Transformations, Transitions, and Transfusions

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So since I’ve been back I went to community college for a year and built up some credit hours so I could apply as a transfer student to University of Georgia. Now I’m here and seriously can’t believe how time has gone by so fast and that it’s already the end of first semester!! A lot has happened since I transferred here to UGA. I’ve found a new passion in my life and I’ve taken a turn in direction in what I want to do after college. Coming into Georgia I had no doubt that I wanted to pursue a pharmacy career and just loved the idea of me learning all about pharmacy etc. Well, little did I know that I didn’t find myself enjoying what I was learning and couldn’t exactly see myself enjoying what was going to come like, cellular biology, and two organic chemistry classes, and another microbiology class, the list goes on and on. So I thought maybe pharmacy wasn’t quite the fit for me and got on the computer and picked out a few of the many majors UGA has to offer that I thought would interested me. I then took a couple personality tests and narrowed the list down to what matched my personality. In the end, I chose to stick with Public Relations.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I know just as well as you do that those two career fields are on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum and have nothing to do with each other at all! BUT I have found a way that they could relate to each other and still having a little interest in pharmacy, I thought of a way that I could potentially get the best of both worlds! And that was to potentially work for a public relations firm that works with pharmaceutical companies so that I could still pursue my interest in pharmaceuticals while also pursuing my interest for public relations. Now I’m not narrowing my options of what I want to do once I graduate to just and only that. That would just be my ideal job but I’m honestly open to anything the world challenges me with and ready to take whatever that may be on!

Now as for this blog…I couldn’t quite figure out how to keep the layout and title of this blog but also have a tab for my new everyday blog that I’d like to keep updated with things that interest me and to just keep working on my writing skills. Which unfortunately, I’m sad to say that I’ll have to retire “My Desert Adventures” and give my blog a little make over and transform it into “[insert punny PR title here]” blog :). It’s a bittersweet transformation because “My Desert Adventures” was the equivalent of my first child! I guess I now know what my parents felt like when they sent my older sister, Nicole, off to college (only 35 minutes away from our house) but in the back of their heads I know they were thinking that the transition would be beneficial to her later on down the road. Just as my new blog will be beneficial to me and my future PR aspirations!

So sadly, yet very excitingly, this will be my last post with the whole “My Desert Adventures” layout and next time I post I hope to ‘wow’ you with the new look ;)!

Shenanigans In Jeru and Tel Aviv

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As I said in my last post, I wouldn’t leave my readers hanging about the rest of my amazing experience living abroad in Israel for 9 months so I’m going to try and sum up the rest of my time in Israel in short.

After I conquered Marva, we packed up our stuff and moved onto the next place where we would consider home for the next 3 months, Jerusalem. Our living conditions were much different then what we were used to and anything with a normal bed and a roof over our heads was considered luxury. Now, I am going to try my best to describe what we thought was luxury and I’ll let you guys base your opinions on whether or not you would consider our living quarters to be anything close to luxury. There were 3 buildings that kind of resembled smaller versions of dormitories that had apartment style “dorm rooms” inside of them. Each building was maybe within about a 10 foot radius from each other so if a person in one apartment sneezed, the people in the next building was bound to catch their cold within seconds.  One building had an apartment on the main floor in the front called “Tut Bottom Front”, and another on the main floor in the back, “Tut Bottom Back”. Then there was “Tut Middle Right” and “Tut Middle Left” on the second floor of the building and “Tut Upper” on the third floor. Then, directly across from the “Tut” building there was what we liked to consider the “sorority” of the little campus we lived on which consisted of one big apartment of 18 girls and was called, “Oren Middle”. Ten feet across from Oren Middle was what we considered the “fraternity”, “Alon Bottom” which consisted of eighteen boys. Then last but not least, the very out of place, most defective unit of them all, “Alon Upper”, or what I like to call it, Alon Fuppah. I was fortunate enough to not be placed in this apartment but unfortunate enough to be placed in the “sorority”. No, I’m just kidding. It actually wasn’t all that bad and definitely not what you would imagine it to be. There was one kitchen with two refrigerators, two pantries, two toilets, 4 showers, a living/dining room, screened in porch, two balconies, and 5 bedrooms. Two rooms of 5 girls, two rooms of 3 girls, and one room of 2 girls. I shared a room with my two friends, Ayelet and Lily. During our time in Jerusalem we took classes that taught us about the different religions in Israel, the history of the land of Israel, how to be a successful advocate for Israel on our college campuses when we returned to America, and much much more. We also took Hebrew classes, or also known as, Ulpan, where we were able to learn the language and be able to converse with other Israelis when we were out on our own. These three months in Jerusalem were probably the coldest months of the year to be in Jerusalem, it even flurried one Shabbat! The last couple weeks of March were spent packing up our stuff and crossing off the last few things we had on our to do lists for our time in Jerusalem, and then it was off to Bat Yam!

