Where Are They Now?

Hi,

The chronicles will not be updated today, sorry. Instead, I'm just gonna write...

Well, I got a new apartment. I moved out within a week and set up shop about 10 minutes down the road on Avenue De L'Esplanade. I like it here and my new roommate is nice. I don't see her very much, but when we do interact it is always positive. My room is spacious enough to offer me privacy and a sense of home.

Its been about 3 weeks since Lindsey told me she didn't want to be in our relationship anymore. Since then, we have seen each other a bit. We still have things to talk about, obviously. Actually, I was talking to her a week or so ago and she was able to articulate that she is not in love with me anymore. I was actually kind of glad to know, because I am still very much in the dark about whatever happened. I just know Lindsey came home one night and didn't want me anymore, and I had to accept it.

We aren't angry at one another which is lucky, I believe. If I had to deal with anger on top of everything else, things would get ugly. Any time I do see her though, I turn myself off emotionally. I try not to smile, cry, use expressive tones in my voice, or be excited about anything. I am making it a point to distance myself from her so that I can jolt my brain and heart into understanding that they are all alone, and this Lindsey character is not the one I thought I knew.

Frankly, I don't think my heart and brain have figured it out yet. But the gears are a-turning and I think I'm going to hit a breakthrough soon. You see, one piece of advice I got very soon after the whole thing was that I should keep myself busy so my mind doesn't wander too much. I took this advice and I have kept myself VERY busy. I am out of the house most of every day, I have travelled, I do improv out the wazoo. Unfortunately, I think I've missed something.

The other part of dealing with this whole thing is actually thinking about it. I haven't done that much. When I'm in public, I don't want to depress myself or cry, so I supress my thoughts and emotions. When I'm by myself, I somehow cannot cry, so my emotions are supressed again. Essentially, I am always supressing my emotions. I have trained myself over the past 5 years to only cry in front of Lindsey and now I don't have that anymore. It has also come to my attention that I can no longer even cry in front of myself! So this leaves me with an overwhelming number of tears hiding behind a dam that can only hold so much pressure.

I did cry a little bit a couple nights ago. It came as a suprise, lasted about 30 seconds and disappeared into the ether. I don't know how it came, so I can't repeat the process. Meanwhile, my body is feeling the pressure of such a major emotional turmoil being shoved away into darkness. I am getting headaches a lot, and I have started biting my nails a lot. I never had this disgusting habit before, but now its full force.

All I really want right now is to curl into a ball in someone's lap and cry a lot. I want to cry and ask ridiculous questions like, "Why me?" and, "Why doesn't she love me anymore?" and, "Why does it hurt so bad?". I want to do that and have someone gently comfort me, they don't even have to answer, because frankly there are no answers to the questions. But I don't have that.

So thats where I am now, 3 weeks after the person I thought I loved ceased to exist.

The Chronicles

Hey,

I decided it might be fun, or useful, or interesting, or just a good use of time to chronicle my entire relationship with Lindsey. I know that not many of my blog readers know much about how things are or were, so this can also be useful for the general public.

Today on the chronicles: The Prelude to a Connection

The first time I ever met Lindsey Ross was the summer of 1999. I was at a camp called Moshava in the boonies of Maryland. Every summer, the older campers (I was a junior counselor that summer) have a get-together weekend with the older campers of the nearby sister camp in Pennsylvania. This summer, the junior counselors all got together at Moshava while the rest of the camp was on a hiking trip for three days. It was an awesome time...just us crazy 16 year olds with a whole camp to ourselves.

Lindsey was at that sister camp, Galil, that year. Although she is originally from Seattle and normally went to a different sister camp in BC, this summer she decided to stir it up a bit and went across the country for camp.

I didn't really know anyone from Galil, so it was a huge influx of new people to meet. We had a really fun few days, talking about interesting things and whatnot. Part of the whatnot was one night when we were hanging out in our lounge together. I was chilling on a couch with a few people, who happened to be girls. I decided to secretly play a game to see how many girls I could get to be with me on the couch at once. Only one other person even knew about this ridiculous game and took a picture of all of us each time I added a girl. One of the original two girls who was with me on the couch, and was there every time for every picture, was a quiet girl named Lindsey. I hadn't really talked to her, but that didn't stop me from sexually posing next to her in every picture. I was even licking her in a couple. Whatever, it was camp...

