Deep Breaths

Sad but true

2004-04-12T16:06:00.000+03:00

Blogger's been bitching lately, taking hours to upload a single post and such things, and so I decided that until I get my own server and host name and all that stuff, I'm moving, sadly, to LiveJournal... the address is http://www.livejournal.com/users/katie47/. Sad, I know. I really didn't want to, but.... What can I do?

I'm assuming I'll post here every once in a while, but it won't be the same.

Sorry.

Much Amusiness

2004-04-06T18:39:00.000+02:00

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!

How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

And I'm not the non-English speaker. Hah.

Going to Australia in June, and Fun, Fun Fun Friday!

2004-04-03T23:25:00.000+02:00

Karin called me up and told me she was at the bank and apparently she had entered a contest she hadn't remembered she entered and she won two tickets to Australia for June. Since we've been talking about going to Paris or London or something in June, between her psychometrics and all that, it fit that if she won, we'd go together. And me being me - feet down to earth and head on my shoulders - I started asking her how she won, who pays, how much, how long, where to do we stay and all that. She started laughing and finally she says "April's Fools!!!"

So yes, I guess I should have worried about April's fools day. It was so funny though, I got so excited! She did it so well, she didn't laugh once. It worked so well, too. Fit with the situation and everything. It was so funny. That was Thursday.

Actually earlier that day I was at acceptance interivew at Camera Obscura, and I presented my project, (yay for not having to think about cats and superstitions anymore!!!) and I got to ask the woman who interviewed me (the assistant advisor of the media school at Camera) how many people apply and how many actually get in, and I got a wonderful answer that assured me there's a 90% chance I'm in. She said they call people in for interviews to meet them face to face, to see who they are, and judge that they know what they're doing, that they are aware of the fact that it's a 4 year program and that in the first year there's only one course that actually deals with animation, and that they are indeed serious people and aren't troubleamakers and all that kind of stuff. So I left there in a really good mood.

I went to my aunt's and uncle's after that, spent the night there. My cousin Eran and I watched Once Upon A Time in Mexico, had me drooling all over his bed.... Kid has a huge TV and a DVD in his room. So we watched that, and then I went to bed. In the morning I sat with a cup of strong coffee my uncle made me and the paper, and read just about the whole thing. It was the weekend editiion, and it's huge, like The New York Times. I love the paper, though, always full of great stuff. Then my uncle started playing stuff on the piano, which he does whenever he has free time, and I started singing along, so we ended up playing so much crap and singing, we sounded like a broken record. Until for some reason I started humming The Night Queen's part from Mozart's Magic Flute, and there's a part that every time I get to, I actually start to sing it, and you have to go so high up the scale that it always sounds like crap, but I can do it, and it's actually on the right note. Nitsan was so impressed that I could actually hit that note and more than once, that he decided I need to join a choir.

Yeah. Right. I can carry a tune, but let's not go overboared here.

I took a train home, then went to lunch with my mom and Noa at Tova and Dudi's, friends of my mom since Noa was 3 months old. Their oldest daughter is a few months younger than Noa, so they were friends since they met (the parents and the daughters) so I know them pretty well. They're really intelligent people so we always have intelligent conversations about things, and what I like most is that they don't just cancel my opinions about things because I'm the youngest (something many people do) so I really like them.

In the evenin' I went dancing with Karin, Lior, Moran and Raphael, and had a great time. I ended up getting home around 5:30am, and falling asleep (in bed) around 6am after I took a shower and washed my hair because I can't sleep with the smell of cigarettes and alcohol on my body and especially not in my hair (and fell asleep for a few minutes there which has never happened to me before). I had such a great time, though. Lior got tired around 3am, so he and Karin left, Moran and I stayed with Raphael (he had a car, always good!) and I drank a bit too much.

Something I hadn't expect to happen happened last night though. When I first met Raphael, we got along great. We went to a coffee place - Lior, Karin, Lad, Raphael and me - and we ended up talking about movies the whole evening, and Raphael and I kept talking about movies that the others hadn't seen, and remembering whole scenes from different things and just having a great time. The next time we went out, we went dancing, and Moran was with us. She was sure I had a crush on Raphael from that point on for several months. When she finally stopped taunting me about that a few months ago, I was grateful. So why the fuck all of a sudden last night I looked at her, and she just started shaking her head, and we both knew? So there was that. I was completely buzzed from not eating dinner, two screwdrivers, two shots of taquila, and some weird champagne that was going around (heeheehe).

At one point, before Karin and Lior left, I took Moran and we went looking for boyfriends. I told her I want to find myself a boy and kiss him. I admit this. Don't forget I was really buzzed, and don't judge my messed up mind please. Thank you. Back to the story. So she dared me to find a guy, and kiss him, and then said I should kiss Raphael. So I laughed. Couldn't stop laughing for a whole minute. When we got back to the group, Raphael asked me if he weren't enough that I had to go look for a boyfriend (and all this is a whisper in my ear because otherwise there's no way I would have heard him in the loud noise of the club we were at). Now I'm thinking... Never mind what I was thinking, but I said something like "Wish you were, m'boy" which had him laughing. I then told him Moran had dared me to kiss someone. So he took a step back, smiled his very evil smile at me, leaned in and said into my ear "kiss her!"

His evil smile developed my evil smile.

A few minutes later Moran found herself thumbkissed by yours trully, to Raphael's smile and Karin and Lior's shocked faces. Oh it was soooo funny. I immediately appologized to poor Moran who was mortally shocked, and explained Raphael dared me and hugged her and told her not to be mad at me. Raphael explained the deed to the other two who started laughing as well.

After Karin and Lior left I had to take a break for a bit, from dancing so much and my neck hurt from headbanging, so I leaned back against a wall, and this guy comes up to me and asks me if I'm a freak, (Israeli version of gothic type people) so I said no. He asked me who I'm here with, so I pointed to Raphael and Moran who were dancing. So the guy smiles and says "is he seeing someone?" which had me cracking up, and was followed by "can I have his number" which I responded to with "you have to ask him" because I wanted to see how Raphael would deal with that. But the guy never asked him.

At the end of the evening, when Raphael dropped me off, I leaned forward to give Moran a goodbye kiss (damn Israelis and their kisses anyway) so Raphael catches my hand and won't let me go until I kissed his cheek, so I got my kiss.

Kind of.

Overall, it was really good Friday night. I had a great time.
And now I need to work on stopping the development of a new crush. Err.

April's Fools Day

2004-04-01T13:31:00.000+02:00

Should I expect something to happen? Or maybe my interview at Camera was a sham? I used to love this day. Now I'm not so sure. And nothing has even happened yet!

heeheehee

2004-04-01T12:26:00.000+02:00

Quiz stolen from Kim!

2004-04-01T01:12:00.000+02:00

x.A is for - Age: 20
x.B is for - Boyfriend/Girlfriend: Planning on getting one.
x.C is for - Career in future: Animation
x.D is for - Dad's name: Edan
x.E is for - Essential item to bring to a party: Good party mood.
x.F is for - Favorite song at the moment: yoiks, too many...
x.G is for - Guys or Girls: Guys. Girls are too evil to each other, and I get along better with the boys, anyway.
x.H is for - Hometown: Herzeliya
x.I is for - Instruments you play: Piano, guitar (I'm learnin...) and my computer.
x.J is for - Job title: Tech support person
x.K is for - Kids: Adorable little brats.
x.L is for - Living arrangement: Home, sweet home.
x.M is for - Mom's name: Idit
x.N is for - Number of people you've slept with: 2
x.O is for - Overnight hospital stays: 2 - 1 with Michal when she passed out in the middle of the night about a year ago, 2 - when I was 9 and we were on a trip to Hawaii, I got a high fever and got taken to a hospital. Don't remember a thing.
x.P is for - Phobia[s]: bugs and snakes and mice. ewwwwwwwwww.
x.Q is for ? Q from Star Trek. Doh.
x.R is for - Relationship that lasted the longest: Best friends - Sarah and Ariel.
x.S is for sex - When I find the right one...
x.T is for - Time you wake up: Depends what shift I work or if there's a reason to get up early. Otherwise 10ish
x.U is for - Unique trait(s): Natural blonde. It's unique these days.
x.V is for - Vegetable you love: potatoes!!!!!!!
x.W is for - Worst habit: What? I'm perfect! (Heeheehee)
x.X is for - X-rays done: Womb, head.
x.Y is for - Yummy food you make: Corn casserole, anything with potatoes, pasta!
x.Z is for - Zodiac sign: Libra

. a p p e a r a n c e .
x.HEIGHT: 5'10 I think
x.HAIR COLOR: Blonde with even blonder natural highlights
x.EYE COLOR: Blue
x.PIERCINGS: 1 in each ear (used to be three in the left, 2 in the right. Then the military came.)
x.TATTOOS: I want one.

. r i g h t n o w .
x.WHAT COLOR PANTS ARE YOU WEARING?: blue pajama pants with coffee mugs that Sarah got me.
x.WHAT SONG ARE YOU LISTENING TO?: Radio's playing weird Passover music.
x.WHAT TASTE IS IN YOUR MOUTH?: toothpaste. Yuck.
x.WHAT'S THE WEATHER LIKE?: Beautiful!
x.HOW ARE YOU?: Gettin' over a cold.

. d o y o u . . .
x.GET MOTION SICKNESS?: Nope!
x.HAVE A BAD HABIT?: I'm sure I do!
x.GET ALONG WITH YOUR PARENTS? Most of the time. Except when I live with my mom. (Oy)
x.LIKE TO DRIVE?: Absolutely!

. f a v o r i t e s .
x.TV SHOW: Sex and The City (*sigh*), JAG, and lately, Quantum Leap (Notice the lack of ST?)
x.CONDITIONER: Crema for Natural Blondes
x.BOOK: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and a many, many more.
x.NON-ALCOHOLIC DRINK: Water and diet coke
x.ALCOHOLIC DRINK: Cosmopolitan
x.THING TO DO ON THE WEEKEND: Sleep, go dancing, read, rest
x.BAND OR GROUP: Queen, HaYehudim

. h a v e y o u . . .
x.BROKEN THE LAW: Too many times... hehe
x.RAN AWAY FROM HOME: When I was 11
x.SNUCK OUT OF THE HOUSE: Yup!
x.MADE A PRANK PHONE CALL: Oh yeah... hehehe
x.EVER TIPPED OVER A PORTA POTTY: I should try that...
x.USED YOU PARENTS' CREDIT CARD BEFORE: Hey, They let me!
x.SKIPPED SCHOOL BEFORE: Teehee
x.FELL ASLEEP IN THE SHOWER/BATH: Last night...
x.BEEN IN A SCHOOL PLAY: In like 3rd grade...
x.LET A FRIEND CRY ON YOUR SHOULDER: Yes, of course. What are friends for?

. l o v e .
x.BOYFRIEND: Sadly, no.
x.GIRLFRIEND: Don't want one.
x.SEXUALITY: As strait as they come. No pun intended.
x.CURRENT CRUSH: Other than Johnny Depp? No one.
x.BEEN IN LOVE?: Think so.
x.HAD A HARD TIME GETTING OVER SOMEONE: Yes. But good thing I did...
x.YOUR GREATEST REGRET: Not doing better in school. Yes, I can say this 3 years later.
x.GONE OUT WITH A SOMEONE YOU ONLY KNEW FOR THREE DAYS: No, but I wouldn't refuse if I like the person.

. r a n d o m .
x.DO YOU HAVE A JOB: Yes, I do!
x.YOUR CD PLAYER HAS IN IT RIGHT NOW: Hayehudim
x.IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?: Blue
x.WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY?: Reading a good book, being good at what I do, being able to keep myself occupied. My dog. And sleep.
x.WHO MAKES YOU THE HAPPIEST?: Ariel because he makes me laugh and Sarah because I have a great time talking to her, when we have the time for a long conversation.
x.WHAT'S THE NEXT CD YOU'RE GONNA GET?: Mofa Ha'arnavot Shel Casper and The 60's Men (oldies!)
x.TIME YOU CRIED?: This morning, and a whole lot over the past 2 weeks.
x.YOU GOT A REAL LETTER?: Do bills count?
x.YOU GOT E-MAIL: Half an hour ago
x.THING YOU PURCHASED: A stick of glue for my application project for Camera Obsucra.
x.TV PROGRAM YOU WATCHED: Something called Jeffery, a movie about a gay guy. Was nice.
x.MOVIE YOU SAW AT THE THEATER: I don't even remember. Probably Calendar Girls.... Geez, it's been that long?

. y o u r t h o u g h t s o n . . .
x.ABORTION: It's a woman's body. She can do whatever she wants with it.
x.TEENAGE SMOKING: Yeah, well.... What are you gonna do about it?
x.GIRLS: Evil, manipulative bitches. Otherwise friendly.
x.DREAMS: What do you live for, if not to achieve your dream?

The Beginning Of The Rest of My Life

2004-03-26T01:19:00.000+02:00

It's still raw within me, and the world does crash down on me from time to time. I can burst out into a fit of crying within a second, and start laughing from something or another a second later. Two nights ago I lay in my bed after writing in my diary, and all of a sudden I was crying, my mom was hugging me, and Noa was sitting next to me, holding my hand. Only a few hours earlier she was in the bathroom, her towel around her after a shower, and she stood there, crying. In the first few days there wasn't a morning when I didn't wake up to the sound of my mom's crying.

The nights are the toughest, so far. Between the dreams, and dreading the dreams, there isn't much of sleep, but my mom suffers the most. As she put it, she doesn't want to go into bed at night, but once she's in bed she doesn't want to come out. I just dream too often about him and the way he died. Noa sees the image the second before she falls asleep and the second she wakes up.

But the days are getting better. Noa went back to work. My mom is in front of her computer most of the day, attempting to work. And me? My situation was a bit weird. I had just started the course at IZ three days before and had been to the course the two times we met. Considering it is a 12 day course and I missed seven for the Shiv'aa, there wasn't a way for me to catch up. Avi, my instructor, said I might be given a one-on-one crash course, which was a wonderful idea, but today I learned that because Passover is stuck in the middle, I'll be added to the next course, which'll start in about three weeks, after Passover (the course Ariel will be in, if he gets the job). So for now I'll be doing 2-3 shifts a week at another job at the tech support, until the course starts. I should be okay. Between that and babysitting for Shira, I should be okay with money for this month. Plus my mom's supporting me financially as much as she can until I can do it on my own. Tough, on a 4,000 shekels salary, but doable, considering I don't pay rent for the apartment.

On a whole different note. My mom bought a pair of sandals a few days ago (out of the blue, in 10 minutes which must be a record for my mom, especially in the state of mind she's been in since my dad died). When we got home and she tried them on again, she noticed there's a weird stain on the front buckle. So the next day she took me to replace them. I took with me my 200 shekels coupon for Fox. Fox used to be, 3 years ago, a company that only had shirts, in every size, color and shape, which was wonderful. Ever since they became a big hit, about a day after the came out with their awesome idea, they turned into yet another cheap clothe store with shitty clothes. But what could I do... I had 200 shekels to go shopping at Fox. So I went and spent them, happily. On the way back to replace my mom's sandal's (after spending an hour at Fox), I saw this weird notice on Doctor Martin's, at one of the shoe store windows. At a second glance, I read this:

"25% OFF DOCTOR MARTINS" with 500 crossed off and 375 appearing in big black letters.

I stood there staring at the price as if I was looking at god, if that exists. 375 for a pair of shoes I've been dreaming about since I was 12, when they first came out in Israel and everyone had a pair, except for me, because they were so friggin' expensive? Now, let's see. It's my money. My salary. My credit card, no one sees what I do with it. So I went in, tried them on and bought them. So now I have a pair of black Docs. Except my mom doesn't know and won't for a while.

We're waiting for Yulia to get here, it's taking a bit to get all the papers ready. My mom says that for her, when Yulichka gets here, it'll be like a sign that we've got to back to normality. For some reason, for both her and me, once Yulia is here, it's like a sign that this is home. She's the last member of our family, and her being here indicates that this is home. I can't wait to see her again and I hope she passes the flight alright. The vet predicts that she'll be fine, which I believe, she's old, she'll be 13 in May, but she's not sick. So I hope she'll be okay. Stupid El Al don't have flights on Friday night, which pisses me off, damn religion getting into everything, so Yulia won't get here until Saturday night or Sunday, because she has to fly a direct flight, she can't make stops like I always do. So I hope she'll be here soon.

As for the house... I've made a list of items within my room that I want brought over, like CD cases and my nightstand and so on. I'm trying to remember other items that I have in my room that I want, but can't quite remember well everything that's in there. I keep trying to see my room item to item, but it's not working quite as well as I'd hoped. I need to do this by Saturday, when they start packing the house... Kind of puts things in a bit of a rush for me, with everything else going on, like figuring out what's going on with my job, my mom's whining about her fucked up computer, my sister's studying, setting up new e-mail addresses for everyone, figuring out the papers for Yulia's flight, all the people that keep coming by to pay their respects, and dealing with my father's death (obviously the hardest).

But you gotta do what you gotta do.

2004-03-19T10:00:00.000+02:00

I'm assuming the world will come crashing down on me soon because right now I'm too numb to realize it. To robot-like. Go through the stances, but don't think. Don't concentrate. Don't realize. Don't even try to. I stood in the shower last night, where I usually let my thoughts wander, where I usually do cry, and all I could think about was his hugs, and his smile, and his stories from his military time. I thought about the things we did together, how I could always make him laugh with the way I told him about my life, how I made everything into a stupid stories. How happy he was when I got the job at IZ, doing what I do best. I found out he told everyone he knew about his daughter who's going to be an animator. How he knew I wanted to go to UCLA, even if only subconsciously, and didn't say a thing because I didn't say a thing.

My mom and my sister went out to do something last minute arrangements with lawyers and such. I wasn't afraid to be alone. I would have been, three days ago. I'm not afraid to delve into my own head anymore, even if I find something distracting to do. Like write this.

My New Life

2004-03-16T00:57:00.000+02:00

A couple of days ago I wrote about how I was waiting for the moment life would start and I could press that proverbial play button. I pressed it. Real life is swinging my way in full speed. New job, Camera Obscura application and Entrance assignment project, a new side money making - babysitting a 4 and a half year old, and three and half tons of plans for the near and distant future.

And I love it.

My first day at IZ on Sunday was absolutely wonderful! We're 11 in the class, learning about things that are interesting. Our instructors are amazing! They're funny, they're our age (well, older than me, but I'm the youngest in the class...), they care for what they do, they answer all our questions... Avi, our "morning" instructor, is completing a degree in computer sciences, he's into computer graphics and animations (heehee) and all that stuff that I'm totally into. Itzik, our "afternoon" instructor, is a computer science man, all into hardware and all that stuff, and amazing at it, he's a funny, funny man.

The 12 of us are a bunch of funny people together, pooling our resources (info, hobbies, all that stuff) to make these 12 days the best 12 days. I've found a bunch of cool people I can really have fun with, even if they are all at least 2 years older than me, and most are 5 years older than me... The baby of the group.... But I'm always the youngest so it never bothered me... hehehe.

So even though I had the day off today (and I was already happy about it, haha), I really can't wait to get back there tomorrow, and those 8 hours that'll start at 8:30AM will be great.

The Camera entry project is pretty hard, for an entrance project for people who have no background in animation and such things. It's not an animation project, because none of us can do it, but it certainly reminds me of one of Milt's projects in Media Arts in 9th grade. I've got to put together 6-7 frames, each with a picture of something, and all six must represent something specific. Then, I've got to take the same exact 6-7 frames and with changing a single thing - color, texture, shapes within - have the frames represent something completely different.

Think about it for a minute and try coming up with an idea that's not stupid, and that you, without the resources of a previous education in the matter, can manage to do in just under two weeks.

You can't, can you.

But after hours of thinking, my mom, sister and I managed to come up with an idea that I'll be able to do using Photoshop (thank god for that...) and is also smart, imaginative and pretty damn original. The frames will each have a cat in them (yes, I hate cats, but it's gotta be cats, and you'll see why in a moment). In each frame, the cat will be the center of attention, and though there will be a background, it'll be pretty much transparent so the cats stand out. Then, in the next 6 frames, I'll bring out the background, making it visible and obvious. Each frame will now have a cat, but the cat will be strategically located: one frame will have a cat under a ladder, another will have a black cat walking across someone's path, a third will have an open umbrella in a house over a cat.... Each background will represent a different superstition.
A black cat crossing someone's path is bad luck. Opening an umbrella inside a house is bad luck. Standing under a ladder is bad luck. Shattered glass is bad luck.

So I've been working on *that* for most of today. It's pretty hard, let me tell you. I've never used Photoshop for something like that. Everything I did until now was pretty mediocre and never for the purpose such as this. This project has to be better than better. And that requires a whole lot of attention, which, I found out today, I actually have!

And then there's that new babysitting job I was handed a few days ago. I was sitting in the front garden of our building a couple of days ago, waiting for my sister to come pick up her notebooks which she forgot. As I was sitting there, waiting, a woman with a little girl and a dog walked by me. All of a sudden, this woman stops, turns to me and asks me how hold I am. So I tell her. Then she asked if I babysat. So I said I haven't in a while, but I used to. So she said she needs a babysitter for her four and a half year old daughter Shira and if I'm willing, she'll take my number and give me a call. A few days passed, and then on Sunday she gave me a call, just as I was on the bus home after IZ. She asked me to come by to be with her daughter for a bit, to get to know her and all that, see that everything works out okay. So I went. Her daughter is just the most adorable little blonde creature. She's so sweet. And they have a beautiful house and a sweetheart dog named Hugo. So I spent an hour and a half with Shira and her mom, Liza, paid me 50 shekels for it. (Usual price for an hour is 20 shekels..... go figure, I find myself a side job and it pays more than my regular job does....) Liza said she'll give me a call when she needs me again (hopefully it's tomorrow.... hehehhehe, though I need the time to work on my project).

Last night I went to a hiphop lesson with Karin and Moran. It was pretty good, and certainly doing some exercising did me well, felt wonderful afterwards, but I still hate hiphop. Now less than before, because I realized how hard it is to do, but the music still sucks so it doesn't matter much. But Moran and I realized we really want to take kickboxing lessons and get in shape. She said she'll check when the classes are so I'll be able to figure out if I can do this, and when to do the shifts and all that. It'll be good for me, to do some sort of exercising. When is it ever bad for you?

So all's well in the world of Yael. And that's been going on for a while now. I am having a great time, having a real life!

Life As An IZ Employee

2004-03-13T00:50:00.000+02:00

I gotta start off with this, of course:

Happy 21st, Sarah!!!

I can't believe you're 21.... Weird. Did you go to the DMV to get the picture on the licensce retaken? Though I must admit, to have your picture from when you're 16 on the lisence without the UNDER 21 in it will be funny... =) Happy birthday, Chief Saswah! Love you lots!!

***

And back here in the small country known as home (actually Israel, but you get the point), lots has been happening! My mom's visiting, she's here for a month. We're cramming the 3 of us into the apartment which is weird but doable. It's just weird coming home and finding *someone* at home at 2pm. Epsecially on Thursdays. My sister gets home around 9pm on Thursdays. But hey, I have a mommy so it all works out! She's going to stay for a month, she's working (we hooked her up to the wireless network) so she's at her computer an enourmous amout of time of the day (just like the rest of us, in this house...).

Typical Harel-Shorer household situation: Noa at her computer in her room, me at my computer in my room, my mom at her computer in her "office".

Found out having two doors to my room is a somewhat annoying thing. My sister already got used to the fact that my room is not a hallway, you can't just walk in and out through either of the doors without knocking or whatnot. Aparently it's obvious to them both they can't, but my mom found it tough in the first day or two to get used to walking around, even if both doors are open (which they usually are). But she's good now, she takes the other way around the hallway. I don't have much to hide so I don't usually mind the doors being open, but every once in a while, I close them (and get weird looks from my sister, hehehe) like today I did.

Actually, funny story!

About half an hour after I'd gotten back from my tests at Camera (more about that in a bit), after the interogation from the mother-unit and sister-unit, I was in the kitchen eating cornflakes and milk, reading the weekend edition of the paper, when I hear the beautiful sound of the MSN messenger going off. I was going to check if it was mine, but I knew the sound was muted on my computer, and anyway, my mom's exclimation: "Hey, it's dad!" kind of gave it away. Five minutes later my sister opens the door to her room (she was studying so she closed the door because my mom and I were talking) and yells out, "dad just sent me a message!" which made me laugh. Then, five minutes later, she opens the door again and calls me to my computer to answer my dad's message.

So to sum up: my dad gets up in the morning (back in NY), finds all 3 of us are on the little green people (my mom's name for MSN Messenger, obviously it stuck) and instead of telling my mom to tell us he loves us or whatever else he has to say, he sends all 3 of us messages, quite aware that we're all about 10 feet away from each other. Heeheee.

Anyway, here is the part where I close myself off in my room. Ever since my dad first saw me use headphones with a microphone to talk to my friends in Israel when I was in NY, he's been bugging me to get a headset here so we can talk, so every opportunity he has, he gets me to talk to him using this thing. It's actually really cool. It's like a phone, you hear really well, you can talk for however long you want and all that, it's really useful and really easy. So I shut myself in my room so at least I'll still have the privacy of using a computer that you lose when you actually talk to people on the phone. Aparently it works because when I called my mom to my computer because my dad wanted to talk to her too she started laughing.

So that's why I shut myself in my room for a bit today.

***

So my test earlier today for Camera! Oh that was fun. I took an English test for the first time in two and a half years. It was easy. I need it to get the Pass so that I don't have to take English classes. It would be really dumb to teach me English at this point in time. We also watched two Senior Movies and we had to give opinions and such. They were actually very interesting. The third test required too much thinking for my not quite awake brain (didn't sleep well last night, had too many weird dreams again) but I think it was pretty good. They were psychology-type test, and analogies and yuck stuff like that.

