Where Am I, and Where Have I Been?

(Written between 9.2.06 & 9.9.06)

Where am I, and Where have I been?

FYI, this rather long & whimsical entry has no particular organization. If you get bored, you may just want to skip ahead a couple paragraphs and continue on a different tack…

I have been clued into an online service that will help me – with your cooperation – to remember your birthdays… if I ought to be remembering your birthday, please help me out:

http://www.birthdayalarm.com/dob/73551366a220636916b363

Thanks.

So Where Am I, and Where Have I Been?

I am:

- Waking up after pulling an all-night shift at the factory

- In need of new clothes, desperately

- Back together with Vanessa -- a Blessing

- Increasingly dubious of Israeli bureaucracies; for all the heart of the Israeli people, they can be lazy jerks under the cover of a bureaucratic umbrella. Knowing the right person (i.e., avoiding the System) goes a long, long way here

- Hungry

I have been:

- On my kibbutz, most of the time

- Swimming, almost daily

- Settling into this kibbutz a little more each week – more that I might have guessed in my first weeks here, when I was making some major adjustments

- Changing my Look… a progression:

1. Classic Ben

2. Classic Ben w/Beard

3. Bearded BuzzCut, a.k.a., My Friends Think I Look Like A BadAss, But For Me It’s Just About Stayin’ Cool in the Shade

Sorry, Mom. The hair had to go.

The Short Story of How This Came To Be:

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped shaving. My Reasons were two-fold – (1) Being Sick & Tired of looking like the baby-cheeked high-school grads who predominate the Kibbutz Ulpan crowd and (2) Hair-Upkeep Laziness. So a week or two passed and with the aid of Encouragement from Friends and some Light Trimming, a new Look (well, sort-of new) emerged, involving the fullest Beard my twenty-three years would allow. Another week or two passed, and with my still-new Beard I began to wonder about my Other Hair – you know, the Hair on my head – which was appraching a condition of unmanageable entanglement. Around the same time a Concerned Assemblage of Ma’agan Michael Ulpanists (CAMMU) suggested over freshly brewed Shabbos Expressos that the Entangled Outgrowth required Immediate Attention and should be cut without Hesitation or Reservations. Needless to say, I cowed to the overwhelming force of CAMMU, which proceeded to enmesh my weakened & broken self in a Deep Trance, then Gang-Shaved me.

("The Gang")

What emerged from that Deep Trance is the image floating maybe a page-scroll higher on your web browser. Not that my story is mind-blowing, but I thought it would be fun to tell.

………………………………..

If you’re not sick of pictures yet, here’s another that I wanted to post today.

Here we are outside the kibbutz’s Pub (which isn’t half-bad) with some friends. James & Ronnie – both on the far right – are my two partners in crime at the plastics factory. You may remember Justin (blue shirt) from the Gang-Shaving picture, who is flanking Tamar and Aaron. James, who’s my closest compadre here, has come from England to make Aliyah (i.e., immigrate). Lately James & I have passed the time in Plasson by arguing until we can’t think straight… I think we spent a solid 4 hrs of Thursday’s late-night shift on criminal justice. I never thought I’d spend so much time locked in debate, partly because too much of it can make me act like a real jerk. I've survived more or less in tact, so far.

Incidentally, the orange band around James’ wrist signifies his Anti-Disengagement stance toward Israel’s territories in Gaza, the Golan & the West Bank.

OK, another pic:

This is Yoni, who is one of my two roommates, and yes, his cut looks even meaner than mine. Hailing from the club scene in South Africa, like James he is also making Aliyah. Yoni likes to play club/dance music in our room All the time. Yesterday Yoni turned 20.

So far, I have no pics of Sabi, my Hungarian roommate. I’d call my living situation a “working” one, as the three of us are not particularly close, though we have no major problems. I write this in relief… in our first few weeks, I imagined that Yoni & I might be reaching for each other’s throats by now, for various reasons. Fortunately I was wrong.

