into the void

gap year blog

[gappin]

nissim who is currently sleeping in tania's bed, just walked into the room, switch off the light and got into bed the whole time singing to himself:

"I'm gonna sleep like a crazy boy.... gonna sleep.... crazy boy....got so much style... oh yeah i got so much style"

stuff like this needs to be documented

[gappin]

i just spent so long trying to talk to mom and it was very frusturating.  i am not going to the party and have fomo and feel bad because shnat is over but i can't i am in a terrible mood.

in other news today was good.  poland prep seminar, talked with niss about my view towards people and he said some things that were really true and pretty hard to hear and then life stories and such.

[gappin]

feb 3 and updates

so some updates :

today we had our last yom kvutza. it was really good-  woke up everyone, cleaned and cooked lunch and karen stopped by to say bye (i love karen!!!!) and then had a peula in which we made prsentations secuming communa/shnat. it was fun and people were funny and almost no italians (just joy and andrea) were there. Then we secumed in our communot and it was actually really good and what people said was meaningful but i was tired and sleepy throughout and kinda rude. Then we had this thing where we wrote notes to each other and it was sooooo good and was really meaningful and i said the thing to magnol finally and gali and me might be friends. also a note about the peula is yesterday niss and i had an arguement about letter writing so it was nice to do and to write and recieve menaingful letters that touched me and actually gave me a space to say things.

afterwards willi gathered us and was like 'shoshanat hacarmel wants to move in'  and they are!!!!!!!!!!! tonight will be crazy because there are the three visiting austrians, three italians here randomly, three austrialians we are about to meet (!) and then i guess the whole rest of our kvutza, but i am excited.

other things not a summery of the day:

- yesterday we had barta'a and we played games and then they taught us dubka which was really cool. we came back and i went to the beach with David (we have been spending so much time together) and we watched the sunset from these rocks. It felt like i wasn't on shnat -  like a happy pretty israel and it was back in 2009. then i came back here, spent two hours watching groundhog's day (such a good cute movie) and then gal visited (!) and we had dinner and we did life stories (Ema's was very strange). I had a really good conversation with niss about letters etc and then we went to bed.

-day before was also good, watched the superbowl at 1 in the morning at shoshanat and had to much fun explaining football. lost my voice entirely

AUSTRALIANS just got here, have to go

[gappin]

israeli vieda continued

so the next morning, ema was fucking rude to danny (and he stole iky's matress the night before just to be mean to him) and is a terrible person.  the morning was nice though, with this good peula about the word diaspora and then a very strange workshop with israeli's there about israeli democracy (the theme of the seminar).  we were in groups with them and the groups really varied -  mika's didn't know what the west bank was and mine just wanted to talk about our respective movements. Afterwards we had lunch and then yael and i went to here room.  she left shnat (did i mention) and is in a program at givat haviva so i got to see her room while we skipped the picture taking segment of the seminar. it was nice to catch up.

Then we had a peula back together agin using this museum method about the relationship between israel and our respective countries. It was in our countries and Isaac and this dude named harris were in the north american group and we had a really good peula. It was so good because it was just with people who knew how to have the type of peula i want to have and isaac is of course great. We went home shortly after.

The seminar was interesting and nice to meet israelis and feel very american. When we got back to ben gurion, we countinued with life stories. Magnol and Mika and i went and mine was "dense but good to explain how i am" (thanks nissim) -  meaning i went third and people were bored. also i was losing my voice but it was stilll nice to tell and i am happy i did it.

[gappin]

israeli veida

so we just got back from the israeli veida which was essentially a seminar on israeli democracy at givat haviva with the israeli movement.  it was cool because i got to see yael (i miss her so much) and we had peulot that were actually good with isaac and this guy he's friends with named harris. we got there friday afternoon and had a tour and then saw this pep ralley thing that would have been more interesting if i spoke hebrew.

then we had a peula with yaniv sagee about the word zionism that was reasonably interesting. also the whole time everything is includeing the mexicans and karen was there(!!!!). that night, we had dinner and then this erev but it was split into two groups for space. i opted into the second group so i could hang with the belgians but that was a mistake and i ended up being alone for a few hours and hid in a bathroom stall for part of it. seminars are wierd because you don't have a room or comfortable space to go back to and if you lose your one friend you wander around aimlessly and feel really lonely for a while. so that happened and then i went to the room and found other and went to this very bizarre erev that was in hebrew and hard to undertsand and very very stange. We had israeli dancing which i did with these three new visiting austrians and there was a concert and it was not too terrible. tbc

[gappin]

the point when you have heard derech hashalom three times (at least) already today and you here it again only to realize, no its not joy playing it or sofia singing it, it is a car driving past blaring it

[gappin]

last two days have been pretty good.

yesterday we had yom kvutza that started with a trip to the beach. we had a 'picnic' there (note never leave nissim in charge of a picnic ever again) and came back to our communa for zk. it was actually reasonably good  - we made mugs for each other ( mine was good) and then did the mask peula and then drew lines to each other following prompts. that peula was much better than i thought it would be -  lots of people connnected with me and i essentially learned that sofia loves me, alex loves me, i am friends with David (!) and victor remembers our pool conversation (yay). it was very nice and didn't make me feel bad, as was expected. after dinner, we did the start of the life stories and it was really interesting.david, sofia and ray went and i think i understand ray a bit better now.

today was also good. i bought remy a burger and we spoke in french and then i went to work (it took a while because i fucked up with the buses) with Dadu. it's the second to last time i had work and all of the kids were gone but what can you do?

