untitled

so yesterday brandon told me that he hated me and my blog, then a bunch of nonsensical reasons why. i wasnt surprised because it was brandon, but i did get to thinking and have to decided to update back to back with something a little more important.

but to start it all off i figured why not a random thought:

have you ever noticed how suspiciously long a regular sized bottle of contact solution lasts. i only brought 2 normal sized bottles of Bausch and Lombe with me to Israel, under the assumption each would last a couple months and then i'd be forced into paying some exorbitant amount to purchase some here from a company i recognize. but no! i'm still on my first bottle and we've already passed the 5 month mark. only 4 1/2 left to go and i this bad boy's still going strong, its bound to get me at least another month and a half. anyways i was just in my bathroom taking my contacts out and this came up, thought id share.

now on to a little heavier fare:

sometimes being here i get really wrapped up in trying to define my Judaism, while simultaneously trying to rebuff the advances of the more religious on my life, which gets to be a bit complicated when trying to find where i can possibly fit in when im constantly feeling outcast and pressured or simply uninterested in participating. why just today i had a minor squabble with this american orthodox woman i work with who among other things is a rabbi's daughter from long island and had made aliyah several years ago. one of the other women we work with benignly made a comment about the upcoming election in the states that normally would have gone unnoticed had this woman not been paying attention. unfortunately, mostly for me, she was and instead she aggressively, and awkwardly pointed in my direction, started spewing out her opinions, "we" (being american transplants in israel) "vote as israelis, only whats best for israel, we dont even care about america". resisting for the most part the urge to point out it also being in israel's best interest she not disregard what is best for america as well, i stood placidly against the wall taking my door monitor duties very seriously (those elderly sure are spry, i cant let them pull a fast one on me now can i). so she then decided upon more blunt tactics and addressed me directly, "chana" (she refuses to call me anne, because now that i live in israel its more appropriate that i go by my hebrew name, when asked if i minded and i suggested anne would be just fine she thought better of my youthful protests - i already wasnt a huge fan of this woman if that wasnt evident) "you need to forget your liberal ideals for a change and do whats best for israel".

needless to say i was a bit steamed, without even addressing all of the issues with her thought process, ill just say that i had a hard time swallowing the fact that i was sitting there being judged by a member of my own literal tribe for being different in the way i look, lead my life and my religious convictions. this person i consider to be ignorant, in so many more areas than just that of politics to most people is nothing more than extension of me, and i her; we are inextricably linked together, and will always be, despite any protests i might have about that fact.

at moments like this i question my judaism, at least my willingness to be categorized into any sort of group with an individual so ignorant (dont get me wrong there arent any groups that im aware of in which such ignorance doesnt exist, nor any in which i would ever be 100% comfortable being a part of) - but its right then as my mind is whirring that i look to my right and i see rosa. rosa is an 80 something year old hungarian woman with Alzheimer's, it isnt so horribly advanced yet and she remembers me every week. shes incredible and speaks four languages and we talk about her grandchildren (one of whom is getting married in jerusalem next week). but of course she has her off days, and when she does she reverts back to a place where all she can think about and all she talks to me about is the holocaust. we talk about her nightmares, her experience being on the first train of cattle cars coming from hungary to auschwitz, and sometimes we talk about how she lost her whole family. occasionally the woman who sits next to her begins to cry, she likewise lost her entire family there. sometimes i see the two of the chattering away in yiddish, a language destroyed with their families, spoken now only by the haredi, a fanatical religious sect who in my opinion missed the boat more than just a little bit, but whom id never wish such horrors on. ive always recognized the part of my being that strongly identified myself as being jewish being directly linked to the holocaust and the idea that they/i had no say in the matter of being jewish or not. but it was this connection i made between the yiddish of old and its immpractical use in the haredi community now that made me realize that i am proud to cast my lot in with them, that i choose to, with all of them.

another somber story comes to mind that reminds me of my convictions. about a month ago my four roommates and i went down to Tel Aviv with the LA federation chair woman lisa to tour around our volunteer opportunities. in the middle of the day we headed into yaffo for lunch, and ended up at this great little libyan restaurant at lisa's suggestion. casually in conversation she mentioned how nice it was to lunch with people, and that she wished her and her husband were able to. she had told us earlier they were both working in jerusalem so one of us asked why they never did. maybe a little too matter of factly she responded "because we dont want to orphan our children". husband and wife, same city, same lunch hour, two separate cafes. this is her reality, this is israels reality, this is my reality. i cast my lot in with them too.