Hopefully I did well enough to be accepted *crosses fingers*, but this is only one part of a 3 part acceptance process. I'm still applying to UCLA, I just need to raise money first, to pay the advisors and all that stuff, plus keep it quiet until my mom goes back to NY. But I still have a whole year before that and I need to do something with myself here for that time, so....

***

On Sunday I'll be starting a 10 day course for IZ. I can't wait! I dont believe that I found a job in 2 and a half weeks. People here are unemployed for months before finding something, and that something isn't usually as good as tech support at IZ.

Yesterday I signed a contract with IZ so for the next 12 months I'm their employee. They took my picture for the employee ID card which I'll be getting on Monday or Tuesday. Hey, the year started yesterday. Countdown begins. Already hahahaha.

***

Tomorrow Ariel and I are driving to the shithole to visit everyone there. Not too many people that I know left but it's something.... Shelley and Lina and Uri are there and that's something, so... I'll see Shimrit and Eli which'll be great, and Shmulik and Lior... We're getting them food at Tiv Ta'am, one of the few non-kosher places that are open on Saturday which is wonderful because it's right on our way there (and home....)

I need to upload the pictures from Purim, even though they're not great..... But hey, they're pictures!! =)

I'm gonna get myself settled in bed now. Gotta be up early.... (That's the only bad thing about visiting the shithole...)

Cameo

2004-03-10T15:14:00.000+02:00

Vanessa Paradis (as we all know, she's Johnny's girlfriend/wife and mother of his children) will make a cameo appearance in Pirates 2.

Heeheehee.

J.K. Rawling Was Predicting The Future

2004-03-10T13:14:00.000+02:00

Found this on a friend's LJ. PCWorld.com - Consumer Devices: Make Your Pictures Move
Can we guess what the next toy I'm going to want is?

How awesome is that? I mean, come on! Can it get any cooler? Moving pictures? Picture frames with CD players and USB ports and ethernet ports and wireless network connection ports?! Feel like changing the pictures in your room? Hey, just have them play a different MPEG-4 file!

How awesome is *that*?

2 Years and Going On

2004-03-09T19:40:00.000+02:00

I just finished updating this blog with all the old entries from the past that were on the old blog before Tripod stopped getting along with Blogger. And I looked at the main page and realized I have two whole years of entries on this thing! Two years and two months. It's amazing, the things I read here that I didn't even remember. It's like reading my diaries all over again. Thoug some of them I'd probaly just throw away if I read again.

But I think two years of keeping this thing alive is not that bad....

90210

2004-03-08T23:50:00.000+02:00

There's a song by young singer Shlomi Shaban whom I really like that is titled 90210 - Visions of Dylan, Kelly, and Yaela. The song itself is about Shlomi and this girl Yaela, how she comes over for coffee and so on and so forth about stuff like that, but there's a line in the song that says

"Let's stop it here. Dylan McCay, James Dean, Jesse James, Johnny Depp and Shlomi Shaban"

Can we tell this had me cracking up? Well it did. I've heard the song thousands of times, I have the CD, love the CD, and yet not until tonight when my sister and I were eating dinner before the news program at 8pm and the stereo was on and this CD was playing, did I notice the mention of Johnny Depp in the song. I'm sure I've heard it thousands of times. In fact, I was singing along, I know the song word for word, including the Johnny Depp part, but I have never actually paid too much attention it, because the rest of the song is more of a story and this is just a small part about other actors Yaela dreams of being like, kind of thing. But tonight for the first time in at least the 2 years I've owned this CD, did I notice the Depp part. It jumped out at me, made me almost giggle, certainly smile, and be very thankful my sister was in the kitchen and didn't see the look of complete surprise that must have been on my face at that moment.

It does make me wonder though if Depp knows about this... If Shaban needed to have these peoples' agreement to appear in his song.

*shrug*

*grin*

Rearranging

2004-03-07T22:48:00.000+02:00

Noa and I spent most of yesterday rearranging the house, starting with her room, then the living room. We hung pictures and made the place a lot more livable and fun to be in. Before, her room was over-furinshed, and didn't have a homey feel to it. It was just a bed, a mirror, a closet and lots of other crap around the walls, making it crammy and boring. She moved things around, hung pictures, and it is now wonderful! It feels like a young woman's room, it looks it, and she feels comfortable being in her room. As for the living room, what took 2 apartments' furniture (ours and hers) and instead of just putting them in the same room, spread all over the place, creating two living areas in one room, we combined them, bringing in some of our things and some of hers, creating a beautiful living space that's colorful and comfortable, and certainly feels like, absolutely a place we now enjoy sitting in. We hung pictures, put table clothes onthe coffee table in the center and the one in the corner between the couch and the love seat, and it looks even better.

And so, fuelled from rearranging just about everything else in the house, I decided my room needs to be rearranged as well. Before everything was set around the walls, creating a square feeling to the room. The bed was pushed against one wall, the closet against another and so on. The room, rectangular in shape, looked like a box. So I pushed the bed into the center, dividing the room into two sections - desk, bookcase, stereo and the likes on one side of the bed, closet, drawers, and my hair stuff on the other side. The room looks bigger and better, more comfortable, homey, and absolutely a joy to walk into.

Noa was so surprised when she came into the room, and she knew I was going to change some things around. She just hadn't planned on me actually changing the locations of just about everything. The only thing left in place is the bookcase, because it's in the perfect location at the moment. I just pushed it a bit further up against the wall, and put the CD holder thing next to it.

Oh this is fun.

And then I "rearranged" the blog site, because as Sarah pointed out, I used 2 inches of screen on the other version, and that wasn't very useful or very easy to read, considering I write books every time I post, so Sarah, here ya go! The hardest part about changing the theme was finding a picture host that was willing to let me link from here to the image on their servers without having to pay. Changing the thing itself really isn't much work and probably took me 10-15 minutes to just put in all the links, archives and all that stuff. And I actually like this theme!

Hee.

Okay, so now a slight update on the Purim weekend! Shimrit was here for the weekend, she came by train on Friday around noon and left last night on the train again. We put on our costumes and went out on Friday to a party at some place called Gray Bar which wasn't amazing and I kept apologizing to Shimrit that we're not going to some other, better place, like the Crying Hippo, which is a club I really like. Then at one point she reminded me that last year we were on base on Purim, dancing, and having a wonderful time at the disco party after the costume contest. She reminded me we were really having fun, and that was on base, so I could let myself have fun at this place. It may not have been perfect, but it was just fine. After that I started really enjoying myself, dancing around in my Marilyn Monroe costume, wig and all, (I'll have pictures tomorrow!).

Then, on Saturday we went to my grandmother's for lunch and Nitsan took pictures of Noa, Shirmit and me in costumes so I actually have good pictures from Purim this year.

I made a promise to myself that I'm not wearing white again as a costume (like I've been doing for the past two years) because it makes me look fat and feel very self consious (which I hate feeling). So next year I'm going to do something in black or something like that.

Next week is Ariela's birthday so we're going out to celebrate. Then on Sunday I'm starting my IZ course! Woohoo! Life starts!!! I feel like my life's on hold at the moment, and I can't wait to press the Play button on Thursday morning (my first meeting with my IZ course people, probably signing contracts as well). Hee!

That's pretty much it, not much is going on when I'm home for this long. We're getting ready for my mom to come this Wednesday (which explains all the rearranging, picture hanging and all that stuff) so tomorrow'll be more of that. Probably food shopping (there's nothing to eat. Again.) and then on Tuesday Richard is coming (our Gannaian cleaning dude, he's really cool) and that's pretty much it.

I'm not going blind!!!

2004-03-05T11:40:00.000+02:00

Yay! Doctor said I'm fine, I have 20/20 vision, or 6/6 whatever you want to call it, and that all that has been bothering me is an allergy to something or other. He explained that light eyes, and certainly blue eyes because they are the lightest eye color, have many problems such as that, mostly because they dry a lot and things like that but that I have perfect eyesight and that I just need eye drops.

Woohoo! I ain't blind!

New Zealand Herald Online - Newspaper

2004-03-02T23:40:00.000+02:00

New Zealand Herald Online - Newspaper

Bwahahahaha!

And The Job Goes To...

2004-03-02T01:09:00.000+02:00

ME! Ohh yeah.
Yesterday sucked a whole lot of ass. I spent 8 and a half hours at the Internet Zahav (Gold) Petach Kitvah building, most of it waiting for an interview that took 3 and half hours in coming. I got home at 5-ish, when I'd expected to be home around oh... Noon-ish. So I got home absolutely exhausted and quite sure I hadn't gotten the job. We started out 16 people, after 3 hours 10 left and 6 of us were left. They divided us to two groups of 3, and said group one's interviews would be between 12:30 and 1:30, and group two's would be between 1:30 and 2:30. Meaning - I'd be out of there by 2:30. I was willing to do that. They told us we passed to the next stage, which is an interview with the tech support department chief. That should have meant we were in.
But no. At the interview they told us they still have to decide, so they give us between a week to 10 days to wait for a final answer.

My interview was the last one. LAST ONE. I was a nervous rack when my turn came, I was stuttering, I was really hating every second of it. I did the best I could, but I was pretty sure I'd spent the whole day there for absolutely no reason because there was no way I was getting the job after *that* interview. But I also knew they needed to give me an answer by Thursday at the latest, and if it came afterwards, it would be a "Sorry, you didn't get in" because I was told their course starts March 9th, which is next Tuesday, right after Purim. I didn't let myself get depressed quite yet. I decided to wait for the response and to go to the next job interview that I had today.

So when I got home I was exhausted, I wanted a shower and needed food, my feet hurt, my brain was oozing out of my ears, and I was melting because it was damn SO HOT! Yuck.

I spent the rest of the day with my feet up on the couch when watching TV or on my bed when reading, trying to stay off them as much as possible in preparation for today's morning-on-feet at the Yes (Nooooooooooooooo) interviews. But when Noa got back from work/school, we realized neither one of us really wants to make dinner, nor is there much to make from, and worst of all - we wanted meat. As in steak. As in non kosher fat, bloody piece of meat. So I got dressed and we went out to celebrate the fact that I almost had a job.

I think it was one of the best evenings I ever spent with my sister. We talked about everything. From boyfriends to sex to things we did to drugs to alcohol to cheating our parents to our childhood to living in NY to living in Israel... If we met at lets say a work place or something and weren't sisters, I think we'd have been really good friends, like we are now.

So today after I got kicked out of the NOOOOOOOO interviews, and Gold called to let me know I was in, she was the first person I called. Oh she was so proud of me. She kept telling me that it's quite an achievement to find a job in just 2 weeks of searching, which is true. Most people look for at least 2-3 months. But most people don't make appointments for every single day they can so that they can find something quickly.

So I got a job! And I'm starting the course on Thursday.
YAY!!

Purim, People. Purim!

2004-02-28T19:50:00.000+02:00

Whatever happened (to Saturday night...) to my wanting to dress up as Sam from Benny and Joon. I got the hat, and the boots, all that was missing was everything else.... Um, yeah. That wasn't ever going to happen. So then I thought to dress up as a sexy Alise in Wonderland (was reading that) but that would have been too hard to come up with, considering all I have is the blonde hair. So I had no idea what to do.

My sister came up with two ideas for herself - she would dress up as Marilyn Monroe, and if she and her friend Shira find the items for their costume, they would dress up as a British Police Officer (Shria) and a Death Row Prisoner (Noa) with the ball and chain, and the black and white stripes outfit, and the number upfront. Heehee. So they figured out how they would do that. Which left the Monroe costume to me!

So yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am dressing up as Marilyn Monroe! How sweet? I've got the dress and the wig and everything I need so it all works out quite well! Hee.

Now the question is, where am I going to wear this to, I'm not quite sure where I'll be this Purim weekend.

Restoration Project

2004-02-28T03:41:00.000+02:00

When this day began, I immediately had the feeling that it will suck. That my plans with Ariel and Tal will not actually happen, that Karin and Lior won't want to do anything. The only high point of the day would have been dinner at my grandmother's.

I was right about Tal and Ariel, we ended up not being able to do anything tonight (like have been planning for two weeks) because Ariel can't stay up too late because he has to study and Tal had a family dinner that would have ended late. So they ended up deciding that we'll meet tomorrow and I said I'll do anything so that works. But that meant I wasn't doing anything tonight. I called Karin up, and she said that they are most likely to just stay home or go out just the two of them, or with another couple. That's a no-no. No need for me to be a third (or fifth) wheel. I even SMSed Ohad to see if he wants to do anything, but he was busy too. So that was that. I resigned to watching TV or one of my sister's DVDs, and munching on food that doesn't actually exist in our house.

But then Karin called at like 2300ish telling me to be ready in 15 minutes, they're picking me up and we're going to sit somewhere. Of course those 15 minutes turned into an hour and I was ready long before that but we ended up going into TA to find a nice pub, and with me navigating (TAer, unlike the other 4) so we ended up walking up and down Alenbi St in search of a nice place. Finally we decided we're going to a place called Blom Bar which wasn't wonderful but we had fun and they serve one hell of a Whiskey Sour. I love that stuff.

I had a good time tonight after all. Hanging out with my friends was fun, we talked about everything. From Voyager with Lior, to JAG with Karin, to weird conversations about losing a limb with Le'ad, to shopping with Moran to just laughing about everything that moved with everyone, to just any normal conversation with my friends, the type of stuff that stays with you forever. We also started talking about a Purim Party which we most definitely need to have. Yup. Definitely need to have one of those.

I got home pretty early for us, at 3am, which is late but not that late considering we started the evening at 00:30. But hey, whatever. I have to be up around noon to go to Nitsan's.

I did realize one thing though. I need to find a friend to go barhopping with. Shimrit maybe, or Aviv (who called me out of the blue today). Get to Alenbi, walk into wherever we feel like it, and maybe get myself a man. I need one of those.

So I had fun as it was and my good mood which had lasted 2 weeks and began to waver today was restored. And tomorrow'll be fun! I love BBQs at my uncle's.

All Around The World

2004-02-26T14:26:00.000+02:00

Or rather, all around the country.
In the past 2 weeks I've been in more places around this country than I have been in the past two and a half years that I've lived here. That's all because of job interviews...

On Tuesday (Feb. 17th) I was at an interview in a building located on Noah Moses Road. Noah Moses was the man who started one of Israel's three leading newspapers called Yediot Aharonot (Latest News). Right by where they had their building, there is a big huge road called Ben Yehuda Avenue. Noah Moses was trying to cross that street when a car came crashing into him and he died right away. They named the smaller street by which this happened, right outside their office building, Noah Moses Road. Just to put you in perspective, when I say smaller road I mean something along the lines of Commack Road at the busy place by DPA on Long Island, and the bigger road is something along the lines of Route 110. So they aren't that small. I got that job, by the way, but there is no way in hell that I will be doing telemarketing so I gave it up.

On Wednesday (Feb. 18) I was at a job interview in Rosh Ha'ayin, yet another little hole of place west of Tel Aviv. That too sits right by the mountains and things are beautifully green there. I used to know a girl who lives there. They have a brand new train station and therefore a train going there in 15 minutes from TA (which saved me about an hour bus ride). Thing about Rosh Ha'ayim is that they are not that far away from the West Bank, so their is really tight security there, makes you feel all secure. That, too, is a beautiful place. Sadly, I didn't get the job which would have been fun but oh well.

Then the following Sunday (Feb. 22) I was in Ramat Gan (a smaller city than Tel Aviv on the borders of TA and in some places even in TA). I'd been there countless numbers of times but this was the first time I actually did anything but pass through or stop at the mall near by (it's a walking distance from home...). The place I was at is right across from Israel's Trading Center (Wall Street type place). Absolutely amazing to see all the people coming and going, all dressed up, fancy cars, diamond traders (it's right there, Israel's number one diamond trading company) and so on. Right across from there is the building where I had to go, the EuroCom Building, where Internet Zahav's tech support is, where I was to take the systems, Office, IE and Netscape knowledge test. I just found out about two hours ago that I passed (big surprise? maybe) and that I moved on to the next part of procedure of actually getting the job. Hey, that's good, isn't it?

Next, on Tuesday (Feb. 24th) I was on my way to Beit Shemesh which is this little town-type city, about 15 minutes drive north of Jerusalem, and 40 minutes in the train, and a little more than an hour drive north of Tel Aviv. It's a beautiful place, below Jerusalem's mountains, (and some on it), where there is a population of mostly Jews but some Arabs as well, and they live peacefully. Everything is Israel-Green there (that means everything is greenish-brownish) and the place is just beautiful. They are building up the city, but so far everything they've built fits so well with the background mountains and greenery that it makes it so wonderfully beautiful.

So that was Tuesday.

Then on Wednesday, Feb. 25th, (hey that's yesterday!) I was in a section of Tel Aviv I don't often get to visit, South Tel Aviv (damn us, Northern TAers...). South TA is the older section of TA, so everything seems that way. The streets are smaller, there's a lot of trees, buildings are beautiful. But where I was was mostly the skyscraper area - big tall new buildings with names like The Levinstein Building or Bernstein Building and right there is where Camera Obscura, the school I want to attend, is. The place itself is not much further than the Azrieli Towers, they are three towers in the shapes of a circle, triangle and square (except they haven't yet built the triangle). They are about 40-something floors high (that's not bad for us, believe me). The first three floors of the circle building are a mall, so you can see why I'd be there often. Actually, the Hashalom Train Station is right outside the buildings, connected with a tunnel, so it's easy access to get home from (previously) the military and all that, and it's easy to go in any direction from there so it's one of Tel Aviv's 3 main train stations. So yesterday I went a bit south of there into a section I've never actually walked in before (not that I remember anyway) and I think is one of TA's most beautiful spots. (Do I love my city or WHAT?!)

That was yesterday.

On Sunday (Feb. 29th) I'll be in Herzeliya Pituach to which I've been countless times, it's one of our chief coffee houses area so we often go there to hang out, sit and talk and all that. It is also one of Israel's most expensive pieces of land, as it right on the beach and all the rich people in Israel own summer houses there or actual regular houses, and all the great hotels are in that area. But this time I'm going into the industrial section. And when I say industrial I mean hi-tech office buildings. Pituach is one of Israel's leading hi-tech areas where companies like Microsoft and HP have their headquarters. So that's that.

Then on Monday (March 1st, damn next week is March!) I'm going to Petach Tikvah which is west of TA, a city that was until now regarded as not so good. Lots of dossim (orthodox Jews) and so on. It was one of Israel's heavy industry locations - cars, factories and so on. Lately it has been developing in the light industry areas as well and today Internet Zahav, one of Israel's leading ISPs sits there, in the (get this) Internet Zahav Building. So I'll be going there on Monday!

Then on the 5th I have an eye doctor appointment, but that has nothing to do with anything.

I like travellin'!
I just don't like the stupid job interview questions they ask.

Film Theories

2004-02-25T00:42:00.000+02:00

Have you ever noticed how in movies, especially dramas that involve a big "save the world" type mission gone bad, in the final scene, when everything works out just perfectly well, everyone jumps up and starts celebrating, but the most important man (or two) in the scene? Explanation. I was watching the last few minutes of Apollo 13 earlier today when it occurred to me.

The Control Room at NASA were expecting the Apollo 13 to land in the time period of 3 minutes, but of course they didn't make it. After 3 minutes of waiting, the whole room, full of people who work the controls, start looking around at each other, so sad, so disappointed, so grieved. And, of course, one of the two most important men in the scene (you know, those actors with real familiar names, one of them was Ed Harris) keeps on talking into the microphone that is connected to the Apollo 13, because he just won't give up. And then, of course, on the 4th minute, Tom Hanks makes contact with the control room, and the picture appears on the screen (which had been showing static till then). Everyone starts jumping out of their chairs, shake hands, talk, get all excited. Everyone except Ed Harris's character and Gary Sinise's character. Sinise breathes deeply then goes on talking to Hanks, welcoming them back to earth. Harris sits back into his chair, rubs his face, breathes deeply, ignores everyone around him.

And it's always like that in these movies. Take Armageddon. In that final scene when they get back to earth or when they succeed drilling that hole on that asteroid, everyone is all excited around Billy Bob Thorton, but Thorton just sits there or stands there (can't really remember) and acts all cool and collected and our only sign that he's actually feeling good and is no longer worried is that he breathes a sigh of relief.

It was the same on Voyager. Endgame, the last episode, ended just that way. When they got to earth, everyone on the bridge started celebrating. And the captain sat in her chair and sighed. (I ain't going into what that sign meant, too many theories and anyway, it isn't my point).

Try any other one of these movies. They'll all be the same. I just want to see the main character in that final scene to be jumping up and down with the crowd, to show real excitement about the prospect of having saved these people (or whatever the situation is) for once.

In other news, my sister and I watched 3 episodes of the BBC's Coupling tonight. I'm not one of those "if it's BBC, it's good tv" freaks (my sister is...) though it is often true, but Coupling is just the greatest show ever! It's about 3 guys and 3 girls (sounds awfully familiar...) yet it is so much better than Friends! They tackle everything in a very British way, and since they don't have to worry too much about censorship, they say just about anything which makes it absolutely wonderfully amazingly funnier than Friends.

But what made me it even special-er for me was the fact that as soon as the first episode started, there was this face of this actor that I recognized but couldn't quite place. A scene later he opened his mouth and, well, my eyes went wide open. I'd known he was one of the six stars of Coupling of course, I just hadn't thought of it. There he was, Commodore Norrington, wig-less, and wearing black slacks and a teeshirt, and actually being funny! Ladies and Gentlemen - Jack Davenport is one hell of a funny man! Of course the dialog is all in the writing, but they cannot write expressions, and his... well... made me crack up! Norrington was doing such a fine job I had forgotten he was Norrington for a bit. Until he did one of the Norrington expressions and I just giggled to myself. It's probably more of a Steve (Davenport's Coupling character) gesture more than a Norrington gesture, but it'll forever be Norrington before Steve for me, Pirates fan that I am.

And in more unrelated news! I went to a job interview today at DPSI, an animation company located in this little hole by Jerusalem. Good thing the damn train gets there. As it were, I didn't quite know they were an animation company. And I went for a job interview as a secretary, but hey, it's a good place to start. Check out the typical animator's natural habitat. (I'm going scientific...)

And in even more unrelated news! My sister has agreed to help me get to my goal of reaching UCLA and has even agreed to help me keep this from my parents. How very wonderful for me. Unlike me, she says money will not be much of a problem, we'll manage it as best we can, and with me getting a job (one of these days) it'll be even easier. As she put it, if this is my dream, this is what I need to be working towards.

Hey, can't argue with logic.

Good Days!

2004-02-19T19:56:00.000+02:00

Been a few days since I actually wrote anything interestin'....

Okay, JOB update: went to two places so far. First one I got the job, second one I didn't. First one was at a telemarketing company so I turned it down. Second one was Orange Cellular Partners, which I didn't get. It would have been a good job, but that's okay. So on Sunday I have a computer test for Internet Zahav, one of Israel's major ISP providers. Big test, multiple Choice + written test questions. Guess I'll be studying my Win95, Win98, WinXP, Office and IE this weekend!

The general mood is pretty good! I've been here for a week and I'm doing more than I have in oh, I don't know, the past 2 and a half months!

I've got big plans for the weekend, starting oh... TONIGHT!

I'm going to a pub/dance-bar with Ariela, and maybe Amnon (haven't seen him in oh... at least six months, and Uri, if I can get him on the phone. Left him a message, I did. Tomorrow I'm going to my grandmother's for dinner, she's making choulnt (ohh yeah...). My uncle and aunt and the kids'll be there, and I really wanna see them. Then afterwards I'm probably going out with Karin and Lior and Raphael and whoever, we'll probably go to a club, and I'll dance the dinner away and be able to wear my dress!!!!! Then on Saturday I'm meeting up with my boys! Oohyah! Ariel, Eli, Ilan mebbe! We're going to sit somewhere, maybe even my place, and joke around like the good ole' days, and then probably go see one movie or another. Oooh I haven't hung out with my boys in OH SO long!

So even if my plans for Friday go flyin' out the window like they so often do because my gang can't actually ever figure out what we're gonna do, I'm still going to have lots and lots of fun this weekend! Makes me happy.

In other news, this weird cleaning bug decided to take control of me and I started actually doing things to keep the apartment (my room and the kitchen in particular) clean. Weird stuff. My mom's been trying to get me to put away my clothes and not just throw them on the chair and every other possible surface (but the floor), creating piles on top of piles of clothes, dirty, clean, used and unused in my room for years, and I actually started doing that... I've had the bug before, then I'd clean up my room and the bug'll just leave me and the next thing I know there are even bigger piles all over the bed, and desk and chair. But this has been going on since I got back to Israel and unpacked, and cleaned as well. Weird stuff. It's very interesting to actually be able to sit in my chair and not on a pile of clothes!

And one more weird thing! Ever since I got back, I've been going to sleep early and getting up early. Like, actually seeing daylight. As in, going to sleep at 2300 and waking up at 0800-08:30. Weird stuff. By 2300 I'm dead tired again, so the cycle just keeps on going. And you know what, it ain't so bad! It ain't bad at all.

Okay now since Melissa's lost the comments thing on her blog - Woman, you sound like you had fun fun fun!!! Sorry you were sick! Wasn't Mozart's house amazing? I mean, that backwards piano, how cool is that? Could just be my geeky side coming up. I wrote a paper about Mozart in 4th grade... Anyway, sounds like you had fun!

Now I'm gonna go order dinner for my sister and myself - Chinese/Japanese - ooh yay.

French Kissin'

2004-02-18T10:53:00.000+02:00

My outercourse activity is french kissing!

Which Sexual Outercourse Act Are You? (with pictures)
brought to you by Quizilla

Job Search

2004-02-15T22:37:00.000+02:00

I decided to not take 3 weeks to do this and actually start looking for a job. Probably because I got so bored these past few days at home that I actually wished I had a job and I would be doing it right at that moment, rather than sitting at home, watching bad TV all day long. So I took the paper from Friday which has all the job things in it and which I had already read through and circled the jobs I might be interested in, and started making calls and sending resumes and so on and so forth.

All that after I'd gone to the bank this morning. How very productive of me!