That was the extent of my interactions with Lindsey that first time. I didn't really hit it off with her then. In fact, I ended up hooking up with a completely different girl, who has a role to play later in the story. Jamie, if you are reading, I miss you.

The second time I ever met Lindsey was a few months later. It was October of 1999 and I was at a seminar for my youth movement in Toronto. Lindsey was also at this seminar. I don't think I even remembered her. But at this seminar we really connected. We hung out a lot and talked a lot.

The most special moment of this chance encounter in Toronto was when we walked together to a gas station down the street and shared pistachios for the very first time. The sharing of pistachios was forever etched in our relationship despite the fact that we weren't "together" or "in a relationship" at all that weekend.

That was about all that happened there, although I did insist on sitting next to her on the drive back to the airport...I was such a dork. I was a bit taken by her though. After the weekend, I got a hold of my good friend Jamie, of three paragraphs ago fame, and asked for Lindsey's IM name.

Ristretto6, a name I grew to know so well. We chatted a couple times, quite awkwardly. We didn't have much, but we knew each other, and at least liked each other. That was the extent of our shared time together before the mammoth life changing event I call WORKSHOP happened.

End Chapter 1.

Firsts and Lasts

Five years ago, on a warm September night in Israel, I laid down with Lindsey Ross. This was not all that unique, but what made this night different was that we kissed for the first time. It was beautiful, romantic, special, simply awesome.

Tonight, Lindsey came home from a weekend trip to Seattle. We gave each other a big hug, a hug meant for lovers. It was our last.

Lindsey and I ended our relationship tonight. She questioned our relationship and came up with an answer neither of us ever expected. She didn't want to be a part of the relationship anymore.

It wasn't a fight, it wasn't a lie, it wasn't a nameable problem, it just was...

I of course respect her decision. After all, I don't want to be in a relationship with a person who doesn't want to be in it with me. I wanted to be in a relationship with a different Lindsey, one who loved what we had and wanted to be a part of it forever. I found out tonight that that person doesn't actually exist.

I don't want to convince her, I don't want to argue with her, I don't want to make her question more. In the end, I would always know that I was with someone who I needed to convince to be with me, and thats just not the kind of relationship I want.

I'm crying like never before. I completely forgot what it feels like to be utterly heartbroken. When I get really sad, it physically manifests itself. I honestly can feel my heart breaking. My chest hurts. My eyes burn from the tears. One moment I can be sitting calmly, considering practical things I need to do with my life, the next I am screaming with a pain that I never could have imagined would come.

We are sleeping seperately tonight, under the same roof. Thats a first.

I am so scared of whats to come...

Those Weak of Heart and Mind, Stop Here

Hi,

For some reason, many of the friends I have made in the past five years do not know me. They may think they know me, I may even think they know me, but they don't. I am not sure why. I just haven't been keen on opening myself up to people. I hang out immensely with these people, and we have lots of great and memorable times together, but I find that my entire personality is just what they have physically observed of me. People don't really know my past, what my life is like (other than school/improv), what my relationship with Lindsey is like.

Here is an example that surprised even me: A few months ago I was sitting and eating with a couple of friends who I had known for a good 2 or 3 years. They were particularly good friends who I hung out with on many many occasions. While sitting with them, it became apparent that they really knew almost nothing about my Workshop experience. It was a big realization that they knew nothing of the program, my experiences, or my stories of a year of my life that was probably the single most formative time of my life.

I don't talk to people about my feelings, I hide when I am sad, I try to only put on a neutral to happy face. Maybe a lesson I've learned is that no one likes an unhappy person. When someone asks if I'm OK, I will almost always say fine or good or great, no matter how I feel. I don't believe that people really want to hear anything else.

This is a weird lesson to have learned. I'd like to believe I've learned otherwise, because its not the healthiest outlook to have. I've been through so much sadness in my life. I've experienced intense periods of depression, moments of despair where I was ready and willing to end it all. I learned to beat a lot of those feelings by embracing sadness as a normal feeling (if its OK to be happy, why shouldn't it be OK to be sad?), by talking about how I feel, and by realizing that life is precious. I always give advice to other people to be open and honest with themselves and others. I quote a book I once read (The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibrian) and tell people that we can only be filled with joy as deep as sorrow cuts into us. I am pretty well versed on how to be open about feelings.