[gappin]

so some explanation -  last night went pretty poorly. there was a dog in our communa and a ton of italians in my room and the combination made me really stressed and served as a catalyst for me to be sad all night.  i went next door with yael and had some food there and caught up with her and then came back briefly (we missed it being 12 but mika doesn't seem to care)  and then hid in the sex room for a while and then took a walk with victor and then slept at the other communa because being here was stressing me out.

today i woke up happy at shoshanat hacarmel and then went to get lunch in this nice cafe with nissim.  it was theoretically a french lesson but that didn't really happen (with manuel and david, they were both way more in french) and we just talked in english.  i told him about nana and we talked about the italians and how he feels like shnat does not have enough stuff and it was so nice and fun.  then we walked to the beach with the whole rest of their communa and it was so pretty out. also my pink hair looks awesome and a waitress complimented it.

[gappin]

i feel really bad right now -  i don't want to be at the partty i just want to cry and i want to document it because i feel like this all the time on shnat and i think that i don't write it down often enough

[gappin]

other things

dyed my hair - it was yellow for a while as i bleached it but now as of last night it is pink and i really like the pink.

started barta'a - we went on monday for the first time. willy wasn't there monday (still in austria) so it was just david, daniel, victor and i but it went really well. we ended up having about twice as many kids as they had told us we would but it was very fun and not to chaotic. they were pretty good, very cute, and loved me and invited me to lunch at their houses. i really like going they are so cute when they talk in english. we went back thursday (its supposed to be every thursday but last week there was a student strike so we couldn't go) and had just as many kids and it still went pretty well. willy was back and wedid two stations with him and victor on one. the whole leaving thing is always a bit wierd since we don't know how it is supposed to be but it went well.

mystery dinner -  i finally did the mystery dinner. i bought one off the internet but spent such a long time writing everything down onto paper or everyone. it ended up going really well and everyone had a good time!

coffee dates -  i am actually leaving now because ive started doing this thing where i go to coffee with the belgians and get them to teach me french.

[gappin]

so today:

i woke up around 12 and went to this parade adi had told us about with jonny, joy, sofia, and andrea. it turned out not to be much of a parade, it was just a group marching with drums for coexistence. we joined it and ended up in this park and watched as they had a ceremony kind of thing complete with a weird performance and rapping. at one point the rapper said "adam smith" and also was really socialist and told us in english that "racism can't exist without capitalism so lets smash capitalism and smash racism!"

i then went and bought mika a present and hung out at the other communa. they were pretty boring but dino is here so i talked and smoked a lot with him. were gonna have a party tonight for mika's birthday.

[gappin]

shnat just feels so lonely so often. there is so much i want from people but i am never the person they think to give it to without me explicitly asking.

[gappin]

so many things to write but for now this is a note that mika got put in her nuva ring on the 25th of dec and changed it today the 15th of January.

ok other things:

finished arete app last night!!!!!!

went over to the other communa and went out with danny, nissim victor. we had some beers and it was nice. in e=general we've been going out more and it's been nice. i am learning about beer and like pauleners.

things are better with mika

tania and manuel 'broke up' she's talked to me about this which is nice because yeah bonding and also their relationship was toxic

ben talking to dad a lot -  i love him

[gappin]

so a brief summary of the last few days:

had a really good weekend, saw matan, went out with the belgians!!, then ruined it by being strait up cruel and ornery to mika

went to work

things are getting better with mika but its really awkward. today she asked to work on my essays. so maybe things are getting better

essays due tomorrow! ahhhhhhhh

[gappin]

just ran a really fun zk (with brit!). everyone was dead and we had to write each other eulogies as we buried them in babyfood. it was hilarious and so fun and nice to be together.

also reasonably good meeting today. actually today had many nice points:

got rid of a bunch of stuff

went to akko

got the package from akko

had a nice time with tani/ben in akko

work was good -  no other volunteers so we actually had to do things but it wasn't overwhelming because we started by watching a movie

lots of planet money

meeting might address stuff

its been crazy whether- there's hail?!!!!!!

[gappin]

had a nice night tonight - we went out and i talked to brit even though i felt sad and neglected and unloved as usual. tania has a friend here from the states and he is pretty cute and nice. had fun hanging out with him and ben milo and her.

but on the down side mika is angry and so she is angry at me, tania and i are wierd, and there is tension with the itailians because they are exclusive and dont do anything.

[gappin]

had a terrible weekend where i didn't leave bed and the only person i talked to was David.  but i am better now and much happier