and with the people of sderot who daily have kassam rockets blindly falling on their city. to the traumatized children and parents who are sick of hiding in bomb shelters several hours a day, and whos lives will always be tainted with poison terrorism breeds.

i likewise cast my lot in with all of the members of the diaspora population, those leading happy, healthy, successful lives and equally those feeling the stings of growing antisemitism across the world, to the man who had dogs released on him in germany to the jewish population in brazil having to deal with a holocaust themed float in carnival this year.

at the end of the day i dont have to agree with everyone jewish, or find them tolerable. i dont have to define my judaism now, or ever. but i do most importantly have to cast my lot in with them, with all of them.

i know this was a bit heavier than usual (and i thank you for bearing with me), but sometimes i need it written down, the reasons why im here. and sometimes i need other people to know, without propaganda or the force feeding hand of the media, what it means to me, to one individual person, to be jewish, to be in israel, to fight the fight and see the struggle. and i dont complain about being born jewish, but sometimes i just want you to see that it is harder, that our reality is darker.

Anne

ive got a new soul

i dont really, you know, have this new soul as my title boldly clams...but it is a pretty sweet song i stole from josh who in turn stole it from the new ipod commercial who actually discovered it, er her, er yael naim. shes french, shes jewish, she sings in english...and hebrew. ch ch check it out. (thats all as far as plugs go in this publishinggg)


so onto bizznass (phonetic pronunciation provided):

so since my forthcoming trip is well forthcoming, i need to start making some important arrangements, the first one that came to mind was creating a comprehensive playlist of every fucking amazing song possible so that from the time i board in tel aviv to the time i land in dc (including the 7 hour layover in paris) my ears are being delighted with the freshest, funkiest, dopest jamz basically ever.

this is where you* come in.

unfortunately being all the way out here in the middle east i havent been keeping up with well anything as well as id like to, not to mention my computer had a minor breakdown and ive LOST several hundred songs.

i would like to get this back, plus some, so lets talk.

1. these are cds i previously bought and have lost, if you have them please send them to me and ease your conscience knowing that i already paid:
Okkervil River - Down the River of Golden Dreams
Ingrid Michaelson - Boys and Girls & slow the rain
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Jenny Owen Youngs - Batten the Hatches
Mirah - Advisory Committee & College Park is Always Ready to Party & You Think It's Like This, But Really It's Like This
Ladytron - Witching Hour
Nicole Atkins - Bleeding Diamonds
Rilo Kiley - Under the Blacklight

2. anything else you can think of that would in essence "rock my socks off" or even just rock me to sleep, as i'm damn well planning to do a lot of on the plane, please please send my way

3. what shall i calleth this fucking awesometh playlist?

4. Vacation Itinerary! - fill in my blanks

feb 29th ARRIVE IAD (thats dulles for those of you that dont speak airport code) 14:30 to be picked up by my special airport convoy of Melissa Mazula y mi madre ve Joshua Lavoie?

mar 1 - gabriel and dresden?

mar 2 -

mar 3 -

mar 4 - evening career fair at GWU to promote otzma

mar 5 - day time career fair at UM-CP to promote otzma; baltimore? well i suppose that depends on how many people show an interest in seeing mr bwp and i (we really are quite busy)

mar 6 -

mar 7 -

mar 8 - benny benassi

mar 9 DEPART IAD; I cant remember what time, but I am assuming up until that point Ill be resting

5. send all musical jamz, suggestions and vacation plans to: anneoalexander@gmail.com (im also available for chat!)



Ze Oh,
Anne


*you refers here to ericka, but with the hopes that at least one other person responds

workin

why hello everyone!

im at the office right now, you know doing important thingz

i had ketchup flavored parv cheetos earlier, they werent good...but they were free

im learning how to fundraise, who knew there was so much to getting mutlimillion dollar american corporations with a slight philanthropic desire to choose YOU

anyways yesterday i rode bikes with the ethiopian kids and while i was out there i ran into two peoplez i knew out and about in the shems, it was strange - i felt like i lived here, and then i realized i do


ok well thats all i know its short but my ride is here

enjoy your day
Anne

schedule

ok so here it is my finalized (for now) volunteer schedule...so that you, the home audience, can follow along with my every move!

