לא זה לא יהיה השיר שלנו, זה רק הכאב

everytime I think about blogging here, I feel really annoyed/disgusted by how much I hate this blog layout. And how much I have no time to fix it. Cuz if I ever have time I know I should just be working on translating for Nachum (The hadassah neurim director for whom I translate grants and articles and such into hebrew). I'm thinking of offering to keep translating for him via email the rest of the year, because I feel bad that I've taken so long doing this one article. Also like...I need to use my brain. I physically feel it deteriorating. And I love hebrew more than anything. Except for you, loyal readers :P.

So what I meant to say here is like.....I'm now oficially not blogging here anymore. I mean, it was obvious before, but I'm putting it down in words. I might come back for an occasional tidbit. But mostly if you want to know what's going on call/aim/fb me :)

Love, Noam

...look at the stars, look how they shine for you...

This whole living with people situataion is becoming difficult. This is just one of Noam's depressive blog posts. I can't go a long time without having one. Because I'm BIPOLAR!!! just kidding. I think. Anyways, I'm not befriending that many people in my dorm. In our big group that lives all around Netanya I have lots of good friends, but I never see them. I will call one of them tonight and it will be all good, but its hard to survive in a group that doesn't particularly like me/ignores me. Not that I'm not constantly trying to befriend them, and its draining all my energy and emotional sanity. What happens to Noam when people aren't friends with her for several weeks at a time you ask??? She goes to her room and listens to her iPod and writes blog posts to be posted later. So then she's antioscial, so people don't get to know her --> feedback cycle of doom! It's been really weird not being my big loud hyper happy self for 3 weeks. Yesterday I was at my parents' house and I got really slap happy talking to my siblings and my mom literally thought I was on drugs. Bad results! Also, I loled wayyyy too much while talking to people on AIM (very cool people btw, made my day :) ) It just makes me miss really funny people back home who actually know me, know how to make me laugh and how easy it is, and like me, to some extent at least ;).

Anyways. I'll get over it, time to go back to listening to Coldplay and not having friends......

...blog post from a loooooong time ago but I wrote it on actual paper (i know, *gasp*)...

Today was so productive!!! I felt like we were actually working and connecting with people. I love making new friends! This is where I go into ditz mode. Hehehe.
So one awesome thing today was working on the "english Moadon". We're making a classroom into an english club/hangout area. so basically we made posters and cute things and ads. So the kids (teens) will come if they need english help and we will hang out with them.
Another awesome thing was hanging out with my group (the Russian boarding school kids). I talked to this amazing girl Kristina for a really long time which was cool, I watched Russian TV soaps (they are so addicting! I don't even know what's going on!!!), taught a FULL FULL FULL page of english vocab and grammar, talked to this other kid too, all of his initiation which was cute, and talked to my "host mom" (except not) Tatyana for a while. She's a really really amazing person.
We had a meeting after our day, which was slightly annoying because the amount of meetings we have and their length are both ridiculous! However, my awesome day story was inspirational, at least to Yonatan, so that was fun.

P.S. I love hebrew SOOOO much. It's the best ever. I definitely wanna take hebrew lit or something in college. Remind me peoples!

Also, I can write in Hebrew on teh compy now!!! Check it: !!!אהבה היא מילה יפה

That took for freaking ever. Never doing that again. Till I get good at it. Literally, it took 5 minutes. grr.

Abanibi obohebev obotabach!!!! (guess what that means in sfat habet [hubebrubew ubububi dubububi]) ------ Batia, should she read this, is not allowed to guess ;)

...OK...