We arrived in Bat Yam early evening and after we were all settled into our apartments, we were greeted by a ceremony put on by the Israeli scouts that were soon to be the new addition to our section. In Bat Yam, each of our apartments came with an Israeli scout. Someone who could teach us the ropes of Bat Yam and a native to Israel that we could connect with and live with in the apartment. Instead of it being so cold outside that we didn’t want to go to class, we had to deal with the struggle of living walking distance to the beach and deciding on whether or not to go to class. Unlike in Jerusalem, we only had two mandatory classes (Ulpan and a class that taught us about the history of Tel Aviv and Israel) that we had to go to and some of us had the option of attending an Israeli film class where we watched movies that were Israeli made and got to explore the different types of cinematography. Along with having the responsibility of going to class, we each got placed into different volunteering placements and had to attend daily. Some of the different volunteering options that were offered were to work in schools with children, work in a soup kitchen, volunteer with an organization called save a child’s heart where you were able to meet with kids from different countries who have come to Israel for a surgery of some type and just comfort them through the process, work on an agricultural farm, and many other options. I was lucky enough to work on Bat Yams agricultural farm where we learned how to harvest and plant tons of cool things!

Each of us were equipped with a bus pass called a Rav Kav that had unlimited rides so we were able to get on and explore the city of Tel Aviv. Bat Yam is a suburb of Tel Aviv so we were only about a 15 minute bus ride away from the heart of Tel Aviv where we went and explored the night life, beaches, shops, and restaurants VERY often.

I think this pretty much sums up my amazing, unforgettable time in Israel and I’m going to continue this blog as a good writing source to pursue my aspiring Public Relations degree. I recently saw a list of good tips on how to be successful with your PR career and one of the tips was to always be writing and keeping up with whats new in the media and keep a blog. In lieu of writing about my time in Israel, I thought I would wrap up that chapter in my life on my blog and move on to writing about things that are going on in the media and just start practicing my writing get used to the fact by my blog.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading about “My Desert Adventures” and look forward to and enjoy reading my “[insert punny PR title here]” blog! (which will of course be on the same website but I think there is a way to link my new blog topic to this blog. I’ll figure it out soon but in the meantime, just sit tight and youll be seeing a post or two from me soon enough!

Thanks and enjoy!

Epidemics In Jeru

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Sooo I’m going to start off by saying that I TOTALLY messed up on the order of the weeks in the last post! So the REAL order up to now should be Intiation, Shetach, NORTH, then navigation. I’ll update you about North week and then in my next post I’ll catch you up to the next two weeks which were Combat and Sports week.

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I decided to start this thing back up again and decided it wasn’t nice of me to leave my oh so many followers and readers hanging about my life living in Israel, two years ago. This was a draft that was left unfinished from February 2012 and I decided not to erase it or change the title because 1) I’ll be a trooper and sum up the rest of my year in Israel, starting from where I left off on this post, for those who care and 2) I liked the title of the post although I can’t remember specifically which epidemic I was referring to. I’m assuming it could’ve been about the many lice breakouts, pink eye infections, or the inherited alcoholism epidemic from our newfound privilege of being of age, or any combination of the three. (DISCLAIMER: this does not mean Jerusalem is a dirty city swarming with lice infestations and little surprises laying around that usually one would associate with conjunctivitis infections.) I’m not sure I can go into as much detail as I did while I was blogging in Israel because quite honestly, this was two years ago and as of recently I’ve been experiencing some signs of short term memory loss so I’ll try my best….

THE REAL WEEK FOUR: North Week

During North week we travelled up North to Tiberius where we stayed in a hostel right next to the Sea of Galilee, where we would consider this our base for the week. While we were there, we visited a very well known kibbutz called Kfar Bloom where we had a sports training session and an oh so tasty bagged lunch. Other renown sites that were on the agenda this week included an air force museum and a base belonging to a very high ranking unit in the army called Golani. Visiting these places and learning about the history that took place was eye opening and to think that we were standing on land where soldiers once stood on to fight for their country was really something else.