Sundays: (in Tel Aviv) 12 - 3pm teaching one on one English to various aged children at a special school for disenfranchised youth in a disenfranchised neighborhood; 3:20 - 6:30 dancing and shmoozing with Holocaust survivors at Cafe Europa

Mondays: 8 - 1 at the gan working with all them cute little kids telling them what different fruits are in english and having them laugh at me because apparently anne is a funny name

Tuesdays: 8 - 1 elderly day center for people with degenerative memory loss; 4 - 6 serena and i are bike riding with a gaggle of unruly ethiopian children

Wednesdays: 8 - 1 back to the gan; 4 -6:45 fundraising for a local basketball club that works to keep kids off the streets (ie i sit in an office alone in the haredi neighborhood, send out apps online and hope not to get stoned on my way to and from the office)

Thursdays: 8 - 1 elderly center again and then beginning of the weekend of course


so if you arent already tired of reading a blog (and mine being this good how could you be) check out Elyse Sewell's blog. name look familiar, well thats cause she was on the first season of americas next top model, ericka just clued me into her site and the bitch is unfairly insightful and humorous. its worth checking out http://elysesewell.livejournal.com/ not that she needs any help getting readers.


Dear Brandon - thanks for always randomly having a solution to my ridiculous problems ie still having my resume from july saved on your computer when i dont even have a copy and the only reason you did in the first place is because i didnt feel like doing it (althogh i think i did a fine job in the end)

the end

Anne Saundra Alexander

gannenette

so the local elementary school bells are the following tunez:

row, row, row your boat
hickory dickory dock
happy birthday
and something else unknown that i will be researching via asking my roommates who attended jew camp

its no fascist mind control anthem like the elementary schools of beer sheva, but they do burn holes in my brain none the less

also as i am now a gannenette (kindergarten teacher, thats the actual hebrew word, expect me to say it often) i want to scoop all of the ethiopian children into a bowl, sprinkle them with the half thai half israeli girl and just eat them up

lastly, upon returning the freezer box i currently live in i made myself some lunch. more precisely a chicken sandwich with some melted cheese. sounds simple right, WRONG. i had to climb to the top of the cabinets to get down this microwave safe plate that ive deemed to be TRAIF, then i had to reach to the lowest depths of the lowest cabinet to get plastic-ware so as not to disturb the sanctity of any of the kosher forks and knives that were nicely nestled into their flatware holder in their conveniently selected drawer. i was then able to make my sammie, heat and eat. obviously this isnt where the story ends. i then had to boil a mug of water for ten minutes so as to rekasher the microwave and now my dumb plate is sitting lonely and gross on the table waiting for me to clean it, but i cant because the sponges have all been classified either meat or dairy, so now i have to get up out of bed and go to the market later to purchase a third set of cleaning supplies for my traif plate.

being jewish is such a STRUGGLE sometimes

enjoy your day

Anne PE G

DECEMBER

goodness gracious do i have a lot to update you all, my fervent fans, on. its been quite a crazy month, and i already barely care enough to type it all out...but the public is demanding so ill see what i can recall.

to start it all off: sar-el. i and nine other otmzanikim packed up our giant hiking backpacks with enough clothes to supposedly last us a month and boarded a rough and tumble army style bus. one of many adventures on the tiyulit...ie the KING OF THE ROAD. this beast was intense, its in essence a flatbed truck with a bus sitting on it, but no regular bus, its got like a tumble cage surrounding it and bullet proof windows (of course the top section of the windows arent bullet proof, so you just hope hezbollah doesnt get a good angle!)



this is where shaked comes in, oh shaked (it means almond if you care).shaked was one of our two madrachot (counselors/guides *read - in charge of us*) shaked is 18. shaked speaks perfect english because she lived in the states for 10 years, well cinncinati, so i mean its america but no where too important or anything. shaked loves hip hop dancing, black men, getting her nails done, the color pink, colorful markers to decorate her diary, going to bed at 8 o'clock and chuchi. shaked does not like spiders...well any bugs, holding guns, cutting her hair, electronic music, the sound guns make, asking appropriate questions, or army food. again read - she's in charge of us, all of "us" being older than her.


4 hours later, and after a necessary stop at a shopping center so dayna and i could pick up some hot sauce (cholula, we werent impressed, too much smoky tomato spanish flavor and not enough harif{spicy} - this doesnt mean we didnt use the entire bottle in the span of 3 days of course) we arrived at our first of many bases. we quickly piled our bags into our bunker and headed down to the makzan to get our unis!!! everything fit like a glove! im lying, the crotch on my mens, 1991-issue, bet style uniform pants came down to my knees, it was easy to walk in. needless to say i wore some shorts underneath in the hopes that when my pants inevitably lost their footing i wouldnt be too horribly embarrassed. for evidence please refer to figure 1a

