Kibbutz
During the last few months I have been living, working and learning on Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon.
My time on Kibbutz has been ... well it has been... an experience, a strange mixture of good times great times and some of the most disgustily horrible times I have witnessed.
In reality, the living conditons could have been much worse. The meals have been the same for the past 5 months, but none the less the food has been plentiful. I have had the luxury of interent access, and cheap laundry as well as daily hot showers, sadly from the end of this week these privilages will come to an end.
When I came to kibbutz I was placed into Class B "kita Bet" due to being able to write hebrew script and read hebrew print. The class started slow and I learnt well but eventually it started getting much faster, after a few months though I started to drag behind and decided it would be best to move down to Class A "kita Aleph" For the past two months more or less, I have been in this class, and although at times I found it slow, I am glad I decided to move down. Two weeks ago I completed an oral Hebrew exam, I was graded at "75 Bet" My understanding of this means I am 25 points away from speaking at the third level "gimel". I apologise if this is not correct. This Thursday 26/01/12 I have a written Hebrew exam, sadly I am not confident on my reading and writing skills but I will give my best effort none the less. Thursday will be the offical end of the Ulpan, Friday and Saturday I have off (Really cannot wait, I will explain later)
On Sunday morning a few of the ulpan students and I will be going down to Sde Boker for "gadna" a 5 day "Army Experience" which is provided to highschool students and a few programs (such as ulpanim kibbutzim) to give an idea of what to expect during service. I'm not quite sure what to expect from it, but as always I will give it my best shot.
After this it looks like I will return to Sar-el and volunteer on a few bases, that has its good and bad points, good being I can work inside Tel Hashomer again and literally bug the doctors everyday if needed, Bad being I dont have a place of my own where I can have friends stay for the weekend.
So what have I been doing about my draft process?
Well after I was discharged from service I began my volunteering process. It was going well and I was even expected to draft on the 25th December. Sadly a week before this date the Jobnic Doctors of Tel Hashomer requested more time. They wanted me to repeat blood tests, the problem being they wanted a new HBa1C blood test, the way it works is your blood is refreshed every three months so generally you have to wait three months to retest, I worked my butt off and went to the doctors last week for blood tests and an ECG. I went to the doctor today and received my results everything is perfect, I requested that both my doctors write this down for me. They did this. Tomorrow morning first thing I am faxing Tel Hashomer and I will phone every day until I get my volunteer status approved. Any excuses they give me now are just BS. Thats all I can say about that at the moment really.
December 25th
December 25th was a draft day, which sadly I missed. It would have been an amazing experience to draft that day, my friend Slavik was drafted that day. The first Ukranian Machal soldier (foriegn volunteer) as well as Ryan, an Australian guy I met on Sar-el in March.
Eyal, one of the best guys I know, went to Tel Hashomer with me to meet Slavik and say goodbye. We spent around 5 hours there that day, telling stupid jokes, singing silly songs and learning more about our friend Slavik from his Sister. It was a good day, actually a great day.
I met a girl that day, Mauria. Shes from Texas and drafted that day. There is so much more to say about this but maybe thats for a different time. (Just so its clear to my mom.) She is my girlfriend, and yes she is why I smile more :P and I get to see her on Friday and Saturday :)