Week Five: Combat Week

Combat week was dedicated to learning about all the different types of machinery and techniques used in combat. We  learned about the many guns that are used in combat and how to take apart an M-16, clean it, and put it back together. Also on the agenda for this week was to learn how to break someone’s neck with one simple move, or also commonly known as the self defense system, Krav Maga. Now, we didn’t actually learn how to break someone’s neck with one simple move, that would be a stunt I would be surprised to see only from Jackie Chan, but we did learn other techniques like how to defend yourself if you were getting attacked from behind. We learned some other cool techniques that I can’t recall right now and would do me absolutely no good if I were ever in a dangerous situation (gd forbid!)

Week Six: The REAL Sports Week

Week Seven: Jerusalem Week

This week was dedicated to learning about the history of Israel and visiting the holy city in Jerusalem and the Western Wall. Our base for this week was a hostel right across the street from the Mamilla Mall. We walked around Jerusalem in our “Aleph” uniform (the nicer uniform that we had) and had our guns with us at all times. While we were exploring different sites in the old city, tourists would stop us and ask if we would mind taking a picture with them, thinking that we were real soldiers. This week was full of learning and a quick change of pace from our usual freezing in our dinky tents and terrible dinners to actually having a roof over our head, central heating, and what we thought to be gourmet dinners.

Week Eight: Graduation!

This week was the final week of Marva, a week which I had thought I would never see. Through all the punishments I had faced and bland tasting lunches and dinners and countless amounts of choco bsakit (chocolate milk in a bag), I thought this day would never come. This week meant the ‘distance’ between the commanders and the chanichim (us) would be broken, we would be giving back our newfound significant others (also known as our “guns”), and we would no longer be trapped in our newly adapted militaristic way of life. The night the Segal (Hebrew for the whole group of commanders) broke the distance with us was probably the best night of my whole Marva experience. This night was when we would realize that the people who had made our lives miserable for the past couple months were actually completely normal people who had names and emotion. The day of that night we had woken up at 4 AM, got dressed with all of our gear, including our army vests, two full canteens, and of course, our guns, and headed a little more south of our base to Masada. The Segal had managed to give every single chanich (us) a tikniut (a punishment for a uniform malfunction) that day no matter if they really did have a uniform malfunction or not. Later on that night, everyone was instructed to take showers and get ready for mizdar tikniut, where we would find out what our punishment would be for the earlier uniform malfunction. The whole plugah (Hebrew for everyone in marva) met on the basketball courts with the whole Segal standing infront of us, when usually only one person would be in charge of mizdar tikniut. We all stood in our normal ‘Chet’ formation eager to find out what the Segal had in store for us that night. As we stood there the Segal started yelling at us but not because we had done something wrong and not in a way to punish us but this time, they were making fun of us for the things we had done throughout Marva that they had sneakily been taking note of when we least expected it. They had plotted a way to get us to think the whole plugah was in trouble for “uniform malfunctions” but in reality they just wanted to get us all together to break the distance. After their witty performance they all sat on the ground and yelled out, “come meet your Segal Marva!!” and at that point everyone broke free of the formation and ran towards the Segal like a bunch of zebras in a stampede in the jungle. At this point everyone huddled around the Segal to hear them confess their name, age, and where they lived in Israel. The next few days we had left was spent getting to know them better and practicing for the golden day everyone was waiting for, graduation.

After Marva was over we managed to keep in touch with our commanders and grew close to them as our friends. At this time, I had finally come to realize what the true meaning of a love/hate relationship really was.

I think thats enough straining of my memory for one blog post, ill be sure to update you guys (speaking as if I have a whole dedicated fan base) on the second half of my experience living in Israel in the next post.

Thanks for reading!

Winter Break In Jerusalem

So I’m all moved in in my new 16 girl apartment in Jerusalem and so far so good! I just finished my winter break and today I’ve already had my first Ulpan class!!! Over winter break my three really good friends, Jessie, Erica, and Nicole came to Israel for 10 days to visit me which was absolutely amazingg!!!! We all had a great time visiting our friend Jess from England in Netanya, shopping at the shuk, going out and experiencing Ben Yehuda Street, visiting the Kotel, and just enjoying eachother’s company. After they left my friend Noa that is currently in the army (in the airforce) came to visit me as well. It was great catching up with her and going to the Weber Alumni dinner and seeing all the other people that have graduated from Weber that are currently in Israel. For new years me and 5 other friends of mine went to Tel Aviv and were invited to a gorgeous party. My friend Joey Berezdevin from section 2 had a party at a restaurant with great food, music, and it was honestly one of the best new years I’ve had!