I already got one response to my resume which is oh-so very wonderful, and so I have an initial meeting with the company on Tuesday at 10am, to make first impression, learn about them and them about me, and so on. If that goes well, I'll be called in for a "real" interview. I'm pretty sure I can manage that initial stage pretty well. And wonderfully for me - on Tuesday, after this meeting, I'm going shopping with my buddy Dikla, which'll be fun!

One down side to today... I got a call from Sarit at the Adventure Publishing place where I should be starting my animation course tomorrow. She said that they decided to wait another 3 weeks before starting. =( I wasn't happy. My mom said that they should have e-mailed me, and made sure I know this way before the day before (which today is) and that it doesn't sound particularly good that they aren't starting on time either. I'm not so sure about it all at all... I'm just disappointed.

In other news, Noa went to Jerusalem for one reason or another so I spent all day alone, which led to more boringness. However, I spent about half an hour on a chat thing with Ariel and Tal and we just had a wonderful time... So great. I was on the floor laughing for most of the conversation.... We were going to go out today, and then tonight, to a movie, but that didn't happen for reasons I don't actually understand but couldn't change. We decided that next time our dear friend Tal is home (two weeks) we'll get together at my place (I just love being the one in the middle, between Natanya in the north and Ashdod in the south) to order food in, watch a movie and engage in extreme craziness at my place. Should be awesome. And then maybe this weekend we'll do something with Elie, which'll also be quite awesome.

And in yet other news, I got a phon call from this dude at 8200 (the big huge group type I was part of in the military) asking me to remove pictures I uploaded to hevre.co.il. I said I would but as it turns out, there's no such option at hevre, so the pictures are staying up. Oh well... What can we do.

Ariel pointed out to me that he's noticed that I'm up on my feet pretty early these days, which is true, but to my surprise, I don't find being up at 9-10am so horrible as I had so hated previously. The only thing that bothers me is that I am tired at 10pm, to the point where I could curl up in bed and go to sleep without any trouble. Maybe my body's finally learning the meaning of insomnia freedom, but I shouldn't look a horse in its mouth. I just need to learn to stay up a little later, and then everything'll be wonderful! At this point I can't even hang out with my friends late, and I'd probably fall asleep in the car on the way home after a movie, when the theatre is about a five minute drive from my place. But for now I'm just enjoying the idea of livin in daylight, it's pretty neat. How come no one told me about this earlier?

"Grr, swush swush, buckle buckle"

2004-02-14T10:34:00.000+02:00

Hee hee hee.
My sister and I were watching Big Lebowsky the other day. The girl quotes the movie, says it word for word with the actors, just like I do with Chocolat and Pirates. Pirates, now more than ever, because I watched the movie with commentary from Keira Knightly and Jack Davenport (Commodore James Norrington). Those two had me cracking up. Knightly wouldn't shut up, but when Davenport got to put in his two cents, he cracked me up. The guy is really funny. He commented on the fact that the only scene where we find out his first name ended up on the editing room floor. Knightly said that he doesn't need one anyway, as he doesn't get the girl anyway. Cracked me up.

Nice little quote from the duo -
"When in doubt, faint." - About Elizabeth's second faint at the end of the movie.

Knightly points out where each scene was filmed - L.A., Beverly Hills (the Governor's house), Caribbean, Malibu, L.A. beaches, or the ride at Disney.

And that had me cracking up when I watched the movie again with my sister last night. I'd look at it and think, 'well, that's the Caribbeans. That's LA." She also pointed out that her hair, tan, and nails, vary from scene to scene (not too big of a difference, but if you pay attention closely, you'll see it), because of their location. In one scene she points out her extra long nails and comments, "oh the pleasure of a Malibu manicure."

You gotta love it.

Purim Is Right Around The Corner

2004-02-13T10:53:00.000+02:00

And I realized this today, looking at the calendar Asaf gave me. A pretty quick "oh shit" escaped my lips when I realized that it's only about 3 weeks away. An "oh shit" indeed as this is the first time in the three Purims that I've been in Israel for that I am actually planning on going to a costume party that is not on base. Oh shit, indeed. I don't know what I want to do. I was thinking Alice in Wonderland, The Complete Works of Lewis Caroll being the book I'm currently reading. But perhaps not. Maybe Sam from Benny and Joon. Wouldn't I love that.

I was thinking that maybe I'd have a Purim party here at the house - costumes and all. How cool would that be? I should talk to Noa, see how she feels about this.

Perhaps we'll go the person Noa rented her costume from last year. That should be rather cool...

My Neighborhood

2004-02-12T12:25:00.000+02:00

How my do I love this neighborhood?

I just went to the supermarket to get some things that were missing, or rather, that my sister didn't buy because she doesn't like, and I can't live without. So I pulled on some clothes, moved my ass off the couch and to the neighborhood shopping center across the yards and houses, 100 ft down the streets. I picked up the few items I needed and headed to the cashier. While I was standing on line, I hear a familiar voice and look up, and I see one of Israel's most succesful, most wonderful actresses, Yarden Bar Kochva. And I smile to myself. This neighborhood is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Tel Aviv. Meaning, lots of old people live here. It's a "visiting grandma's house for Friday evening dinner" type neighborhood. But lately, over the last few years (I guess, as these old people start to die off), this neighborhood became more prestigious... Now lots of famous (and infamous) people live here. So seeing a familiar face isn't all that of a big deal.

No, what made this a big deal is that as I was paying, I hear that familiar voice say, "Yael? Yael Harel?"

Hmm? What?

I look back and it is indeed Yarden, with her son, (and another one on the way), and she's smiling me. "Remember me?" And she laughs, realizing how silly this question is. I move out of the way of the people in line and she steps outside with me, pushing her son's cart. We start walking to the parking lot, which I assumed she was parked (and I have to cross, to get to the path I take home). And she says, "You're all grown up. You were a little kid when we met."

And then the other shoe dropped.

My sister, when I was a kid, used to go to a comedy club called Dominos. She somehow got to be friends with a few of the actors (most of them are now popular and extremely succesful). They were just out of the military then. I remember seeing them at our house a few times (never understood what they would want with an 17 year old). I'd come home from school and they'd be there, making pasta for lunch for us and watching TV, and we'd all sit down and watch their "show" (a five minute segment every day at 2pm).

Anyway, turns out she remembers me quite well, the 11 year old girl with long blond hair. And now we live in the same neighborhood, and we talked for a bit before she drove off to get her kid to his doctor's appointment on time.

And I live in this neighborhood where all the who and who of Israel move to, populating it with the greatest talents in the country. And their kids. And these kids attend the school right across the street from my building.

I dunno why, this is pretty freaky to me. It's wonderfully freaky.

CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE BEER DRINKER

2004-02-12T08:46:00.000+02:00

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
" Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel shamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."
~ Jack Handy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. "
~Frank Sinatra
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."
~ Henny Youngman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not."
~ Stephen Wright

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. Sooooo, let's all get drunk and go to heaven!"
~ Brian O'Rourke

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
~ Benjamin Franklin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza."
~ Dave Barry

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BEER: HELPING UGLY PEOPLE HAVE SEX SINCE 3000 B.C.!!!
~ "Unknown"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remember "I"! before "E", except in Budweiser.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To some it's a six-pack, to me it's a Support Group. Salvation in a can!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And saving the best for last, as explained by Cliff Clavin, of Cheers. One afternoon at Cheers, Cliff was explaining the Buffalo Theory to his buddy Norm. Here's how it went:

"Well ya see, Norm, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. ! That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers."

The World Shakes!

2004-02-11T11:04:00.000+02:00

Earthquake Report on Haaretz.co.il! Unbelievable! An Earthquake! In Israel! Oh my gawd! It was measured at magnitude of 5 on the Richter Scale! Wow.

The whole building shook! And the higher you are, the more you feel it.... I live on the 9th floor! I was unpacking, and all of a sudden everything shook! I thought I was going to fall on top of my bags so I took a step back, at least I'd fall on the bed... Everything shook! Oh wow.

I'm still shocked!

Hullo!

2004-02-11T08:26:00.000+02:00

I'M HOME!! I'm so happy right now... It's unbelievable!!!

Buhbye!

2004-02-10T06:30:00.000+02:00

Byebye New York!!!!!!!!! I'm going HOME!!!

Red Shoes

2004-02-10T01:02:00.000+02:00

Yep. I bought some. Tonight. On the way to meet with Sarah. Do I love Payless or what? Como sea, ellos ser muy populachero menos el mundo (anyway, they are very popular around the world) y bien vestido (and very fashionable). Probably have 300 mistakes in that sentence. But I like Spanish. Very cool language.

I went and had coffee with Sarah (thanks for the treat, babe!) and we talked for like an hour I think. Then went home and hung out with the parents.

I spent most of the day packing, after getting up way too early to help my mom with the laundry (so that I can start packing). Then I spent alllllllllllllllllll day packing. I have a lot of shit, even thought I bought nothing that takes up more space than the stuff I already have. I have so much shit. All them damn albums I've been working on all this time. Anyway, that's all packed up.

Yep. All done. I go byebye now! Yep! Hee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm happy.

I shouldn't Have

2004-02-09T08:40:00.000+02:00

I really, really, really shouldn't have. I shouldn't have even thought about buying a hat, and forget actually going into the store, but when I did.... Oh boy. Big mistake. But the thoguht process was like this:

I've been here 2 months, I haven't gotten myself more than a shirt and two sweaters, and I really really want something from Hot Topic or Torrid. And I really wanted a new hat. I love all the ones I have bunches but a new hat can just make my day.

So I went into the store. Big mistake. They didn't have the hat that I wanted, but Torrid had a sale on dresses, and, well, umm, I couldn't resist it, after trying it on. As Sarah said, it's so very me.

burgundy corset dress

The dress cost a whoopin' $9.97 (which used to be $40.99) and along with the black fishnets with the red line in the back, it was about a whole 18 bucks. I just couldn't resist it. I can so see myself going dancing in it, Friday night.

By the way, does anyone else find it extremely ridiculous that Hot Topic is right next door to Abercornbie and Fitch in the Smithhaven Mall?

Speaking of going out Friday, I've got plans for Friday and Sunday. It's really weird to me that these plans will happen in Israel and not here. I'm here. I'm not there. But I will be there, Wednesday. It's just freaky, I guess.

Big Fish

2004-02-08T03:00:00.000+02:00

Just finished reading Big Fish by Daniel Wallace, on which the Tim Burton film of the same title was based. It may be because I saw the movie before reading the book, that I think the movie was better. It may as well be influenced by Sarah's opinion which is similar to mine. But I still think the book was pretty good. I got from the book more of the meaning of Big Fish - of Edward Bloom wanting to be "a big fish in a big pond". Maybe I would have reached that point in the movie if I wasn't looking at everything else with wide, amazed, happy eyes, taking in all that there was to take in - Tim Burton's amazing work, this time lighter, so different from his other movies (Sleepy Hollow, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, and others). But as different as this one was, it was so very Burton-esque in its own way. Of course, being where I mentally am right now - absolutely amazed, overtaken with excitement of every special effect used in the movie, whether it be the car under water or the two headed woman - has kind of hindered my ability to look further into the meaning of things in the movie. I am certain that if I saw the movie again, it would take on a whole different meaning, and I will immediately realize things I hadn't before. (The pleasure of owning a DVD...) In it's own way, though very different from the movie, the book has brought to my attention things that I hadn't before noticed, even if they did happen in the movie and didn't or happened differently in the book.

In its own way, the book is very good. The exploration of one's relationship with his father. The ending is so very different in the book than it is in the movie. In the book, William comes to terms with the fact that he and his father will never be on the same wavelength, that the myths that William created about Edward's life are just going to have to hold strong, because Edward blew his chance to let his son into his life, tell him the realities behind the stories. In the movie, William understands his father's stories. He may not believe them all, but he understands that at the heart of each of these myths stands a real story, something that really happened to his father, and I think that that's best illustrated in the movie at Edward's funeral, when William sees the Asian twin women, whom he had only ever heard of before as the Two Headed Woman. I realized at that moment in the film, and I think that William did too, just how very simple the stories were, and his father took the time to make them into that much more. The difference between telling the story of two twin women whom Edward help smuggle into the US and then got them a job, made so much more mythological by making the twins into a two headed woman!

Big Fish, both book and film, different as they are, is a very touching story, I think. In a way, we are all trying to be Big Fishes. We are all afraid of failure, which Edward faces when he leaves Ashland, and just pushes forward. We all want to make it big out there, in one way or another. We dream of things that may be beyond our reach, but we still struggle to get there. I am in the beginning of a struggle that may take me years, but the dream of achieving this faraway goal is going to keep me going, just like Edward Bloom's dream to be a Big Fish kept him going for years on years.

There are some things that were very greatly simplified in the movie. Such as Edward's love affair - which in the movie supposedly never happened, but was told in great details in the book. When you look into the backbone of the story of Edward's buying a town and finding another great love in the form of Jenny Hill, you realize it's a very simple story. Edward bought the town because he began missing the small town life that he had as a child, before leaving Ashland. In Specter he fell in-love with a woman, Jenny Hill. He kept coming and going, staying a few days then leaving, going back to his wife and child. Jenny Hill one day finds out Edward's married and has a son, and she kicks him out. In the way Edward tells it, he was gone for too long, and Jenny grew distant, and as she did, a swamp grew around the house and he could reach the door, nor would she talk to him through the windows, though he tried, every time he's in town. (And that's just a very simplified version of the longest chapter in Big Fish, there was a lot more to it in the book.)

There were many things that were changed between the book and the movie, but unlike The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers which was changed so, so much from the book, this time I wasn't upset or pissed or annoyed by the changes. The changes in Big Fish were made to help the story tell itself, using the most amazing, the weirdest, the most wonderful of Edward's stories in the book. In essence, the theme of the mythological stories was kept, so it makes no difference if one story was used this way or that.

I very much recommend both the book and the movie to everyone. It could certainly understand why Burton would like working on a film such as this. If my own dreams come true, and I become the Big Fish I wish to be, I hope I'll get to work on a film like this as well.

5 DAYS TO GO

2004-02-05T01:18:00.000+02:00

And counting.
No news for today, I'm bored as usual. Wasn't feeling well earlier. Went to sleep pretty early for me, around 2:30am the lights were out already, I must have fallen asleep around 3-3:15... Woke up at 6am with a huge headache. That wasn't fun. Went and got a drink of water, then back in bed I buried my head under the pillow and wished the pain away. Fell asleep and woke up at 8am with a bigger headache. Felt nauseous. Yuck. Took Excedrin. Attempted to fall asleep again. Took about two hours. Finally around 10-ish I fell asleep. Woke up at 11 for reasons beyond my understanding. Headache was gone, but the nausea was still there. Went to get a drink of water, got back to bed. Made my mom worried. Me out of bed before 2pm ain't usual, especially not 2 times that she knows of and another one she didn't know about. Got back to bed. Didn't fall asleep until 1pm. Woke up feeling much, much better at 2. Heard my dad talk to my sister. Wanted to talk to her too. Woke up at 3:15. No headache, certainly not enough sleep. Maybe I'll actually fall asleep early today. Gaa. Hate feeling like this.

My mom suggested I make my flight home even earlier, move it to Saturday. Might be a good idea. I dunno. Not feeling well enough to think about it at this point in the day. There are enough reasons why I should and enough reasons why I shouldn't.

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

And It Only Took A Month and A Half

2004-02-04T06:18:00.000+02:00

I *finally* finished reading The Lord of The Rings! And it only took what, 3 years and a month and a half? Geez, I got the book 3 years ago on a trip to California over winter break with my parents. I was reading something and I finished it what with all the driving we were doing, so we went to the Palo Alto Barnes and Noble and there was this huge sale of LoR books, because the movie was going to come out soon after or something like that. So we bought me The One Volume Edition. Why we didn't think to buy me the littler books so it'll be easier to read, I don't even know. And I've been attempting to read it ever since. I'd start up, read the first few pages, get so overly tired of it, and let it go for a couple of months. Then I attempted it between vacations here. And finally I told myself I'm leaving here this time after having read this frigging big book and it's about frigging time I did!!!

Now, let's see. I'm so overly in love with Aragorn. The image I see in my head is obviously of Viggo Mortensen, but that's not a bad image to be looking at. But I wasn't as madly in love with this character when watching the movies. It's only now that I've read the books I'm absolutely in love with him. His character is so much more explored in the books, his actual King-likeness. Out of all hobbits, Pippin is absolutely my favorite. When I read of him, of course I thought of Billy Boyd's Pippin, but that too is not such a bad image to have. But Pippin's such a troublemaker! I absolutely adore him. Sam, as much as he is an important character, was starting to get on my nerves there. Eowyn pissed me off. She's a frigging drama queen, being all upset because Aragorn just doesn't like ya, and then falling into the arms of the first man that looks at ya, even if he is pretty cute, in that Faramir way! If Boromir had been there, ya'd been all lovey dovey with him, wouldn't ya. I think it's aboslutely adorable that Elanor that we see in the movie in that final scene in The Return of the King is really Sean Astin's daughter Alexandra Astin. How sweet is that?

I think there were a couple of scenes that could have been pretty good for the movie. Like the one in Two Towers were Gandalf and the Company talk to Saurman and Wormtongue, and Pippin looking into the Seeing Stone, though they did it pretty well. I think the last battle in the Shire woulda been nice but I could understand why they didn't put it in.

And there was one thing I understood much better after reading the book. Frodo Lives. In the movie he just goes away with Gandalf and Bilbo. In the book it's actually explained better. It almost made me tear up.

Almost.

And with Sarah's advice, I went searching for the Secret Diaries and found them and as of now I absolutely ADORE this line from Arwen's Secret Diary:

Day Fifteen

Went all the way to the Gap of Rohan only to find there is no Gap in Rohan. Not even a Banana Republic. False advertising!

How Dix Hillian!!! Heee, cracked me up.

So now that I've actually gotten through it, I have to admit I really do want to read the rest of the books, even though this was (for reasons beyond me) a pretty hard reading. I really need something light and easy.

So I'll be starting in a few minutes The Nanny Dairies, except it's in Hebrew though I wish it weren't. My mom says the translator is pretty good, so it should be okay.

Leaving Tripod

2004-02-03T00:53:00.000+02:00

It seems that Tripod have found no way to get past their problem with Blogger and so I have to leave Tripod and continue to post my blog here. Since I have no problem with that, and I actually like the new design of the blog, with the picture of Johnny and all that, I don't see any problem with that.

The thing that pisses me off most is the fact that I've been in contact with both Tripod and Blogger and while the Blogger people really helped out, giving me all the information I needed and even contacted Tripod themselves to attempt to solve this mystery, the Tripod people just sat back and did nothing. They offered me no help whatsoever. I sent them messages explaining what the Blogger people told me, and what did the Tripod man Anthony do? First he sent me an e-mail that sent me to their FTP help page, and a suggestion to use programs such as CuteFTP and another one or two. And then when I replied, explaining that I don't use FTP programs, the pages get uploaded every time I post from BLOGGER, he sent me to to their Help Page on How To Build A Blog in their Tripod Blog Builder. What the hell is wrong with them? So I wrote yet another e-mail, much angrier this time, explaining yet again (third time is the charm?) that I don't use their Blog Builder, nor do I use FTP programs, I do it all through Blogger.com and if they can't help, I'm just going to have to leave Tripod and find myself working on my blog somewhere else.

And I just got an e-mail from Amanda. Out of the blue. Weird. The name she uses is Adam_Amanda, and the subject was hi yael. I was going to delete it and add it to the spam thing I use but I was intrigued who uses my name like that and if I could report them to their ISP. Turned out it was Amanda. How out of the blue was that?

And We Needed To Know This, why?

2004-02-02T21:46:00.000+02:00

For some reason that I really don't understand, there's an article in the sports section of Ma'ariv, one of Israel's biggest newspapers, about the superbowl. I'm finding it hard to understand why. We don't play football. Our football is soccer. We keep up with worldwide soccer because we're often out there playing for whatever cup there is. Maccabi Tel Aviv won once or twice, made us all very happy. But that's about it. In stores they don't sell footballs, only round soccer balls. They don't sell baseballs either, because we don't play it. So why is there an article in Maariv about the Patriots winning?

Yet Another Correction

2004-02-01T21:52:00.000+02:00

I'm still leaving on the 10th, except now it's at 10:30AM which means I land at like 7am which is much better. Still means I take a cab, even though it's only about half an hour before Noa has to get up and she'd do that for me, but driving back from the airport at rush hour means she going to be late for work and we don't want that. So cab it is. And if we get through rush hour pretty quickly, I'll get to see my sister right before she goes to work, which'll be fun! The drive from the airport to my place is about 20 minutes, and about 45 minutes to an hour at rush hour, because we're driving into the city and not away.... sad kind of. It took 15 minutes at 4:30AM on the way to the airport. Check in was like 10 minutes, left me with wayyyy too much time on my hands at the duty free in Israel. I have to remember to go in a bit later next time I fly at 6:30am.

I Told Myself I Wouldn't

2004-02-01T05:50:00.000+02:00

But then I couldn't resist it. That picture is so absolutely sexy. Even if you don't know who it is, it's sexy. If it were anyone else's blog, it wouldn't matter who it is in that picture. Could be your next door neighboor. But because this is *my* blog, we all know this is Johnny. I just like the way it's built, its really pretty. Elegant, black, white and grey. It's exactly what I wanted when I was looking for a "skin" for my blog, when I found American Martini. There were several other Johnny skins, however none of them pulled at me like this one does. It's not too obvious that that's him. It could just be some hot guy. I like that.

Anyway, I'm happy now.

Le Ballade De Melody Nelson

2004-01-31T22:34:00.000+02:00

The Ballad of Melody Nelson/Serge Gainsbourg (translation and cover version by Placebo)

This is the story of
Melody Nelson
Apart from me no one
Ever took her in his arms
Under her thumb
Eyes in the sun

Oh my Melody mine
Oh my Melody mine

She has nothing but love
Poor
Melody Nelson
Her life was more said than done
But her days were numbered
(?Nil?) Count fourteen falls
Fifteen on calls

A baby tiger was
Melody Nelson
Forever purring in the sun
Just as dangerous as a child
With a gun, shooting me down

Oh my Melody mine
Melody Nelson
Still playing hurting games for fun
As adorable as dumb
Deaf to the sound
To what's going down
Down
Down

It's just so pretty.

Ohhh yeah!

2004-01-31T09:12:00.000+02:00

Johnny was nominated for best actor in the 67th annual academy awards!!! Then again, so were Ben Kingsly, Sean Penn, Jude Law and Bill Murray. If the Golden Globes are anything to go by then Murray got the Oscar too, but hey!!! Johnny's nominated for the first time! Yay!!!

I'm so excited.

Pirates was also nominated for Makeup, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects (ooh yah! That's my future right there!!!)

Check out oscars.com!

Books For Sale!

2004-01-31T05:55:00.000+02:00

My good friend Tina has been making books for some time now. I, myself, have never actually looked into it, I was just happy this overly creative person found herself such a beautiful, practical outlet for her overflowing creativness. But then I found myself facing a tough problem - I'm starting to run out of paper in my paper journal. I'm about half way through it now, which you'd think wasn't a problem, but considering I'd only gotten it about three months ago, this is a problem. I write in English, and there are no pretty, somewhat more than a notebook books, notebooks, or even papers, that are "backwards". They have beautiful things for Hebrew writing. Absolutely beautiful. But none for English. So I told myself I'd start looking into books whenever I'm in Barnes and Noble or places such as that. But that didn't happen for too many reasons.

And then I thought about Tina. I talked to her, she gave me her website address, Catling Books, and I picked a book - size, spine, colors (blue for sure, everything else is up to her, she knows me well enough) and all that. When it's all ready, she'll send it to Israel, and I'll send her money back either on the website with the real people credit card I will have once I get to the bank, or money transfer to her account or whatever.

It just made me so proud of her... The website, the books... So wonderful. And I'm going to be a pround owner of a Catling Book. One day, when she's all famous for these books, I'm going to show everyone the book and be all popular. Hehehe.

Things and Such

2004-01-30T06:52:00.000+02:00

Earlier today I was watching Friends when the new Priceline.com commercial came on. I ususally mute the commercials out but I decided to leave the sound on this time because I was going to check my e-mail in the other room, and with the sound on I could hear the show come back on. Anyway, I came back to the TV room before the commercials were over and what do I see, if not Bill Shatner get "fired" on the Priceline commercial. Blah blah blah, and he asks why they are firing him and they say they have a better voice and he asks who the new voice is going to be. The camera zooms out and into room walks (who else...) Leonard Nimoy and says "Hey, Bill." I, of course, crack up. It's a great joke. But it made me think.

Shatner is the one who keeps going around and telling people Star Trek was just a show, and that they should get a life. True, indeed. I am a full supporter of that theory these days, based on my previous obsession with Voyager. People do need to get a life. But if we need to get a life, obviously he does too, I'd think? We can't get enough of ST and we're not going to attempt to stop if he doesn't, right? If he's going to let his ST past follow him into the future, into his work now (not that Priceline commercials are much of "work"...), how are we, people, supposed to get on?

In other news, I left the house today, first time in probably over a week. Went out to get diet coke because we've run out of it. Actually, I just wanted to get out of the house. I don't particularly enjoy the same routine every frigging day. So it was really nice to see the sunlight, to feel the freezing coldness outside, walking around in sneakers when I should have worn my boots, they're better for snow/ice-walking. I've also started planning out what needs to be done before the flight. What I'm going to pack, what comes with me, what stays behind.

My dad's been talking about my finally getting my computer this weekend, he's going to the city tomorrow, and he says he's going to the company's bank tomorrow, to get his money, or something like that. Hopefully it means I can finally have a life, and the mood in the house'll be somewhat better. At this point, I've thought about this last night, I'd rather my dad buy my sister's laptop before he gets me my 1700 dollar computer. Right now she's using my mom's back home because her's died and I know how it feels to use someone else's computer. It's not your computer, you don't have free rein of it. So I'd rather he got her a new computer. My baby is a good computer, he's not that old either (he's only two, she lived with hers for five and a half years...). And then, if he still can, I want him to get my mom the new screen she has been wanting and needing for a while now. She's been dreaming about a flat screen for a while now. And then, if he still can, I want my 1700 dollar computer. They need these things more than me. I just want some money to be able to go to lunch at an Indian buffet where the price for everything total is 9 bucks, and another 15 bucks for a really cool hat I saw on hottopic.com.

