this for a little...my biblical rebel's class starts later than everyone else's class because she is teaching somewhere else before. When I got there with my roommate anna, she was already there and told us that the class starts at 5 after all of the holidays..whoops! she didnt care though and understood it was a misconception. she emailed me a response to what i wrote and really enjoyed it. When I got to class she told me that she saw my name on the other class's list! I got into the class i originally wanted! I was really late for the class though and wasnt sure if i should just walk in or not. I decided just to walk in and it was fine. I was a little lost and there is legit work but once i get into the swing of things it will be a good class. I kind of understand what we learned today but not really. I think it will be easier to follow if i started class on time.

After class I came back to the apartment and had only a little longer left of the fast! I went on skype and talking to andy baron for a little! I broke the fast with chocolate because we have NO food in our apartment. A group of us decided to make A LOT of noodles. While we (by we i mean others) were cooking, we had our apartment meeting. Everyone was so pissed with each other because of how dirty our apartment was and how we had no food. We made a cleaning chart. People got groceries. I think the cleaning chart will be really good. But it is so annoying because last week everyone was complaining about the dirty dishes and how everyone should do their own dishes. Some people still didnt do their own dishes! Also, people have their friends over and people eat our food! UGH! So we talked about that and cleared things up. Hopefully things will get better. It is funny how the the first couple of meetings everyone was nice to each other...now everyone was yelling at each other! Because some people got some groceries (because we all need to make lunches for tomorrow's hikes), I returned it with rachel and katie. Katie made cake and we were being so funny and acted like we were binge eating. We were shrieking with laughter! I showered and used my new soaps. They smell so good! After my shower I made my lunch and finished this super long blog. yayyyyy! it is 10 to 1 and i have to be on a bus by 6:45...ill be taking a nap on the bus ride there and back.

response to comments (aka answer to mom's questions):

1. what school are you at, and where is it? i work at a school called makeef geedlo or something like that. im not sure where exactly it is.
2. i want to see the siddur you are referring to, sounds great
3. in an earlier blog, you mentioned the need for hebrew-english dictionaries - that is a project someone could do around here with more info. pass it along when i have time i will maybe follow up with my hebrew-english dictionary idea
4. interesting what you learned about yom kippur and habits,etc. now, how do you think the guys felt you were messing with? and, what does that say about religious girls - you were all kind of making fun of them even though that may not have been your intention. have to think about unintended or unanticipated consequences of our actions - that's my new thing these days. trying to think these through myself. so, just making an obvsee here (short for observation, don't think the abbrev worked!) sorry to get too preachy. it's the holidays, can't help it. we are actually jealous of those girls. we look up to them! but i guess you are right, we were kind of making fun of them (unintentionally). and im glad i am not home for the holidays...i just got that annoying vibe you give during the holidays. hehehe. i heard you did good on chanting from the Torah though! (maybe liz was lying? ill ask steph)

As said in the last post, I had to wake up at 6:45. I was exhausted. People bought food yesterday night, so i had food for breakfast and packed a little lunch. My eyes were bright red (scary looking) because although i washed my face last night, I forgot to take off my make up. oy. Ashley and I only had to wait for the bus for a little and we got there around 8ish which is good. We then went straight to work on the cassette tapes made for the final test (the tapes read different things in english for students that have learning disabilities). The tapes were a mess and it took so long to organize. We organized them one way but now we need to organize them in a different way. We also didnt see a huge other area of tapes. But during one of the longer breaks at the school (i think it is 35 minutes) music was blasting from outside. Ashley and I took our lunches and sat outside just watching everything that was going on. Along with the music blasting, students were selling candy. This was all for Rosh Hashanah. Some of the songs played were english songs. One song they played was "Everytime We touch." Ashley and I were singing and we were cracking up because we knew that although a lot of the students were singing the song, not many of them knew what they were saying! haha. We then got some apples and honey (because they were in the teacher's lounge). I talked to ayal for a little and he asked if i was going anywhere (i think he would have invited me over to his place if i didnt have a place to go!!!) We got to leave a half hour early and today it is soooo nice out. There is a breeze and i took a picture of the sky because there are CLOUDS in the sky! I was so happy!

