Patterns 101

Well today made my life. I wiggled into the Basic Patterns class and today we spent 4 grueling hours of measuring, exacting, and cutting out a pattern onto fabric so now my feet hurt and are smelly, but i have begun my blazer!

The whole thing is cut, and in 5 short weeks it will be finished. I am very very very pleased. This is exactly what I wanted to do.

Wednesdays in the morning 10-2 we sew and 3-7 we learn patterns. Its a long day but I am enjoying so much. I feel lucky that I can understand hebrew because there is a girl on my program also in fashion classes and she is very lost. I also made friends! I felt very isolated from the rest of the Bezalel students, but the fashion department has only 33 students so they are very welcoming and interested in everything USA and American fashion, college, culture, and obsessed with New York.

So now I am stretching my legs, eating hummus and enjoying the quiet time because everyone else has gone to Ulpan.

I HATE ISRAELIS, for now

So i know you arent supposed to write bad things on the blog, just all the amazing things that are happening, but ill just keep it real because i am not one not to say what is on my mind.

So being here is a little difficult in some aspects- mainly the culture of city israelies (i am trying not to generalize too much).

So, i thought this was just in tel aviv, but in jerusalem too you meet the pushy, rude, unprofessional, stubborn, hard-to-deal with, thinks-everything-is-not-a-big-deal, Israeli. I know I am going to say all these things and offend people but from the people I have met and in the setting i am in i will jsut say this: I dont know how israel functions without falling apart

okay, so basically this all stems from signing up for classes at school. ill preface this by saying that I am happy with my schedule, just not the system.

So i am used to an orderly system where you sign up for classes online and you get a specific time where you rush rush rush to try to get into classes by the spots that are available. then the first 2 weeks of classes you attempt to get into classes you arent enrolled in by signing up for waiting lists, hoping someone has dropped that class and you by a stroke of luck were online at the same time, and occasionally pleading teachers for empty desks.

At Bezalel it is very different, or at least for us international students. what we had to do is go to the individual secretaries of each department and plead to get a spot in classes. The other students had already signed up for classes so half the classes I had pinned for were already full.

"Are there ANY spots?"

"No"

"Is there any way to get in, i'm only here for a semester"

"so, there are no spots"

"i dont understand, what can i do to get in? what if someone drops the class?"

"there are no spots"

Great, so basically in this world of art i am the bottom of the food chain. basically we were told we could only take fine arts, no other departments would be open sorry. hello? i was promised fashion design, ceramics, photography, why did i come all the way here?

Turns out in israel its not 'what you see is what you get' its very very different. i went to the fashion department and had a similar conversation and tried hard to convince the secretary that i should get a spot. nothing. i left politely cried for a while and vowed i would go home the next day ("this isnt worth my time") and called my counselor (who is a student there) for help.

"you cant be polite, noa, that doesnt work here, you have to push" she said to me.

so we went back to fashion and she pleaded with the lady and made her look at the class lists and somehow a magical spot opened in 2 classes. Thank god.

A similar story happened with ceramics. No spot no spot no spot. So i went to the class and pleaded with the teacher and as uncomfortable as i felt that i was inconveniencing her, i said "do i want to be here or not?" i could be polite and sweet noa and walk home with nothing or i could endure some discomfort and get into this class. and somehow there was an extra wheel and i got in..

SO, what i am saying is somehow after these 2 tumultous weeks i got the classes that i wanted, but boy, couldnt there have been an easier way? i was all under the control of these secretaries who never showed up and were always on break, and when they were there had to be convinced to open their books and not roll their eyes at me and say "no room for international students". now this isnt an affront to secretaries because i was one once, but this culture that i dont know how it stands on its feet.

THERES A BETTER WAY! i want to shout.

i love israel but i could do without people shoving me and not saying excuse me, class starting half an hour late because not everyone had shown up yet, and it taking 3 days for the internet to get set up, our studio keys to be handed out, our bus passes to be bought, things like that.

SORRY, THAT WAS MY RANT. just had to say it. maybe ill erase this now...

Identity Crisis Solved?

So I have been doing A LOT of thinking about Israel, me and Israel, Noa and Israel, lalalala. Basically like the last 2 years.

I realized early Freshman year that I should have probably gone to Israel that year. I came to college where I had to meet all these new people and try to define myself to them and I never was sure where to put in Israel. So i decided, ill go abroad there. I worked at TY that summer and met lots of Israelies and lots of ZIONISTS and got a little sucked into the idea and said junior year israel junior year israel.

So now I am here, obviously, but it is finally time to figure this all out. This whole identity crisis that is the Israeli/American Noa. Where do i fit in in israel? where do i fit in in america?

So lots of thinking. I went to the Kibbutz and that helped me a lot to come to terms with my childhood home and realized I still love it and will always want to go back.

But what about the rest of Israel? So Ariela helped me realize that i am very constrained by this American zionist idea that I have to FFFEEEELLLL something spiritual and fulfilling about Israel, this whole "coming home" "finally fitting in" "fill a void in my heart" idea towards Israel. and i realized that harbored a lot of my problems toward Israel that I just wasnt feeling these things. As much as i love israel i am not feeling this intense pull towards it. It was stressing me out that i wasnt feeling like i have to stay here the rest of my life, but that is okay.