The next two weeks I had in the army were Navigation week and North Week

Week Three: Navigation Week

In my opinion, navigation week was definitely one of my least favorite out of all the weeks I spent in Marva. We started the week out with learning how to read a map and recognizing two different landmarks on a map and in real life. We were given a map of a popular place in the desert where all army soldiers practice their navigation and we had to plan out our way from point A to point B all by ourselves. We learned how to write an itinerary from using just the map, and a compass. Once we got to point A we were given a jerry can full of water [which I had to carry on my back for a little while throughout one of our hikes], a radio walkie talkie, and a compass. After we were given these things we had to use our itineraries to navigate ourselves without any help from our mefakedet (commander). On our map we planned different check points that would help us make sure we were going the right way. Once we got to each check point the whole group had to do 15 push ups. And in the end we gained skills that would help us navigate ourselves with a map and compass if we were ever lost in the desert…which is not so likely…Another pretty exciting thing we got to do was shoot a gun called a Tavor! This gun is used for major combat units and has a scope so that its easier to shoot in combat. But before we got to shoot the Tavor we got a demonstration on two different machine guns that the combat units also use in the army which were the typical machine gun and a really powerful Israeli made machine gun called the Negev.  One last really exciting thing we got to do was go to college fair type thing but only at this college fair people were advertising different units in the army so Highschoolers can learn about each of the units and get a sense of which unit they want to join when they enter the army. The reason why it was so exciting was we got to learn about all of the different units and we also got to see a tank show!..it was really cool seeing people my age going around and instead of looking at what college they wanted to go to, they were looking at which units they wanted to join…now THATS a culture shock!

Week Four: Sports Week

This week was called sports week but it should’ve actually been called EXERCISE week because all we did was exercise and only had a day where we actually did sports!..we were all split up into A, B, C groups which determined your level of fitness. A was the highest, B was in the middle and C was the lowest..I was in the B group and every morning we would wake up at the crack if dawn and go on 2 K runs, which in the beginning I thought was going to be so tough but in the end I managed!..we also had health classes about the right foods to eat and what’s bad for your body..etc. Then we got to have sort of a color war at the end of the week, and this is when we actually played the sports!! We played basketball, soccer, and dodgeball. I volunteered to play soccer and i ended up being the only girl playing with a whole bunch of Mexicans and brazilians which really kicked my butt!!! My team didn’t win but it ended up being really fun and probably the only time during marva that we could jump around, cheer, and dance around freely without getting in trouble!!

I’m posting from my iTouch right now so I’ll log on and add pictures later..And sorry it has taken so long for me to post this, I’ve had it as a draft for a really long time but I never got around to finishing because school has been so busy. But I promise I’ll still keep you updated!! Wont let you guys down! I promise!!

Thanks for reading and enjoy!!!
❤

Packing Up & Onto The Next One!

So the day has finally come where we are packing up all of our stuff in Arad and getting ready to move to Jerusalem! I graduated from Marva on Wednesday and I can’t even begin to fathom that I got through it. Marva was probably one of the best things that I have ever decided to do and I can honestly say that I’m truly a changed person because of it. Marva taught me to appreciate the little things in life and how to live with the bare necessities, oh and how could I forget, also how to put up with stupid punishments and pushing myself through times that I honestly thought I could not pull through. I said I would post in detail what we did on Marva each week so I’ll start now by explaining what we did throughout the first two weeks…I dont have all the time in the world at the moment so I might have to separate what each week was like throughout different posts.

