Shana Tova!

This week was filled with tons of peulot about the kibbutz and our program in general. Some were decent but some were awfully droll. The most eventful night of the week was when we had our kupah asefa. It lasted a solid five and a half hours until the wee hours of early morning. We chose Tom, Miriam, and Noah as our gizbarim (people who facilitate the kupah structure). Our Kupah structure is going to be open (no spending personal money) with a monthly budget. Va'adot (different committees in the kvutzah) will request money from the gizbarim, and they'll do most of the spending. I think it's a good system. We'll just have to see how it goes. The next night Esther finally returned from the hospital after being there for four days with water poisoning (the opposite of dehydration with the same original symptoms). Finally our whole kvutzah was complete. To celebrate Esther's return, the next night Va'ad chevrati planned a really fun activity which I won't go into details about at this moment... Then the week gave way to a long weekend for the holiday.

About 35 workshoppers are going to different parts of Israel to celebrate Rosh Hashana this weekend with family. About 25 of them tried to board the bus from Ein Dor into Afula, where we could catch bigger busses. It just so happened that this bus only had 11 open seats. There's a mismatch somewhere in there... About 15 of us squeezed onto the bus and went to Afula. I had half an hour to kill before my bus to Haifa, so, with a stomach filled with schnitzel and rice as motivation, I set out for a schwarma at 10:45 in the morning. I boarded the bus a little too full and got to Haifa within an hour. While waiting for my great-uncle Barry to pick me up, some Israeli tried to sweet-talk/guilt-trip/low-ball me into giving him 20 shekels so he could get somewhere. He failed. After that encounter, Barry picked me up and took me out for lunch. In the course of two hours I had a schwarma and falafel. I love free weekends... Right now I'm just hanging around at his apartment. Later tonight his kids and grandkids who I sort of know are coming over for Erev Chag and then tomorrow and Sunday I think we're going to shul. It should be a nice weekend.

Besides all of the eating today, I was able to watch the first episode of the new Survivor season. Here are my thoughts: Russell is hilarious, albeit a huge d-bag, Shambo is very reminiscent of Rambo, and the producers have gone over the top in choosing contestants for the show who have nothing going for them except for their looks (see the three girls on the losing tribe?). I hope Russell stays around just to see how far his strategy will take him.

One of the things I miss most about home is watching baseball and being able to follow it routinely. I don't really think it's a coincidence that as soon as I left the Giants went from red-hot and tied for the wild-card lead to slumping and falling out of the race for the wild card. I haven't yet given up hope for them, but if they don't put up a good showing this weekend against the Dodgers, hope will be all but lost.

While the Giants are going down, Michigan football is on the rise! Watching the end of their 38-34 win over Notre Dame made me even more pumped to head out to Ann Arbor next year. Yahoo Sports called them a legitimate contender for the Big Ten title.

That's about it. I'm going to add a glossary for those people who don't know what I'm talking about sometimes (thanks Morriah). Shana Tova! Happy New Year!

It's been a while...

So we had a hiatus from internet for about a week, so that's why this is my first post in a while. After the hostel in Bet She'an, we went south near the Dead Sea for a few days, had some more peulot, then got our kvutzot. I'm really excited for the kvutzah that I got put in. Odds are, we're going to be the party kvutzah and we have most of the big and loud guys on Workshop so I fit in pretty well. I'm also really happy that Gil's our madrich.

Over the next few days we did a few more peulot about building a kvutzah before going on a three day hike in the Negev. It was disgustingly hot with no shade but it was a really beautiful hike. It also was great for kvutzah bonding.

Hot and sweaty we boarded the bus Thursday morning to make the four hour shlep up north to Kibbutz Ein Dor. It's beautiful here, very lush and pretty scenery. The last few days we've just been hanging out around the kibbutz. Our kvutzah is in one house and the other two are in another. We're also right next to the British/Dutch kvutzah. We interact with them a bit, but mainly we just chill in our house.

Tomorrow's our first day of boneh orientation, so we'll see how that goes. Updates will be a lot more frequent now.

Two Days in...

So we got here about 48 hours ago and it seems like weǘe been here for a few weeks. We went straight to a nice hostel in Bet Sheán which is up north. Its hot as balls here, I start sweating as soon as I step outside my room. Weǘe just been having some peulot and seminars, doing all that fun orientation shtuff. On Sunday we go on a hike in the Negev for three days and then we head to the kibbutz.

We get our kvutzot tomorrow. I dont really know what I want out of my kvutzah. On one hand I want to party, but then Iḿ really interested in all the ideology too. I guess weĺl just wait and see. I have to go right now... Peace!

-E