When i got back I did my hebrew homework, ate, finished gossip girl (FINALLY...it was pretty good...but i didnt love it because it took up soo much time to watch), and talked to shlomo. He is going to pick me up tomorrow morning around 8:30ish. I cant wait! I then rushed to hebrew class and it went pretty well. I think I am in the right level, some people just are not in the right level. On Monday we have a bochan (quiz) on everything we have learned so far. I am excited for it! I love being able to fill in the blanks with the word bank because i understand what the sentence is saying and i know all of the words in the word bank! After hebrew I went back to my apartment to get my books for the other class (which i asked to switch out of but we dont find out until monday). There was only like 8 kids in the class but only 3 of us showed up today. Others just went to the class they wanted to be in. Anna and I felt bad. Our teacher then had a little sit down with us and wanted us to tell her how she could change the class and why we think people wanted to leave. She is a strong woman so we could give her constructive criticism. I told her that a lot of people who were put in this class didnt have it down as their first choice. When people found out they could switch into the class they really wanted to be in, everyone did it. I told her I even tried and we will see how things turn out. I also told her that i just took a 9 week writing class over the summer so i didnt really want to write apers. Luckily, this class is no longer a writing class, but the problem is I'm not sure if i will get any credit for it. We will see. I'll have to email U of M. She made us chocolate chip cookies which were so good and since there is only 3 of us we really were able to have a discussion and we are going to focus on 5 rebellious characters in the Bible. The 5 we are going to discuss are Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Job, and Jonah. The problem with the class is the 2 other girls really dont know the Bible and they want to be able to be more comfortable with it. I, however, took Bible in high school so I am very comfortable with the Bible and I know many different meanings of the stories. If i dont get in the class I want to be in it will be fine, but if i do i wont feel guilty and embarrassed when i see the teacher. She is an interesting, unique person (and i really do mean that in a positive way!)

After class I came back to the apartment and took a mini nap. I did not help cook dinner. I had veggies with shwarma and salad. It was so so sooo good. After dinner I just hung out for a little. I then took a shower and was planning on watching Breakfast At Tiffany's with Britty because neither of us have seen it. Unfortunately, we didnt watch it becuase Julia wanted to clean the front 2 bathrooms (which have yet to be cleaned once...gross, i know). She needed moral support so i just stood there and talked with her while she cleaned. I barely did anything. I really hope people will appreciate what she did. So by the time she was done, it was too late for britty and i to watch the movie. im sooooo bummed. i guess we will have to watch it after the new year! I have to wake up at 2:30am because shevet is doing stuff (im pretty sure we are doing sleechot) and then we are going somewhere and eventually end up at the kotel. im so excited. I am not bringing my laptop to Shlomo's so i dont think i will be able to blog for 2-3 days. what are the few of you who read this everyday gonna do?!?! Well, it is 11:30...i should probably get to bed...שנה טובה!!!!!!!

note to self: bat yam

Today I had to be at the gate to meet Ashley at 8:10. Rach woke me up but I didnt get out of bed until 8:05! Ashley was running late too so it was fine. We walked to the bus stop and the bus didnt come for a good 15 minutes. We were late to school, but it doesnt matter yet. It will matter though when we have to be in classes to help students. We just have no clue what time the bus comes at. It's so annoying! When we got to school we alphabetized some grammar books. When we finished we went to find Pamela to ask her what to do next. When she came in she told us we had to fix some of the novels we put in shelves. We had them in alphabetical order but there were 3 rows so it would be impossible to get the books in the way back. Pamela told us to make it so there would be a couple of the same books in the same row. Therefore, a teacher can see all of the books and take out the row she or he needs. We also had to rearrange the tests the seniors take. By doing so, it will make it a lot easier for the teachers to find what test they want and to maybe keep the room organized! Ashley and I then organized the desk's drawers. When we finished with the drawers we went to Pamela's class (because class was almost over) and everyone was leaving the class and saying hi to us. I cant wait to start working with them! Oh and one more thing, I saw ayal a couple of times and he always speaks to me in english, and i try to speak to him in hebrew! I am so used to him forcing me to speak to him in hebrew!! I also saw him on the 2005 graduating class as one of the administrators...i took a pic of it and will post it up soon :)

When Ashley and I got back I ate and did some stufffff (like sign up for things, talk with boaz (so he can get to know me), and attempted to watch gossip girl...it still doesnt really work!), and then i took an hour nap. Yes, mom, i do get a lot of napping time. I love it! Naps are so nice! I then had to get up because we had a Shevet meeting. We had mincha and then chose an option to go to. Some of the options were to learn about Yom Kippur and Rosh hashanah in the Bible, why is Yom Kippur the happiest day of the year, learning tefillah, and one more that i cant remember. I chose to go to the learning tefillah one. I really liked it because the Rabbi gave me helpful tips to learn my prayers in hebrew and to understand what they are saying. One thing I'm gonna do if buy a siddur that has the english under each word. I cant wait to get it! I also will go to services on friday night at this one shul on emek refiem that spends a lot of time on saying the words of the prayer (reading the prayers slowly). This will allow me to participate and practice.