Uh oh. I have SO much to blog about. This is what happens when people do this thing called "procrastination". It always comes back and bites me in the butt. Well, here goes:

So on September 3rd I left Chambana! I said goodbye to all my favorite people, and then I went on the plane. It was the weirdest experience, cuz I just got on the plane, and it wasn't a big transition at all, except that in terms of my life it was a huge one. Anyways I got to Chicago and Colette and I played phone tag for a while cuz we hadn't said goodbye to eachother. That was weird, but good that we at least tried I suppose ;). Then, they tried to not let me go on the plane to New York cuz I was the last person to book the flight and they overbooked it. This is another way that procrastination bit me in the butt. They said they have to let all the international connections make the flight, but I wasn't international. I was like HELLO going to Israel I AM TOO!!!! But they wouldn't believe me because Young Judea had my ticket. I used my Israeli stubbornness though, and eventually somehow they had room. I also met some cool people who thought it was ridiculous to kick people off.

Eventually I got to New York, called some people from there, which was good. I had to spend a ridiculous amount of time there it was terrible, but I just sat and listened to music and called people and stuff. Then finally it was my flight's turn to get our tickets, and I met Val and Lilli! Which was really cool, they were basically my two orientation friends. I called Val's name really loudly, and apparently her mom turned to her and was like "Does that girl know you??" Val was like "No mom, she just called my name really loudly cuz she has no idea who I am". Anyways we had a little reunion and hung out in the HUGE check in line (I thought I had NEVER seen that many Jews in my life, except then I realized I used to live in Israel). We later met Lilli and her parents and we waited around and eventually got on the plane. Its really hard to meet lots of people and remember all their names, but I think for 2 weeks I've done rather amazingly. I mean I know at least 100 new names, impressive for the 4 days of orientation.

Basically as soon as we got off the flight, apart from saying hi to my family which was really really nice (I missed them! 2.5 weeks of independence is hard.), they shoved us right onto a bus, to go on a 4 day camping trip. this might seem ridiculous, that they make 450 kids hike right after arriving in a new country, but it was actually a good experience. We stayed a night in a hostel on the Kinneret (sea of galillee, Israel's lake mattoon we might say, except its way bigger...I think. Ok well its a main tourist/resorty attraction and its more beautiful than mattoon I promise. But Bagelfest represent!!!). The hostel was really nice, and I got to know my 4 roommates really well, so thats a good way of meeting people, force everyone into a room so they have to work out shower schedules and packing for the hike. It was actually really fun and we had some good times, for it only being one night.

The next day, after having our first awesome Israeli breakfast (yum), we got on the Netanya bus. Ok, I did. Basically there were 3 buses for Track 3, which is the track of Year Coursers that does Israeli Experience first. The bus that I was on is people living in the city of Netanya or surrounding areas (yes, I'm surrounding areas, we live about 10 minutes outside netanya by bus). Yonatan is our group "madrich", or leader, and he reminds me completely of my uncle. Anyways, Yonatan basically thinks we're the best, which is true, so he calls us "THE group". Now within "THE group", there are the people who work at Hadassah Neurim, like me, and since Yonatan lives with us there, we are "THE the group." Even better. Back to the story though. We got on the bus and hiked around the Galillee, mountain/stream kind of area. It was gorgeous. Then we stayed in this campground place where we basically met lots of people, ate lots of food, and slept on rocks. The next day we bussed to the Golan Heights and hiked some more. We hiked around on mountains, and then we went down one of them and reached the most beautiful place in the world. Literally. It was amazing. Usually you think you go up to go to heaven, but no, you hike down. anyways, we swam around in the pools and hiked around and ate lunch, and it was really really fun. The bad part was hiking back up the mountain at 2 in the afternoon and it had to be at least 110 degrees (in the shade). But it was a good experience anyways. We think they made us do that so we don't complain later on in the trip. We basically all agree that this is futile, cuz we're Jews, we complain. Whatever though, it was good.

So summary of Tiyul (it means trip in Israel, basically our orientation hikey thing): It was really pretty, kinda gross feeling in terms of dirtiness, and very constructive in meeting a lot of people.