In high school, I was perpetually alone and unhappy. But that's high school, right? So then I went on Workshop. I was always around a really great (at times) group of people. We were constantly open with each other, we shared deep things...I met the most important person in my life. I grew, I learned things about myself, I confronted my parents about deeply disliking them, I learned to love again, I made close friends that wil certainly last a lifetime, I became a new and improved Gil. My whole 18 years before that year were all just a long trail of shit that I could wipe away clean.

And yet, here I am, five years down the road, and I find myself hiding my true self. I show half myself. I show almost nothing to anybody. I don't let people in. Sometimes I don't even know if I'm in anymore.

Why is that? Even my great friends from Workshop have grown distant. I hardly talk to them, and when I do its never like it was back then, its the same as it is with anyone else. I've dabbled in opening up a little to people with mixed results. Sometimes I can feel that another person wants me to tell them more, but I still avoid it.

I am feeling number and number. Something needs to change. I need to start feeling again.

Photo of the Day

This isn't a particularly great picture, but for some sad reason I don't have a lot of pictures of this guy. This guy is a great guy. He was my best friend on MBI, and he continues to be one of my bestest buddies even though we are on opposite coasts. I was scared to go on MBI until I found out he was going, too. He is pretty cute, huh?

Anyway, the reason I have a picture of him is for more than just praise, although I could do that for a long time. The reason is that he relates to my entry today. My entry dealt with the idea of helping people and what I can do. Now my friend here, who is named Zach by the way, had an interesting perspective on this topic. Zach at one point in time tried to change the situation in Darfur, Sudan by getting a petition signed by thousands of students Canada-wide. He proudly sent this petition to the foreign minister to initiate change in government policy. In case you don't know Canadian government policy, nothing has changed. They are as unconcerned with that region of the world as any other rich predominantly white nation. This was a crushing blow to Zach's idea of what he could do to make a change in the world.

This summer, Zach began to challenge people's conception of making change by proposing his own idea of how to truly make a difference. As an individual, what can you do to save a family's life in Darfur? Talking to politicians often is fruitless, and when it isn't, it is still so slow in its avenues that no difference will be made in the necessary time. You could enter politics yourself, but thats well in the future before you are going to be able to change anything of concern. You could send money, but that won't necessarily save a life. So Zach proposed this: Get yourself a gun, AK-47 or the like, fly to Darfur, wait outside an African village, and when that van full of Janjaweed come out, you kill them. In the time that you have made by attacking the would-be killers, at least one family will have had enough time to run away to a refugee camp or the likes. Even if you die, you probably have saved their lives. This is the best and possibly only thing an individual can do to truly affect lives in Darfur today..according to Zach, NOT me.

Zach would argue very honestly about this, and its hard to counter this arguement. My main counter was that I am truly against killing no matter what. Its not OK to go out and kill those Janjaweed, even though they are potential killers themselves. Thats just my humanistic values, though. Its not a good arguement for Zach.

An actual arguement is that as a collective or a movement, you can be part of something larger that can really help. One person can't do a lot, but a solid group can. You can all work together in Sudan to make a difference in many ways other than just killing. And even if you were killing, you'd be way more efficient as a group.

Woah, that was a morbid comment.

Anyway, thats why my idea of being leader of my movement is gaining more and more import in my head. As the leader of a collective I can really make a difference somewhere if I set the movement's sight in that direction.

Here is another story involving Zach:

At camp one year (Zach and I are camp friends originally) Zach was trying to grasp the concept of irony. He would propose all sorts of situations and I would say whether they were ironic or not (i.e. a diabetic dying from being hit by a truck carrying insulin). Anyway, at camp we have fun activities where everyone dresses up and acts out funny situations. This particular night was Pirate Night and everyone was dressed like pirates. I drew on a mustache and had a sword/stick, Zach wore a bandana, sash and eyepatch. Zach and I sat and told stories to kids about swashbuckling and booty. One story Zach was telling involved him stealing booty from me, and as he told the story he grabbed my hand and pulled it towards him (you know, for visual aid to the story). Unfortunately, I was holding my sword/stick in that hand and he pulled it directly into his eye quite hard. He was hurt pretty bad and as he lay in tears in the infirmary, I sat with him. He was still in his bandana, sash, torn pants, and now he had a real eyepatch over his eye. He turned to me and weakly asked, "Gil, is this ironic?" I gently pat his head and nodded, "Yes, Zach. This is definitely ironic."

I Know I Didn't Put The P

Yo,

I saw Constant Gardener yesterday. It was actually a pretty great movie. It dealt with very interesting topics, and for me it brought up the theme of, "What can I do to help?"