After that, one of the other classes were starting after, and so rach and i just went to that one too. It was the why is Yom Kippur the happiest day of the year. I really enjoyed what the man had to say. He wanted us to write down what we would want people to say about us at our eulogy (we had to do that as an assignment freshman year), think about my strengths, think about what things i have achieved, and think about my bad habits. We are supposed to keep a list, but I'm too lazy to that (which is a little ironic because one of my bad habits is being lazy! haha). Then what we are supposed to do for Yom Kippur is decide to focus on one bad habit we have and work on breaking it for the year. He made it seem possible to break a habit. One out of the few examples he gave us was about stopping the habit of lashon harahing (gossiping). Pick 5 or 10 minutes of each day to not gossip and stick to a certain. During that time, no matter who you are with, you cannot gossip. You then can eventually do it for longer periods of time...but slowly do this. By changing our bad habits one at a time, Yom Kippur is a time to rejoice at the positives we have done. We have taken a negative and gave a positive. This is why on Yom Kippur during the times of the Temple, one goat was killed as an offering for God and another goat (identical to the other one), was thrown off a cliff for Satan (not really Satan though...). The reason why they did that was to acknowledge the bad and how bad gives us an opportunity to do good. One other thing i learned was that Yom Kippurim is a day of happiness, hence the "purim" in the name. I love learning things like this! I'm so happy I chose shevet.

After those classes I came back to the apartment and eventually I kind of helped cook dinner (i just diced an onion), but at least i was in the kitchen! I also cut myself up a carrot and dipped it in hummus. With the progress I have been making I think I will be able to cook meat next week (jk...there is no way i will be able to do that.) After dinner (which was hamburgers, sweet potatoes, and potato stuffed in bread (what's it called?)), we got ready to go to ben yehuda. Rach, Britty, and me went to ben yehuda until 11:45ish. Rach felt like dressing like a seminary girl and we decided to find it funny to pretend she is shomer negiah to the people we were meeting up with. They actually believed us and asked why she chose to go on shevet, instead of shelem, and why she chose year course over a seminary. We pretended she prayed every morning. When we said bye to the people, one of the guys hugged all of us and when he went to hug rachel he touched her a little and rach just kind of backed away awkwardly and he was like "omg i forgot your shomer..." One of the guys kept on making jokes about her elbows (her shirt sometimes revealed her elbows). When we left I texted one of the guys to let him know (and everyone else we were with) that we were just messing with them. They did not find it as funny as we did. They were like "she just embarrassed herself." We were like "not at all!" it was so so so funny. We got back around 12ish and then went to bed. I have to wake up at 6:45 tomorrow morning. great.

Today I woke up at 8ish for my siyul. I had to be at the bus stop by 8:30. I realized while I was getting ready that my wallet was in the purse rachel took. ah! luckily, though, ali (it is pronounced the way sophie pronouces her french name) handed me hers behind her back after she showed the bus driver. phew! I went to the menachem begin museum. He was the 6th prime minister of israel. It was interesting, but i was exhausted. Luckily, it was a short tour and it was all videos we watched about begin's life. I then left with britty and katie and we walked back to our apartment. When we got back i was exhausted so i took a 4 hour nap! While i was napping rachel used her toothbrush (because she had another one) and cleaned our shower/bathroom floor. she then wrote a note just talking about how we need to keep the apartment clean and if someone does not know how to clean something come ask her and she wont laugh at them. Everyone loved her letter! When i woke up it was only 2:30 so i had lunch and then got ready to go to the malcha mall with rachel and britty.

I had fun at the malcha mall. We went to a lot of stores and we tried on some funny israeli styles. Rachel bought a couple of things. She bought this one cute headband and i swear she looked exactly like blair waldorf from gossip girl! haha. Speaking of gossip girl, when we got home from the mall, i put in a load of laundry and attempted to watch gossip girl. I would be able to watch some of it but then there would always be an error. It was the same for most people in my apartment. A couple of people were lucky though and were able to watch the entire episode.

While rach and i were trying to watch gossip girl, some other girls were making dinner. There were about 8 of us and we had noodles with meat sauce, salad, and veggies. It was so good! Then those who didnt cook cleaned up. After a few of us cleaned everything up, anna and i decided to make brownies. Once we began we both found out that neither of us cooked. But, the brownies ended up turning out great! that was the first time i have ever made brownies! haha. And i know that it is hard to mess up brownies...but i didnt mess up :)

After we devoured the brownies, some people went to the other room to start gossip girl. i decided to shower and then watch gossip girl with them. When i got out of the shower they were still not at the part i got to because it was taking awhile to load. Rach and I then during this time, i forget when, put our laundry in the dryer and got it out. After a few minutes of hanging out, the girls watching gossip girl (julia, anna, and britty) told me they were at the part i stopped at. I watched about 2 more minutes and then the show stopped working. We were all so pissed. We just decided to try and finish it tomorrow. I WANT TO SEE IT!!

I thought that by staying in tonight i would go to bed earlier, but that did not happen. Instead of writing in my blog earlier, I decided to clean up the room. Our room does look nicer, but im so not in the mood to wake up at 7:40 to go to school and organize that english room. oy.