Correction.

2004-01-29T01:04:00.000+02:00

Still leaving on the 10th, but at 8am rather than 6pm. Not sure which is better. All I know is that I'm landing at 5:20am and that just sucks so much ass. Gonna take a cab home cuz there's no way I'm waking Noa up at 5:30am to pick me up when she has to be at work at 8. And then I'll probably fall right off my feet after an 11 hour flight with 3 hours in London in the way (which I actually really am waiting for, I love Terminal 4, sick as it is to admit this...). And then I bet we're going to go to my grandmother's for dinner. Wednesday the 11th, dinner at Grandma's. Not bad.

I didn't want to, but...

2004-01-28T08:48:00.000+02:00

So after a week of being unable to publish my blog, and still writing (hey, I didn't just make up these last three entries here), I decided that I'm gonna get all blogged out (in Heather's words) and just temporarily moved to a blogspot account. It was either this or start using Live Journal and that's just a big no-no for me. There are just too many bad LJ associations in my mind and anyway, I'd rather use something called Blogger because it's just so much cooler than Live Journal.

Anyway, I'm leaving on the 10th of February at 6pm, and unlike previous times, I am quite happy to be going home. Could be something with the fact that I'm not going back to the military and am going to start my life. I'm actually getting quite restless. Big plus for the flight thing is that I am flying alone so my routine at Heathrow ain't going to change - coffee, the hat place, the music place, refill of chocolats (damn Duty Free in Kennedy doesn't Guyliams, my regular flight Belgium chocolate!), and on to the airplane. Love my mom, but I'd just rather fly alone. No one to blab in my ear when she can't sleep. No one to pay attention to all my in-flight disgusting habits, like sticking all the things I think I might need during the flight in the pocket of the chair in front of me. It's not actually a disgusting habit, but hey, what the hell.

I've been wondering why the hell it never snowed like it is today when I was in highschool. I mean, they already had 3 snow days (that I know of at least) and they are so having another one tomorrow. We never used all 4 of our snow days! Urgh. But the snow's really pretty, and my poor car is all covered up...

I finished working on the albums, and got all the rest of the pictures that I still don't know what to do with in one pile. I'm going to take it all back with me and get them all into better albums, with some more creativitiy in them, not just picture after picture after picture. All my albums from the past two years actually look good, and I think they all should be interesting to look at, and not boring. But this is a temporary arrangement, until I get the chance, the money and the time to get work done on the actual albums.

I realized today that if there is nothing else that I'm going to buy here, at least I have to buy another paper journal. I've got the "Black Book" I use now when I was here last time and I'm already half way through it. If it'll take 3 months to fill up the rest, I'm going to be left without anything to write in. Of course, I could start writing in Hebrew, and then get a pretty Hebrew notebook, but I like writing in English. Though lately I've been doing more than write in it. There are so many pictures, letters, stickers, and just other things in there that it's become like a little scrapbook with a whole lot of personal stuff in it. So I think I better start looking into getting a notebook type thing, because I have 13 days left. But who's counting?

I have a feeling Karin is not going to be coming here any time soon. It's probably better this way, with the financial situation as it is. I really wanted her to, I think it'd have been nice. I keep thinking about how Sarah pointed out to me that she's never actually met my sister and that's pretty screwed up. We've been best friends for 6 years and she's never met my sister? So I figured, if not the sister than at least a good friend, right? Guess not.

But damn, it's really messed up that she never met my sister....

2004-01-27T08:49:00.000+02:00

Home, Sweet Home

I miss home.
I don't exactly know when Israel became home, it wasn't five months ago, when I was here last, but it certainly is now. I realized it when my sister e-mailed me and one of the things she asked was whether I'm worn out from this vacation, if I want to come home yet, or do I still feel the need to relax and enjoy myself here. I didn't even have to think of the answer. It was just so obvious. I miss home so much. I miss her, and I miss the cat (that I hate) and I miss my room, my bed, my appartment. I miss family dinners on Friday night when Noa and I drive to my grandma's from Tel Aviv and Nitsan and Tamar and the kids come from up south (15 minutes drive for them, half an hour drive for us...), and we seat together and talk and argue about whatever there is to argue about. And then we go home and the two of us start getting all dressed up to go out... Or Saturday mornings when Noa and I actually bother to roll out of bed and get ourselves into comfy clothes and drive to Nitsan's to spend the day with him and Tamar and the kids... And I miss the weekday evenings when Noa comes home from work or class and we get dinner ready together and then we watch a movie or something on TV. Or weekends when none of the family stuff goes on and she and I just rent a movie (no 500 channel satelite tv in Israel. Yet.) and get popcorn and drool over Hugh Grant or Johnny Depp or Russel Crowe or Brad Pitt. And I miss Karin N and Moran, and how on Friday night at 11pm we still don't know what we're doing and then at midnight someone comes around to pick me up and we go dancing, and have the time of our lives. I miss sitting on one of the benches outside the dance floors in our favorite club Shefayim and checking out the guys. I miss spending 3 hours on the phone with Karin G, talking about this and that. I miss Asaf and Hadar... I miss 4 hour phone conversations with Ariel at 2 in the morning when the two of us are totally out of it and just laughing at everything one of us says (which usually happens anyway, but the hour helps...). I miss warmer weather and not having to worry about damn snow every other day, or making sure that I don't slip and fall every step I make. I miss having a real DVD player in the house (but that's just because I really want to see all the rest of the extra stuff on the second CD of the Pirates DVD set). I miss my sister's food. Love my mom's, it's awesome, never better, but my sister's is so good and so different... I miss being bored out of my mind and finding that the solution is calling Dominos Pizza because I know the people that work there already and they just know me so well and they just know what I want to order. Yes, I am a dork like that. I miss not having to hide chocolate in my room. I miss not having to let anyone know I'm home at 3 in the morning after an evening with my friends. Geez, I miss not being home at 3am because I'm out with my friends! I miss Israeli chocolate. So much better than Hershey bars, though I've been getting a lot of Twix-eating done lately. I miss JAG at 11PM weeknights, the good episodes, not those shitty new ones where Harm adopted a frigging 15 year old (what's that all about?!?). I miss the noise the kids that go to the school across from my building make in the morning and in the afternoon. I miss not having one telling me what to do, when to get up, who to see, where to go, why to do anything, and so on and so forth. I really miss living alone (sister-unit does not count, she's a roommate). I miss my CD burner and my normal good printer. I miss my scrapbooks, I've been wanting to go through them and work on the 3rd one for a while now, ever since I found all these great pictures that are just laying around my room in a big mess right now. I miss my keyboard. I really hate not having a real keyboard because the laptop's gives out heat from the processor underneath the keyboard and that gets my fingers all sweaty and I hate that. I really do. I miss my room. I wanna rearrange it and get it to look better, especially if I'll get my new computer (which I doubt) and then I'll have to rearrange everything because the computer'll have to be near the tv outlet. And I miss the fact that I have more of a finacial freedom over there than I do here, (which would change if I had a normal credit card... which is going to change in less than a month.) I miss my life across the ocean. I really do.

And I love being here. I love my parents and my dog, and certainly my friends, not too many of them left around here though (probably one of the reasons Israel became home), and I love New York winters, snow and all that. I love the holidays, Christmas is the most beautiful holiday anyone could have ever thought of, even with all the commercialism and capitalism that it spins off. I love the freedom that I have here that I don't have there, which is my car. (That's going to change, I'm getting a car as soon as I can pay insurance, a couple of months after I get a normal job.) And there are a million and a half things more that I love, but it's just hard calling this place home anymore.

I'm sure I'll feel differently after 8 months of being there and really needing a break from that life, just like I felt differently after the last three months on base, but right now, I just really want to go home.

2004-01-24T07:28:00.000+02:00

Blogger's A Bitch Today

So I don't know why I'm even posting this but there's no other place so I might as well. Anyway, these are a few questions, interview-type thing, that I got from rumigrl on LJ. They are good questions indeed.

1. Now that you're out've the army, what are your career plans? Do they involve learning another language besides Hebrew and English?
Career? What?
No, I'm joking. There's lots and lots to be done. I intend on getting myself into the digital animation and graphic industry. I'm applying to the university of Tel Aviv, to their film and television program, as well as a good art school that has a major in animation. And I'm applying to UCLA to their animation program, which includes film and television. And all through that I've got to get myself a job to support my sorry ass for the way too expensive life that I have a tendency to lead. And for the Spanish classes I want to take. And then the French classes. And then the Arabic classes. Hopefully one day all these would fit into my work as a Pixar or Dreamworks animator.

2. Describe your happiest, most joyful moment.
I don't know. My life has been pretty happy so far. I can't think of anything specific... But one of the most joyful moments in my life where the day I realized I graduated from high school and I'm going to be starting my "real life" now. It was 2 months after graduation, I was on the airplane from New York to Israel, where I would be starting the rest of my life. And I realized that I wasn't in high school anymore and that a very big stage of my life is over, and I'm going to be starting the next one just as soon as I land.

3. What is Truth?
Something that is not false.

4. Do you believe totally in your religion's belief system, or are there a few points you can't agree with? Which ones, and why?
I'm an atheist. I don't believe with any of that stuff. I find it extremely ridiculous that god's idea of a day of rest is to not allow us to drive or ride our bikes, or that we can't turn our lights on because it's "work" or that we have to cut the toilet paper and make piles of it before the sabbath is in so that we don't do it while we're sitting on the john. Why can't I talk on the phone on Saturday or play on my computer or whatever it is that I feel is 'rest' for me.... Isn't that what Saturday is for? I can understand why god wouldn't want his people to eat pork, it comes from a dirty animal. I myself love white meat and bacon. I don't understand why god would not want us to enjoy our food - can't combine dairy products with meat? Why? Can't have a cheeseburger? Why not? I don't understand why there has to be a special way to eat our food. Meat, for example, goes through a process of soulting that praticaly makes the meat lose it's yummy taste. And how about seafood? Why can't we have that? And this is just my take on some of the small things of this religion. There's the fact that you can't expose more than your ankle because it'll arouse the men? Oh because my elbow is just the sexiest thing in the world. And there's the big question of where was god when the Jews needed him to break up Hitler's little obsession? He was there giving Moses a stick to turn it into a snake in Pharrow's palace, why couldn't he have done something to help during the Holocaust, or now with the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
The Ten Commandments are the basic rules of life, and I believe in them.

5. Now the hard one: Johnny Depp or both Orlando Bloom, Elijah Wood, and Brad Pitt (in suits and ties [Hobbes: babes flip for ties!], cooking you dinner, and offering you flowers and a trip to a concert of your choice)? Johnny meanwhile just lounges around, belches a lot, and asks you to bring him some coffee from the kitchen. While you're barefoot. That misogynistic prick.
Now we're getting back to the easy stuff! Johnny Depp, always. I mean, Orlando is just adorable, Elijah is, well, hot in this hobbit type way (he's too short for me...), and Brad Pitt is just plain hot, but none of them take the one and only. Flowers and a concert are cool. Absolutely. But spending an evenin' with my celebrity crush, at home? Even if it's just getting him coffee or a soda or a beer or whatnot? Barefoot or not, I'd do it in a second.

2004-01-23T09:16:00.000+02:00

Angel Wings

I did this quiz thing that I saw somewhere on what type of wings I would have had I been an angel. I answered it with as much sincerity and truthfulness as I could, just to see what it would say. And I came out as "angelic wings":

You are one of the few out there whose wings are truly ANGELIC. Selfless, powerful, and divine, you are one blessed with a certain cosmic grace. You are unequalled in peacefulness, love, and beauty. As a Being of Light your wings are massive and a soft white or silver. Countless feathers grace them and radiate the light within you for all the world to see. You are a defender, protector, and caretaker. Comforter of the weak and forgiver of the wrong, chances are you are taken advantage of once in awhile, maybe quite often. But your innocence and wisdom sees the good in everyone and so this mistreatment does not make you colder. Merciful to the extreme, you will try to help misguided souls find themselves and peace. However not all Angelics allow themselves to be gotten the better of - the Seraphim for example will be driven to fighting for the sake of Justice and protection of those less powerful. Congratulations - and don't ever change - the world needs more people like you.

It came with a pretty picture (that Blogger for some reason wouldn't upload for me). I read it and I smiled, I mean, come on, this is the most wonderful thing anyone could say about me. It's also not true. Me, unequalled in peacefulness, love and beauty? Me? Peaceful? What? You are a defender, protector, and caretaker. Yes, I've been defending, protecting and taking care of things, I'm good at that. I'm a strong person, I fight for causes, but especially when they are somehow to my advantage... I am 'comforter of the weak and forgiver of the wrong' - At times. I don't usually hold grudges, and I tend to forgive (yet never forget...), but that's because you have to forgive in order to survive... I saw what happened to enough people who were absolutely disgusting to people. They ended up being made fun of on our hevre.com forum.... 'chances are you are taken advantage of once in a while, maybe quite often. Hell, no. I wouldn't let that happen. You have to be quite naive to let people take advantage of you and while I am not the most sophisticated person in the world, I'm certainly not naive. But your innocence and wisdom sees the good in everyone and so this mistreatment does not make you colder. The day I start seeing the good in everyone will be the day hell freezes over. I don't think everyone has an ulterior motive, gawd knows what would happen to me if I did, but I don't think everyone is good. And I'm not exactly innocent, either. Not in any way, shape, form or meaning of the word. Merciful to the extreme, you will try to help misguided souls find themselves and peace. I'm not even going to comment about that. Yeah, I help out. I've helped out, listened, and advised more than enough people, and I've been told I'm a good listener, but you've got to be a saint to be merciful to the extreme, and try to help misguided souls (I sometimes hate this word!). And saints are BORING! However not all Angelics allow themselves to be gotten the better of - the Seraphim for example will be driven to fighting for the sake of Justice and protection of those less powerful. I don't know who these Seraphim are, but I'm more like them than this angelic stuff. I fight for causes, I've got more than one example. I win some and I lose some. And on most I just settle (out of court...). Some are even for the sake of justice (certain fights that happened way back last March-April, I enjoyed that one thoroughly). As for the protection of the less powerful? I don't know. Try and teach them to be more powerful, I ain't got all the time in the world to be protecting everyone else, I've got a life to live!

I checked out the rest of the answers, and of course, being the angelic wings is the best answer you can get (and I'm not even going to wonder what that means). But I wish there would be a test out there, a quiz, that would get me right. No one, with the exception of maybe Mother Theresa, is that good. No one, with the exception of that evil dude I saw on 60 Minutes a few weeks back and Hitler, is that evil. Everyone is a combination of all these "wings" things, I should think. Some are better, some are worse, some are just stuck in the middle and aren't sure of what they are at all. Me? I'm all of these angels combined, hopefully falling more to the good side of people, yet I've got an evil streak, and that can't fit into the angel things said here. I've got more independence than I care to think about, and that was certainly not said about me, and yet it appears in the Phoenix wings thing. I have feelings I often hide, and that's more of the "steel wings" that is mentioned there. As I said before, I forgive and yet never forget. I'm mischievous and playful and overall a happy person. And none of that was written in my little "angelic wings" quiz answer.

If the world was based on just these discriminating wings, or any of the other character quizzes I've taken, the world would be a very boring place. It's the combination of all these things that makes us all that interesting. I should think. Thank gawd it's not.

2004-01-20T19:59:00.000+02:00

What's your inner inane bird?

2004-01-20T16:16:00.000+02:00

I am an Intellectual

Which America Hating Minority Are You?

Take More Robert & Tim Quizzes
Watch Robert & Tim Cartoons

Muse Hits Home

2004-01-20T01:53:00.000+02:00

I was just hanging around my bed, watching Friends, Will and Grace and The Nanny when I had sudden inspiration. It's probably due to my latest thoughts about the subject, fantasies, dreams and maybe some of it I'll be able to achieve, but for now it all just poured itself into the beginning of a story. I haven't written anything worthwhile since... since my last fanfic which I'd written in August and that was after almost a year of not writing anything, just uploading old stories to Cafe Voyage. But anyway, this one story is completely not J/C. For the first time in ages I feel like the characters that I made up are actually worth something. I finally took the old advice "write about something you know" to heart and based my characters on things I know. And... If I can't live my dream yet, at least they can.

This is a good thing, I think. At least for me.

Not that this actually has anything to do with anything, but people in my base's forum are arguing over some nasty words that were said over one of the girls who 299 out of 300 people hated (she being the 300th person). These words were said in the "gossip" section where no names are actually posted, but by the language some people use it's pretty easy to decypher who said what. I think it's pretty funny that we're arguing about something on a forum. I'd just like to point that out.

History In The Making

2004-01-17T17:57:00.000+02:00

I had assumed, when I thought about blogging, that I would write about Josh's party tonight, and just how weird it was, though it was okay. I actually enjoyed myself, even if the people there weren't the kind of people who I would usually hang out with. I guess sometimes hanging out with "normal" people is good for you. I had fun, when it came to Sarah and me talking amongst ourselves, or with Josh, or when one of the other people actually paid attention to us. Anyway, I assumed I'd write about the weirdness that is seeing Josh after two years that we haven't exchanged a word (and he did not change too much...). I also assumed I'd write about the Dix Hillian-ness that I took part in today by getting my nails done; they are now blood red and I love it. Of course, me being me, they're were not perfect for more than an hour. I just had to ruin them some way or another. Gee. I also assumed I'd write about visiting Count Damn Yovis Travisula (Sarah, what's the rest? I don't remember!) at Ruby Tuesday's where today was his final day of waitressing ever and we stopped by to have dinner and sexy cokes (sexy cokes are cool). And I also figured I'd write a word or two about the fact that I finally got the archives on this website to work, after battling with the for the past month or so. That's pretty much all I did today, this evening, whatever this should be called.

But then I had something to put in my paper journal, so I went looking for a pen that is not blue, (been writing with a blue one and I just wanted a different color), and I figured I probably have on in the mess that is on one of my shelves in my desk. I was wrong, there were no pens whatsoever there, but I found instead an old CVS bag (kind of full of holes and such) full of picture packages the way the come back from the stores after you get them developed. There were so many pictures there... So I picked them all up and took them to my bed and started going through them and oh wow. History in the making it was. There were pictures of my old house in Israel and my room there, and pictures of my first New York house (I hadn't realized until today just how much I loved that house). There were pictures of my friends from 7th grade, whom I remember missing a whole lot in 8th and 9th grade. These days I only keep in touch with one of them and she's hardly keeping in touch with anyone anymore... There were pictures there from sleepover parties at my place (the one where we threw candy at you, Sarah) and there were pictures there from pool parties over the years. There were pictures there from my 8th grade ESL trip (with the high school people... at the time it was a big wow) to the Statue of Liberty, with Mrs. Erwinsky and Mrs. Thewes, and even a glimpse of Mrs. Gross I think, and the bunch that we were in 8th grade - Fracnes, Alexandra, myself, and a few others whose names I don't even remember anymore. There were pictures from various family trips, from upstate New York to the Grand Canyon to California... Pictures of me as a baby. Pictures of me on the phone, sometime early in '97, and I look so young. Pictures of me with really long hair (was it really that long? Why did you let me cut it? it was beautiful!) and me with really short hair in shorts (something I don't wear anymore) and a teeshirt. Pictures of Yaron (my best friend in elementary school) and me eating lunch on some field trip or another, and we look like we're 9 or 10... Pictures from my trip in Austria when I was 7. Pictures from my first visit to the USA when I was 9. Pictures from that fateful trip to France when I was 12. Pictures from High School East's Junior Prom (with Roger and Cindy, and that kid whose date I was supposed to be...) Pictures of my sister in uniform, (when she was in the military, six years ago). Pictures of my youngest cousin when she was just a baby, she had just learned to walk, she's now in 1st grade. Pictures of her brother at the time he was 3 years old, sucking on a pacifier, sitting in my arms, he's now in 3rd grade. And their older brother, 8 years old in the pictures, playing with the camera, playing with the piano, playing soccer, sitting in the plastic pool, or keeping an eye on his baby sister. He's not 15 years old, doesn't give a damn about his baby sister and certainly doesn't play in anything other than the dating game.

Some pictures were very touching. There was a picture of my mom's best friend, Orna, who passed away from cancer about six years ago. She's sitting at the kitchen table in the first apartment I remember in Israel, (gawd it was so small...) and she's looking at pictures, and I'm standing next to her, I'm only 4 or 5, and I'm looking at the pictures too. I don't remember the actual occasion, but I remember the woman, and she was like an aunt to me, she was over at our place so often that I remember thinking she lived with us for a while. She was the one who nicknamed me MonsterChild (in Hebrew of course), which stuck so very well. And there were pictures of my aunt who, with her parents, husband and daughter, moved from Russia to Israel. Their daughter, Nora (aka Stav), is a few months older than me. We were just starting 1st grade when they moved here, I remember it so well... Anyway, her mother, my aunt, Mara, passed away from cancer as well, a year after Orna. Their pictures bring back so, so, so many memories.

I was so amazed. I laughed out loud (as quietly as I could, it is 5:30am and my parents are asleep in the next room) at more than a few pictures. I was so... I don't even know the word for it. I look at these pictures and I look at different things, items I'm wearing, locations, and try to figure out around what time it was. From what my tee-shirt says, to the sneakers I'm wearing to the watch on my hand, to the background, to the people around me. My first pair of Skechers, which were blue, the wide-leg jeans, the tee-shirts, the fact that my chest is so small I'm not even wearing a bra (to me, that's a good time-telling fact). And the hats. Always the hats. The hats always played a big part in my life. I was always wearing one. Whether it's just a school field trip, where we had to wear hats to keep ourselves safe from the sun, or whether I'm in Paris and it's freezing cold. The different hairstyles on all our heads say so much about the time as well. From the length of my own hair, I can tell what time period it is, kind of. Considering the fact that between sometime before 1st grade until 9th grade my hair was straight and long (all the way down to my ass) and naturally blonde. But any time after that, I can tell by the length of my hair what grade I'm in.

There are several pictures of my sister with two or three of her boyfriends, some are a nice reminder, some are not.

These are all pictures that need to be put in an album or they won't last. And some of the albums need to be fixed. Soon. I hope there's an empty album somewhere around the house, because baby, I found myself a project for the next few days or weeks, however long this takes. I already know I'm pretty good at the scrapbook making thing. I love the three scrapbooks I've got, from 12th grade through the military till now. I'm hoping I do well with these albums too.
Oh I am just so excited.

Let The Countdown Begin

2004-01-16T17:00:00.000+02:00

Sad as it may sound, I'm starting to count the weeks until I go back to Israel. Except it's as sad as it was in the previous times. I actually want to go back. I'm happy to say I am as excited about my animation program as I was a month and a half ago when I signed up, and to me that says a lot because it means to me that I really do want to do this and it's not just a passing obsession of a sort. (Thank gawd for that because I have no idea what I would have done with myself if it were just a momentary obsession...). So I'm excited about that. And today I talked to Tamar for about half an hour on the phone and it made me so happy. First of all it was really good to talk to someone whom I know has done something very interesting (she flew to India and Cambodia the day we were discharged) and has come back. She sounded so excited when she answered the phone and realized it was me, and that made me happy. We don't always see eye to eye on things but we're good friends anyway. I always assumed we wouldn't keep in touch with her after the military thing was over, but if I'm calling her from NY, that's gotta mean something.

Ariel and I are going to visit the base at one point when I get back, hopefully before all the big changes (Castro leaving, bad replacement arriving) happen. In February two people are supposed to be joining my (ex) department and that's good news though I had assumed they'd be there already...

Ariela has been writing to me, and I think I might call Taltal tomorrow just because I haven't talked to her in ages...

I really miss them.

But that's not to say I'm not having a good time here. Tonight I'm going to Josh's birthday party (weird, haven't seen or heard from him in 2 years). And because I'm here for a while I don't feel the need to see my friends (or whoever is left... Sarah...) every day so that I'm spending time with my parents and reading and watching tv and obsessing over my future and over certain actors and directors I like.... Just having a good time in general. And I'm having a great time resting and relaxing because pretty soon my life is going to turn into a hectic hell with finding a job, and the course and then actually holding on to the job and all that.

But I can't wait! It's the same as it was before the military thing was over. I can't wait to start my real life. And while I prefer this relaxation, resting, waiting period to the previous hellish morning shifts and work that I hate military waiting period, even this is starting to get old.

And it's hard for me to admit to this.

I want life to begin again. It's like my life's been on a break for 2 years, since high school (not that that was any kind of a good life, but at least something was going on, something was happening) ended. And now it's time for life to get back on track and start moving again. And I'm sure I'll be saying "hey, stop life, I want to get off" three and a half million times, but right now... Don't stop. You haven't started yet!

And The Winner Is....

2003-12-31T02:16:00.000+02:00

Melissa!

I'm so completely and absolutely happy right now. I had such a good day. It started at 3pm when I got out of bed and went through a feel-good movie (not Johnny though) and straight onto dinner with my parents which was really good. Then it went on to dinner with my friends (I ate chocolate. Lots of chocolate.) and to a movie - Mona Lisa Smile - which was okay. Not too bad. I think it was al ittle bit too repetative, things kept happening over and over again, but the ending was pretty nice - the girl didn't get the guy. The girl didn't want the guy! Ha! Wonderful. There is a future for us all. It was a great evening, even when we were all huddled in the car when one of the doors wouldn't close. Hee.

And now back to why Melissa wins the ultimate "how to make yael happy" contest. I got a cool new toys. I got pencils with ducks on them! I got coffee chocolate! And I got a new hat! Kind of a Sam from Benny and Joon type hat which made me so happy!!!!! And I got THE Johnny Depp book. Hee. Even though it's in Italian. hee.

