Thursday, December 22, 2011

Happy Xnuka


I had a fun week making Latkes for my girls, and buying things for my apartment.
Now I get to prepare for my Chanukat Bayit B'Chanukah (Housewarming on Chanukah).
There's lots of variations of Seasons Greetings going around so I thought I would add one into the mix that I stole from a friend (Thanks Jeremy if you're reading).

Looking forward to lots of celebrations in the year to come, so much fun!

Monday, December 12, 2011

Adaptation

Shalom,

I know it's early, but the truth is I have the time for a mid-week update so I thought why not, the point is to get me writing again.

So I freaked out when this week when I downloaded the moth and the theme of the podcast was "Into the Wild", How did they know that was what I wrote about last week? AS I was late in downloading it, they had already produced it, when I wrote the 'Into the Wild' entry...CRAZY!! Great creative minds think alike....

Meanwhile, in their episode they got people to jot down what their greatest survival skill is....and I think that mine is Adaptation...I wish it could be camouflage...but my red hair prevents that...

This is why...
This week, I woke up with my list of all the goals that I wanted to get done...just on Sunday. One of them was to spray paint these plastic butterflies that I had bought to hang on my wall, when I was in America. I had everything ready, and when I went to look for teh butterflies I couldn't find them. I turned my entire apartment upside down and car looking for them. I got more and more frustrated that I would not be able to achieve everything I set out to do that day, not to mention the loss of the butterflies, which I had envisioned to go perfectly on the wall in my room.

I did manage to find two rogue butterflies, which had clearly been separated from their flock...for some reason. For one or two days I got annoyed every time I saw them, becasue they reminded me of my loss...until this morning I decided that they would be a great start to my new butterfly collection. Now I could go hunting butterflies and collecting many different varietes, instead of just having a wall of all the same ones!! WOohOO!!

My loss has turned into an adventure!! This afternoon I might go around Yaffo to the markets, to look for some butteflies!!

Some Israeli Music:
Boom Pam
Giraffot
Efrat Gosh
The Apples
DAniela Spector
Roni Dalomi
Avraham Tal
Gazoz

Thursday, December 01, 2011

Into the Wild

This week I watched the movie 'Into the Wild' and it really affected me. I picked up the film at the video shop and I didn't really read the back of it because it was in Hebrew and I couldn't be bothered, so I thought it was an adventure coming fo age film and took it. I didn't realise how sad it was going to be and how it permeated into my week.

Now that I live by myself and I have more 'alone' time, for teh first time in my life ever, I love that I come home and no one bothers me but at the same time, I am a social person, and I love having people around...The thing about making Aliyah by yourslef is, that you leave all these things that you took for granted like family behind, and so you have to build for yourself a replacement family, which is why I think that a lot of Anglos's stick together since we are all going through a common experience.

When I was moving apartments and I had a few weeks inbetween where I would be homeless, I stayed at a friend of mine who let me dump a whole lot of my stuff at her place, and it worked out that she was away on holiday while I was there the first week, then I went to Italy when she got back, and then when I got back she went away for work, so it wasn't too much of a hassle but the fact that I was able to do that was nice.

Next week that same friend needs to have a small procedure done under general anaesthetic and she asked me to drive her there and back. It wasn't even a question that I would hesitate to answer, of course I would take her. As Meredith and Christine would say we have become each others 'person'. I don't think that in Australia I would ever have done this for a friend, just because, it is not required, everyone has their family around them for support, so the level of friendship is just different. Not that this diminishes or makes another more important, rather that there is just a different dynmaic going on...and you also learn very quickly who you can count on, and who you can't because we just simply need people.

So watching the movie made me think about all this, and how lucky I am that I have found people here, made amazing friends in the absence of family. I often think that my life is so rich because people are like colours who make the picture more interesting, give depth and change your perspective on something that otherwise might ahve jsut passed you by, so I like collecting them, and I think I will continue to do that.

In other news this week I visited the
new building of the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art and I have to say that I was impressed!!