Week One: ‘Initiation Week’

Once we arrived at Sde Boker, we were all told to get in the formation of a ‘chet’ (the hebrew letter). There were mefakdim (commanders) walking around yelling at us to “close our v’s” which is the formation of our feet that we have to be in while we stand in a chet. While we were all very confused as to why we were getting yelled at for no reason at all we were all separated into groups so we could receive our uniforms. After we recieved our kit bags that contained an army vest, a blanket, two ‘memiahs’ (watter bottles), an alef uniform (our nice uniform that we wear when we leave the base) and a bet uniform (which is our day to day shlumpy uniform), army boots, a belt, a koomtah, a shlumpy hat that we had to wear on the daily, and a sleeping bag. After we were all changed and ready to start our Marva experience I dont think any of us knew what we were getting ourselves into for the next 7 weeks. That night we were split up into our ‘tzevets’ (groups) that we would spend 2 months straight with. My tzevet had 11 people in it and we were quite a diverse group. There were 5 Americans including myself, Rotem, Ariela, Sam, and Eddy, 5 Mexicans, Jose, Alex, Lillian, Issac, and Jaime and 1 Argentinian, Juan. Basically the first week we learned that whenever we were told to go somewhere on base we had an alloted time to get there and if we were late we had to go back to wherever we were and do it run faster so we could get to wherever we were going in time. How to stand in a chet, the specific way our uniform had to look, the rules of Marva, rules and how to handle a gun, we also shot an M-16 for the first time, and a couple of classes about the army. The first shabbat that was a closed shabbat which we could just relax, sleep, get to know everyone and enjoy our first period of free time on base. Saturday night I was BLESSED with kitchen duty and everyone that was not as fortunate got the punishment of running for ‘everything we did wrong on shabbat’. Some examples of things that we got punished for were girls having their hair down, shirts were untucked, not wearing full uniform, AND we even got punished for something that one of our friends did which was shaving his hair into a V like an airbender, eventhough none of us had anything to do with it, “Marva Ze Beyachad!” (Marva is together).

Week Two: Shetach Week (Field Week)

Field week was definitely an experience that I’ll remember for a lifetime. During this week we are completely submerged into the desert with no showers, or toilets so I’ll just let you use your imagination with that one…we all slept in little tents that were probably the size of two bathroom stalls put together. there was no floor to the tent just a peice of cloth covering the front, back, and both sides of the tent. It was freezing cold during the night time so we all just slept in our uniforms so it would be easier to wake up in the morning and easier for us to do shmirah (guard duty) during the night time. We all had a certain time during the night that we had to wake up and guard our campsite for 30 minutes. I personally cannot remember anything from that time because I was literally sleep walking. Our meals in the shetach were the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We got a package of food which included a can of corn, baked beans, tuna fish, two loaves of bread, jelly, chocolate spread, halva, a jar of canned fruits, and sometimes if we were lucky we would get vegetables. You can only imagine the weird combinations of food we came up with!! We also learned the three different shooting stances with our guns, which are standing position, kneeling position, and laying down position. Something else we learned was how soldiers camouflage themselves during combat and how they speak to each other during combat . When we learned how soldiers camouflaged themselves we also had to camouflage ourselves. So we put water on the sand which made a good paste and smeared it all over our faces. Then we were asked how we thought soldiers camouflaged their teeth because they are so white and we all looked at each other really confused and it turned out that during combat soldiers put the same exact paste on their teeth!!! Which also meant that we had to do the same!…after that everyone in my tzevet didn’t care whether their touched the ground or not..haha but it was definitely an experience..I think that field week definitely brought the people in my tzevet closer and got rid of the awkwardness and brought everyone together as a family.

I think I’m done for now with this post but I have a lot of pictures I want to attach to this post but I’m currently blogging from my iPod so next time I get on my computer I’ll edit this post and post my pictures!

Enjoy! ❤

Life In The Army

Posted in November 2011 by

For the past 5 weeks I’ve lived the life of an 18 year old Israeli going through basic training for the army. The base that I’m on is called Sde Boker and is literally 5 min walking distance away from David Ben Gurion’s grave. A typical day on base consists of waking up at the crack of dawn (sometimes around 430). And depending on whether I have ‘Tikniut or ‘Konnenut’, I wake up even earlier than normal wake up time! ‘Tikniut’ and/or ‘Konnenut’  are  punishments where I have to wake up earlier then wake up time either wearing my nice ‘Alef’ uniform or wearing my army vest, orr maybe sometimes both and then acknowledge what I did to deserve the punishment. These punishments are VERY common and VERY easy to get because they give them out like free candy.  Then after that I have to stand in a ‘chet’ with my tzevet (group) and my mifaked (commander) to make sure that we all wake up alive and for him to release us to the next thing we have to do that morning. Sometimes I will have kitchen duty, or have to clean nasty bathrooms, or just organize the ‘plugah’ (the area where our tents are). After the Samal (commander above my mifaked) has decided that what we have done is up to her standards we are then allowed to eat breakfast. Now honestly, in my opinion (and I’m almost positive everyone else will agree with me on this one) the amount of time we have to wait to get our food does NOT give the food justice! Literally breakfast consists of bread, jam, chocolate spread, sour cream, cucumbers, hard boiled eggs, and MAYBE one more thing. Then we do some activities, have lunch and dinner, then have an hour break after dinner and then go to bed at 10..or sometimes maybe a little earlier or later.