Johnny Depp - il corsaro di Hollywood, La vita, i film, tutti i segreti.

Whatever that means.

But it's sooo cool. It's like... all the pictures I have on my computer.... in a book. With a bunch of new ones I haven't seen yet! Hee. So happy!

I am so happy!!!

And I'm watching Boy Meets World for the first time since forever and I had no idea Corey and Tapanga were married! Why?!

How To Make Me Happy

2003-12-29T22:24:00.000+02:00

So I took one more of them Quizilla quiz things.

Johnny Depp

and I hope that you had fun

What Celebirty are you going to MARRY?!(14 outcomes with pics for anyone)
brought to you by Quizilla

Heeheeehee.

Hee.

*~*The Sophisticate: Johnny Depp!*~*
You're destined to be with Johnny! One of my
personal favs, he lives in beautiful France,
the city of luv (oh and lights :p)...so
romantic and beautiful! Whether its his dark
and oh-so-gorgeous eyes, or his eccentic
personality that makes you drool, he's your
love!

*Who Is YOUR Celeb. Soul Mate?* (Outcomes include Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom along with many other hotties!)
brought to you by Quizilla

And this is pretty good, too.

Apollo

?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

It's Way Past Xmas, Can I have My Computer Now?

2003-12-27T16:23:00.000+02:00

I've been doing some research on my new computer, the Sony Vaio W Series PCV-W510G and awhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I want it so bad!!! It's like... My dream computer right there and then. It functions as three things:

1. Computer, the best of the best, Pentium 4, 2.4GHz, 512MB Ram, 80GB hard disk, CD-RW/DVD-ROM (and we'll check about the DVD-RW functions) and built in 17.5" wide-screen LCD and built in with SRS-WOW (which are the latest technology in stereo speakers).

2. Stereo to work those SRS-WOW speaker, Sony's serious audio-editing programs (as well as digital photography and all that).

3. TV (which I don't have in my room and should...) which you can hook up to cable, or just hook up to the regular TVs to record whatever you want.

Can you say... SWEET?

Thing is, this baby's expensive. 1,699.99 on Sony.com, and the toystore (CompUSA) and 1,650.99 on Amazon. But my dad says he'll get it, whatever the price may be. It's a 20-birthday present combined with a holiday present and you're-out-of-the-military present.

I just wanna play with it already!

In other news, I read a pretty long yet very interesting article in the New York Times Magazine, called Playing Mogul about the future of computer multimedia, games, and film, where it's going to go, what's going to happen and all that. Lots of interesting stuff, and, of course, lots of job opportunities for digital animators/graphic designers. Good article, worth reading even if you're not all that interested in the actual work behind - it's our future, it's always interesting.

Sexy Man In Uniform!

2003-12-24T21:38:00.000+02:00

Saw Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World with my father today. It was a pretty good movie, all around. The historical references were amazing, the work obviously wonderful. The idea of the movie, based on the books, obviously came from real things, history of this world, Napoleon and Lord Nelson both being real figures in history. The movie itself was great. It wasn't a tear-jerking movie, not too emotional, though certainly very much so when needed. It wasn't a love story, and with the exception of one 5-second long scene, there weren't women in the movie.

My dad says the movie's facts about the life on a ship like this and all that, the fact that the officers were 14 years old and up and all that is true. That's how things used to work back then in England. My dad, being a history buff and a ship lover, knows a lot about this stuff, and this is a pretty nice side of him that I didn't know existed until not long ago. It's nice, getting to know my parents for their person and not for the fact that they are my parents. But that's a whole other post I'm not about to get into. Not now.

And the animation work on the movie... Absolutely beautiful. I look at these things much closer now that I'm going to get into the area. It's all very interesting. Even though the crew of the movie actually built a ship for filming, it was still so full of animation work - every storm, every battle, every scene almost - that it was beautiful to see.

And the star of the movie Russell Crow - oh man. He's so damn sexy. He has the shoulder-length blond hair going for him, mostly tied in the back, but in the final battle scene his hair is down and he is so damn sexy.... Gawd. I'd do him a favor any day. All throughout the movie you can see that he is a wide-shouldered, not too hairy man. In more than one scene he is wearing a white shirt, open collar, and oh gawd. So damn sexy. I realize he wasn't doing this movie to add to the "I'm So Sexy" thing he has going, this is a historical movie and a very interesting project, and unlike Gladiator, he's not acting up on this sexy theme, but to me, that makes him just so much more sexier. An actor doing his job, and doing it well, and looking so good, just does it to me. That's one of the reasons I love Johnny Depp so much. And the uniform.... Men in uniform (except IDF uniform, and not just because I was IDF) always have this affect on me... And how can I forget Billy Boyd! He was his sweet self. We first met him Lord Of The Rings as Peregrin (Pippin) Took. But in Master and Commander he plays a full height (5'7") human named Barrett Bonden, the coxswain. He's 35 years old, (looks younger, especially in LoR) and has done a lot of theatre and all that. He's Scottish, and he's really cute. It's good to see him doing something other than LoR. And he's doing lots of theatre in the UK nowadays.

One of the things I told my dad during the movie is that it's a very political movie. In the movie England's ship the HMS Surprise attacks a French ship, one of Napoleon's. Now I realize it's a historical movie and all that, and that at the time England and France were fighting and all that, but I'm thinking that this isa a pretty good time for the US to produce an Anti France movie such as this, with France being against everything the US did in Iraq and Afganistan and the war in general. France was an opposing force all throughout the past few months, almost a year, and the US government (dear President Bush) isn't particularly fond of France at the moment, and there's not much he can do about it. But then a movie like this comes out... At a very politically correct point in time. Makes me wonder - Holywood/Washington DC Conspiracy? Though movies were always affected by the political situation. There was that movie, "Life From Baghdad" where Michael Keaton and a bunch of others are a crew of the big USA news network, reporting from Baghdad. So it won't be the first time a movie was based on what goes in the political world. But Master and Commander is much more of a blow to France than Live from Baghdad, it being so anti-France.

But man, Russell Crow with lond hair and an open collar shirt, his wide shoulders and less than hairy chest - I'd have him any day.

I Messed Up Bad

2003-12-23T00:44:00.000+02:00

And I'm sorry for it. It's just that sometimes you can't hold back what you've been feeling.

It kind of ruined everything, and I think I managed to get some people mad at me, and that's not making me happy, and I really am sorry, but I just couldn't hold back anymore. It was probably a combination of the alcohol and feeling the way I have been feeling pracically since I got here that's brought it out. For some reason I just couldn't put a stop to my mouth, and what I've been feeling just came out.

I'm usually all for saying how you're feeling, but this is just... Not something that I should have said right there and then when I did and I'm sorry it came out sounding the way it did... It totally destoryed any chance for us to actually have fun tonight.... And I'm really sorry. I really am. I didn't really mean to put a stop to everything...

And I'm feeling so low, and so depressed right now....

All throguh the evening I contemplated just going back home.... Just... getting into the car and driving home.

I'm sorry I ever said anything.

And A Happy Hannukah To Us All

2003-12-22T13:18:00.000+02:00

The day just started, but it's already a good day.
The four Israelis and the British guy who were being held in Columbia for the past few months were released just in time for the 4th candle of Hannukah, and Christmas. At least one kidnapping story ended well, and they are probably so happy to be home, it makes me sooo happy.

And another thing, a whole lot more personal came in my e-mail today. Ariel e-mailed me and he was sooo funny. I love that we can talk about everything. From politicial issues to girls (for him) to guys (for me) to movies to theatre to books to studying (he's studying for the pyschometric test, the Israeli SATs) to everything else. You get us on the phone, it's at least an hour's conversation.

I dunno, this just made me so happy. I'm hoping this is going to be a good, wonderful day.

Hee.

And to those 4 guys who came home after spending over 3 months captured in the rainforests in Columbia - welcome home! We missed you!

Nice Clean Entertainment

2003-12-21T18:19:00.000+02:00

Oh. My. God.
I just installed Ad Aware. The program is so good. It scans your system down to the Registry keys and finds all those ads and programs like gator and savenow and such that just install themselves into your system and hack with it from within. Gawd knows what they do, and who controls them and who can get into your system through them. And all that. So that AdAware thing is really good and it cleans everything and leaves your system all clean and pretty, and makes your system run soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much faster. Heehee. It made me happy!

What's Worse?

2003-12-21T00:10:00.000+02:00

Kim and I had a conversation about needing a guy. She said she needed one and I said I need one too, and she said she REALLY needs one. And it made me think, what's worse - needing a guy when you've never been with before, or needing a guy when you have been with one before.

It's like this. If you've never been with a guy, you know you're ready and everything, and you really want to do it and all that, but you don't really know what you're missing. If you have been with a guy before, you do know what you're missing, making it all the more difficult to be without. On the other hand, if you have never been with one, you can imagine, and the sky is the limit, and if you have, you know exactly what you're missing out on and can't get too imaginative. I'm not talking about fantasies, because you'll have those whether you're getting some or not. But when it comes down to the actual act, it's the same.

It reminds me of a conversation I once had with my roommates on base, July 2002... It was 3-4am (don't all my stories take place at that hour?) and we were 4 - Mayan, Michal, Anat and me, and we just started singing our childhood TV show theme songs and stuff, and through a lot of jokes and making fun of people and imitating people and all that, it came down to a serious conversation. Mayan was explaining to Michal and Anat that sex, for girls, gets better with every time.

So my point is that even if you do know what you're missing out on, maybe you don't really? If it does get better with every time, then you don't really know what you're missing, do you? So do you always not know? And does that mean that you're missing out more if you have had the experience before?

And before I lose my mind completely...

Hannukah dinner was interesting. There are just some things you don't want to know about your parents that I now know. My parents, Gila (my mom's friends from her Navy days) and Jess's mom and her boyfriend were being all nostalgic... Jess's mom and Jeff, her boyfriend, were listening mostly, but my parents and Gila were reminicing about old boyfriends, my dad's old apartment which just happened to be a bachelor's pad, where the party was going on all day long...It pretty much explains where my partying side came from, because it was not from my mom, I just didn't know my dad was a party boy.... He told us his apartment in Jerusalem used to be full of broken wine glasses, and champagne glasses and dirty plates all over the place, and just a place where it looked like there was a party there the previous night.... Except it always looked like that, and they were partying there every night. Gila said the 70s were good years in Israel. I bet. I sometimes wish I could go back in time and see how they lived and meet them and hang out with them when they were 20-25 years old...

And my jelly donuts were a big success. They're very good. And that makes me happy. I'm just never ever making them again, they're so hard to make. A whole day of work. Ugh.

And here's something to think about: am I too open minded? I've often noticed that I'm willing to do things others are not, and I talk about everything, and I'm just very open mindde. Am I too open-minded? Can someone be too open-minded?

Weird Dreams Continued

2003-12-19T13:15:00.000+02:00

Gawd, can't I get one night of normal sleep without them weird dreams?

This time I was back in Israel. Everything was as it should be, everyone was happy to see me. I'm at my grandmother's for dinner, with my sister at home, with my friends at the movies, having lunch, at the Max Brener's.... And in the back of my mind I know it's not quite February yet and it's beginning to get to me. I start to realize something is really, really wrong when I look for my cellphone and I can't find it and I realize I haven't seen it since I got back. As everyone knows, I'm very attached to my cellphone. And then I realize it must still be on my desk in my room in New York, in the "hidden" shelf under the big shelves where I keep dirty plates most of the time. And this is freaking me out because this is my cellphone and what am I going to do now, and people are trying to contact me and they can't and what am I going to do without my cellphone? Then, on a Saturday morning, I get up and I look at the date, and it's sometime in December! And I remember telling my mom, when I was still in New York that I want to go home... And then I call them and she answers and she says "but you wanted to go home" and I scream that it was a mistake and I didn't want to leave quite this early and I want to come back and I'm crying and crying in my room... I'm in my big comfy bed, crying... And she hangs up and I start thinking of ways to get the money to fly back to New York, and then the phone rings and it's my dad and he says "figure this out by Tuesday, if you can't manage the money, I'll send you a ticket" and I say that I'll check with the frequent flyer miles I have from British Airways, and he says "let me know" and he hangs up.

And I woke up.

Gawd, weird.

I'm guessing this was brought on by our discussion last night of who's leaving when... My mom's going to come to Israel with me but she's going to do it a couple of days earlier than I am because of some translator people meeting. It's on the 10th and she wants to be there for it. I don't start classes until the 16th, so I want to be in Israel on the 15th. But we figured that I will hardly have anything to do here in February because everyone's back to school and all that, unless I go up to Tina's (she asked me to) and Karin comes here for a bit. But it was so weird.... I was twisting and turning in bed, I woke up several times... I was really restless. Can't I just get a normal night's sleep sometime?

In other news, I finished reading Joanne Hariss's Chocolat last night. The book's very different from the movie so I cannot judge which I like better. The movie is sweet (pun not intended) and the book is a whole lot darker. It's set in the 1990s, and not in the 1960s, and it focuses mostly on Vianne's inner struggle with her past, her future, her mother's beliefs and her own, and how they entwine. I'll put it this way - when reading the book, I did not imagine Juliette Binoch as Vianne Rocher, Johnny Depp as Roux (who's real name is Michel Roux!), Alfred Molina as Pere Reynaud (which in the movie he is actually mayor and there's another, younger priest), Lena Olin as Josephine Muscat, and Judi Dench as Armande Voizin. They were completely different than they are in the movie. Each character has so much more depth in it than the movie portrayed. And while everything that happens in the movie does happen in the book, one way or another, the timeline in the book is much different, and the end, well, without giving it away, the ending is very different. All in all, once you start to understand that the movie and the book are not the same, and drop the image the movie left you with, the book is very good, very interesting, and one of those can't-put-down books. That's why it took 2 days to read. And the movie is just as good (and not just because my man is in it) in its own way.

I'm going to finish my Vonnegut now, and then the Ferari monk Karin and Tal got me, and get started on Lord of The Rings, just so that I remember the real version. Heh.

And hope for no more scary weird dreams.

Weird, Weird Dreams

2003-12-18T12:10:00.000+02:00

I had the weirdest night ever. I went to bed early (which later on made me realize I'd only been awake for 11 hours....) and then stayed and read for a while longer. Around 1:40am-ish I decided lights out, and then it took me anotehr bit to fall asleep... But I kept waking up for some reason, from some very, very weird dreams.

I remember just the two, but they're weird enough.....
In the first, I'm sitting at my computer here in my room in New York and my mom comes up the stairs and stops right before her bedroom entrance and turns to me. Now my room and her room are not exactly across from each other but from my desk chair you can see into their room, and from their bed you'd be able to look into mine. Anyway, she stops by the door and looks at me and says, "we talked to Yossi today." Yossi is the guy who set me up with that "wonderful" job in the military. (Actually it's one of the best for females in the military, I just didn't really like it.) So I say "what'd he say?" and she says he told them he wasn't planning on putting me where I ended up in my department but in another one. "He said he wanted to put in a department with one Eyal and Ze'ev." And I look at her weird, "that's Sinatra.... Why would he want to put me there?" And she shrugs and goes into her bedroom and I woke up, really freaked out.

Gawd, so weird, considering. Sinatra... Geranium.... Gawd. I realize this means nothing to the NY people, and nothing to anyone who doesn't know the people and the departments, but it was just WEIRD!

As for dream 2.... Gawd in a way, it was weirder. At least NY people will be able to understand why in this one.

We were... somewhere... I can't quite put a definite location, and we were a whole bunch of people. Some of the people we saw LoR with, and Jessica and Tina were there, and Melissa, and Mark and Kim and Sarah and me obviously, and we were hanging out in this room and the TV is on, and we're just screaming and laughing and having a good time and all of a sudden I see something that is about digital animation on TV so I crawl forward and look, this being quite the interesting field for me right now. And somehow Jess is there and she says "seat here" and she climbs off the seat she was in and I don't want to, I'm just fine where I am and I wish the gang would just be a little quieter but I don't expect them to be. And she says "what's so interesting?" and I explain this in 5 words, and she says "oh" and turns around. Next thing I know, she's on her knees behind me and she's rubbing my back, giving me a massage. So I tell her to get away from me. I don't like massages and certainly not from her. And she stops for half a second, and then she starts again, and I ask her to stop again, and then someone comes into my field of vision and I push them away and they just go back to making noise behind me and all that, and she's still behind me and I'm watching and.....

Weird.... Just plain weird.

Any ideas what the hell is going on?

Just For Fun

2003-12-17T20:42:00.000+02:00

So I decided to do a bit of research as to what's going on in people's lives before they come home, so that I don't feel completely out of tune with everyone, when they start telling their tales. I don't really know why I did that, I don't really care, and I'm sure any of them would just enjoy telling everything all over again. Bask in their own light type thing. No problem with that. Make someone feel special a little - ain't nothing wrong with that. But I still went searching for interesting information about lives. So I went to my friends list on my livejournal account (yes I have one of those, I just never use it). After about two sentences I got tired of reading it and realized that I'd much rather feel extremely out of tune and have to ask for explanations than actually read any of it, so I just scrolled through.

And came across this:

Your Years at Hogwarts by nevermindless
Name:
The Sorting Hat places you in:	Gryffindor (Red and Gold)
Subject you are naturally best at:	Arithmancy
Your favorite book:	The Handbook of Hippogriff Psychology
Pet you bring to school:	Crested Owl
You are most known for:	Who your parents were.

Created with quill18's MemeGen!

and fount it very intriguing. It's cute, I think.

So that's that.

In other news, I've been in constant e-mailing touch with Ariel, almost on a daily basis. It replaces our 2 hour long 4am phone conversations. Much cheaper. Anyway, he told me his sister's 10th birthday was yesterday (that kid has a birthday every 3 months, I swear). He told me how he got her two CDs she really wanted and how she wouldn't let him go for five minutes, which is a long time. Afterall, this is your 23 year old brother... He told me his mom organized a birthday party at the local bowling alley for her and her classmates on Friday and that she's forcing him to come too. He wrote to me that he's not going to have anything to do there and that I should come with him. He was of course joking, obviously there's no way I'd ever make it, but it made me wonder. Would he have asked me to tag along as well if I were still home in Israel? Thing is, I would have gone, because I want to meet him sister. We've talked about her so often I feel like I know her. Every time they argue or whatnot (sister/brother arguement in their house is "get out of my room" type thing) he tells me about it, and I always take her side. A younger sisters sisterhood of sorts, I guess. So I'd like to meet her. But... I'm wondering. Would he have asked me to come if it were actually possible for me to come?

And, finally, I finished my project! Yay! The new website is now up and running. It looks much like this one does. Same template and all that, but it's the actual site now. The address is http://is_am_martini.tripod.com, in case anyone's interested. =)

Lord of The Rings - Return of The King

2003-12-17T04:07:00.000+02:00

Saw that tonight with a bunch of Sarah's friends. Was entertaining alright. Unlike the others I was not all into it, but it was fun anyway. It's been so long since I read it, and when I did read it apparently I wasn't paying too much attention, because I had no idea what to expect when everyone else knew what was supposed to happen. But I don't think I've missed anything. Maybe enjoyed it even more because I wasn't comparing it all the time? Who knows. Who cares.

Saw Mark today for the first time in ages. He pointed out to me that this March it'll be exactly 5 years of our first meeting at Sarah's sweet 16. Sarah and 16 don't go together, but anyway. Seeing him again was much simpler than I expected it to. I think we got along pretty well considering our history. Or rather, according to the history that everyone seems to think exist. I don't quite get it. For the record - I never had anything against the guy, I just wasn't very much into what Jessica and Tina and even Amanda were going through, and obviously it affected my perception of people, but I never had anything against him specifically. He ain't done nothing wrong to me. And tonight we got along pretty well, during the movie, before the movie, and after the movie. And meeting some of the people Sarah's been talking about was fun. Now I have a face to connect with the name.

On the drive back, on the Northern State Parkway, I was driving along this one car. It was only the two of us on the road. Anyway, this guy is racing me. He was going like 60mph on the parkway, and that was pretty damn slow so I passed him with my 70mph and returned to the right lane. No more than 10 seconds later, he's passing me with a 75mph. Now I'm sitting in my car, minding my own business, singing along with WBAB or whatever I was listening to. So then he goes back to driving 60mph on the right lane, so I pass him again. So he goes on again. That went on for like 10 minutes, maybe a bit more. So finally he passes me at like 90mph and I'm not going to drive 90mph, so I stay behind on my own lane. So after a bit he got annoyed at me, and slowed down back to like 65mph, expecting me to go and pass him, but instead I put my blinker on and turned off the Northern State. Hehe, now he had no one to play with.

Now I think it's bedtime.

Feeling Better All Around

2003-12-16T14:18:00.000+02:00

It's a pretty cold afternoon in the New York area. And I'm in a great mood. It don't get better than this. Maybe it's the fact that I'm almost done working on my Martini project. Or maybe it's the fact that it's Tuesday and later on today I'm going to see Lord of The Rings 3. Or maybe it's the fact that my puppy Yulia just came back from the petplace after getting a shower, with a pretty Xmas bow around her neck.

Things like that always make me happy. Hehe.

Silliness

2003-12-14T02:32:00.000+02:00

Is it silly of me to blog while I'm here? The few people who read this are pretty much the few people I see if not every day than often enough... I did tell Tal to read on, but she's only home every other weekend and all that. For her sake?
For my own?

Anyway, today we pretty weird. My parents woke me up so damn early (9:3am, it's damn early on a Saturday morning...) and we've just been on our feet all day, pretty much. From Price Club to Sears and Home Depot to Staples to The Pet Shop (food for the dog) to dinner to Sarah's out in Guam (for me) and back home at 1:30am. I'm just dead tired almost. But it was fun. A fun day, over all. And a Depp charge somewhere in the middle of it all. Don Juan DeMarco on TV was wonderful, and I even taped for further use of this wonderful movie.

Then it was all about driving out to SB and seeing Sarah and Kim. I don't actually have a problem with driving half an hour in each direction to see my friends, but it gets tiresome. I'll be happy when everyone comes home. Even the freak-o's of the group (if we can still be called a group, and I'm not quite sure we can...). I know I'd like to see Melissa, and not just because of the presents. Though driving her around won't be all that wonderful either. I want it to be next week, kind of, just because it'll be a better week. I hope. I don't know. I know I just got in and all that, and I knew this week's going to be like this because everyone's still in school and worried about finals and papers and all that. I knew it would be like that, but...

I'm trying to figure out if it was a smart decision to screw my plans with my friends back home in Israel to come here for another week. Should I have stayed back another week, hung out with my friends there and then flew in when everyone was coming home? I missed a "date" with Asaf and Adar at the Marx Spcencer Chocolate Coffee House, and The Go Club party with Ariela, a lunch date with Ariel (whom I hadn't seen since forever and I really miss) and those are just the base people. There was Karin N and Moran and everyone else to go celebrate my freedom from the military with. Should I have waited this week and spent it at home, preparing? Having fun? Spending more of my real free time in months at home with my sister, with my bed, in my apartment, with my friends? Was rushing here the best solution? I knew I wanted to come here already, but... Should I have waited?

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm not having the time of my life. The financial situation is so much better than it was last time I was here, and that's showing already. I changed enough in the past few months that I can actually spend time with my parents without being disgruntled at having to do so. I actually do want to spend time with them this time. I've got the freedom and independence I need, a car to go along with me, friends who like to spend time with me and I like to spend time with them, and plans from here to the wazoo for things to do over the next two months.

But...? Am I missing out on things back home?

I am. I know I am. It was just a matter of what was more important to me in the next two weeks - being home and freezing my ass off yet being with my parents, my dog, my NY friends, or being home, freezing my ass in the Israeli fashion, having a wonderful time with my sister? Going on the "dates" I had planned, and on two actual dates with representatives of the other sex that I knew could happen if I just say yes.

It's too late now to think about 'what if's' though. I don't know why this is bothering me so much at 2:21am.

Anyway, today was great. Even if at one point I did feel a little left out. But it's obvious I would, considering the two are so close and are so often together. It's always like that the first time I hang out with people after coming back from Israel. I'm kind of used to it, if one can get used to something like that. The underline of every conversation throughout the evening was sex and it was a whole lot stronger than it is in our conversations in Israel. I'm thinking 3am Bench Conversations with Asaf, and those are so full of innuendos... But it was nice. A refreshing change. I miss my 3am conversations with Asaf, my dear and loving husband. I miss the sync stories. I should tell the sync stories to Kim. Kim would love them. Sarah, if she's in the mood she was in tonight, would too.

I got Noa a present - the What Not To Wear (Brit version of the show) book, with advice and so on from Trinny and Susannah. That book is going to be adored in our apartment. I'll show it to my mother tomorrow, I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

And last... I passed by my old highschool on the way home (drove west one exit more on the northern state...) just to see how it looks. Last time I saw it at such a late hour was when Tina and I came to sit outside the school in the car, at 3am, just to talk. We drove away half an hour later because some dog barked and we couldn't see where from, and we got paranoid... Go figure. Anyway, it brought back quite a few memories, and this whole evening, for me anyway, was very nostalgic. If it's the banana shape, or the weird finger biting, or whatnot. Very nostalgic. Very weird. I haven't felt this way in quite a while.

Maybe I need to go stare at some Johnny Depp pictures. That can numb your mind real quickly.

By the way, if I'm already on the topic of Johnny Depp - watching a movie with him as the lead is not fun while watching with parents. Not that I didn't enjoy. I did, very much, it's just that if I would have watched it with Maria, I would have had more fun moaning and groaning whenever he opened his mouth to say something.

By the way, my ass hurts real bad from falling off Sarah's bed.
And I said something funny about people and I don't quite remember what it was.

Shit, I think it's time to get my ass into bed.

Good Ole' New York!