It can be where I grew up, a place i know, and a place filled with interesting places, friends, and ideas but it doesnt have to be everything. I am happy with my life in America and expressing my Judaism in america, and israel may not hold a spot i am missing in my life, but I can still like it and want to visit it.

It definitely isn't like going abroad to any other country because it holds so much meaning in my life but it is also okay for me to say that I like my place in life right now and I am okay to return to america in a few months and not necessarily be counting down the days until i make aliya

Update!

I added photos everywhere, and I'm a brunette again!

The South!

We went to the South, the deep south! And in Israel it really is the deep south. Evene in Jerusalem it's the desert and once you leave the perimeter of the city, you enter the desert desert desert. We did lots of stuff, we went places and stuff but it's boring but we were activitied out from day one. We went to Sderot and talked a lot about the bombings and I know I should talk all about that but I won't because it gets all political and touchy and I just don't do that.

We went to Dimona at night which I thought would be the biggest dump in the world but it looks like it got a facelift since... it was a dump. Anyway we went to see the Black Hebrews who explained to us that their leader had a vision that the community of christians in Chicago needed to live in Israel. They were telling their story and I was very skeptical listening to their story that just seemed like the mormon story except that the Black Hebrews had to live in Liberia for a year before they were dumped in Dimona, it's definitely not a romantic story but you can google it. Anyway after some eye rolling they explained that they focus on music and dance so they sang for us and taught us to dance and it was amazing. AMAZING. Nothing like changing your opinion. But they do love the word ya! like Halleluya! as in god, as in We praise you ya! Don't get me started.

We also ventured to a REAL BEDOUIN TENT, AHHHH! But i do love the bedouin tents except that I was peer pressured to ride a camel and do a "spiritual sit" in the desert where I had to "think about my feelings and reach deep within" and as nice as sitting and thinking is i am really not into all of that uhh- feelings stuff, I'm just not.

But anyway we had lots of pita and hummus and kabobs and sang around the campfire and we all really bonded, even some of the weird music kids (We travel with group of international kids who learn music at a conservatory in Tel Aviv but only a few are normal).

Then we did nice activities, we filled sand bottles with colored sand, and went to an overlook where you can see Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and went snorkeling; it was well planned. All the touring and activities and discussions felt a lot like being in summer camp but hey if someone else is organizing a guided tour at the coral reef, Ill go along.

Finally, Kibbutz part 2. THE KIBBUTZ

So after I rallied everyone up for THE KIBBUTZ the tour guide said, "I really don't like Ketura, they're don't guests very well, they're pretty snobby," and so I said "watch it." But in reality when we got to dinner he asked the Keren Kolot people to bring more chicken and broccoli and dessert, so I guess as a hotel, yes the Kibbutz isn't that great.

But, here's the thing. HERE'S THE THING. The kibbutz kids were all away on a retreat to the Kinneret so it was just me and my group. No family, no friends, just Noa and Kibbutz. and it was NICE. The kibbutz, i mean. Without the distractions about worrying about how it would be socially and stressing out about not being there for so long, I really loved it- the freedom and independence, the community, the old house, the dinning room, the pool. It really made me appreciate that I had grown up there, and it put it back into a soft spot in my heart. Oy, that was too feelings-y.

Jerusalem

Jerusalem in 2 Parts

1. Trip to Jerusalem

2. Move to Jerusalem!

So we embarked on a 4 day trip to Jerusalem at 6:30AM and never really stopped after that. I feel like we saw EVERYTHING in Jerusalem, EVERYTHING. Some things I could have skipped, like a very claustrophobic trip in the water tunnels of the city of David and a trip to every orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem for Sinchat Torah where I got to sit in a multitude of balconies and back rooms.

But we did see a lot of amazing things. First and formost the neighborhoods- Nachla'ot and Yemin Moshe. Oh my goodness they were beautiful. They were so clean and quaint. They were very green and all Jerusalem stone. Lots of balconies and porches and cute, cute sukkahs. It was bad though. I was like, shit, I really didn't want to like Jerusalem that much, or for that matter anywhere in Israel. Let me explain, I wanted to like Israel, but not enough to say I want to be here! I want to live here, but god those neighborhoods were amazing.

We saw a very interesting scene at a hotel bar thursday night. We went to a really high -class bar at the Mamila Hotel. There there were lots of religious teens partying. What a strange scene you could see only in Jerusalem, maybe in Brooklyn, but it was very interesting to see boys in kippahs and girls in covered-up relgious wear drinking, dancing with each other! and acting very un-modest-like but that is the confusing nature of this city.

Now we have made Jerusalem our home. We moved into the dorms which are amazing. The student village is huge and we are all living in 5 people apartments everyone with their own room and a common room and kitchen. I am really lucky to have roommates I really like. We haven't had to much time here but I already really like it here. Even just the cooler weather from the sweltering Tel Aviv heat, more space for everyone, walking distance to Bezalel. Of course, in true Israeli fashion we went to Bezalel and we told pretty much nothing. We got an introduction to the school but we don't sign up for classes until Wednesday, so as usual, we'll see....