Today I had to wake up at 6:45 because I had to be at the school by 8. When Ashley and I got to the bus stop, we had to wait over 20 minutes for it when a bus is supposed to come every 12 minutes. When we got to the school we just went into the english room and began to clean up some more book shelves. Pamala came in while we were doing it and gave us more things to do. We have to organize so much! We also have to alphabetize the things we already organized and we have to organize the practice/old tests that the seniors can use for practice before their final exam (i forget what it is called). Ashley and I were exhausted and not as enthused about having to clean the room. Oh well. Luckily, Ashley brought her speakers but time went by so slowly. After the holidays, though, things will be good. School seemed a little weird today though...Pamala said it was because of Assaf Ramon being killed. I have always been told that when one Israeli mourns, all of Israel mourns. I never really understood that idea (of seeing the majority of israel in a state of mourning) until today. It is hard for me to describe but today seemed a little quieter. I am not used to Israelis being quiet...

When we got back from volunteering I hung out with some girls and took a little nap. After my nap I went to ulpan for 2 and a half hours. Today went well. It was good review--we go over so much each class. Luckily, I already know most of it. We went over some foods and although i learned foods, i had forgotten them. But, we also did question words such as what, when, what time, where, from where, to where. People didnt know what some of those words were. I guess they learned things differently so they probably know certain things i dont know? But how can you not know the basic question words?! I dont think many people have heard of Debbie Freidman! haha. We also did some writing, that part was easy. I like the class because in the workbook i can read the directions in hebrew and understand what to do. I try not to write any english in my workbook and if she tells us what a word is, i write it in my notebook. The workbook is nice though because it has a list of words and we write what they mean in english on the side. I feel much more organized and it is easier for me to read the word when it is typed than in my own handwriting. Our homework is to write 16 sentences with 16 vocab words we have learned. Before class ended, we had a missile and a fire drill. Those are 2 out of the four things. The other two are terrorist and earthquake.

I then had to run to my apartment to grab my books for my biblical rebels class. The class wasnt as bad but it still was pretty bad. One of the major problems is our teacher does not have a set plan and there really isnt any organization. Today was more of a discussion which was good, but i still like there to be some order and point to such discussions. There was only 7 of us and i know that a few are for sure dropping out. One girl who already did drop out said she loved her other class. I feel bad dropping out, but this class wasnt my first choice and if people are getting into my first choice class, i also want to be in it.

After class I came home and for dinner i made a grilled cheese and just ate little snacks and nuts. I then returned grocery carts we took for groceries back to the grocery store with Katie and Kai. We took them to the wrong place but we think we found the right grocery store. When we got back I showered and got ready to go to emek refiem because there was an art festival happening tonight.

Britty, Katie, Julia, and me walked to emek refiem. It was so cool and so hippyish. They were like 5 stages spread out and it was cool because by the time you got to the other stage you couldnt hear what the other performers were playing. It was huge! There was a lot of good smelling food and really cool jewelry. I saw this one necklace and took a picture of it. It cost 100 sheks, but I have so many beautiful necklaces that i love but never wear (because i like wearing the same necklace(s) until they fall apart). I decided to call my mom because i thought she maybe could talk me out of it. She did just the opposite! She told me to buy it and her and bubbie can take it back home for me if i dont want it in israel. thanks mom! (being sarcastic). So i bought the necklace! I love it and after much thinking i have decided to take off my other necklaces when i go out and wear that one. Buying this necklace made me miss all of my other necklaces and earrings. I might have to have you (mom and bubbie) bring me some of them.

I am so mad that i didnt bring my camera. Out of all the nights!! It was so cool. There were weird people who were dressed absurdly. There was a guy who was on stilts that looked like the tin man from Wizard of Oz. There were these weird models that dont speak and dont pay attention to the public. Others acted like clowns. And i cannot explain how many stands their were of beautiful artwork and great smelling food. I saw some beautiful mezuzahs, i cannot wait until i have my own house (dont worry mom and dad, it wont be SO soon) and i can go shopping for mezuzahs and Jewish artwork. anyways, right when things started closing britty and i really wanted a potato with melted cheese on it. They were selling them there! We found the stand and were so excited. IT WAS SO GOOD. i really miss baked potatoes! We then left and met a couple of kids. Britty and i talked to them for about 10 minutes. It was about 11:30 when we got back to our apartment. About 10 minutes after we got back a kid from our program comes in with a friend (who is a girl) of his. she is also on the program and is going through a difficult and needed to come to jerusalem for a day. She needed somewhere to stay and since rach and i have a trundle, we are letting her stay here for the night. Hopefully she will be okay.

ps- im so jealy (inside joke with jacque and mom?) of everyone who can watch gossip girl! a roomie of mine from france knows a good website to watch it from. i have to wait until tomorrow though!

xoxo gerusalem girl (sorry if that's not funny...im tired)

Today I had to wake up around 8ish. Chelsea left today and i was so sad! Hopefully she will come back soon to spend another shabbas with rach and me. We are running out of food so for breakfast i had to have cereal with lactose free milk. yuck. By 8:45, Mike (a madrich) was taking me, ashley, erin, and anna to where we would be volunteering. It was cloudy and i felt some mist coming down! It almost drizzled, but then the clouds went away.

