tomato, to-mah-to

i feel like it's been forever since i posted photos or a blog, but it really hasn't. i'm just lagging. although before i tell you about yesterday and today i want to say something so i don't forget.

1) i was grumpy today and felt for the first time since i got here that i less than optimistic and excited about the next 5 months. this was a brief, but impactful feeling. i was grumpy, i told you.

2) i have discovered how easy it is to neglect the impulse to change my behaviour and settle into familiar, but not necessarily productive patterns (not doing dishes, not running, not doing crunches, eating badly). instead, i should take the road less traveled by myself and move on so that i can build better habits.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK, so yesterday, we woke up relatively early and took a shirut (thanks ofir) to the beach in a place called rishon. the water was beautiful blue but the sand was wicked hot. feet burnin'. colin knows what i'm talking about. we spent a long while just playing in the waves and trying to ride them. al, reina, jade, butzy, and i walked down to the undeclared section of the beach (not guarded or marked) and started to swim there. butzy and i went deeper and deeper, but didn't realize how strong the current was going. all of a sudden he told me to start swimming harder because the current was pushing us out to sea. he started to get scared and swim faster, signaling to the rest of the group that were sitting on the shore for help. i didn't know what to do, but the fact that he was scared made me swim faster in vain. luckily, we made it far enough in that we didn't need to be rescued, but apparently we were in a kind of scary situation. i was kind of shaky when we got out of the water and sat for a minute to collect myself. butzy later wrote that he had a near-death experience that made him re-evaluate some things. i didn't realize it was so serious (i don't think that it was because the lifeguards drove by on a jetski). however, it was scary nonetheless.

we spent a little more time at the beach, grabbed some food and a cold goldstar and headed back to the house to hang out. we really should have worn more sunscreen, because we all had various degrees of sunburns. once we returned, reina and i went for a quick run (less than 20 minutes, but it's so fucking hot). i'll do more tomorrow.

i showered up and al and i took the bus to jerusalem to hang out. i got in touch with a high school friend of mine, matt deutsch, who is studying in yeshiva in the old city. we planned to meet at mcdonalds on ben yehuda street, so he surprised me from behind. it was soooooo wonderful to see him, as the last time i saw him was not too long after we graduated from winston. he looks so happy and it was fucking fantastic to catch up. one of our israeli soldiers' friends picked alli and i up and we went to mike's place for a couple of beers. we had a lovely time talking and laughing and learning weird words in hebrew that i won't remember.

today, we woke up kind of early because naama and ofir set up a sort of scavenger hunt for our volunteer places. so we got a clue and a map in order to find each place that we would be volunteering. we were split up into 2 teams (rayna, eric, buffy, jade, and myself were one) and we set off for the first place: the youth center.

we visited three places over the course of the afternoon (a youth center, a vocational college, and an elementary school) all within walking distance. my favorite by far was the youth center. we walked in finally, as it was difficult to find hidden away behind a bank building, and were greeted by roee, a long haired, shoeless, very handsome israeli. he offered us water and sweetbreads before sitting us down to talk with us about what they do there. basically they take vans filled with coffee, light snacks, games, and couches out on the street at night, since that's when the at-risk youth are strong in numbers. their mission is to listen, most importantly. they offer advice sometimes, but present a connection to a place where these kids can come to be safe and feel comfortable being themselves away from the pressures of drugs, prostitution. where they can let down their hard exteriors, built up by years on the streets fighting for survival, essentially. fortunately, i've never had to experience that kind of life, but roee showed us the photography that the kids were taught during the last ISC group, and i was totally blown away. i feel that i could really open their eyes and hearts with the avenue of their own creations. i just need to figure out how. roddy is going to help me. i think i'll start off with technical stuff (which i really need to bone up on, since it's my weak point) and then allow them to explore concepts and themes as they encounter them in their social setting, so that the work is meaningful and exploratory for them. we'll see. but i feel good about the place.

ANYWAY, on the way back i kept seeing photo opportunities, but i kept chickening out. it really upset me that i wouldn't just take out my camera and ask someone. but i just couldn't. i had a serious internal struggle all day because everyone kept asking me if i was the photographer in the group, but since i've been here i haven't felt like a photographer at all. not exercising that muscle has made me very insecure about my talent. but reading messages from dylan and thinking about diane arbus really has inspired me to be courageous. also naama told me that i have to take advantage of this place as it is so colorful. i think i'm going to do a project about the children here. israeli, ethiopian, and arab. we'll see again.

after our scavenger hunt and a meeting at another youth center, i came back to the house and chilled out until later, when matt deutsch took a bus to ramla to our house. we went to a lovely shwarma dinner and had some very interesting conversation about atheism, judaism, god, non-god, and music. he's a really awesome guy and i'm so glad he's here. i ahven't had a great conversation like that in a while. he's also inexplicably happy. he says him and god are tight. so he does some very exciting things here that i hope i'll get to do too.

we came back to the house and watched superbad for a while and i IM'ed with colin who i haven't spoken to since we went to LA (which is great becuase i miss him), then my israeli soldier friend yakir drove over with his friend from tel aviv and we all hung out on our front porch, "digging in each other's brains", which yakir explained to me as basically talking everyone's ear off. he's a great guy and a very talented guitar player. he has a "grunge" band (i don't know if it's actually grunge). but i'm going to see them later this month.

ANYWAY, just woke up and had a lovely breakfast with matt, talked about radiohead, and went to the supermarket. now i'll be going to the youth center to get a feel for the place before we start volunteering there. pics soon (I SWEAR).

love,

sally