This is a recurring theme in my head. The basic idea, which I've written about before so forgive the slight redundancy, is that I want to do something that helps people when I grow up. I want to do a job which will improve people's lives. The ideas for future life choices at this point in time are as such:

1) Become leader of my youth movement (Mazkir Tnua...great title)
2) Drop everything and pursue imrov seriously
3) Grad School for something or other, possible Speech Pathology

Now, from these three, it seems #1 holds the most option of helping people. My movement is part of an international movement which works towards peace and social justice in Israel, among other things. As the head of my movement, I can direct actions, set plans in place, and get involved in international coordinated initiatives. I could even push my movement to get more actively and officially involved in domestic social justice issues, of which there are many.

But #3 also holds a lot of potential. If I were to gain a useful skill, such as Speech Pathology certification, I would be actively helping individuals every day! That seems awesome, right? Its not as large scale as my movement, but it is way more concrete that planning and implementing initiatives and the like. Either this person can talk, or they can't...figure it out!

Unfortunately for me, #2 is very possibly at the top of my list. This option holds the least "help people" potential. It does seem the funnest. I mean, imrov! Its so great, I love doing imrov, imrov is so fulfilling, I never feel like I'm getting enough of imrov! It makes sense to go for it, right?

Here's the thing: To temper the fervor raised inside myself after the Constant Gardener, I also gained an interesting message from an episode of My So Called Life. First of all, let me just say that this show is really fun to watch. It is really well made, and the characters are all really interesting. Anyway, in this most recent episode, Graham (Angela's [Claire Danes] Dad) has a life-shaking event happen. He realizes that although he may be good at his job, its not what he wants to be doing, and he doesn't want to waste his life away. Luckily, his wife realizes this and being his boss, fires him. How touching. The moral is obvious, and its relevant. I do love imrov, and it makes me really happy. Isn't that whats most important overall?

Shit. I hate that two different and equally entertaining and poignant fictional stories are putting me into such a moral paradox!

Anyway, the positive outlook on all this is that I'm still really young, and I have time to dabble in things before making the big leap into a career for quite some time. Thats the lesson I learned from some guy I kinda know who I ran into yesterday and had a short but awkward conversation with. Perhaps the best lessons in life come from real life interactions, and not from watching glowing screens of scripted interactions with prepackaged morals.

That was a kind of hippy ending. Shit.

Laziness Sets In With Ironic Efficiency

Hi,

Well, I decided a while back not to apologize for not writing in my blog, but I'd at least like to explain what's been happening.

Firstly, I got way too sucked into my little video game world. It turns out that the game really is a complex sequel to Chrono Trigger, and as the plot got denser, I got more determined to figure out what the hell was going on. Thats my first explanation.

Secondly, I haven't really been responding to ANY emails or anything. I've been generally abstaining from writing things on my computer I guess. No emails, not blog entries. What happened is that I received an email that I really wanted to respond to, but it was also somewhat of an overwhleming task. So, while I was shying away from responding to this email, I shied away from all others, knowing that if I began one email, I'd inevitably write this email thats been hanging over me. This is a common phenomenon for me, it happens with school work as well sometimes. So in writing this blog entry, I am finally submitting to writing this email. And its a good thing, because in my hiatus from writing, I've received an email from a hurt friend because I didn't respond. Oops. Thats the second reason.

Lastly, I have been super busy hanging out with friends and doing cool things, I didn't really have any time. Thats the last reason. Also, its a lie.

Anyway, thats the low down.

I'd really like this post to be about something other than why I haven't posted so here is a sliver of my life in the past few days:

I started school on Thurday and its pretty fun. I actually only have class on Tuesday and Thursday, which means 4 day weekends! It all depends on McGill's ability to accept Concordia University as a legitimate institute of higher learning.

You see, I took some Linguistics classes at Concordia a few years back, and one of those courses was Phonology. It was a lovely course taught by the wonderful Charles Reiss, and I aced it after happily working away through the semester. When I approached the McGill Linguistics department about this issue a couple years back they seemed dissatisfied with me taking a core Linguistics course at Concordia and wanted me to take it AGAIN!

I kind of didn't respond to this request over the years and now I find myself at the last semester of my time here at McGill. I figure that when I talk to the advisor, I can some how sucker him into letting me have my rightful Concordia credits by appealing to the fact that its my last semester and I'm too busy to fit it in my schedule.