Ashley and I are working at this one school that is combined middle and high school. Erin and Anna are working at a different school with younger kids. The school is huge! I took some pictures but I'll put them up once i take more. When we get there we sit in the staff lounge waiting to meet our teacher. We were sitting there for about 20 minutes because she was teaching a class. After some waiting, we finally meet her. Her name is Pamela and she is from Britain and was in FZY (young judaea year course for brits) in the 60s. I really like her. We then figured out with her what times we would be coming in and leaving. On two days we are going to start at 8 so we can get out earlier because we have ulpan at 1:30 those days. The other two days, though, we are gonna get there at 8:45. While she was helping someone with something all of the sudden i see my hebrew teacher from JAMD who moved back to jerusalem!!!! HOW CRAZY?! I thought about how funny it would be if i was to be in the same school as him but the chances of that happening were very slim to none! So we see each other and shake hands (I wanted to hug him but I wasnt sure if that would be appropriate...hes secular..but still). We then talk for a little and then i text some jamd people who are in israel to let them know. After doing some things, ashley and i get a mini tour of the school. We are then put to work.

After the holidays we will begin helping students one on one with their english. We will mostly help the 12th graders by just taking them out one by one and just talking with them in english for 10 minutes. They have a final test at the end of the year and one part of it is oral. We will also read passages from tests for people that have certain disabilities. So until after Yom Kippur..i think...ashley and i are organizing the English room. this room is really small and basically the size a large walk-in closet. Today we organized books from the shelves. These books are so old and used. They are also pretty outdated/boring! One problem Ashley and I noticed was the lack of hebrew-english dictionaries. We are thinking about buying some dictionaries for the school. If anyone would want to help us out that would be great!

After we finished the book shelves we decided that was enough for today. We ate lunch and then Shoshie called me. I went to ayal's office and they talked for a couple of minutes. Ashley and then decided to leave Pamala a note letting her know we were leaving. We decided to go explore the school for a little and ended up finding where Pamala was teaching. She was teaching a 12th grade class and she invited us in so she could introduce us. Apparently she told her students about us and they were excited to meet us. All of the boys kept on asking how old we were. They were funny. It is crazy how loud they can be!

It is going to be difficult to create some sort of boundary between us and the upperclass high schoolers. Some are only a grade younger than us and Ashley and I were both saying that we have good friends that are a year younger. We also have friends that are even younger than that. How are we going to make sure there is a boundary?! How am i going to be authoritative?! I am never authoritative...only to my sisters...sometimes!

When we left a lot of kids were yelling out our names. we are "the americans." I like working there though and i cant wait for my hebrew to be better and meet nice people! When we got on the bus back I was listening to my ipod and we ended up passing where we were supposed to go get off. We ended up being right by ben yehuda. So, we had to get off the bus and get on another one. When we finally got back i relaxed for a little..but not for too long because we made our own shofars! It was fun but super super smelly. YUCK. We all smelled after and my hands still smell bad even after i showered. We had to sand the ram's horn and make a hole at the bottom to blow out of.

After the shofar making we had some free time and then i had my Holocaust films class. We watched 2 movies made in the late 40's (right after the Holocaust). We got pizza and pop, too. The movies were slow and their endings always end so abruptly! After that class, I stole some toilet paper from the beit midrash with Katie because we have run out of 48 rolls. We are buying more tomorrow...hopefully! When we got back to the apartment, before our apartment meeting with our madrich (we have one every week), i got a missed call from David Levi (or is it levy??) We talked for a little and we plan on meeting up during sukkot. He's so nice and i cant wait to see him!

In our apartment meeting we talked about how we all need to clean our apartment, food, and we read an article about an Israeli soldier being stabbed to death yesterday. It is crazy how many stabbings happen in Israel. People who are in charge on YJ tell us to just walk away everytime...even if the other person starts it and you get punched-- never fight back. After the meeting some of us got ready to go to ben yehuda. I didnt drink for multiple of reasons, but still had a fun time. Everyone was staying out so late and when I was walking to the bus stop (because i wanted to catch the last bus) people were just getting the ben yehuda! I really enjoy taking the bus. I find it so relaxing and i feel so independent! While walking home from the bus, I was on the phone with Rachel, just to be safe. i got back, went on my computer and talked to a couple of people. Now it is 1:15 and I have to wake up at 6:45 tomorrow because i have to be at the school by 8. I'm excited though!