2003-12-11T11:56:00.000+02:00

Oooh home. Now I'm excited. Being here is awesome. My room's just wonderful and my parents are awesome and being awake for over 24 wasn't fun but I just couldn't get my ass to bed, I was unpacking. Sarah dropped by to see me around like 22:30 and brought all kinds of fun presents! We were supposed to go out for coffee but I was just too tired. My flight (London - New York) was two and a half hours late. I was in the airport for 4 hours (instead of 2) and in the airplane for another hour and a half. Called my sister who called my parents who called me which was fun. Long distance calls that are going to cost me a fortune. Then Uri called. How sweet. He thought he was gonna catch me when I'm home. When I told him I was in London, in the airplane waiting for liftoff in the direction of New York, he freaked. It was funny.

When I got home (around like 8pm) my mom made supper and oooooh I had fun. Great food that I love a whole lot. I gave them their present, and they liked it, my mom laughed when the little feet on the egg thing started vibrating, it was funny. Then we had coffee and we started watching Law and Order, the family show (all four of us are just addicted to that show, Israel or New York). Then Sarah came and we had fun in my room.... I don't quite know how I had the strength, and I stayed up another hour before she left, unpacking. Hee.

I got to watch Edward Scissorhands in the airplane, for some reason they had a 13 years old movie playing, not that I have a problem with that. At every given scene I was attempting to figure out what scared me when I first saw the movie 13 years ago. I have a few ideas, but it's not a scary movie at all. But seeing it now brings out all the stuff that I didn't know to look at when I was that young, and even later on, when I was 12-13. Before the New York years. Now there are so many things in that movie at are so American that if you don't know how look at them, they mean nothing. The movie doesn't lose anything, the plot is still great, but the small things like the fact that there was no snow so the father installs sheets of fake snow on the roof, add a lot to the plot.

So that was fun to watch.

And that's it. =) Fun stuff.

New York, Here I Come!

2003-12-10T02:58:00.000+02:00

Hey, it's December 10th! Look at that. I'm flying out in 6 hours and 12 minutes.
For some reason I'm not quite as excited as I was last time. Oh, I'm very excited about the concept, and I've been making plans since the day I got back last time. But... Packing and all that usually involved extreme excitement, and, well, this time it's not. Maybe what I told my grandmother - "I've done this too many times, don't worry about my packing" - is true. I've done it at least 6 times just in the past 21 months. And that doesn't include the trip to London, or packing my bag for the base every other week. Or maybe I'm not excited because this time is so close to the last time, that I don't really miss people that much? Well, that's dumb. Of course I do. I miss everyone. Not as much as I would miss everyone if I hadn't seen them for six or more months, but it's a 3 month long period of missing people. It's certainly something.

I don't know. What I do know is that I should probably sleep a few hours tonight. Even if only 2 or 3, it's better than nothing. Especially if I want to be alive for coffee with Sarah tomorrow evening!

Now that's exciting. The plans, the trips, the people - that's exciting. Packing?

Damn, it's about time I stopped getting excited while packing! Excitement should only come when you're already on the plane, and are either landing in London, or (much better) New York.

ha.

I'm shutting off the computer. See you in New York!

Google Bombing

2003-12-08T12:26:00.000+02:00

Got this in an e-mail from my mom. How wonderful! and try it. It works!

Why Yael is a Sissy Girl Who Is Afraid of Scary Movies

2003-12-07T17:53:00.000+02:00

I realized the reason for this today, for the first time ever. I ought to blame Johnny Depp. This is why:

Edward Scissorhands

When I was seven years old, sometime around 1990 when Edward Scissorhands came out in Israel, about three months after it was released in the USA, my mother took my cousin, a year older than me, and myself to see the movie. She warned me there might be scary parts. But I was a big girl now, seven years old. Yeah, right. The beginning was great, I remember laughing a lot and not understanding what they wanted from me. I don't quite remember why the movie was scary to me. I think I was more afraid that Edward would get hurt than the scissorhands. I don't know. I have since seen the movie once or twice. The first time was when it was on TV about 4 years ago, and my friends pracically held me to the couch, good thing they didn't tie me up. Pretty quickly I realized that Edward Scissorhands is pretty much the sweetest movie ever and there's absolutely nothing to worry about.... But... Go figure a seven year old's mind.

But some things never change. Since then I've been afraid of scary movies, even if the star in the movie is Johnny. I can watch scary movies only if I know how they were made, see the breakdown of the scenes and all that. Good thing they have that stuff on DVDs. That was why I watched Sleepy Hollow. (And I was alone, too. Everyone be proud.... now!) That's also why I refuse to watch From Hell. The behind the scenes scared me even more. Go figure. Anyway, my point is that my sister bought me Edward Scissorhands today, for two reasons - obviously my Johnny obsession, and the second was to taunt me (ha!) that I am afraid of my current famous crush totally extremely sexy man. It worked, we laughed for an hour about how stupid I was back then. But what it all comes to is that I own yet another Johnny Depp DVD, and that brings me <------> this much closer to my goal of owning every single movie including his IFC movie, The Brave.

Yes, a stupid goal, but I'm in love. What can I do?

And a final thought. Would watching Edward Scissorhands break me out of this sissy thing, being afraid of scary movies? Is that like coming a full circle?

I do wonder.

In other news - I officially began the Christmas season in Israel today, with this year's first downloads of Christmas songs! Oooh. What reminded me? My mom telling me there's going to be lots and lots of snow, my dad's being sick (same as every year right around Christmas), Let It Snow lin the background when talking to my mom (she was at Macy's), Jingle Bells as someone's ringtone (damn Israelis don't even know what that is) and "Last Christmas" making it to Galgalatz's playlist twice today, and "All I Want For Christmas" once.

Yay for Christmas!!!

I'll Have A Dry Martini

2003-12-06T15:56:00.000+02:00

To go with the new design.

I like this better. It's easier to read. And the website's name is israeli american martini. how sweet!

Hee.

So What?

2003-12-06T14:29:00.000+02:00

So I stole the new name from a blog design I saw and actually quite liked, but I didn't think whoever reads this would like a picture of two girls frenching. Can you see where the 'so what?' fits in? Anyway, I think 'so what?' works out for me. There are so many things that are 'so what?'-like in my life, that so what is just a perfect title. The actual title of the template I used was 'Life's A Balancing Act' and that's where the picture fits in quite well... I just liked it. And I editted it a bit. I was contemplating using this template as well - American Martini and call it Israeli-American Martini. I think it might be easier to read. I should try it.....

Oohh fun!

Damn Blogger

2003-12-06T08:50:00.000+02:00

I wrote this long post about being free and crying a lot on Wednesday morning, and about hating saying goodbye and not doing much since Wednesday, and farewell letters that made people look at me with big puppy eyes and the same expressions.

Blogger ate it. I'm never gonna write it again, you know? I can write about them things, but it's never going to be that post I was perfectly happy with. Damn blogger.....

All About Looking Young, Presents, and Living The City Life

2003-11-21T16:02:00.000+02:00

I went shopping yesterday. I bought a bunch of things that I don't need with a lot of money that I don't have. But that's not what I want to write about.

At the store (Renuar, for anyone who cares) the salesladies were extra nice and all that, complemented me when something looked right, told me what looked wrong or made this look bad or that, and when I didn't like something, they kept saying that I need to like what I buy. That's exactly how salespeople are supposed to be. I have no problem with that. As I was paying, one of them said that I looked young, and I weren't in uniform, she would have thought I was 16-17. I smiled. She (and then another one) said that they mean it as a complement, of course.

Is it really a complement? Aren't we, at the age of 20-21, trying to look older than we really are, or at least our age? Am I, at age 20, supposed to be happy that someone tells me I look young? I understand why you would appreciate it when you're 40-50. But at 20? Aren't I supposed to be looking my age? I'm thankful I was in uniform, and that gave me away. If I would have been wearing any of my other freaky-like, wide-leg, ripped tee-shirts, and so on clothes, they would have thought I was 14.

Yes I realize clothes make you look younger or older. What you wear definitely has an affect on how old you look. Even the uniform has that kind of implication (obviously, I'd be between 18 and 21 if I'm in uniform). But is it just that?

And what would they have said to a 16 year old, trying on the clothes I was going for? Over the past few months I have trying to buy cloths that are more my own age. Clothes that I can wear to work, clothes that are sexier, yet still sport my somewhat freaky style. For the first time ever I put on something that I would otherwise never look at. And to my surprise it looked so well, and I loved it and so I bought it. It's sexy, shows a bit of the cleavage (that I don't really have). Six months ago I wouldn't even have looked at something like that. It's not freaky, it's not wide, it wasn't (WASN'T) cool. It is. Now.

There's a wonderful show on BBC called "What Not To Wear" hosted by two women, Trinny and Susannah, who take a woman, go over her wardrobe, throw out almost everything, then they show her what to wear, what looks good, what brings out cleavage, what makes her look thinner, and basically - what to wear. They don't just put it on her, they explain what works and why, and then they send the woman shopping, helping her pick the right colors, shapes, and so on. One of the women that was their "victim" this week had (kind of) the same type body I have. She was tall, she wasn't fat but she was definitely not thin. She had a tummy, and a big butt, and thighs and all that and her bra size was quite like mine. They showed her what what to wear, what works and what doesn't, they showed the differences between the different clothes. So I "stole" their tips and used them when I went shopping yesterday. Gawd, they were right!!!

Tamar is going to be proud of me.

I know my sister approves of the change.

On a very different note...

12 days to go. That's exactly 12 days since I posted last time. Hehe. I'm preparing everything, getting stuff ready and all that. I bought the shirts for the tee-shirt, I now have to design them and print them and iron them, and I should get started, but I'm buying the materials on Sunday. I guess I should get the other stuff done by then, but the pictures for the notebook are only going to come back from the lab on Monday (hopefully) so that'll be a last moment type thing too. I can finish the calendars I guess. Get them done at Office Depot or something. I also have to buy the keys and ring for Asaf. I have a few presents less to think about because Michal is taking care of them for the both of us. I also decided to give up on one present completely. There are just two presents I can't figure out what to do with....

And all this present-talking reminded me that I went to Carmel Open Market yesterday to buy the tee-shirts for the presents and I bought some food - bread, some meat, cheese, fruit. It was soooooooooooooo great!! Things are so cheap there, absolutely amazing and everything is sooo fresh! I got myself a cup of freshly squeezed orange juice - heaven. So I decided this is the time to start living the real Tel-Avivian life. That means getting down and dirty with the city - shopping at the right places, hanging to the right places. Being a cool Tel-Avivivan person like that.... It's such a dream of mine. Buying fresh groceries at the open market, and sitting at The Pola, one of the city's most popular pubs, clotheshopping at the right places (got that started - Renua'r is one of The best places) . Such a great life to live. I wish I was that type of person. I'm so *not*.

Never was, really.

But, I'm gonna try. That's what counts, isn't it?

24 Days To Go

2003-11-10T08:12:00.000+02:00

But who's counting.

It's been raining like crazy. I've officially turned my wardrobe to winter clothes. Actually, all my clothes are thrown in there together, but I've began wearing warmer, long sleeved clothes. I so adore the winter. Winters both here and in NY are the most amazing things. When my dad tells me that he's driving down Southern State and everything around him is so colorful, I can just see it in my mind's eye (how poetic...) My grandmother says that yesterday about 20ml of rain fell just in T.A. and it started raining here around 8pm. It must be way over that just today.... It rained all night long and it hasn't stopped for more than 5-10 minutes all day long. Except now that sky is blue. I think it just cleared up. But it's still coldish. How lovely (apply horrible british accent here).

Had some fun (not) at the American Consulate today. But...

Started reading Vonnegut's Welcome To The Monkey House last night, after finishing his Jail Bird last week, and giving a break to the Vonnegut streak I've been on with "hippopotamus" by Steven Fry. Both books were pretty good. Hipo was actually a newer type book, it was written in 1992. Steven Fry is an actor, by the way, who decided one day to write a book. It starts out pretty annoying, but it gets much better right after the second chapter. It's one of those books you have to push your way through the beginning and then you just can't put them down. It's about a man. A poet, actually, who hasn't written anything in years. He'd just been fired from his day job (he was a theatrical review type person, and a rude one at that). He's meets his god-daughter (whom he hasn't seen since she was a few days old) bumps into him in a pub and they start talking, and blah blah blah, she tells him she has cancer and asks him to investigate something at Swaford, her aunt and uncle's house. And that's basically the storyline. Now he goes on to the countryside to this place, which is owned by a rich guy who just happens to be Ted's (bad poet dude) friend. And so on and so on and so on. I make it sound much worse than it really is. Really good book. I recommend warmly.

Anyway, Welcome To The Monkey House has been moved around my room so many times these past few months that I figure that best way to actually get some order into that chaos that is my room is actually read the book, enjoy it thoroughly (as I usually do with Vonnegut books) and put it in my bookcase. So I started it last night, and so far I'm quite enjoying it. It's beautifully written, as usual.

I decided to make a CD of great (old-ish) songs. So far I've got Jeff Buckley's hallelujah in, Tom Petty's Into The Great Wide Open (gawd I adore this song), The Verve's The Freshman, Verve Pipe's Bittersweet Symphony, a Jeff Buckley version of Last Kiss, and a few more. We'll see.

I think it started raining again. Yay!!!

Nothing Important...

2003-11-09T08:33:00.000+02:00

... Just my musings.

Watched Once Upon A Time In Mexico on base last weekend. It's still a ridiculous movie. Really pointless, too much bullshit. I don't quite remember if I wrote it here, I know I wrote it in my paper journal. This was Thursday evening. Then, on Friday, we had our Friday Noon BBQ like we do every Friday we're on base. I even woke up early for it, to go and go food shopping with Sapir. Everyone be proud.... now! Anyway, as I was munching on a very tastey piece of bbq chicken in my humus-and-salad filled pita, Roie Ezra sat down next to me. We were both listening to a bunch of others talk about the movie from the previous night and they were all complaining and mostly to me. Why me? Probably because they know how madly crazed I am after Johnny Depp. The other reason is that when it comes down to the base's weekend entertainment, I am considered part of the Techies who set up the movies every weekend and all that. In fact, I have now began brining my own movies. Yes, Mexico was mine. Anyway, they were complaining about the quality of the movie (not much I could do about that, not my fault the movies we download are movies that someone shot in a movie theatre). They were complaining about the way too much noise that we were making while making jokes and throwing popcorn at the screen (which someone cleaned up the next day... And again, not much I can do about it the next day, not to mention half the people who were complaining were helping us out by throwing their own jokes in. Ungrateful bastards.) And lastly, they were making fun of how long it took us to set up the movie (fuck them, really. They don't want to wait, it's their problem.)

So I was sitting quietly, eating away, thinking about the next pita I'm going to eat, this one the chicken will be honey-mustard marinated. A little bit of salad, a little bit of humus, my diet coke on the side. I was beginning to zone everyone out because I was sick and tired of hearing them complain so much (they were now complaining about the actual movie and how bad it was and that it lacked a plot, which is very true) when Ezra looks at me and says, quite loudly may I say, "Yael that movie was so bad, I can't even believe *you* liked it!" I guess I should explain at this point that while I watch every movie possible (yes, even horror flicks, having 20 other people around you really helps!), the few people who know me well know that I appreciate the better films (O Brother, Dogma, Adaptation, etc) much more than stupid flicks like Mexico. I should also point out that Ezra is *not* one of my closest friends.

This being a direct question to me, I couldn't just ignore it. Nor did I want to. I just smiled and said, "There are two reasons to watch that movie and plot is *not* one of them!!!"

Now that shut them up. There wasn't another word heard about that movie for the rest of the meal, and I didn't hear anyone complain about the movie all weekend.

Now I think they figured the two reasons to watch the movie was Antonio Banderas and Johnny Depp. They got one out of two right. As much as I like Banderas, and as hot and everything as he has, and as much as I wouldn't refuse doing him a favor, I didn't quite mean him. I meant the soundtrack - the guitars, the Spanish songs... It was beautiful. But if they want to think I meant the two very sexy man indeed, they can go right ahead.

What I was really trying to get is that we watched Mexico last weekend. That's really what I was trying to get to. As I watched the movie, Agent Sans (Depp) said something that I missed the first time I saw the movie. It sounded like s'okay or something to that extent and that worked in the dialog. Only that the second time we watched the movie, I got what he said. And the word was "Savvy". So I turned to Elie, sitting next to me, and said, quite excitedly, "did he just say Savvy?" And Elie nodded and went on watching. If I didn't hold it back, I would have giggled. For that single second, Johnny Depp looked so Captain Jack Sparrow-ish to me, I could see the hair, the makeup, the dreadlocks, everything that was Captain Jack Sparrow. And for that single second, Jack Sparrow said "savvy". It made me think of Sarah, of the last time I was in New York. Of watching Pirates 3 times, of wearing my dad's ugly ass green hat, or the black hat I bought in Heathrow, London. It made me think of how little I have left and how soon I'll be back home, at least for a bit. It made me think of how crazy I am, of the stupid crush on my pretty boy and how my friends back in NY don't really mind how stupid I get to be when I see a picture of him, and how different it is here in Israel, especially on base. Of how here, in Israel, they just roll their eyes at me and give me pitting looks and then go on with everything else.

I think I miss New York. A lot.

25 days and counting.

Good Morning World!

2003-11-07T18:36:00.000+02:00

I was going to blog last night and then title would have been I'm So Tired, I Could Eat A Horse. Good thing I didn't blog last night, right?

Anyway, life's good. So far. Had a really rough 10 days on base, they seemed to last forever. Not for any specific reason, they were just long. My need to be out of there for forever is growing by the minute. The only good thing I've got going for me is that time, however it may seem, is always going on. I guess counting the day isn't such a great idea after all, considering how long each day is. But what I do know is that I have 26 days in general, 10 days at home still, and 16 days left on base, including release day, which isn't quite on base. But that doesn't matter.

As for presents, well, I've got most of them figured out and most of them are hand made as well. Oh yeah, Yael will prove she has some kind of an artistic side! Or rather, I'll prove my computer design skills aren't that bad. I don't quite have it all figured out detail by detail, but I've got the main idea and things will fall into place as I get going on working on this. I hope. I've got quite a bunch of presents to think about, and unlike the rest of the world, I'm going to make things that the people I'm giving presents to are going to like and not just smile and nod and give a fake "thanks". My friends are going to be jumping all over the place and are going to be really excited when I get through with them. These are just a bunch of the ideas:

1. Room 14 - the girls - a calendar for 2004 made of printed out calendars that I will design myself and make all pretty, with pictures of hot guys, cut out from the papers, for each month. The only famous face on that calendar will be Johnny Depp, whose pictures will be in October, as a slight reminder of me.

2. Karin - my very wonderful, 'let's cry together, we're almost out of here' friend - after I'm out of there, she'll have a month left, so I'm making her a pull-out kind of calendar, where you pull out each day. How to decorate each day? Don't quite know yet. Maybe write down a few encouraging words. Or maybe a few words that will remind her of our many funny conversations or whatnot. When the days will be over, she will left with the actual paper holder which she will be able to use later.

3. Room 7 - My Wonderful room which I love so much - They were going to be 2. They are now 3 (one I don't quite know yet, she moved in last week and I don't quite see her much, considering I'm never there and neither is she), and the fourth is Hillit whom we don't quite know if she's coming back yet or not. Their being 4 is making life harder for me. For my too girls - Shirley and Morli - I was going to make coffee mugs with our pictures on them for each one. IF Hillit came back, I'd make a 3rd one, because she's from my department and I know her well. But Anat, the new girl, well... I don't quite know her but she's in the room as well, I can't just ignore her presence. I guess I'll have to figure out something else?

4. The Techies - my 2nd home on base - they always go about "Techini Empire" and all that, so I figured I'd make them shirts that say just that on the logo in the front with a funny picture in the back. There are 8 of them and two officers, so it'll take work and money, but I figure I can do it. If not.... I'm in deep shit.

5. Uri - my department's all-time Kid - same present as room 14, except with girls. And no Johnny Depp in October.

6. Last but not least - Geranium - my wonderful department! - We have a department notebook where we write down what happened in each shift (if anything happened at all). They're usually ugly brown-covered notebooks that we get out of the base's small accessories room. They're ugly. We also have a picture of Geranium 2002 hanging on the wall. It features pictures of Dror, the Ma'ayans and the Michals that were part of the department before our time, Katy, Matan, Shimon, and a single nice picture of us. The new generation of Geraniumers (Lina, Sivan, Shelley, Uri and Hillit) do not know any of these people with the exception of Matan (who was their first commander and we see every so often ad HQ) Dror (whom they met when Mr. I've-Got-It-All decided to visit) and Shimon (whom they met when we visited the base he's now in). So I figured a nice present would be a Geranium 2003 picture, including all of us. But then we would have to take down the Geranium 2002 picture and it's history... So I decided to combine the notebook and the picture. I'm going to buy a small cheap binder, cover it with pictures, wrap a tight see-through cover on it so it doesn't get ruined, fill it with tons of paper, and give it to them. They'll always be able to refill it, and they'll have it forever (or until it gets wet and they throw it out, but I don't have to know about it). Now how's that for creative?

Hee. I'm so happy. I'm actually going to get started on this soon.

In other news... A few days ago Galgalatz, My all time wonderful radio station to which I listen to when I'm in New York as well, played a wonderful song that for the first time ever I actually noticed the words instead of just singing them. The song was Free As A Bird by The Beatles. These are the words:

Free As A Bird/The Beatles

Free As A Bird,
It's the next best thing to be free as a bird.
Home , home and dry
Like a homing bird I fly, as a bird on wings
Whatever happened to the life that we once knew
Can we really live without each other
Where did we lose the touch
That seemed to mean so much
It always made me feel so
Free as a bird ,
It's the next best thing to be free as a bird .
Home home and dry
Like a homing bird I fly--a bird on wing
Whatever happened to the life that we once knew
Always made me feel soooo
Free
Free as a bird
It's the next best thing to be
Free as a bird
Free as a bird
Free as a bird

As I'm starting my next scrapbook (ran out of pages in the other one), I figure it's a great farewell song from everything I am living right now - military, base, departments, weekends away from home, chores, and work I hate. It'll be going into my book. I'm also considering printing it out on special paper and hanging it in my department. Or maybe putting it as the first piece of paper in the binder. Hmmm.....

Hee.

And in other news still! I met with two schools yesterday about my soon to be education. One is Berlitz School of Languages. Very impressed by them. They want a lot of money, but in six months I'll be speaking fluent Spanish. How's that for you. I made my sister go to an open day they had last night. She didn't want to go, she said she thinks we're only doing it to cover our asses, that it's all bullshit probably. She came out speaking 3 whole sentences in Spanish (not much, I know, but still, neither one of us knows Spanish), and she was impressed to death, saying that if she had the time or money, she'd do it too. I was happy.

The other school is E.P.S College for computers - design, digital media and all that. I was very impressed by them, they teach everything I want to know. However, they are overly expensive and their classes are only 4 hours a week. Paying 26,662 shekels per course (20 months) for only 4 hours a week is a lot of money that I don't really have... They give out a computer, a digital camera and a scanner to help their students, but... 26,662. It's a lot of money for something I don't quite know what I'm going to do with.

Grrrrrr. That's all I have to say.

Now that I ruined my own good mood, I'm going to pick pictures to print so that I can start working on presents.

Calm Waters

2003-10-25T08:54:00.000+02:00

I think today is the first time my sister and I are actually acting like roommates. Before it was sister-like, we go shopping, we joke around, we talk, we take out movies together, we're together. And today is just about being around the house and not being in each other's way. In the good sense of that sentence. We're each to our own. When I woke up, she was reading the paper at the kitchen table. A casual hello and the water's still hot if you want coffee, but back to the paper. As for me, I just went and took a shower. Coffee after. When I got out of the shower she was by her desk, studying. Me? I made coffee and sat down with the paper at the table. (After contemplating for a long time whether I'd like to read in bed or at the table). Only when I decided I'm going to get started on laundry I asked her if she wants to put anything in. Now I'm going to get started on cleaning my room a bit, putting the CDs in the new stand she gave me. I want to hang pictures and maybe change the room a bit. What I'm getting at is that she's going to be doing her homework and work all day and I'm going to be doing whatever, and we're acting like roommates and not sisters and that's really cool for me.

Now a small update on the decisions - I've made none! I'm really leaning towards the computer animation course but I want to check into language courses - if they can count as credits at the University of Tel Aviv. If they do it would be cool. I can manage the animation course and the language course at the same time. What I'm worried about is starting out in the U. next fall and having far too much on my hands thus not managing the animation, language, and U work. I don't want to overdo anything like I did in highschool with computer science. That didn't get me anywhere. And I want to do well in all these things so doing too much won't be good for anyone. I'll check into the language courses, see how long they are. If I can get them in before September 2004, it would be fine. At least the level 1 of each of them. If not, I'll have to reconsider. If they are credited at the U, I'll keep on going. Plus, the animation course is seven months long. If I start in February it would go on until August and that would be awesome because U starts in September. So it won't be too much of a workload. On the other hand if I stick around New York till February and then start the course in March, it would go on until September when the workload isn't that bad yet, considering the year just started. But I don't know that I want to stick around New York for that long. I have to call up the animation place and ask about the courses and when they start and all that.

What I do know is that either way, I won't be home (New York) in the summer which is kind of sad but not that horrible.

And I also know that Israel might finally be getting the feeling of home that it didn't have until now. Just thinking about all this is making me excited about staying here. But that's a whole different post.

I can't wait till tomorrow to go and ask all my 500 questions!

Decisions Decisions Decisions

2003-10-23T19:25:00.000+02:00

On the weight of Marsha, Marsha, Marhsa

I know, I post a lot about this and there hasn't been much of a change, but.... This is really getting to me.
I spent most of Wednesday at a Universities/Study Show in Tel Aviv (10 minute walk from home). There wasn't much to learn there that I didn't already know because I'd been to the week long workshop and the show was sponsored by the same people, but still, I got a few ideas there.

For one, I saw the bartending courses, and they looked uberly cool.

But even cooler was a computer animation course. It's seven months long, two meetings a week, in the evening. I forgot to ask how much it costs, but that won't matter much. Military payback pays that. I signed up to have more info mailed to me, and on Sunday I'm going to give them a call.