Each week on the base we have a separate theme  that will influence the activities that we do during the day. For example, the first week was just getting to know the program, the rules etc. The second week was field week, third week was navigation week, fourth week was learning about different things in the south and the army, the fifth week was sports week, the sixth week will be combat week, and the seventh week I will be in Jerusalem learning different things about the army as well. And I’m not 100% sure which week it was but we also had a week where we got to learn things about the army up north in Tiberias (sp?).  I’ll post more about what we did in detail throughout those differnet weeks but I have to get some sleep before I have to wake up at 6 AM tomorrow to be back on base by 9 AM to go to the shooting range!! 🙂 (incase you were wondering by the way, this coming week is combat week!)

I’ve also attached some more pictures…Enjoy!

A New Way Of Living

Posted in First post!, November 2011 by

Hi Guys! So I decided to start a blog because I realized how little time I have had due to being in the army and always being on base, and because of this I barely have time to update my friends and family about what new experiences I’ve had and what I’ve been up to these past 3 months that I’ve been in Israel. I am now living in Arad, Israel but most of my time is spent on an army base that I’ve been on for the past 5 weeks named Sde Boker.

Well to start off, the month of September I started off getting to know the city of Arad and the other people in my section. If none of you are aware, the city of Arad consists of two supermarkets, one laundry mat, one bus station, two bars and it costs approximately 17 sheks to go anywhere in a taxi (if you’re really lazy and dont want to walk). Considering the size of Arad you would expect it to be fairly easy to get familiar with the little town and find your way around. However, this was not the case for the girls of Shizaf 19…getting home from our first trip to the supermarket took maybe 20 minutes when really, it should take about less than 10. Even though it took us some time to get used to everything around here, we pretty much know this town like the back of our hand by now. After 2 weeks of living in Arad, going on hikes and getting settled in, I started a volunteering course for the army called Sar-El.

We were placed on an army base in the Negev (South) where we spent 3-4 weeks helping the I.D.F. Some of the things we did was clean M-16’s, organize army uniforms into packs, paint storage bins, organize storage bins, fold tents, worked in the kitchen, and anything else the soldiers on base didnt want to do. I on the other hand chose to do kitchen duty so I could have more interaction with real soldiers and improve my hebrew by speaking to them.

I spent celebrating the Jewish holidays with family and friends. For Rosh Hashanah I spent one night in Pardes Hana to visit my cousins from my mom’s side. It was really nice seeing family and eating the many festive foods with everyone. I spent Sukkot with my friend Ilana’s family in Zichron Yakov. And for Yom Kippur I went to Jerusalem which was truly my favorite of all the holidays I have spent in Israel so far. We stayed at a hostel in the Old City which was very convenient because it was close to everything! We went “synagogue hopping” and got to test out what the synagogues in the Old City were like, we went to a religious Ashkenazi synagogue, a more reform synagogue and of course, a Sephardic synagogue which was personally my favorite. We went to the Sephardic synagogue for Ne’ilah (sp?) and what really made this experience special was the fact that the synagogue overlooked the Western Wall. As everyone in the synagogue was deep in prayer, we got to see the sunset behind the Western Wall which really gave it a good glow. After the fast was over, we ran to the Western Wall to see the thousands of people breaking fast there. My friends and I decided that it was better to not get involved in the whole commotion so we decided to sit and watch while the thousands of people were breaking the fast. For Simchat Torah I went on an Year Course organized trip to Tzfat. There we went snorkeling for techelit, and we were very welcomed by the community of Tzfat to join them in celebrating this holiday.

After all of the holidays were over, I then began my basic army training in Sde Boker through a course called Marva. Now that I have caught you all up to what I’m doing now, I think this post is long enough. So I’ll post more about my time on Marva later! I’ve posted some pictures for you all to see also, hope you enjoy!

Hugs and kisses to everyone and thinking about you all!!!