ps- i heard michigan won...GO BLUE :)

Yesterday I woke up at 10:30 and was exhausted. Rach, Chelsea and i got ready and at 11 we left to walk to Rachel's cousins house for shabbat lunch. It was so hot out. We got lost and got directions from dozens of nice people. It took about an hour and it was mostly all uphill. Lunch was really nice and her cousin is about to get married. I liked them both. It was crazy because they are getting married in november and dated for only about 5 weeks. It is such a different style when looking for marriage. They were 31 and 28 (i think) but most people get married when they are early 20's, some even earlier! So weird! The food was soooo good and it was weird because they gave us wine (along with water) to drink with our meals! They then took out some other type of wine so we can taste it. It was sweet white wine or something like that..it was good. Will I be able to drink wine on shabbas with all of the adults when i get home?! just kidding. Dessert was also delicious...brownies and fresh fruit (pears, apples, peaches, nectarines). After dessert we said the prayers after the meal and they gave me a brechat hamazon book that had the english word(s) right under the hebrew word. It was so great because you can see what each word you are saying means.

After lunch we hung around their house for a couple of more hours. We played a couple of games. One of them was bannanograms. Mom--get this game. It is so fun! You can read the directions but it basically is like scrabble but each person makes their own board. We played about 3 rounds of that game and then we played dad's favorite game...drumroll please....SET! haha. I ended up winning! Yay! We then looked at wedding albums that the photographer rachel's cousin and his fiance are gonna use. The pictures were beautiful. I have never been to a religious wedding before. I'm 99% sure im gonna go with rach to her cousin's wedding. The pictures were unbelievable. I cant wait to actually be at a religious wedding. Maybe ill meet a religious, single guy who wants to marry me. Then i can have my own religious wedding! ha jk mom and dad. but did you guys see that caption of the one pic i took of the underwear/shirt for the preg-o woman? I thought you guys would appreciate it.

After shmoozing for a little longer we decided we should head back. Rachel's cousin's fiance told us where to go but none of us really paid attention...we were too tired! So we just kept on going down hills and finally i asked for directions and we ended up going the right way! When we got back we just hung out for a couple of hours. Britty then told me about sleechot services at the great synagogue (or something like that). So at 9 30 about 7 of us went onto a bus to go the shul. Rachel had my bus pass and she wasnt with us so Katie decided to hand me hers after she showed the bus driver. She was so unslick and ended up dropping the bus pass when trying to hand it to me from behind her back. So i bent down to pick it up to pretend i dropped my pass. When we took a seat all 7 of us were dying. The bus driver then went on the loud speaker and was speaking to us. He was asking to see our bus passes. I immediately stood up and i was like "here's mine." (while holding katie's). The bus driver wasnt even talking to me though! Luckily we wasnt too suspicious. When we got off the bus we walked passed these semi-religious boys and i hear them say "poke-a-dot it. country-fy it. then hip hop it...." Me and some of the people we are with turn around and start cracking up. They realize we are laughing and they sing louder and laugh too. Since we are walking away from them they yell "DO THE HOEDOWN" and then some of us yelled back "THROWDOWN." hahaha.

We get to shul and it is huge! The synagogue is on the 2nd and 3rd floor (women sit on top). I really liked the choir because they were not only good but wore tallits. I'm used to Temple Israel style of a church gospel singing. I love it...but they are not Jewish. The Rabbi also had a big and good voice. The service was difficult to follow though. I thought we were only there for about 15 minutes but when someone checked the time we were there for over an hour! It was getting close to 12 and 12 is when the last bus comes. So, we had to leave early, but I really enjoyed it. We bumped into some friends of ours because they were also leaving shul. They were going to ben yehuda and so since they would be out too late for the buses to pick them up, i took one of the guy's bus pass. On the bus there were some rude israeli boys who were blasting their music from their phones. Luckily a fight did not break out.

I then walked home with a couple of people who were on our bus but were coming back from ben yehuda. One of them was really drunk and he was amusing. When we finally got back I hung around the apartment for a bit and talked to stephanie who no longer has braces!

Today I woke up at 10ish but just lugged around for a couple of hours. I got movies from erin and britty's computer and put them in my itunes. I got sooo many good movies: billy madison, breakfast at tiffany's, center stage, the devil wears prada, fight club, freedom writers, garden state, the holiday, knocked up, mean girls, milk, music and lyrics, pretty women, ps i love you, the pursuit of happyness, remember the titans, save the last dance, sex and the city, 21 and 27 dresses!!! I have seen most of them...but i do watch a lot of romantic comedies and most of these are romatic comedies! I watched the movie called center stage. It was bad acting but really good dancing and the guys in it were cute. haha. I then decided to make myself useful and wipe down our dining room table. I then talked to nathan who told me about bat yam and going to tel aviv.