(figure 1a)

meals in the idf consist of dairy breakfast, meat lunch and dairy dinner every single day. i hate keeping kosher, i hate dairy meals, because they dont have meat, and i hate meat meals because not only do they not have dairy they are also some gross over calculation of either salt or pepper no matter what youve been blessed to have. breakfast is generally burnt eggs, tomatoes and cucumbers, a selection of cottage cheese, spreadable cheese and yogurts, oh also chocolate milk out of the bag MMM. lunch was either chicken schnitzel, beef patties or chicken schnitzel with some sort of brothy even saltier soup. and dinner was mainly noodles or israeli couscous (ie ptitim) in tomato puree with hardboiled eggs and the selection of cheeses. i must have consumed 300 jaffa oranges in three weeks, cause i could count on them, and their thicker than normal oranges skin made me feel like they had been protected from how gross everything was. surprisingly, or at least to my surprise, that while the hot sauce generally seemed to help on everything it had a somewhat adverse effect on the oranges. just ask dayna. we were also able to upgrade our sauce the next week
if you were concerned (franks red hot!) - oh i did forget to mention that because it was chanukah we did get oodles and oodles of sufganiot (donuts) because here in israel instead of latkas we eat homemade donuts as our fried food.
im sloppy :(
















lots and lots of sufganiot followed us every where we went for those eight crazy days (even to the arsim* kibbutz party we went to)







*This word comes form the Arabic for pimp and refers to young guys who are generally at the bottom end of Israeli society. Typically they will have short hair and are the most aggressive and confrontational of Israelis which is really saying something.(i stole that offline) ie they are basically israeli guidos, dont talk to them



as for the volunteer work i think i might just post some pictures...dont be too impressed

sarah and i bringing some pain to the brush and weeds in my stunning sar-el tee!

doing a smidge of weeding overlooking the med DUH

flag raising 8 am sharp obviously

oh you know cleaning the bathrooms with almond!


keeping ISRAEL SAFE!!!

there are tons more but blogger takes too long to load them and i can only assume youve already lost interest (if you havent check out my facebook). just know that 1. im currently listening to high school musical songs and im not embarrassed 2. i got to shoot a m-16 it was interesting 3. my other madricha was named zoe, she made aliyah from england when she turned 18 2 years ago, she thinks there are 53 states in america, one of which is boston and she is under the impression that detroit is in chicago...its not a problem 4. i genuinely did love both girls, they were super sweet and its interesting to see how people so young can command so much respect, keep our attention and handle a level of responsibility i cant even imagine.


when sar-el ended we had a week chofesh break. i was the first one off and headed to the "hotel" first, it was in tel aviv, what should have been a quick bus ride over from jaffa but not surprisingly trying to get into the central bus station with four pieces of luggage was difficult, and israelis dont as a general statement like waiting. whatever i still got there first and they let me check in early, which means that i got 5 blissful hours of ALONE time. something id almost forgotten what it feels like. i soaked that up as best i could, watching tv reading and napping, talking to myself out loud...whatever! eric jen and kate came down later and we enjoyed a nice traif non-kosher meal together. that basically sums up my vacation. sleeping and eating as much traif as i could find. cheeseburgers, calamari, shrimp, steak and cheese, drinking PITCHERS of american beer at mikes place watching football (and when i say football i mean FOOTBALL G-D Damnnit). i was there for christmas, and like the good jew ive started to become i went and saw a movie, it was wretched michael clayton with g. clooney, id suggest not seeing it. i also got the opportunity to meet up with family friends for the day which was extremely nice and comforting to see a familiar face finally, and they just happened to have some treats from the states for me (like i needed more things to carry around), they invited me out for a nice traif meal as well...i obviously enjoyed that. the next day i had to get back up to jerusalem for the last session of my building future leadership seminar for three days with eric. it was nice, i forgot absolutely everything they told me already; but i did get free meals and hotel, got to hang out with some cool katz not associated with otzma, a plaque! and most importantly they took us on a team building trip to a nature reserve that only has plants and animals dating back to biblical times and we had to herd goats and sheep. i know it got a little fantastical right there, youre saying wait now anne this cant be true, surrounded by ancient plants overlooking tel aviv a very modern and western city you were herding animals...lies! well ladies and gents i have proof, and as we know the proof is in the pudding ( i just wanted to say that) as soon as the seminar ended we headed back to tel aviv for our last few days, and new years. eric and i were blessed to be invited out to dinner by the katzermans, and while i love my family i wouldnt exactly turn them down if they offered to adopt me. it was one of the most enjoyable meals ive ever had with another family, i dont have much else to say about it outside of the fact that they were so deliciously real and fun and american, daynas family also graciously took me out to lunch with kate and that was also equally as pleasurable. i miss my mommy and daddy but it is nice to get see some real american families here. eric and i of course keep up our traif traditions for the rest of break. and then came new years, or sylvester day or whatever dumb thing they call it here. geeze israel hates all the fun days im used to, lame...anyways eric lauren aaron and i, as well as leore and her boyfriend seth were all invited over to lyndsey and ericas place for the evening. we started the day out with a nice little breakfast, me paying 60 sheckel to get my hair styled for no reason other than that im too lazy to do it myself (its interesting when you and your stylist dont speak the same language) then lauren and i hit american apparel DUH (help that economy) picked up a couple things for the evenings festivities. her aaron and i got ready at the hotel and headed to meet eric at moon, this swank little sushi joint on pinsker and dizengoff. its even got the uber trendy conveyor belt. although i do have to admit it was a little disappointing, the miso soup was foul and the sushi was just sub-par (but whatcha gonna do), it was still lovely company and good times had by all. then we trekked the 35 minute walk to lyndseys, hit up a liquor store bought a couple bottles of champagne to toast our new lives and a semi-dec bottle of vodka.

