why we're put in this mess, is anybody's guess.

today was really long. i mean like really really really really long. it was so long that by the end of the day i'd forgotten what i'd done at the beginning. but i digress...

this morning, alice and i woke up early as shit to (get ready) walk to el-em to meet segev (head of the greenhouse project) to be driven to the middle school to catch a bus to the volcani ministry of agriculture in rehovot. whew. i actually walked early to get something to eat on the way. note to self: no fucking restaurants open at 7AM in ramla, israel.

we arrived there with the kids, who are a rambunctious group but way less terrifying than the kids at kadima. and funny too. don't ask me why. we basically took them into the fields and the greenhouses and did a few activities with them to introduce them to the wide world of agriculture. translation: they wrote down stuff that they saw in the greenhouse and tried to figure out what its function is. we were separated into groups, my group had two relaly sweet girls in it. i don't remember their names. basically, they did what we did the first time we went. then we prepared lunch for them and all ate together before packing up and heading back to the bus to go home.

we went home to get ready and wait for the sheruit to take us to tel aviv for our planned evening trip. i was pretty bummed that i wasn't able to go to kadima yet again to teach photography. our schedules have been very strange lately, back and forth from the old to the new. but they have completely transitioned now. i think. plus, i keep telling all of these potential ISC applicants that i'm here to teach photography, but i've only done it once. that will change though, as i'm about to start a workshop at ramla college. but that's neither here nor there. once we got to tel aviv zvi met us at rabin square to give us his personal experience with rabin's assassination. now it was jen's birthday so we were all in a celebratory mood, plus we didn't realize that we'd be talking about serious things. so we were caught off guard and had trouble keeping a straight face. it's one of those things where you're faced with a serious situation you weren't expecting and it's so absurd that it's hilarious, so you laugh and you're not supposed to so then it's completely impossible not to. you know? that.

anyway, we made it through zvi's shpiel. i felt bad because i think he almost started crying. but we walked back to the sheruit and hopped on as it took us to another place we weren't prepared for: the yitzhak rabin center. traffic was horrible and jade almost peed her pants. that was pretty funny.

so now you'd think that we're done with the serious part. that we're going to participate in the MASA seminar which will be most educational and interesting. but not too serious. very casual. right? well, you're fucking wrong. as soon as we sit down, alice and i start cracking up. but then, when we thought it could possibly get more serious, yitzhak rabin's OWN SON approaches the podium. i'm the most devastated i've ever been and at this point i'm trying to mask my outbursts as sneezes and just twisting in my chair so that i can't see alli. it was the hardest thing i've ever had to do in my life. i was really fascinated that this man came to speak to us, and under normal circumstances, i would have been wonderfully intrigued. but not this night. this guy was the worst speaker i'd ever seen in my life. which was even funnier at the time. i tried so hard not to laugh and look at al, that i didn't notice that she'd fallen asleep right next to me. and to make matters worse, ofir looks back and sees al sleeping. he goes to text her to wake up, and then her phone goes off in the middle of everything, waking her up. she got mad at me because i didn't wake her up, which was my bad. but i was creating diamonds in my butt. it was a problem. well, yuval rabin finally finished.

there was a woman that spoke about some films which was pretty cool. then we ate some weird concoction of stuff, then went back inside to workshop some ideas. we ended up having a discussion about definitions of what an israeli is. it got me thinking about the citizens of this country that are either non-religious jews or israeli christians or muslims. it's all very strange. even if someone is a complete atheist and doesn't follow any traditions, they can live in this country no questions asked if they have one jewish grandparent accoeding to the law of return. but the diversity here is unquestionable. interesting. after our discussion, we were shown a very disturbing, but importantly intense short film examining all the tensions between israeli jews, both secular and religious, arabs, and russian immigrants. it is called 'the deli'. i need to see that again. it almost made me cry. whoa. anyway, we packed up after the longest day ever and drove home to sleep.

this morning i was unpleasantly woken up late for ulpan by a man, in our backyard, attempting to cut down one of our trees. at first i just thought this was normal and was more upset that i had to go to class late. but i called ofir and he confirmed that this was not, in fact, normal. so i went outside and told him to stop, in my very terrible hebrew. he said he would. i walk back inside and hear more chopping. so i go back outside. i say, "di, di bevakasha!". which means, "stop stop please!" i point to him and then to the street implying for him to leave. he says, "ze oo?" which means, "that's all?". i say "ken, ze oo". i go back inside. he keeps fucking chopping. i'm pissed. i go back outside and say, "ze oo bevaksha! di PLEASE!" he finally gets it and climbs back over the fucking fence in the backyard. i go back inside and watch him through our bedroom window. he instead climbs on top of the shed in the backyard and chops branches from the top. i give up. as long as he doesn't cut the whole fucking thing down. i'm really confused. i didn't want to leave in case he tried to cut it down again, so i'm missing ulpan. at least i can catch up on my blogs and maybe even some photos before the TV station today.

catch you guys after a nap.

love,

sally