I decided to make myself useful, once again, and got dressed to take all of our garbage out. Rach, Chelsea (rachel's friend who is staying with us for shabbas), and i decided to walk to emek refiem for fun. I decided not to bring money or else I would be too tempted to buy ice cream. that was my goal for today...not to buy anything. That is why I stayed in my apartment for most of the day! hahaha. My goal is to have 100 sheks get me through the weekend and another week. I think i can do it! Because rach, chelsea, and i are going to rachel's cousin's house for shabbat lunch, we decided to buy a cactus. so i guess i did spend some money. Rachel said we dont need to pay...but im gonna pay her 10 sheks. When we got back I organized an exel sheet for my expenses! I didnt know that sheqel is spelled with a q...i always thought it was spelled like "shekel." So maybe when i do my abbrevs for it i should say "sheq." I'm gonna still say shek, though! Some people cooked dinner for the potluck we were having with people who did not leave to go to spend shabbat with their friends or family. I obviously did not participate. I really will someday! We then hung out and got ready for shabbat. We lit candles more than 18 minutes after shabbat started.

After we lit we headed down because dinner was going to be outside. We did the prayers and then while me, rachel, ari mendelson, britty, and chelsea waited for the line/pushing to go down/not be so intense, we talked about Eshet Chayil (A woman of valor). They were impressed that i had memorized some of it. Todah rabah meeshpach shelee!! It was bad that we waited until the end because there was nothing really left. Luckily we pushed and shoved to get dessert first. It was pretty good. After dinner and shmoozing for a little some people hung out in our apartment. Our apartment is where people go to hang out. While people were here chelsea and i did the hoedown throwdown dance a couple of times! hahaha. we videoed it and were peeing in our pants when we watched ourselves. We then went out of our room to the main area where people were. We talked for awhile, but i started to get tired. I decided that it was a perfect time to write my blog! But once i got on my computer i noticed that stephanie was on. I thought we would only talk for a little...we ended up talking for a couple of HOURS! but i miss her (only a little) so it was nice to catch up with her. (steph i know you will read this and get the wrong idea---i still do not have the urge to hug you).

Oh i forgot to say that britty, rach, chelsea, and i were kind of planning on going to a tel aviv beach today. We wanted to get on a bus by 9am so we could get to the beach, be there for a couple of hours, and leave before the shabbas traffic. I set my alarm for 7:30 but we were wayyyy too tired. We cant go next week because of rosh hashannah but i think we will go the week after. Well, I have to wake up in 8 and a half hours....shabbat shalom :)

ps- it was so weird that it was 9/11 and even weirder that we didnt have any program to remember it...i wish we did something.

pps-HAPPY BIRTHDAY FOLBE!! (even though it is sept 12 here, it is still sept 11 in america!)

ppps- sorry if my english on these blogs arent good...i dont proof read them

pppps- i uploaded more pics on my online web album...they are mostly pics i took of my

apartment/hostel. the new pics start on pic 59. the url is http://picasaweb.google.com/chitchatjess5

Yesterday I woke up at 10 but kept on waking up. I was not tired! I then was on my computer and got out of bed at like 11. i then hung around and showered until 1:15. At 1:15 we had a meeting and YJ basically told us that everyone who was in dimonah got moved to arad because there was stealing, harassment, threats, etc. going on in dimonah. We then had our ulpan classes!!!!!!! I am in level 5 out of 7. The class was so easy though. A lot of people do not know masculine and feminine well. People didnt know how to say who and we were doing simple sentences saying where we are from. After class I talked to the teacher and she said that level 8 is a huge leap. If there was a level in between though, I would be perfect for it. A lot of other people are like that. Some think hebrew 5 is too easy and some people in hebrew 6 thinks it's too hard. I think it will work out. I'm getting a good review of vocab words. Also, by being the stronger one in the class I will be more comfortable to speak.

After hebrew I had my writing class. It no longer is a writing class. I'm not sure if U of M will count the class though. Maybe under Judaic Studies they will accept the credit. i will have to find out. There were only about 7 of us. In my hebrew class there were 18. My Bible class was not good. I'm used to having discussions and I just didn't really like the way our teacher was teaching. She might get better over time though. It doesnt seem like the other class (the one i wanted to be in) was much better. I mean today was only the first day. Once we have a routine it might get better. Today all we did was talk about what we already know about the Tanach. I wish I kept my notes from Rabbi Grossman's class because he made so many interesting points and i vaguely remember them, but i want to know them in detail!