When I visited Haifa a couple of weeks ago, my friend David from the July Ulpan suggested that I have not been completely forthcoming in this blog, that I have been holding back my own feelings & views on things while simply reporting on the events happening around me. In a large way, David, you were right, and I would like to try to make these entries more intimate as time goes on. So here goes...

The truth is that August was a dark month for me – the darkest in recent memory – and I can’t tell you how glad I am to wave it goodbye. My breakup with Vanessa at the start of August was personally devastating, and I have been counting my lucky stars these last couple weeks that I/we have been given another shot (I omit a long, unnecessary story here). I have been juggling a nasty tangle of emotions since I arrived on this kibbutz – including my possible desire to remain in Israel (far) longer than my itinerary would suggest – and this ulpan’s unprofessional & sometimes careless administration coupled with the fact that my ulpan peers comprise mainly of 18-year-old partykids hasn’t helped. I have missed the diversity that came with the older Haifa crowd, not to mention the added maturity & a Hebrew class where students show up to learn rather than chat with friends, play Sudoku, Gameboy, etc. Granted that having the Mediterranean beach at arm’s reach has been nice, but I have missed living in a city, where life seems more real than on the kibbutz. We live in a kind of bubble here – kibbutz life, at least on this kibbutz – doesn’t offer The Israeli Experience as it might have decades ago (just my two cents). Living here just feels… sheltered. And while being sheltered isn’t always bad, it’s not what I have come here to do.

All that said, I really am finding a Groove amidst the disappointments. I have connected with more people on the kibbutz & in the Ulpan, and continued contact with Vanessa, my family and some friends in Israel & at home has really helped. Major thanks especially to Jeff for hearing me out last month at a time that I know was not convenient for him. And Mike, believe it or not, our commiserations a few weeks back did more good for me than you probably saw. It is hard to admit here that so much in the last month has not gone according to plan, or even well, but it’s probably good that I come out and do it. Looking back to August, I’m just glad that month is done. Things are coming around, finally, and that feels good.

So not everything here has been hunky-dory. I have worked to spot silver linings when I have been able.

Other Things:

1. Hebrew Class – remains slow & unfocused, but better now than at first. The Mexican crowd has calmed down to a mostly bearable rumble. With some more energy & motivation on my part (admittedly, I have been a wretched student), I might actually start to acquire some serious Hebrew.

2. Chess – I’ve been playing a healthy amount… and, somehow, winning most of the time.

3. Footbal/Soccer – Sadly, haven’t really played since Jerusalem. I have managed to sneak in a couple games of tennis, though, which has been really nice. I just saw a piece in the NYTimes on professional racquet stringers and how the pros have everything restrung daily... which got me thinking that my own racquet was last strung…… 3 years ago?

4. Plasson – I think I’ve earned back some confidence from my boss since getting busted a couple weeks back for building a plastic fort on the factory floor: I’ve been given some odd jobs lately (eg, painting a wall), which, while not that interesting themselves, have been a nice change of pace. Also, I was asked to cover a night shift last week (11pm – 6am), which released me from three normal 4-hr shifts. The nice thing about learning to tolerate a job that’s Boring as Hell is that one gains a certain appreciation…

5. The Ceasefire – nothing new to report. I hope this lasts as long as I’m here.

Upcoming Events

Erev Rosh Hashanah (Late September) – to be spent with my cousin Debbie & fam in Netanya

Signing onto Skype – for all you Skypers, when I find a way out of here to pick up a microphone, you can look for me. I'll publish my username here when it's time

Traveling around Israel (and Turkey / Europe?) – January & February seem a long way off, but they’re not that far.

Magen David Adom (Ambulance Corps Volunteer) – mid-Feb – late March.

March 28 – Ben comes Home… and also Dad’s birthday. Still trying to figure out what I’ll do with myself come the end of this trip.