Which reminds me.

On Sunday I'm going to the Military Department Supporting Ex-Soldiers. They support, counsel and help people who served in the military up to five years after their discharge. I have quite a questions to ask them, and I want all the info I can get. I want to ask them all about the university and pre-courses and pre-university requirements and all that. When I leave their place I wanna be able to answer all my questions. When I leave their offices, I want to be able to just sit at home, and figure out what I want to do between December 2003 and September 2004. And I want to mail my dad the date for my flight to New York and basically how long I want to stay.

I'm going to call up the Adventure Publishing people and ask them what I get when I finish the course and if this is considered an academic course that I can count for one of my university classes.

This is definitely a direction I could go into, and their presentation was so awesome, it was cool. They told me they work with the latest computer programs, Photoshop and Aftereffects and all that. And now this works just beautifully with my new computer, considering it's all about video and audio. Oh, sooooo cool. I'm excited.

I'm definitely thinking this is the direction I want to go into at this point in time. It's cool. And I can do the bartending course whoever I want. If this computer animation thing can provide me with work while I'm a student and all that, it'd be uberly cool. I still have 300 questions to ask them before I make the final decision but this sounds cool. I still want to know dates, so I can figure out the flight thing. And I wanna know prices. And locations. And computer knowledge (doubt I'll have a problem there...) and what I get from it, to what extent they can help with work, and how does it fit in with my communications studies at the University.

So many questions I never thought I'd be asking anyone. But that's a whole new topic I don't wanna get into again....

I'm pumped with adrenaline. Hehehe.

In other news, I'm seeing Ariel on Sunday, we're lunching (I think that's what we decided) because he's in T.A. for his math school thing. So we're meeting and all that, lots to catch up on. Dror came by to visit us on base on Tuesday. I'm starting to wonder why I ever liked him. He's a pig. He's full of himself and acts like moron. He faked not knowing people who he used to serve with for three years and it really pissed me off. He attempted to understand the situation in the department and to get info about things he can no longer be part of and we're not allowed to talk about. He assumed he would be welcomed into everything - departments and all that, and he wasn't which was ultimately annoying to him. And he tried to make me feel better about my service by telling the others that they should have fun and not worry about their service and do the best they can. Good thing I was too tired to answer him because I would have.

Tal and I made plans for the weekend, we want to do a movies-day somewhere. I hope we can do it tomorrow. We had a really long conversation last night about things, we both complained a lot and I practically yelled at her that if she won't keep in touch after I leave the base, I'm going to go up there and kick her ass. She said I have nothing to worry about, I'm pretty much her best friend. We talked a lot about future plans and all that. She complained to me about Yana, her friend from home, who is acting like a 16 year old and is pissing her off. We figure some people don't mature in the military. I told her I know how she feels, considering there are quite a few people I no longer have anything in common with in the US.

Tomorrow evening we're going to my grandmother's for dinner, with Nitsan and everyone. He asked me to bring the guitar over and that made me think that I need to start playing it soon, practice the little that I do know. On Sunday we're going to a restaurant to celebrate my 20th birthday. Nitsan and Tamar, Noa, my grandmother and step grandfather and me. Should be cool.

Gali left the department yesterday and I don't quite know how things are going to be now, but considering I have about 40 days left, I don't really care. Gali's leaving isn't much of interest to me. I tried ending things on the best note after everything we'd been through but she just shut me out so I'm not going to mind it too much.

That's pretty much it for the last 10 days. And I need to sleep. Bad.

It's My Birthday and I'll Cry If I Want To?

2003-10-16T21:06:00.000+02:00

So I'm 20. So what? Does that mean I can't act all childish and all that?
What does 20 mean, really? It's just an age. The only thing it means so far is that I get a big birthday present because it's a pretty round number that makes the difference between stupid teens and "adult" twenties. But does it really mean anything else? No, not really. It doesn't change the fact that I'm still me. Does it?

And why is it bothering me so much?

It's not. Not really. It's just a conversation we got into at 2am last night. Must have been real bored. I kept telling whoever was sitting around with me that it doesn't make much of a difference. Tamar, two weeks older than me, agreed. Lina, Sivan and Maya argued that we are now older, that it makes a difference. All three are still 19. Lina will be 20 next January. She says she's afraid of it, but why should she be?

When it comes down to difference, the only big one for us is that on this particular evening, sitting outside on a cup of coffee and junk food, like we do every night, is dedicated to you, and you're given a symbolic present. That's the major difference between this night and any other night. (Passover song?) That really is the only major difference. And today it's you that the evening is supposedly for and tomorrow it's for someone else.

But why get so troubled about it?

Gali told me, around 8pm, "we'll celebrated for you at 10". Made me kind of think that we're forcing everyone to come together at 10 PM when everyone still has something to do. We'll get to it, don't worry about it. By midnight we're all going to be sitting around that table outside the girls' southern dorm building and we'll all eat and drink and "celebrate". I didn't say anything to her, I just nodded. I didn't even try to convince her that we don't have to do anything to make it happen, because I know her. In the year and a half that we've been on that base, she's never come to sit with us outside the girls' dorms just for fun. Never. Only times she would sit with us is when we're celebrating a birthday. I know her. She has to have everything figured out on schedule. Between 10 and 10:30 we're celebrating for Yael. 10:30 to 11 - working. 11 to 11:30 - getting ready for bed, and so on. Reminds me quite a lot of "About A Boy" where the main character, who's name I don't quite remember at the moment, explained how each day is divided into units, each unit consisting of 30 minutes. He might spend 4 units watching TV, and another 6 at the gym. Life must be really boring that way. But that's how Gali is. And yes, at exactly 10:30 she said she had work to do and left us.

And that's why I didn't say anything.

And they gave me the very obvious "we didn't know what to get you so we got you this" present - a pair of fluffy purple sleepers that have the word "LOVE" printed on them in slightly darker shade of shiny purple, and little purple hearts all over the thing (makes me wonder if they even know me), and a desk-sign type thing where you put your name, like Doctors have a sign saying Dr. M. Whatever. Except mine is green and has an adorable cow on top. Again. Do they even know me? Cows? I collect ducks. You all know this. Most of you have even seen the damn duck collection. It's pretty obvious who bought the actual present - Michal. She knows me not. Not at all, even. We've never been anywhere what should be called friends. We didn't even come close to that. Which makes me wonder why the hell they let her buy the present. There are others, at least 4 that I can think of off the top of my head, that know me that much better. Shelley. Sivan. Morli. Maya. Even Gali. And what am I ever going to do with a desk-sign with my name? Put it on my desk at home so that when I'm studying I'll remember my own name? I'll give it to my sister, she has a desk at work, and she collects cows. It works quite well for her. It's not like I'll miss it or anything.

But... They tried. Which is nice.

Tamar, on the other hand, got it in one. She bought me a simple necklace, heart shaped, which kind of got to me, because we all know I hate hearts or anything too girly (fluffy purple, shiny love lettered, hearts aligned slippers included). But when looking well at the damn necklace I noticed that inside was a cutout the shape of the Playboy Bunny. Obviously not something I would ever wear, but definitely something that works, the Playboy Bunny and Playboy in general being an old conversation that Tamar and I pick up when we're overly bored. Happens a lot, let me tell you. She knows I'll never wear it, my opinion of Playboy being what it is, but she also knows that this kind of thing would work for me - a reminder of good times, good conversation and good friends.

Isn't that the meaning of a present?

Since when are presents a must for a birthday? Oh yeah, when you're a kid the only reason you want to have a birthday party is because everyone gives you a present. When you're a highschool kid the only reason you have a birthday party is because everyone else did too, but you have no idea what you're going to buy the others so you expect them to buy you, well, a candle, or a piece of ugly jewelry. But now, when I'm old enough (hey, 20...) to realize that I don't need another lavender smelling candle, or another stuffed animal (even if it's a duck) and another angel shaped statuette thing. What am I supposed to do with this stuff? Can I just throw it all out? No, of course not. It's supposed to be special, just for me. Isn't it? I'm supposed to make a big fuss about how wonderful the candle smells, and oh, right it's lavender, I knew I recognized it! And Oh! That angel, she's so adorable and the wings move! And oh-my-god! Look, it's a duck! Stuffed animal! Aww how adorable! When in fact, all I want to do is say "well, that's crap, what the hell? Don't you know me better?"

The only really great present I got for my birthday was the few pieces of candy that Moran brought along with the stuffed duck. That's the right idea. And how about just showing up at the party, having a good time, laughing around with the host? Isn't that what it's really all about? I'm going to remember this party as my birthday so much better than the angel statue thing, and the stuffed animal and the slippers.

But what it comes down to is that they tried, and I can't ask for more than that.

All About Thursday Eve

2003-10-11T19:53:00.000+02:00

Oh. My.
In the 19 years and 363 days that I've lived so far, I have never had such a great time throwing a party. Never had I had such a wonderful time at one of my own parties. I always had to take care that there's enough of this, or that everyone's having fun, and that everything is alright.... Not this time. I made sure there's enough of everything before everyone arrived. After that... It was up to everyone else, and I gave them free reign of everything. One thing's for sure. The alcohol in my bloodstream definitely gave me the feeling of freedom - freedom from becoming obsessive about everything. My friends did whatever they wanted around the apartment, within the limits I set for them before they arrived. I closed off my sister's room, and her little office, and they stayed out. Otherwise... They were all over the place. When the junk food ran out, they managed to find the rest of it in one of the drawers in the kitchen, find the plates, and reorganize everything. When they decided they wanted the food in the den, they took it to the den, and I have nothing to do with it. I could sit back and relax.

Not that I did. I was all over the place, joking with this person, talking with that, moving from here to there, drinking whatever it was that whoever it was handed me whenever I asked, and enjoying myself entirely.

Unlike the party Sarah described in her blog, no one was puke-drunk which is nice, considering the amount of alcohol that was around. We drank 5 liters of beer, 4 bottles of vodka, 2 bottles of tequila, a whole bottle of pina-colada, a whole bottle of Irish coffee liquor, a bottle of kale, several Smirnoff Ice and Bacardi Breezers and who knows what else, but no one was puke-sick. The only one who was anywhere near that stage was Maria and she fell asleep on my bed way early in the evening. Poor kid. Russian she may be, but she cannot stomach alcohol for the life of her!

And yes, I definitely drank too much. I was laughing at just about everything that went on, and knowing me as well as most of you who read this do, you know I usually laugh at just about everything anyway. I guess you have to know to how to drink. How to behave, how much of what to drink and in what rate. It took us 25 people and 6 hours to drink everything we drank and I still have so much of it left. And the thing about parties like that is that it's not about the drinking, it's about the socializing. You don't drink in order to be social, you drink because... Well... You drink because you like to, and if you don't like to, well that's great too! Socializing happens anyway.

The only thing I was slightly worried about was mixing my home friends with my base friends. I didn't quite know how well that would go over.

Well it was great. I had absolutely nothing to worry about. Karin says they're all great people, and that she's happy she now has an idea who I'm talking about when I say Elie or Mani or Ariel or Tal or Shelley or Sivan, or whoever else was at that party. Moran said they're awesome people. Tal said my friends are funny. Ariel said that although he didn't quite get to talk to them, they seemed cool, and that it would be cool to see them again. Raphael didn't quite see most of them as he left early.

Now the only strange thing was Sagi. He actually came. That was one surprising factor in the party. He called up to see when and all that, but he said he might not make it. And he did which made me kind of happy, a little weirded out considering I didn't see him, nor did I speak to him in over 9 months. But he came and he was cute and everything. I should give him a call or something.... Anyway, for the first time since I met him he didn't wear 40 year old man's clothes. He usually wears black Dockers and a matching button-down shirt, and a pair of dress black shoes.... 40 year old man's clothes. But he came wearing a red tee-shirt and jeans, and by god, he looked young and he looked good.

I definitely should give him a call.... hmm... Moran would laugh at me. She's always said he's got a thing for me. And considering he came to the party, I can see that. I'll talk to Moran, she what she has to offer.....

And that's pretty much it.

I had a wonderful time and I can definitely see myself throwing another party at one point in my life.

Even cleaning up after the event wasn't horrible. I mean, yes, it sucked washing the floor because it was sticky from spilled stuff, and yes, it sucked picking up plastic cups of alcohol that were thrown around but all in all it wasn't horrible. It took me 2 and a half hours which is not much considering I was being really slow and half the time dancing around because I put really good music on.

And the boys, Elie, Mani, Ariel - they're good boys. They're pretty much the only ones who helped clean up. Yes, they were the last ones to leave, but still. I love them boys.

So yes, I'm still with a smile on my lips 48 hours after the party.

No actual title...

2003-09-29T03:52:00.000+03:00

Watched Once Upon A Time In Mexico last night on my computer. Didn't get enough sleep because of that. Was surprised though, by several things. Like Enrique Iglesias actually playing a part in the movie and not even singing the theme song (not that they had one). Considering this wasn't much of an acting film he did quite well. Banderas was as usual, the dark mysterious sexy guy that he is. And Johnny... I don't even know where to begin. The guy is so sexy, so amazing. Like the reviews I'd read said,

"If your movie's foundering, give it a Depp charge."
- Geoff Pevre, Toronto Star.

So true. The movie, in itself, kind of sucked. Lots of guitars, making it an uberly sexy movie, lots guns, making it uberly cool, but ultimately, it took them Johnny Depp to actually hold me captive. And Selma Hayek... That girl can sing! Depp's character, Sans, was so adorable. He had the edgy CIA agent harshness to him, but he was funny, his comments perfectly suiting, and leather, as usual in sexy men I already have a crush on, was wonderful. Of course, the leather part didn't come until the end. Johnny wearing a "I'm with stupid" with an arrow pointing down shirt was funny. Absolutely wonderfully funny.

And then there's the hair... I'm not even going there. And the hats... He changes hats about 6 times through the movie, and each time he looks good. I tried to figure out the tourist hat, one of those colorful, ugly hats only tourists buy. He had one of them on for one of the scenes. I bet that was his idea, to bring in that hat. And Johnny with lots of blood coming out of his eye-holes (can't say eyes, he didn't quite have them)... Even blind he was funny. So, so damn sexy.

Alright, I'll stop.

As for other things... I'm going back to the shithole in a few, going to the mall first, need money and the machines by here didn't quite work last night. I'm meeting Tamar there and we're catching the train to Akko together, yet another fun ride with her. Last time was fun, kinda. I'm considering taking Hitchheiker's with me. I got American Gods with me as it is, and Hitchheiker's is huge, but I really wanna. I bet I can loan it to 300 people, too. Even if it's in English. I need to get back to reading in Hebrew again. I've got one book but it's kinda boring, I'll probably drop it. Anyway, time to catch the bus.

See ya in 10 days, when I have to get ready for the party.

Sexy-ishness

2003-09-27T22:50:00.000+03:00

I downloaded Once Upon A Time In Mexico to my computer. It's an okay version, something I can definetly watch, and the fact that Johnny is practically the first thing you see is even better, but, by god, the guitars..... This being Mexico, the guitars rule. The movie pretty much revolves around a guitar as it (from what I saw from the 10 minutes I actually watched) serves as a gun.

That's so sexy.

And then it hit me. This is why I like Chocolat so much. This is why Mexico is going to be a wonderful movie for me, even though the reviews said it sucked. Yes, of course, Johnny Depp, that's obvious. But in both movies there are guitars, and a Spanish tune, and sexy men playing guitars.

A man playing a guitar, especially a Spanish tune, is just one of the sexiest things in the world, for me. So damn sexy. It's my dream to learn to play like that. So damn sexy.

I'm gonna sleep well tonight.

I should probably get to bed before dawn.... It's 6am. hehe.

Complete Lack of Sleep, Great Quotes, and Humanity

2003-09-22T13:54:00.000+03:00

Okay, I'll start with that first one.
Complete lack of sleep...
... Due to too much movie watching. Yes. It can happen. That's what happened on Friday night! I had the evening shift, which was over at 10pm. And the morning shift on Saturday (means I have to be up by 7:50am). We started watching movies around midnight on Friday. The last movie was over around 7:30AM. I didn't sleep between 7:30 and 7:50. I didn't get any sleep until around 10am, and then I got an hour. And an hour later I got half an hour... At 4pm when the shift was over, I led myself to bed, but there were cool people in my room, so I put on my pjs and we just hung around the room drinking coffee and being awfully creative - making bracelets and drawing things and hanging pictures (that would be me, hanging Johnny pictures on my wall...) So I only got an hour and a half of sleep before dinnertime, when Morli and Tamar decided they were going to go do some workout. Tamar woke me up half an hour before dinner and I showered and everything, but I swear, I almost fell asleep in the shower...

So you'd expect me to actually take that as a hint and not stay up late, actually get some real sleep between Saturday and Sunday (had an evening shift on Sunday.) You would expect that from a smart person. I'm a blonde, you dorks. After watching Chocolat with Maria (was over around midnight) for the umpth time, I told her I was going to bed. But as I walked to my room, I saw a whole bunch of people sitting outside and having the time of their lives laughing and such. And these people being my friends, I couldn't just pass on that! So I got to bed around 2am. But Tamar wasn't on base. Steve picked her up from the base and they went out to a pub (no, it's not legal and she's not supposta leave the base... Who gives a damn?) So I couldn't fall asleep until I saw that she came back without a scratch on her, and without getting caught. She came in around 4am and we talked for half an hour. Even after she left, I couldn't sleep. I fell asleep after listening to the Chocolat soundtrack (god, I just love Caravan, the final track... So beautiful. So sexy.... And no, it has nothing to do with Johnny playing the guitar part.... It's just beautiful) twice. Fell asleep around 6am.

And on Sunday I was up by 11am because I had to clean the room. Gahh. I got an hour's worth of a nap (not actual sleep, damnit!) before my shift at 3pm... Now, for not getting enough sleep last night, I blame Sarah. =) Which leads me to...

Great Quotes
I called Sarah and she was actually not doing anything (wow) so we talked for wayyyyy too long and my cell phone Bill's going to be very happy.... Along that conversation which had me cracking up for most of it, and had people looking at me weird and then trying to imitate my accent, there were some really good quotes, like "I'm happy. Yay for happy." We had been talking about the fact that I've got two months left to serve, 4 Saturdays left to "close" on base, and 2 and a half months before I'm back in New York. Yay for happy. Absolutely. Then I attempted to tell her a story about something Maria said when we watched Chocolat, and it sounded really stupid in English, which led to "It was funny in Hebrew!" which still makes me crack up.

When I hung up with Sarah, Kati, Gilad and Shay attempted to say 6-ish and 5-ish and they couldn't get it right... How can you not get that right? Come on, we're not *that* dumb!!! Or mebbe we are....

But at least we've got some...

Humanity

Everyone on base knows my parents are not in Israel and that I live alone. Everyone also knows that Rosh Ha'shana is coming up and that that holiday is very much a family holiday. Every family has a dinner thing going on... Eight (8!) different people asked me if I have a place to spend the holiday evening, and in case I don't, I'm quite welcome to their houses. I declined to all, I'm going to my grandmother's, but I think it's very nice of everyone to ask. I really do. It's awfully thoughtfull. It made my day, though sleep lacking, a very nice one.

In other news - I'm now the proud owner of a Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack + bonus track. I made the cd myself. So I can listen to that, as well, and not just Chocolat, though I love Chocolat very much.

I've been reconsidering the tattoo thing, though I think the guitar idea should be pretty... A guitar with a pirate's hat, a gun and sword. I have been way too influenced by this latest obsession....

My new story is coming along great, I've done lots of editing over the weekend, changed many things, added whole parts. I'm so proud of it. And it's not even Trek-related.

It's Roux related, however.....

hehehehehehehehehehehee.

I can be so dumb....

Squeaky Doors

2003-09-13T18:28:00.000+03:00

Watched Chocolat again today. With my sister and her friend, Maya, who just happened to walk in about 10 minutes after I woke up. Of course, there was no chocolate in the house, we ate it all. My sister mentioend that we need to eat the nectarines real soon, so I joked that since we have no chocolate, every time they eat chocolate, I'll just have a leaf of lettuce, or a tomato or something silly like that.

All three of us were all over the place when my dearest Johnny Depp says my favorite line from the movie:

"I'll come around sometime to get that squeak out of your door."

How can you not melt? Noa, my sister, said she's just about ready to have a whole lettuce and 5 tomatoes (which she hates). That guy is just...

Anyway, last night was fun. We went clubbing at Shfayim, one of the best clubs in our area, which we all love. Raphael had just broken up with his girlfriend of 2 (whole) months, and needed to be cheered up, so we took him dancing. He picked me up from my place, and we drove to his house to drop off his car. Lior drove the five of us (Raph, me, himself, Karin N., and Moran) to the club.

On the way to Raph's place, he apologized for three things: for being in a shitty mood, for going to be getting really drunk, and for not remembering where I lived. I laughed, and told him that, one, he's allowed to be in a shitty mood, I understand. Two, I'm not planning on staying too sober too long either, it's been a while since I drank anything (being in New York and all), and third, no one ever remembers where I live as it is.

I told him about the birthday bash, and he was surprised to learn that I live alone (or with my sister, but basically alone) and that my parents are in the US, and that I lived there for a while. I had no idea he didn't know. I realize we're not the closest of friends, and that we've only met a few times, but we've talked a lot and all that, that I thought.... So he said he'll be happy to come to the party. And when he figured out that I lived in New York for five years and my parents still live there, and that I'd just come back from there, he put 1 plus 1 plus 1, came to 111 and realized I speak English fairly well.

Now, there's something you've got to understand about Raph - he's Israeli, but he, along with his twin sister Daniella, and older brother (I don't even know his name...) and their parents, lived in Britian for a long while, and their father still travels around a lot. So his English is just as good as mine, if not better.

And that made my night oh so interesting!!! We spoke to everyone else in Hebrew, but among ourselves we spoke in English, both already knowing that it's easier for the both of us to speak English! It felt great, speaking English with an actual English speaker!

All through the night, and I got home at 5am, (and went to bed at 6), Moran kept telling me that she dislikes Raph, thinks he is trying to be a show-off, and that he's gay. I disagreed, of course. He's none of these. He's Raph. He's got his own sense of style, his own dance style, and a very different (but very good) personality than you'd expect of the typical Israeli 21 year old. After about an hour, she pulled me back outside to the fresh air and told me she thinks we look good together. I had to remind her he had just broken things off with his girlfriend the previous day. She acted like she didn't know, though Karin told me she told her. I hate when she does that.

Anyway, today, Karin called me, asked how everything was last night, if I had fun, and we got to talking about Moran, and how she dislikes Raph, and how stupid that is. Her reason for disliking him is that on Independence Day, he offered that we stay at his house (and he lives in Kfar Shemaryahu - the equivalent of the Hamptons, here), instead of going out. Then, when we finally decided to go out, she got annoyed with us for not wanting to spend 100 shekels for a silly party. And she got especially pissed at him for not wanting to spend the money, obviously being rich enough to be able to pay for us all.
I actually like that about Raph, he doesn't flaunt the fact that's wealthy, and he doesn't run around spending money for no reason, be it a party or a pair of jeans. I like that he lives well, and has this and that, and a huge tv screen, and a parking spot for his own car, but that's living well. That's stuff he's used to since he was a kid. It's stuff that he's grown up with, just like I grew up knowing that every two years I'm getting a new computer. But he won't go out and spend 400 shekels on a pair of jeans because he can, especially when he can find the same pair for 3/4 of that price.

You gotta appreciate someone like that.

Anyway, back to Karin for a second. We got to talking about Raph and Moran and I joked that I could see them getting together, even after she's told both of us she doesn't like him. Karin just laughed and said that Raph would never go out with her, they've got nothing in common and he doesn't like her too much, either (he told Lior). However she can see Raphael and me togehter. And that got me suspicious. I didn't ask or anything, but could she be checking out the area for Raph? Silly boy could just ask. But I know how it is.... Anyway, I had to think quickly of an answer that would both stop that line of questioning and pass across the point. So I said something along the lines of I wouldn't mind, he's a great guy and everything, however, he did just break up with his girlfriend, and he's still affected by it, even if they were together only for 2 months.

It worked.

Oh, and there are no news from the Blockbuster Dude. I think I'm giving up on that.

Oh well. =(

For some weird reason its 1:15am and I'm falling asleep, (even though I woke up at 3pm), so....

G'nite.

How Bout That

2003-09-11T20:04:00.000+03:00

I've now seen Pirates a whole of seven (!!!) times. And Chocolat? Five times.

Yes. I am a dork.

The past week kind of sucked, but that's okay. I'm not really depressed. It's called Shvizut - means a momentary depression based only on military things, such as staying on base, being closed off in there and not being able to leave. That, my friends, certainly qualifies as shvizut. But I'm home now, and all is well!

I found this on Kim's blog thing and had to share...

classic.

! WHAT SWEET TRANSVESTITE ARE YOU !
brought to you by Quizilla

But we all knew that!

There were some high points during the last six days.... About 15 of them (7 Pirates, 5 Chocolat).... But the other three...

1. Last Friday night, after dinner, while sitting around with a bunch of people, sharing some of the tons of chocolate and candy I had in the package that Sarah sent and the things I brought with me, Ariel called! I kinda left the group because they kept stealing the phone out of my hand and when I was holding it, they wouldn't let me talk. We talked for an hour and a half, he told me everything he's been up to. And we got to talking about the Psychometric Test (the Israeli version of SATs) which we both have to take. He's starting a course in January, and I was thinking of taking a course, too, because it's 50% off for me. It could be so totally cool to be doing this together. I'd much rather take the course with someone I know so well and get along with so well, and we make each other laugh (we're soooo getting 200 points out of 800, and you do not get 200 points for writing your name!!!) But there is a down side to this.... I'm going to have to cut my New York trip short. I'll have to leave New York right after Christmas or New Year's, depends on when the course is starting... Ariel is figuring out all the details for both of us, prices, times, etc, etc, etc.