I've got my fingers crossed on this one, I certainly don't want ONE class on Monday Wednesday and Friday. I would definitely want to skip it 75 to 99% of the time.

I'll keep you posted. Hehe...blog pun.

Photo of the Day

This photo is of my friend Alana. The purpose of this picture was to capture the beauty of the hike we were on. We were in the desert and we went on an absolutely beautiful hike down into a deep white valley. This picture was taken at the bottom of the valley, you can just see the pool of water behind her, and the high stone walls topped with clear blue desert sky.

This hike was the best hike we went on. Its not because it was the most beautiful or challenging or unique. It was the best because it was the first time we managed to keep 33 kids together as a group for a whole hike. Every time we hike, the fast people charge ahead and the hike-haters lag behind creating a gap of almost 10 minutes at times. Thus we end up starting and stopping a lot, and the fast guys get annoyed at the slow guys, and the slow guys feel like they are holding the group behind.

On this hike, we consciously slowed the pace and put the slow people in front and the fast people in back. In this way we managed to have a group hike. The hike was not too long, so we were able to maintain this balance the whole way. It was a clear success. The kids all loved the hike and we finished together.

It always feels good to try and do something for your group and succeeding. My job on this trip was to be doing things like that. Often I felt useless as the tour guide was in charge of almost everything. But on this particular hike I and the two other madrichim (hebrew for leaders) came up with this simple plan to please everyone and it worked. Yay.

I'm Not a Guy

Shalom,

I hate shopping. I really really hate shopping.

Here are some reasons:

1) I seldom buy things. Thus "going shopping" is actually me standing still while others look at things.

2) Even when I buy things, I never like to take more than 10 minutes. Once I went shoe shopping and I made a decision AND purchased in 7 minutes. Ha-Cha!

3) When I am browsing, I get mad at myself for shopping. Its a vicious cycle like that.

4) I don't like being surrounded by consumerism. Does that make me a dumb hippy? Dang.

5) I don't really even like spending money. And when I do want to spend money, I somehow never have enough! What's up wit dat?!

Today I went to the St. Laurent street fair (La Frenesie de La Main!) and perused the boulevard. For me, the excitement of the street fair (La Frenesie!) is just the very concept of it. I love the fact that a major city can shut down a street it openly admits is the main street just because...well, its summer! I love walking through the throngs of people, the hordes of excited consumers. I love the little special things that come out, like mango-on-a-stick, like funky indie t-shirt vendors, like a beach volleyball tournament in a converted parking lot, like the oddly Being John Malkovitch-like puppet show (it was eerily cool). I don't purchase things, I just walk, observe, experience...I breathe deep and just take it all in.

I was with others though. We started at Mont-Royal and strolled down at a leisurely pace. As more and more stores crowded the sidewalk the pace slowed. By Avenue Des Pins I had lost all my patience.

I don't want to sound like a "guy", but I can't stand the act of shopping. Actually, I think its becoming quite trendy for guys to enjoy shopping. Whether it be for some bootylicious bling, or for the sheer metrosexual fun of it, shopping seems to be the in thing across the gender spectrum.

And, as I often find myself, I am not on that damned gender spectrum.

Photo of the Day

This photo is of all of the kids on a very special day. It is the day they receive their Chultzot, movement shirts. From the day they start in the movement as campers or whatnot, the kids see their counselors wearing these blue shirts. These shirts are full of significance and they are prized possesions of all movement members. The kids do not receive their shirts until they participate in the MBI program. The kids all know this of course and eagerly await the day that they receive these blue beauties.

We gave them their shirts about halfway through the summer and they were so psyched. Here is the catch, though: The shirt also contains a Sroch, or string. This red string is what really makes these shirts something special, and furthermore declares us as socialist and labor-oriented. We didn't give them the Sroch until the very last day of MBI, and by then they were aching for it.

If you are not a movement member, it probably sounds pretty silly to get all worked up over a silly blue shirt and red string. But this shirt is the true symbol of our movement. All over Israel, and the world really, you can look for others in this shirt and know that you are connected to them. It is a statement to wear this shirt. It is the kids first time being treated as full movement members, and they long for that day.

I love my Chultza, and I am filled with a special pride whenever I wear it. It is old and worn in, which makes it all the more special to me. The day I took this picture, when I saw that sea of blue, all the kids excitedly wearing this, I was so proud of this group of kids. They are the new leaders of my movement, and I was there to personally pass on this revered tradition.

