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!

bed ridden

In bed sick today, and for the past couple days...hibernating. This hasn't happened in a while- can't remember the last time I didn't feel so hot. But went to the clinic this AM and got some meds, should be up and running in a couple of hours =)

So many birthdays this month!!! Don't want to name names, but you know who you are :) Happy Birthday Septemberites!!!

tic toc

so Mirelle's departure date is getting closer and closer and before I know it she will be heading to Dallas. I can't believe that she will be enrolling in college soon! 2 drops down to 1:

camped out

So, we went camping. I am fresh out of the much-needed shower at Dekel's house and just wanted to write about the experience I just had. It was so fun!

So Dekel and I drove to meet Mirelle and some of the kids from her kibbutz at the Kinneret, at this camping site called Dugit, and we arrived fully prepared around like 7, we set up shop (aka tent) and unloaded out things and then began cooking Shakshuka, a traditional Israeli side dish. Dekel is amazing and keeps this like stove top thing in his trunk so we brought a pan and ingredients (tomatoes, onions, red pepper, tomato sauce, eggs, salt, pepper, oil, water) and made dinner. You let some oil in the pan get hot over the stove top and then add like 2 onions cut up into small pieces, then you cut up about 2 tomatos, I liked them cut into small pieces as well, and then you add cut up red pepper. You let this all get hot and then add the tomato sauce, we used like maybe half a can, its really just up to your personal taste and how thick you want this little snack to come out, then when the sauce kinda melts and everythings getting thick, you add some water, not too much because you dont want watery, but just enough to make it kinda of pasty and then let that stand over the fire for a minute and then when that's all kinda cooked and browning, add about 5 or 6 eggs, again, its up to your taste, but you mix everything together and you have kind of like spaghetti sauce with scrambled eggs and we ate it with bread and hummus and I added green olives in mine, Mirelle added corn and tuna. Really, really tasty. So we got some grub in our bellies and then layed down for a bit, passed out a little then I got a spurt of energy and popped up and started doing jumping jacks..we were camping at the Kinneret, no time for sleepiness! So Dekel and I ventured down to the lake shore, we were camping like right on the beach, but the water was just murky and it was dark and I was creeped out by the fact that you could see the city across the water (Tiveria is the one I'm talking about) and so I got knee-deep and turned around..so we chilled by the campfire and hung out with everyone and eventually slept under the stars. I woke up to the sun shining on my face, but still managed to sleep till around 8:30 or so. We cleaned a little and threw away loads of trash from the night before and we about to go toward the water until Mel realized she wasnt wearing her bathing suit bottom, so she went to the campsite to search, we searched Dekel's car and trunk and we couldnt find it anywhere! So I thought maybe we threw it away, so we backtracked and Mirelle started searching the trash can and there enough! Mirelle's bathing suit bottoms were in a sack and someone thought it was a trash bag and threw it away!! I laughed for like 10 minutes thinking "this kinda shit only happens to Mirelle..." So we went to the water, which was refreshing because it is so hot here in Israel right now, its like a stiff, humid heat and water just makes everything better. So I wasnt reluctant to get in this time because you could see through the water now and we were with more people and the water was just calm, no waves. It was nice. Ended up leaving around noon, it was the perfect amount of time to be there...

Anyways, just wanted to share my night. Hope you all had (and are still having because its only Saturdsay!) a great weekend as well =)

Camping at the Kinneret. That is my plan for the evening. Heading north with Dekel, Mirelle and others from her kibbutz. I've never done this but have wanted to for some time...picture it- me...camping. I'll be fine as long as the spiders stay away.

Dresses are in!!! I haven't announced it on my blog, and I don't know who reads this who doesn't already know, but I am going to be a Maid of Honor in my best friend's wedding. I am beyond excited!!! This means a trip home. Molly & Sammy are gettin' hitched July 10, 1010, so I will make my trip around that, they are going to Hawaii to honeymoon after the wedding so I plan to fly to Dallas late June. Beyond excited about that too, it has been WAY too long since I have seen everyone and they better know that I plan to leach on and eat them up!!!