We talked about why he and Ayelet broke up, and he knows its for the best for him, but he's annoyed that she's taking it so much easier than him. It was hard to explain that he didn't mean that much to her, he's just another blip in her way. We got off that topic really quick though. I told him of all the stuff I did when I was in New York, which explained the pictures, (he'd seen the webpage). And we talked about our future plans, Psychometric not taken into account.

Which leads me to the second good thing.

2. Among the many things we talked about, I told him Noa moved over, and that on the 20th she's flying out to New York to be with my parents. She's coming back October 15th (which just happens to be my 20th birthday and I just happen to NOT be home...grrr). But the weekend before the 15th, which is a Wednesday, I will be home, and my sister won't be so... So I was thinking I'd have a birthday bash! It's my 20th, I should be allowed to celebrate! It's an important birthday in Israel, and I think it'd be great! I have the apartment all to myself, Noa is away, and my friends aren't all that messy, we're not 15 anymore. Ariel said he'll come. So did the rest of my friends on base! So that made me happy.

October 10th - my 20th birthday bash!

3. Last night I was sitting around with a bunch of people outside one of the offices, and we just had the greatest time joking around. Elinor came back from her regila, and she had been to Eylat, so she was so tan, she looked like she was black, and it was beautiful! She brought pictures, so we sat around looking at them, and Nelus decided we just had to look at her pictures too, so she went to her room and came back with 10 albums. The guys joked that she has an album for every day of her life, of every year... It was great. All this happened, of course, after we'd seen Chocolat, and the guys couldn't understand why all bunch of us girls (6 of us) were sitting and watching the screen dreamily. Lots of chocolate had been eaten last night..... So just sitting with the gang till 2am was wonderful. Had lots of time. Guy was tired so he was all over the place, his head in my lap, his feet up on Elinor's, but he wouldn't go to sleep, becuase he didn't want to miss anything (I know *that* feeling!) I hadn't laughed as hard as I did last night in quite a while!

Found another quiz, had to take it!

My life is rated NC-17.
What is your life rated?

But of course!

Oh! There are some pictures from the Norther Side Pool Day 2003! There are a lot! Like 25 or 26 of them, so let the page load first! And I appear in one or two of them! (I actually let someone else take a picture once or twice... wow!)

Hee.

So What Are You Doing Here, Anyway? Go Home!!!

2003-09-03T17:00:00.000+03:00

What a wonderful saying. Isn't it? Especially to an IDF soldier such as myself.

But that's not even the meaning.
The workshop I attend, other than providing me with lots of information about getting paid for going to school, is also fun. We're 16 very different people, all brought together for one reason. And I love it. We don't judge each other, because when it comes to our rights, we're all in the same boat. They're all people whom I would have never have had anything to do with, if it weren't for this workshop. I'd probably even dislike some of them. But they're all good people, and once you get to know someone, you can't just hate him for the stereotype you thought he/she was. I've got 14 new phone numbers and 14 people to keep in touch with (the 15th is Karin who I already know, and the 16th is obviously me).

The instructor is a 30 years old woman named Liat, who is married and has two little girls. Everyone awwww. Anyway, for the past coule of days she's been interviewing us each, and she asks about the future and what we've got planned and all kinds of things like that. So today, during my interview, she asked me what I'm planning for the future and it felt so good knowing what to answer her! There are several options, of course. There's coming to the US for a few months, or just staying for a few weeks. There's studying there and there's studying here for SAT-type test that I'm going to have to take at one point in life and is now offered to me for free. And then, in October 2003, I want to start the pre-university program I probably have to take.

So she looks at me and she says, "so what are you doing here, anyway? Go home!" Which, of course, made me laugh. She explained that this is the best planned out near future she's heard yet, and probably one of the best she'll hear in the next few days. She said there's not much she can help me with, considering my plans are very organized and well planned out. I don't have too many interlacing things going on, I know exactly where I wanna go to school, why and what program I want to be in. So then we talked a little about my optimistic and open personality, and how at a job interview someone like me is more likely to get the job than someone who's too nervous and shows it, and who doesn't smile, nod, and look the other person in the eye. Certainly true.

On another note, I went to dinner with Noa, to Israel's most expensive Japanese restaurant, to try out sushi for the first time. I had my preconceptions about sushi and shrimps and the works, and I still do, but I admit it was good stuff and I won't refuse so adamnetly next time to go to a Japanese restaurant. And they say there's no progress.

Ha.

Happy September, Everyone!

2003-09-01T00:29:00.000+03:00

Indeed, September has come. Schools started the year yesterday which was kind of weird, they don't usually start until the 1st, but in the news they said the decision was to bridge over a day between one holiday and a weekend, I just don't remember which holiday. I guess that makes sense. Though starting school on a Sunday always did suck. You had a whole week before the weekend and when it's the first week of school, the weekend was always the best weekend ever. But.... This doesn't concern me at this point in time.

It will, I hope, pretty soon.

The workshop is wonderful. I'm so excited about it. I've been there one day and we didn't even discuss specifics, but I already know some very good things. As a "lonely" soldier, the military pays for my pre-university year, which is wonderful. And if I take 22 hours a week, they even pay me 1,200 shekels a month, which is absolutely amazing! As for actual university years, being a "lonely" soldier means I can get up to 70% off from what I would have to pay to be in the U. Which is, of course, wonderful.

We're 15-16 people at the workshop (depending on the hour), some are Russians who's parents are back in Russia, some are like Karin and me, where the parents are in a different country for one reason or another. One of the guys lives alone since he was 11, he had abusive and drunk parents, and he's been in the Navy Boarding School, which is the best boarding school in Israel. He was Israel's kick-box fighting Champion when he was 13 and 14. So he's had a very different life than I had. He's one of the funniest people I've ever met. He jokes around about his parents and his life so much, that it's just wonderful to see him take it so easily.

The guide is a 30 years old woman who's really into it, she really likes helping people, giving out info about schools, talking to us about our futures and all that, and that really helps.

I'm expecting a really good day today, as well.

One a different note, the hour 7 AM shouldn't exist.

And it's really weird talking to Sarah and people when it's 7am for me and midnight for them, after I've slept for 9 hours, and it's the same day for them, still. It also sucks. I wanna be in their time-zone.

Three months.

Johnny-Craze Keeps On Going

2003-08-30T13:47:00.000+03:00

I didn't think people in Israel would be just as Johnny-Crazed as we are. But they are. So very are. And why do I say this?

I went to Blockbuster to rent a few movies. Karin G. is coming over for the night because we have to go to this thing tomorrow and neither one of us knows how to get there so we figured two heads are better than one (except when it comes to the two of us together....). Anyway, I was looking for Johnny movies Don Juan DeMarco and Ed Wood. I figured Israeli Blockbusters would have them, since Israelis are so much more versatile about their film tastes. They had them, of course, as well as every other Johnny Depp movie, including The Brave, the Independent Film he directed and starred in. But they were all out! Every single Johnny movie was out! I asked the clerck and she said there's been a Johnny craze lately. *g* That was my first sign.

So I picked out a few other movies I had wanted to see - The Hours (read the book, had to see the film), High Fidelity (Joan (the real life sister of)(and) John Cusack, cute!), The Importance of Being Ernest (starring Colin Firth and Rupert Everret, how could I say no?) and Spaceballs (heeheehee). As I got to the counter to pay for 2 of the 4 movies (I love my Blockbuster account), the guy rings everything up, and the girl behind him looks at me and says, "That's a Pirates of the Caribbean shirt", (wore my Pirates shirt. Had to.) And the guys looks at her and says, "yeah, it is." And I just nodded with a stupid smile. The guys says "it was a good movie." And I nod and agree, of course. So the girl says, "how many times did you see it?" And I say, "twice" and she says "cool. I saw it once and I'm dying to go see Johnny again." So I grin. "Me, too." And the guy just sighed, and it was obvious those two had this conversation before. Anyway, we started talking about Johnny and they told me there was a Johnny craze going on, and that I should watch out for my shirt, make sure no one rips it right off me. And then the girl says, "love the Johnny-ishness," and she points to my pretty black Johnny-type hat, which I wore, but of course. Anyway, we keep talking, the guy is still ringing people up and we're just talking all three of us. I was there for an hour and a half!!!

Anyway, at one point someone asked for help finding a movie, so Moran, the girl, went to help this woman and said she'd be right back, so I keep talking to Eran, the guy, and he had nothing to do because people *finally* paid up and left, and there were 3 other people just walking around. So we keep talking, and I told them I saw the movie in New York so he asked what I was doing there, so I explained about the break from the base and all that, and he asked me the typical question "why did you come back" and we laughed, and I told him I only have three weeks left. We keep talking and Moran is helping people, and then he just looked at me for a second, and he says...

"Yael, would you like to go out with me some evening?"

Ha! I have no idea how *that* happened. I wasn't even trying.... I said yes. He was really cute. His name is Eran (doh) and he's a student at the U. of T.A. which is where I wanna go. He lived in L.A. for a few years with his parents when he was younger and he visits them pretty often. He has wavy shoulder-length black hair (hee), and my hat looks really good on him. He looks good (even in his ugly Blockbuster shirt). We exchanged phonenumbers and we'll figure this out on the phone. I told him I'm staying the weekend on base, and that I do so every other weekend, and he said that's fine.... It's only three months. (Even bigger hee!)

So two days after getting back to home, I've got a date with the Dude from Blockbuster who loves my black hat and the pirates shirt.

Maybe getting back to this place isn't all that bad.

*Big stupid grin*

Had to Make Sure

2003-08-30T01:59:00.000+03:00

I promise, these would be my last two quiz type things, unless I find ones that are uber cool. (Meaning: more Johnny or Pirates quizzes).

Which Pirates of the Caribbean character are you?

But of course. I mean, comeon. Heeee. Johnny.

Maki - "Truly Rare"
People of your personality type should visit:
www.life-blood.cjb.net

What would your Japanese name be? (female)
brought to you by Quizilla

Um. Okay.

And Presents, Too

2003-08-29T15:09:00.000+03:00

hardly believe it myself, but it's good to be back. I wasn't expecting it to be good to be back. Not after how last time was. But getting back here, to my own place, to my little apartment, which is actually still mine and only mine (and will be until Monday) was a relief. It was lacking food, TV, and internet connection, but I've taken care of one of these immediately (internet, obviously), and got myself some cornflakes. And that's about it. My sister will bring over her food later on, she's selling her fridge. So I'll actually have food, too. As for TV, well, I'll have to take care of that tomorrow. I hope they work on Saturdays.

Both flights kind of sucked, the second one more than the first one. But the stop in London was almost 2 hours long which was very nice. Good break. Good walking around. I got cognac for my grandparents, and some chocolates, too. And I got myself a Johnny Depp-type hat, which I had seen on a storeshelf and couldn't resist. It was kind of expensive (17 shilings) but it's so cool. And then when I got home, the first thing I saw was the velvet red hat that I bought for 50 shekels for Purim, and I was really excited because it seems like such a Johnny hat too. So I have two. I left the ugly-ass green hat back in my car... =(

Getting back here was fun....

My sister and I went to dinner at my grandmother's. It was just the two of us and them, no Nitsan, Tamar and the kids, which was very nice. I doubt I could have delt with that headache...

I'm really tired....

The first phone call I made was to Shimrit, and we talked for about 15 minutes. All along I was half falling asleep. I was in bed, too, and my bed's just that comfortable and big... After that I took a shower and finished unpacking and around 12-ish I took a nap which was supposed to last until 2-ish, but Karin (Golomb) called at 1 and we talked for like half an hour, she told me about Ayelet and her bullshitness, and all that. And we talked about the upcoming week as well, what's suppose to happen and when and where and all that. It wasn't until really 3:30pm that I really fell asleep, after I'd spoken to my mom and e-mail her a few times, and Noa woke up once and Nitsan did as well. Anyway, around 3:30 I fell asleep and woke up at 4:30 and decided that wasn't enough so I let myself sleep until Noa called to tell me when she's picking me up. I had the hardest time pulling myself out of bed at 5:30.... And just now I got back from my grandmother's. On the way back we'd stopped at Noa's to pick up the left over food so that I have at least something to eat at home now.

Moran called on the way back from my grandmother's. She wanted me to come with her to a party. Anyway, she asked where I was and I told her I was on my way home. She asked how come I'm only getting back from base now. I told her I was away for a month... Both Noa and I cracked up. I, of course, gave up on the party - I doubt I can keep my eyes open for much longer. Told her to call me tomorrow, let me know how the party was.

Tomorrow I really have to clean my room, put everything back in place, figure out where to keep all the candy for the next 5 days. But I can do that all tomorrow.

My sister told me today that she has a friend called Maya who used to be a techine on a base not too different than my own. She's 21 years old... My sister is hanging out with a 21 years old. My 25 years old sister is hanging out with a person who's age is closer to mine than hers. Weird.

And I'm really off to bed now, to sleep through the night!

Hello, Israel

2003-08-29T02:37:00.000+03:00

Goodbye, New York

2003-08-28T04:46:00.000+03:00

Farewell - Yes and No

2003-08-28T02:29:00.000+03:00

I have mixed feelings about this farewell. I definitly think it's time to go back, though I would have liked to fly out sometime that is not 8am on Thursday morning, but more like 9pm on Thursday, like how it used to be. That's a first. But when it comes to deeper things... In some ways it is time for me to go back, get the next three months over with and get back here. It's three months and these are my last three months. Things are going to be very different in three months and that's a change I can't wait for. On the other hand, I'm having such a great time here. Even with all the depressing moments I've had over the past week, more depressing moments than in the beginning of this break, I still feel like things would have been wonderful for the next two days. I mean, everyone's going back to school this coming weekend, but I would have liked to stay till the last day. The first time I flew to Israel after high school was the day Tina went up to college the first time, and the same day Sarah did as well, and so it was kind of a perfect timing. It could have been like that this time, as well, but for some weird reason I decided getting back to Israel on a Friday is better than Saturday, which would have given me one more day here. I'm going to appreciate the day home before going back into uniform, but right now I feel like I've waisted a day.

For the first time today I told my mom I don't want to go back. She knew exactly what I was talking about - base, military, work. But, again, it's only three months. I just have to keep telling myself that. And somewhere in the middle of everything, half way through the last three months, is my 20th birthday. So that will be great. I just have to keep reminding myself it's only three months.

Of course, I'm waiting for the coming week very much. I just hope I won't be too disappointed. Learning about what I get from the military, and what the universtiy requirements are is going to be good for me. I really can't wait to start school. I'm hoping maybe I can start classes during the second semester which would be so great for me. Just get myself going for a bit. I'll come back here for winter break, then go back and start school at the University of Tel Aviv and I KNOW I'll absolutely love it. Absolutely.

And I even know my first weekend back in the shithole base of mine is going to be fun because there'll be candy and lots of people asking me what I did and it'll just be recounting everything again, and I'll take the pictures and show them all and it'll be great. But after that.... I'll have to deal with actually doing stuff. Shit.

Three months left to go.

In other wonderful things, my dad and I went to the toy store (CompUSA) today to get my sister a present and we came across this most amazing Sony Vaio Desktop in the world. It's so beautiful, I'm so in-love. It's just a dream come true, that computer. Wide screen, attached keyboard, and the actual computer is behind the screen. It's small and adorable. The only thing not attached to the machine is the mouse. I'm so in-love.

After that we went to dinner in a good steakhouse, and I had a really nice time with my parents. We discussed this wonder my dad and I fell in-love with (the Vaio) and my mom wanted one, and she said it's her birthday, so I got excited too. I pointed out that it's my birthday too, soon, and not only a birthday, but my 20th birthday. So my parents started talking about how I'm the single one in the family who has this bargaining thing down, and I use it. Whenver we go out shopping (for whoever, whenever) I always end up getting something for myself. I always end up not just getting something, but getting much more than my mom. And it's true and I love it. I think I've grown up about it, pretty much. I didn't get too pissed off when we went to the Toy Store and we didn't get me anything. I think my dad's still kind of mad about the big fight on Sunday, so I didn't say anything. I don't really care, I'll just go make a deal on one of these things that I really want and pay it off for the next few months. I don't really care. I did manage to take his brand new CD player and $150 earphones. They're uber expensive because they have this really awesome gadget that when you turn it on, it shuts away any outside noise. It's amazing, and I'm thoroughly in-love with them. Of course.

And, lastly, tonight was fun. Short as it was, Pirates of the Caribbean-lacking as it was, it was fun. We went to a coffee place in Huntington, and I had a slight of an Israeli evening, sitting in a coffee place, eating desserts and drinking coffee, listening to someone play and sing. We were six which was fun, even if Kim (heeeheeehee) locked her car, while it was still on (obviously the keys were inside). It was reallly funny.

About two weeks ago I had told Sarah that I would get along with Jess, and the whole big fight or whatever it was that happened two years ago was all in the past and I think that after two years I can give up on the grudge and let things slide away. And for that night, it worked for me. I didn't know it would last. When we went out today, I didn't even have to tell myself to be nice. Sarah called me from the car and Jess was there, and I was joking around with them and it was all pretty cool. And then when we were at Classy Coffee, with the exception of one incident, which thankfully, no-one decided to answer to, I was getting along just fine with her. And it makes me see things differently. I guess that's a good thing.

As for my Johnny Depp down there..... He's hot.
The picture is from the movie Blow which I had seen and cried at the end, but he looks majorly hot all through the movie (except for the older years, the end of the movie). It's a sad movie. It's an amazing work of art though, for Johnny Depp to be able to pull, at the age of 37, a guy from when he was 20 years old, and look that young, to when he's 50-something and look 50-something, and look like he's aging through the years. But then again, I already knew he's an amazing actor.

Oh, one last thing. I saw Mrs. Gross today which was great. I so adore that woman. She's amusing to me. We talked for almost an hour. It's amazing, she's so easy to talk to. We recounted how she kicked me out of ESL in like 9th grade, and yet I kept going back, and actually became her student teacher. This was one of the most well-spent hours of my time here.

And that's it. I fly off in 8 hours. God, I hate this.

Johnny Depp

2003-08-28T01:26:00.000+03:00

You are George Jung. You're intelligent, crafty and
if you set your mind to something, there's a
good chance that it's gonna happen.

Which Johnny Depp Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Shopping, Candy And Conversation

2003-08-27T03:53:00.000+03:00

Shopping. That's how my day started. And shop I did. And buy I did. Lots of buy. Buy is good. Buy makes me happy. It's so good to finally have money. To finally be able to splurge. To be able to walk into a store, find something I really like and buy it. To see a Pirates of the Caribbean shirt, and know it costs 19 bucks, and be able to get it. Just because. To see a bag I like and get it. And in a way I feel that even my shopping habits matured. I had told my mom I wanted to get something nice looking, to wear out at a big event. Then I started arguing with her about how I never find anything dressy that I would actually like to wear in Israel, and she said I should try. It ended in 'do whatever you want, but I'd really like you to stop getting junk clothes (tee shirts and things she doesn't like).' I had gone shopping completely expecting to buy just a pair of jeans or whatnot and a tee shirt and be quite happy with it. But when we started really looking into things, I found myself looking for nice things, dressy things, that even my mom would like. It had even gotten to the point where I took a pair of jeans to try on and didn't even try them on. That makes me happy. I feel like I'm growing to understand my parents, or at least my mom, (as Tina and I called it - speak mom), and that I can find a way to please both my shopping desires and her idea of nice clothes for me. That makes me happy.

That's not to say that I understand them (her) completely. I so don't. Just every once in a while, I speak fluent mom, without the accent and all.

And I wore my ugly-ass green hat and people kept staring at me and giving me weird looks. God, I love that so much. Just the fact that a hat can do that to people... Just the fact that a girl who looks pretty normal on the outside, wearing jeans and a teeshirt, is also wearing a green hat, makes them stare at me... I love that. I love that I can find ways to do that to people. I love that I don't actually have to go out of my way to find ways to do that to people, because I wouldn't. I love that this is how I am. I like that I can do that to people.

And it's also entertaining to see people stare at you.

At least they understand that the hat is *not* against the sun. It's just there.

I saw the larger part of our high school group today, at Jen's grandfather's wake. Amanda, Jen, Cristina, Cynthia, Sarah, Tina and I were there, and it was weird. I hadn'd expected to see Amanda again this summer, and I certainly didn't expect to see Jen and Amanda together. As said as situation was, it wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be. We talked about seeing the body and how none of us want to see it and all that. Jen wasn't very comfortable with the body, either. She took charge of the back of the room. And we just talked for a while, and it was... I can't say fun, it was still at the wake, but it was... welcome. It was interesting seeing everybody react to everybody else. Interesting. Very interesting.

And then we went to Melissa's! Munched on pizza and junk food, and watched Benny and Joon. It was fun, the movie is good, and Johnny, well... Johnny's Johnny. Always adorable. Always the best. I had driven everyone today. It was, for some reason I am yet to understand, important for me to be the one driving tonight. I don't know why. I really don't but... I was happy I got to drive.

But it was the later part, after I'd dropped everyone off and it was only me and Tina left. We talked for almost two full hours. We parked my car in the student parking lot of our old high school, right in the middle, not exactly on a parking spot, and talked. Tina and I were always able to talk... And I missed our conversations so much. I can tell her things I can't tell anyone else. She'd understand me and if she doesn't, she'll try to understand me. And I understand her, to some extent, and if not, I try to understand her. We can talk for hours on (except we know what happens when we do that...) and we can talk about everything. And I missed that so much. I don't have any other words for it, I just missed it, in the full sense of the word.

All in all, I had a wonderful day. I splurged. I bought stupid things I shouldn't buy like black shoe laces with stars on them for my converse shoes. I got to watch most of my high school friends interact with each other in a way I hadn't ever noticed before. I got to see Johnny (always a plus) and I got to talk to Tina.

Sadly, tomorrow is my last day. Tomorrow's.... Going to be strange. I'm going to see everyone, I hope, and I'm hoping to see Mrs. Gross. And I'm going to get all the candy I'd promised people, except maybe for the cream eggs, and... It's going to be such a busy day. I hope I'll manage to see Pirates one last time without translation, and I have to pack, and there's a lot to pack (which I hadn't expected), and I have to buy my sister and Shmutzi presents and, well, at the end of the day, I have to say goodbye to everyone. I really don't want to. I absolutely do not want to say goodbye. Even with the realizations that I don't exactly belong anymore, even with the realization that I might not want to spend 3-4 months here after the military thing is over, even with all that, I still don't want to say goodbye. I still feel more at home here, with my parents and my friends than I feel at home in Israel. I grew up here, and I'll always have a home with my parents.

Tina and I talked about actually keeping more in touch this time. I think we both appreciate that we can still talk and that neither one of us judges the other for her differences. I know I do. We talke actually doing the e-mail thing.... Wow. I don't keep in touch with people by e-mail most of the time. I get jokes, I get the JC group emails and all that, but not actual exchange of emails, telling of things that are going on. I don't need to do that with Sarah, we talk so often. It'll be good for me, I think. Good for both of us.

I think for the first time in a pretty long time, I'm going to sleep with a smile on my face.

Bad Doesn't Even Begin to Cover It

2003-08-25T02:44:00.000+03:00

Well, I'm not going to Europe for three weeks.

I feel like I no longer belong. Not here, in New York, and not in Israel. Latest events have made me feel this way. I don't really feel like I belong here anymore. I still love my friends, very much, certain ones more than others obviously, and I feel really good when I'm with them, hanging out or whatnot, but I just don't feel like I belong here anymore. Mostly because my friends have moved on, have grown, and changed, and have their own lives now and their own friends, and, well, when it comes to me, I'm left behind. The only people I know are those same people who went to school with me. I love them for growing and maturing and changing.

But I feel that they may not understand that when I'm visiting, they're the only people I know and still get along with. They feel that I'm holding them back, trying to mold them into something they used to be two years ago, and aren't anymore. I wish they'd realize that's totally not what I want to do, and I am sorry if that's how it seems.... It's just that they're the only people I know here. And on top of all that, while everyone else has 3 months off from school, I only have a single month, usually less, to do everything there is to do, to see everyone, to hang with them.

When I get back to Israel, I'll have three months left to my service. And that's a good thing. But afterwards, I'm planning on coming back to the States to be with my parents, my friends... Thing is, that now I'm not so sure I want to be here for 2-3 months, like was planned. Not if my friends won't want to see me. My parents, sister, and I have talked about maybe taking a computer course - UNIX or something like it - here. See that would be nice, considering I'll meet new people, maybe make new friends, and then things will be okay for me. I'll still want to see my other friends, but if I won't see them too much, I won't be too lonely. I guess if I don't do that course, I won't stay here for too long, and just come back over the summer for a month or two. After that I start out at the University of Tel Aviv.

I can't wait for it start.

In other news, my mom and my sister dropped an atom bomb on me today - my sister is moving in with me. By next Monday, she's moving in. Actually, I'm really excited. I loved living alone and everything, and taking care of my self, and feeding whenever I wanted, and doing whatever I want, but this isn't going to be too different. It's not like she's my mom and she can tell me what to do, when, where, and why. She'll be like a roommate. Plus she's bringing lots of furniture, and Johnson, her cat. Heehee. There are lots of bad things about this, of course, but there are just as many, if not more, good things. Like the fact that she can cook and maybe, at least once every month, I'll actually have a home-cooked meal. And I won't be left alone to do all the laundry, or to buy food when I get back home after 10 days on base.

I'll still have my privacy, it's not like we have to sleep in the same bedroom. We each have our own living space. And it's not like I'm going to have to tell her what I'm doing, when, where, and why. And she has a car I might be able to borrow every once in a while. And she has her own life, and I have my own life. I'll have a roommate. And this roommate, instead of being a complete stranger, will be my 25 year old sister.

At least I know I'll have fun on my birthday. She'll make sure I will, that weekend when I get home. She's good at that.

And I'll have a cat. Hopefully, I won't be one of those people who'll start carrying pictures of their cat in their purse. Gawd.

And the best thing about this is that the money situation is going to change for the better. I'll be able to shop around, buy clothes, and go out. And that's a very good thing. She has money, I'll have some money, and it'll all be good. Finally, it'll be good.

And Sarah, I wuv you.