Chronological Crossroads

Hello,

I made the decision to start playing a video game. This may sound like a light decision, but I have a long history of video game playing. This history is full of instances where I sit for long periods in front of the glowing screen, putting hour after hour of gameplay in so I succeed in beating whatever I am playing. Since I have beat Final Fantasy I, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, and X-2, I am not wholly ashamed of this (the list is longer, those are just the ones that are dear to my heart).

My issue comes from the fact that by starting to play now, I am putting myself in a position where I will want to put in many many hours of gametime in the coming weeks. This issue coincides temporally with the arrival of many of my friends and acquaintances from out of town. So, after having wasted much time over the past two weeks when very few of my friends were in town, I for some reason decide to embark on a time consuming quest right when I actually want to have free time. But its too late to turn back now.

The game I have started is called Chrono Cross. It is the quasi-sequel to the SNES epic masterpiece Chrono Trigger. There were three geniuses behind the creation of Chrono Trigger and all three were absent in the creation of Chrono Cross. Thus, the sequel is not outstanding. It is fun, though. I am Serge, a boy from a small beach town who is at the center of a mystery involving the very fabric of space-time itself. After somehow transporting to an alternate dimension, I find that I have been dead for 10 years, and some cat-man named Lynx is very interested in me. So, I obviously need to beat the crap out of a lot of people to get answers. On the way I pick up around 40 (yes 40) helpful side characters. It is an alright plot, with decent graphics, decent sound, and very unique gameplay. All in all, a fun and engrossing experience.

My problem is that I've owned this game for about 5 years and I never bothered beating it. It has just been sitting on my shelf beckoning me. When it isn't beckoning, its actually taunting me..."Cmon, Gil. Am I too hard? Can't beat me? Are you scared?" Hell, no, I'm not scared!

OK. I've just revealed a very large chunk of my dorkiness. Please don't look down on me for it.

Photo of the Day

The man shown in this photo is none other than the great Neil Harris. This isn't such a great photo of him, but truly no photo would do justice to his greatness, his grandeur. He is an educational speaker in Israel, originally from Manchester, UK. He is the most amazing speaker there is. No matter how much hype you give him, no matter how many times you see him, he still is riveting. You can (and do) listen to him for hours and the whole time you are totally immersed in his stories. Oh, did I mention what he talks about? The Roots of Historical Socialist Labor Zionism. It sounds like a massively boring topic, and rightfully so (unless you are a keener like me). But Neil brings it to life by taking you to the spots where history was made, contextualizing, contemporizing, and even singing. He is truly wonderful. One group was so enamored by him that they produced bracelets with the acronym WWNHD: What would Neil Harris do?

Oh, and did I mention that he shares a name with Doogie Howser, MD? How cool is that?!

Anyway, this picture was taken in Deganya Aleph, the first Kibbutz ever built. It is a wonderful place and full of history. There is a portion of our trip where we are split up and live on various Kibbutzes throughout Israel for 5 days. I was blessed with the opportunity to stay on Deganya Aleph for that portion. It was awesome. Every step I took I imagined being taken by famous Labor Zionists like Rachel, AD Gordon, and Berl Katznelson. I am a big dork for these sorts of things, so it was really great for me and me only.

In reality, the actual programming during that part of the trip was pretty sucky. We basically had nothing to do all day long and felt pretty useless. But it was good relaxation time. Who can really complain when you are having a barbeque on the banks of the Jordan River, and using a rope swing from a high tree to do a flip into the sacred water in which Jesus himself was baptized?

The true highlight of that portion of my trip was one particular night. It was one of my friends' birthday that night so we all decided to try and meet up at a pub on one of the Kibbutzes, because we were all relatively close and the kids were staying with host families. Me and my friend Ruth were loaned bicycles and we actually biked across Emek Hayarden, on the coast of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee for all you Christians), in the middle of the night. Most of the area is Kibbutz land, so we were biking through fields of bananas and dates. It was such an amazing feeling and it was so beautiful. I felt so free. I love biking, I love Kibbutz, I love that area of Israel, and I love hanging out with my friends. It honestly was the best night of my entire summer.

