October 30, 2009

Texas Love

Lauren is a Texas blogger I followed thanks to Marli, who mentioned her in a post on her blog. Ohhhh the blogosphere...

Anyways, she is having an amazing givaway here and wanted to share the Texas Love. Amazing earrings! I would so sport them in Israel!!!

October 19, 2009

the glories of a package

It is so nice getting something in the mail; nonetheless a package! Thank you mom for my wonderful birthday package with all its glorious contents!!!

It's funny what things you request to have sent over to you while living abroad. I was ecstatic to receive Burt's Bees lip balm, Cosmopolitan's October issue, Revlon's "Plum Seduction" nail enamel, a bag of mixed candy (which included my all time favorite chocolate indulgence: Take 5), Bare Essentials Faux Tan (crucial now that winter is arriving), a big, fat tube of LashBlast waterproof mascara and the sweetest card from my family.

I wonder what kind of package contents are being enjoyed everyday around the globe. Cheesy, I know; but something fun to think about. Mail is so underrated.

October 11, 2009

happy anniversary

to me and to the state of Israel. I have been living here for a year, yesterday.

On another note, I have worked in the agriculture department here on kibbutz Yagur since I began the Ulpan program in June and must say that I have had one of the best jobs possible to the ulpanists. Other job options for ulpanists are working in the kitchen/ dining room (which will make you never want to eat in there again), working in the nursery with the kids, working in the zoo (yes there's like a petting zoo here), working in the laundry room (folding and sorting clothes for 6 hours...kill me), working in the wedding gardens (which is another great job bc you get to attend the weddings with a guest if you work there, but wedding season is over- so the job is over) or working in one of the factories here on the kibbutz (which I did at my last kibbutz, so no thanks). So yeah, I had a great job of working outside, in a relaxed environment, learning about agriculture. Agriculture is a big part of Israel and this kibbutz, in particular, because Yagur sits on so much land. Anyways, so all this time I have been doing random, various jobs of like going out to the fields (tomato, hummus, cucumber, cotton, peanuts, eggplant..) and cleaning watering hoses or opening them so water can be dispersed properly, wheeling the hoses in when time came to pick the crops, cleaning and drying different crops seeds in preparation for sale and driving the tractors, my favorite. Cotton is the last crop that the agriculture dept handles and cotton season just ended. It has all been picked, packed, bundled and shipped off for sale and I need to transfer jobs. I think I will move to work with the kids in the kindergartens, but just wanted to share a bit of my experience working "in the fields" to those who had no earthly idea what I did with my time here.

Of course, working only takes up 3 days of my week, the other 3 days I'm in class for 6 hours leaning Hebrew. New words, conjugations, phrases, Israeli news and history. Some days I am so encouraged to conquer this language and become 100% fluent (at this point I would say I am 75% fluent) and sometimes I think I've had enough and all I want to do is be surrounded by familiarity again. But Israel is beautiful and I'm not sick of it yet. Let me just say that I am SO looking forward to June!