After class I made chicken (slash someone made it for me and her!). I then took a mini nap with rach. When we woke up we started to get ready to go out. I wore my skinny anchor jeans with the loose white tank that has a tight band at the bottom. Luckily, I grabbed a white sweater because it was chilly outside. Britty and I then walked to the bus stop because rachel was waiting for her friend chelsea to come. When we got there we walked to the popular area where so many people are (most are from seminary or yeshiva). I was looking for some friends and then i hear shoshie calling my name!! I was so happy! We then talked for about 10 minutes and i told her i texted her and she didnt respond! she told me she never got it...i had the wrong number. tovvvv. i cant wait to meet up with her and hang out with ppl from JAMD. It would be so fun and nice! Rachel and her friend met up with us and some more of rachel's friends. We then went to zollies and hung out there with some people. We then walked around and we eventually ended up at this one bar..i think it is called eggon. Some people from our apartment were there. Some of us went into this sketchy hookah room. Some people wanted hookah but you cant buy hookah without a drink. whatevs. I was hanging out with some people that I met at Hebrew U. Rach and Chelsea were with another friend of theirs. They called me saying they were ready to go, so I met up with them and we took a taxi back. I then showered and Britty and I tried to plan on how to get to tel aviv because we wanted to go to the beach in the morning. It was 3am though and we would have to wake up early. We set an alarm for 7:30 and just decided not to go to the beach.

I got back late last night...so I'm just gonna write the post now. I didn't do much yesterday because i didnt have volunteering and classes were cancelled. I woke up at 12! It was so great. I then just hung out in my pjs until 3:30. I did, if you didnt already know, uploaded my pics!! I finally figured it out (the url is http://picasaweb.google.com/chitchatjess5). I also had rach teach me how to keep track of my expenses on microsoft exel. It will take me time to get adjusted to spending money because im sure everyone who reads this knows how i am with money. oh man! At 4:30 Shevet had a meeting and this chabad rabbi came and gave us a paper to sign up for different things such as to stay at a chabad's house for all of shabbas, studying at a seminary, etc. I signed up for most them. I'm a little nervous but it seems like a good experience! After the meeting we walked to this one place (i cant think of the name of the place on the spot). But we got divided up into 2 groups and then had to answer questions on a sheet of paper such as 2 things we want to learn on a Jewish/spiritual/religious level, 2 things we want to contribute, 2 questions we have. we then put our sheets of paper in an envelope. i think we will get this after 9 months.

after this, we helped out people who were boxing packages for lone soldiers. These are soldiers who do not have any family in Israel and might be alone for rosh hashannah. The perk in helping out was we got pizza and pop. the first time the pizza came i didnt get any. then by the 2nd time some people had left, and luckily i got a slice. i was so happy with young judaea when they kept on ordering the pizza! the pizza was so good. the jerusalem pizza at home does not taste like real jerusalem pizza. real jerusalem pizza is really good...better then non kosher places! I was so happy that i got enough. I hate when i dont get enough. like i really HATE it! haha. lori--i have lost my ability to share...i think i need to go back to selfish-anonymous and do the 9 steps towards becoming a sharer with my food. i was doing so good before israel! hahaha.

so we finished packing the boxes around 9ish and there were some extra shirts and food. i was so happy. i got a shirt (it is an XL though) and had a lot of waffer things. so good. rach and i walked back together and then she went to go meet up with her friend. britty, me, and a couple of other people got ready to go to Hebrew University because there was going to be a party there. Britty straightened my hair! I wore it in a side fish tail (thanks michelle!) We took a taxi there but while we were waiting for one like 5 israeli cars stopped and started speaking to us. we just turned around and ignored them. it was creepy.

Hebrew U was really fun. Im used to the college dorm partying scene so i was comfortable. we met a lot of people and i met people who know people i know. but this one kid (i forget his name) said he was a junior at umich. i asked him where he was from and what high school he went to--he went to berkley and was from huntington woods. i asked him if he knew noah. he does and he told me that our dads play bball together!!! how funny?!?!? we were at hebrew u for awhile and im not sure what time we left at. we shared a taxi with some guys we met. Because i didnt take out any sheks yet, i didnt have any. britty paid for the taxi on the way there so we didnt have enough money for the way back. so when we got back i had to sprint to my apartment and borrow some sheks from rach. we are all chilling in our apartment when we find out that our friend who came with us lost his wallet! we go down to try and help him and he thought he dropped it in the taxi. he wasnt in our taxi so we didnt have the receipt. people in his taxi also didnt have the receipt so we couldnt find the taxi. we then went through all of the options (he could have dropped it while at hebrew u, left it in the cab, or dropped it on the street when he got out from the cab). he said he already looked but me and him decided to go look on the street again. all of the sudden he spots something black. HE FOUND HIS WALLET! he had a lot of pounds in it so thank hashem he found it! im so happy everything worked out. i then got ready for bed, hung out for a little longer, then went to sleep. it was weird that i went out on a wednesday night, but i could because i still havent started volunteering. it's great! but i guess it will be better once things start so i cant go out and spend moneyyyy.