Cer-amicable Service

Hiyo,

Yesterday I went to the Ceramic Studio Cafe on St Denis. Lindsey had a gift certificate there from her birthday, so we decided to cash it in. It was the perfect day, as we arrived the heavens opened and rain poured down heavily. We entered the cafe dripping already and started making our decision on what to paint. We settled on a teapot. It wasn't an ordinary teapot either, it is interestingly shaped with a tall lid and a funny looking spout. We sat ourselves down and painted away for two whole hours. It was quite fun and I'm extremely surprised at how nicely the design worked out considering how I have no artistic talent. There is a butterfly on one side and a flower on the other.

Anyway, the point of this little exposition is that the cafe is really great and I encourage you all to go there if you live in Montreal and have time. I was telling a friend about it today. He saw me with Lindsey on my walk over to the cafe and he didn't know Lindsey. When he asked me today how it went, he asked, "Was it like a third date sort of thing?" And I awkwardly (but confidently) replied, "No, I've been with her for 5 years. We just wanted a teapot."

Moral: Take your significant other there on your third date or 5 year anniversary...or both!

PS The pun in the title is poor, I admit it. The reason I chose it is because the cafe has nice people and at the counter it encourages you in French to tip the staff who served "amiablement." I thought it was weird that there was no word in English like "friendlyly", and Lindsey intelligently pointed out the word "amicably" which means the same thing. I feel better now that I've justified that seemingly poor choice.

Photo of the Day

This is an alright picture of a camel ride we all took in the desert. I was basically just holding the camera over my shoulder and this is one of the best shots I got. It was a really fun ride, except for the fact that it hurt my testicles an incredible amount. I have never really experienced that much testicular pain, it hurt for literally hours afterwards. My camel in particular was walking weird, he kept kicking, which I'm sure wasn't helping the genital situation.

The ride was cool, we were led by a couple Bedouins. They were definitely smoking pot while they were leading, and the kids were definitely aware of that and asking questions as to how legit the whole operation was.

To be truthful, the operation was not that legit. Israel has a tendency to showcase their happier minorities. That night we stayed at "Bedouin tents" and were hosted by Bedouins who fed us and entertained us. It was cool, but unfortunately very hokey. The whole things is owned and operated by a Jewish company, and the Bedouins don't really live there, they just work there to entertain Jewish tourists. The guy who was the head honcho was using the opportunity to sell his CD, and he made one too many jokes about his robe being made in China.

Its sad that we couldn't really experience Bedouin life. They aren't happy people who play music all day and eat lavish meals. They are the poorest of the poor who live in tin houses and roam the desert as shepherds. Of course, not all of them are like this, but I believe the majority are. I don't know how feasible or smart it is to expose 16 year olds to this life is, especially when they are in Israel mostly to have fun and get booty. At the same time, I don't know how right it is to essentially lie and show a fake lifestyle. Israel is just full of these interesting dilemmas.

Odd Duck, That One

Hello?

Weird. I didn't post yesterday and yet I had nothing to do to keep me from posting. I literally did nothing all day. I didn't even leave the house! I meant to post but I didn't.

Anyway, enough posting about posting.

Today I briefly toyed with the idea of moving home in December after I finish school. My parents have decided to cut me off officially, so I need money to live starting right around then. I figure it would be a nice choice for a while because food and rent would immediately be covered, and so all my work would go immediately into savings.

I don't know why I feel the need to expound on the benefits of living at home, its not a very novel idea. It also would be fun because I have a lot of friends in the MD area who I have pretty much lost contact with, and I would be interested in rekindling the friendships.

Unfortunately, the cons are as such: it means I have to live at home...which is bleh-ish, there is no car for me there, and Lindsey would not have as good a time as I would. So, its an option, but I don't know how likely.

Also, I am looking for a job for the fall, but I don't know if I really want just a time wasting job like a counter-worker at a store, or a professor-helper. I've never really had one of those jobs, and I feel like I might want a job where I can really apply myself. Unfortunately, those jobs are tougher to find and get, especially when I can only legally work on campus.

So my life is full of open ended options that need to be figured out. Hopefully in a month or so my blog will be full of posts about my great decisions.

Oh, I forgot to ask my Dad about Wham-O.

Photo of the Day

So this is a picture of my great friend Alana humping an ancient pillar in the old city of Jerusalem. I think it sums up our attitude towards the actual spiritual and historic value of some of the sites we visited.

I felt like metaphorically humping a lot of the sites we went to on the trip. I personally hate war stories and war memorials. Unfortunately, it just happens to be that almost every inch of Israel is a war memorial or at least the site of a famous battle. I'd say we heard a war story almost every other day.