lyndseys was a breath of fresh air, her friends are also americans here in israel, but with two major differences. 1. they live in tel aviv 2. they are here for med school and the atmosphere is completely different. their stresses are so totally different than ours, so it was easy to just shrug them all off for the evening. met up with some acquaintances and made some new ones. had lots of laughs and too many cigarettes (i quit i promise), toasted the new year with my best friends here - and forgot that sometimes israel is just too hard and too much pressure. at a little after 1230 we tried to head up to some club in central tel aviv with other otzmanikim. that certainly was a balagan. eric hopped out of the cab at one point, insisting on meeting us there because he just had to throw up. we let him go, we are good friends. we didnt see him again *hes alive dont worry*. we got to the club and everyone was already leaving, if i remember correctly there were some tears and some fighting....ahh now i feel like im back on otzma. that one month break from everyone was officially over, such a fitting end. HA, whatever it was fine. lauren aaron kenny and i grabbed a cab, unfortunately it turned out to be the same guy leore and seth had taken earlier, more specifically he was from eilat and didnt know tel aviv at all. that became apparent when we were driving through jaffa. i refused to speak to him in english and was offering up incorrect translations of what he was saying to kenny and lauren who both speak hebrew. he told us not to pay, i did anyways...we walked home from wherever he dropped us off. i slept on the floor because im strange. *pictures to come later when lauren gets internet* woke up the next morning and got the best bagel with turkey and cheese!! and things were all better again. break was coming to an end, the next morning i had to gather my now five pieces of luggage and head back to beer sheva for the night to gather my things and finally MOVE TO BET SHEMESH

needless to say we made it, were all moved in. the apartment is cute, although quite possibly the coldest place in all of israel (and that is saying a lot theres snow up north). i snagged some snazzy sheets from the cabinets that fade from pink to white with crocs, hippos and giraffes on them... did you know that safari animals are "cool all the time" well now you do, and i have the distinct pleasure of using a super old school vintage ass mickey mouse blanket, although its thickness reminds me much more of a baby blankie, but whatcha gonna do right. the kitchen is the most intense thing ive about ever seen, color coded and two of everything for our meat and dairy. i obviously eat on paper napkins and use plasticware so as not to ruin everything, especially not since i heard re-kashering things apparently includes burying them, boiling them or blow torching. im going to try to not touch anything ever. ill get pics of both my bed and of the kitchen as soon as possible.

last night our first, and mandatory, shabbat here jessica (my new roomie!) and i went to a local womans house for dinner. she referred to both of us as jessica all night and i got the burning suspicion she was trying to set me up with this random young man who had also been invited over for dinner...maybe thats because she asked if i was single, giggled and then drilled me with questions, and jessica suggested it might be happening as well - but i could always be wrong. i of course lost major points when i stupidly asked for milk in my coffee after our meat meal, i guess ill just be alone forever, DAMN! this morning aliza and her boyfriend made us a lovely shabbat lunch. i think ill get settled in here relatively easily, i get my volunteer schedule tomorrow, it sounds like its going to be intense ill post that for yall to read up on duh! and we have our first day of work in tel aviv so that should be nice.


i really should be studying for my bat mitzvah im being forced into having or applying to colleges so i have a future, so i think ill finally tear myself away from this. hopefully this wasnt too overwhelming for you...remember im the one that had to write it.




ENJOY!!!!

Anne PE Alexander