This was problematic for me in many ways. Its not that I don't value the lives lost, or the courage that they showed in fighting, its just that I think the point is missed. First of all, it must be made clear that every story was obligatorily told in the Zionist narrative. This means that the story was framed as "Heroic Jews bravely killing the Arab enemies." This is expected and does not reflect any racist values because they were in a war and the enemies were Arabs. My problem is that there was great suffering and bloodshed on both sides. Both sides had courageous soldiers who didn't think twice to fight for their country. Unfortunately we never hear about how many Jordanians died in a battle for Jerusalem, how many Syrians died in a battle for the Golan, how many Egyptians died in a battle for the Negev. There are no stories about them, instead we praise Israelis for killing them and sadly recount when Israelis died in battle.

This made me sad and upset at different times on the trip. Very few people identified with my sadness because they were firmly in the mindset of, "If they didn't kill them then we wouldn't be here today." Besides the fact that I don't care about that particular fact (call me Anti-Zionist if you like), I like to look at it in a different light. A war is seen as thus: For some reason two different groups decided to settle their dispute, land or otherwise, by killing one another. Therefore a certain number of people had to die in order for the conflict to be settled and all those people must be respected equally. Thats my view of war in general and thats why I am disturbed by the winner's narrative.

Anyway, this entry has strayed quite a bit from the picture of a girl humping a pillar. I guess I'm just empassioned about this subject.

Frisbee Frees Me

Bonjour,

I played Frisbee today for the first time in a while. I love Frisbee. It is the only sport I am any good at, and for that I thank it. Now, you may be the kind of person that says, "Frisbee ain't no sport!" To you I say, "Watch out, I just threw a Frisbee at your dumb head."

Anyway, I love how you just toss this little piece of plastic and it flies. It cruises so peacefully through the air and hangs just at the right spot waiting for you to grab it. Its such a peaceful sight. It makes me want to be a Frisbee. I wouldn't even mind how dizzy I would get from spinning so much. In fact, it would be rather comical if a Frisbee that was dizzy started vomiting everywhere as it spun.

OK, another paragraph successfully ended with a childish joke. I also think its interesting how well a human body and mind is adapted to catching things. Its like there is a really good mathematician in everyone's head calculating exactly where your hand needs to be and when. Its freaking amazing that I can close my hand at the EXACT right moment to grab a moving Frisbee. Admittedly, I was pretty good at math in high school, but we had like an hour to figure out those problems, whereas catching is a split-second decision.

I find it weird that I capitalized Frisbee in every single instance. Its not as if I owe Wham-O Corp. money for using the word Frisbee...or maybe I do. Hm, my dad is a patent attorney, I'll ask him and get back to you guys. And girls. Folks, I'll just use the term folks.

Photo of the Day

This picture is a typical bus day. You sit with your friends and watch the world blur by. Eventually you reach your destination, run around for a few hours, and then hop back on the bus to watch the same scenery blur backwards all the way back home.

The trip invovled a lot of travelling and so the kids identify with their bus group. I was on Bus #3 (throw it down!) and I loved my kids and the people I worked with. We had a lot of fun together. This particular picture is of Ana and Priskilla. Ana was a bit of a trouble maker to be honest, but one day we had a breakdance fight and everything pretty much was good between us from then on. Aah, breakdance fighting...

A Directed Message

Hiya,

One of my best friends called me today. It made me so happy. He just got back from Israel to visit his girlfriend in Toronto and he decided to call ME first thing. He is an amazing person and I just want to publicly laud him. He was with me on the trip this summer and he really made the summer a whole lot better than I could have imagined. He is a constant source of happiness and laughter, and he is always there to listen.

If you're reading this, and you know who you are, thank you.

That is all.

Photo of the Day

Despite me complaining about how hard it is to be finished with the program, I have to admit it felt pretty good when the 136 kids left. This is a picture of Elana, a great friend, right after the kids left. We were so happy and relieved and freakin tired. I think this is evident from her pose and her comically oversized pants.

After we sent them home, we quickly made our way back to the hotel we were staying at to gather together with our good friend Al (cohol) and bitch about all the stupid kids. It was a great time...so great we did it again the next night.

In addition to celebrating with Al, we also treated ourselves to a home cooked meal, the first in weeks. We all worked together to prepare a lovely pasta dish with two different sauces and TVP (textured vegetable protein, you carnivore). I loved it, and it was a nice closure to the summer.