Speaking of people...BRITISH PEOPLE. I love their accents. For the first couple of days their accent caught on to me a bit, which was really weird, cuz it was obviously not the real accent, just my imitation of it, but I would accidentally say words Britishly. Oh well I got over it. The funny thing is, we totally all did the love actually scene of "bottle" "bottle!" "table" "table! oh." We did that with basically all the words. ever. But yeah, I have lots of new british friends, and they are all very cool. Holla.

What else. We went to put our stuff down in Hadassah Neurim (the youth aliyah {immigration} village i work at, if I haven't made that clear yet), and then we stayed for Shabbat in Jerusalem. It was really cool, doing the opening ceremony and then Friday night services at the Kotel (western wall). Then we walked back to the hostel, and there was a BEAUTIFUL view of all of Jerusalem. I wish I had taken a picture. I'll go sometime when its not Shabbat and take lots of pictures. Also I have to go to the Kotel anyways to put Drew's and my wishes in the wall. So I guess I should go soon!

Ok. damn this is going to be a long post. Grrr. I don't like blogging for a long time. I get into the groove I suppose, but it takes up time nonetheless. And its kind of pointless. But I suppose I have faithful readers, and I like all of them vaguely ;) so I'll do it.

that was my frustration break. Back to Israel. After Shabbat we said goodbye to all our beloved Section 3 buddies and went back to THE group. Actually we really went back to THE the group cuz we travelled to our respective houses/apartments/whatevers and went to bed. So we were back in Hadassah Neurim.

On sunday, but I can't think of it as sunday cuz its yom rishon (first day, literally), the first day of the week, we had lots of meetings with people so they can basically organize where we volunteer. We work with the students in the youth aliyah village, which is a boarding school. Probably we will be mostly teaching them english, but also whatever else we can do, i.e. math, various sports, etc.

Eventually, a lot of us (not me really) got extremely pissed cuz its really unorganized so far since they haven't assigned us to the morning stuff, so they had us basically cleaning up the village cuz they're understaffed, and blah blah blah. I've talked about it enough at this point, but we've had lots of meetings that remind me of the class of '06 conflict meetings: aggravating, annoying, long, boring, ridiculous, loud, and most of all...completely pointless! But anyways, I'm sure it'll work out soon enough.

I also just went to the beach, because I'm visiting my parents house and they took me there. I like the beach in Hadassah Neurim better obviously, but it was still lots of fun.


Ok thats enough for today. Obviously the beginning was way more descriptive as I got more tired later on :P. But I will fill details in as time goes by. I will try to post every couple of days, but I'm not promising anything as internet is hard. I hope many exciting bloggable things happen (okay, I'm very sure they will)

Peace!

...you, my darling you...

guys, I am addicted to the song "I will always love you" by Whitney Houston. Here's the story: The DeJongs and I watched 'The Guardian' one night, with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston and at the end she sings that song and it made me shiver, subconsciously. It was really weird! And then it was stuck in all of our heads so Colette made a cd with it on it...and we only ever really listened to track 1. On..repeat a lot. It's really sappy! But its somehow addicting. I dunno. Anyways now saying the phrase 'its stuck in my head again' merits an 'aww, i will always love you too!' Which is pretty cool I guess.

Anyways just thought I'd mention it cuz I'm listening to it :P.

Otherwise, life is good, getting ready to leave, El Al tightened the luggage restrictions which sucks, but I'll manage. Whoever I haven't hung out with in a while needs to call me up so we can hang out one last time. That's all I have to say I think! Life is busy!

...almost gone...

Last night I realized that I have a week and 3 days left here! Wow! I totally thought it was way more, in that procrasinator way where you think you have lots of time without ever actually thinking about how much time you have. But I’m really excited now…because it will be so excellent. A bit scared cuz my room (the basement) is really really messy. I haven’t decided whether I’m unpacking yet, so there are unorganized piles of clothes halfway out of the suitcases. And piles of new things I don’t know what to do with! Great!

In other news, speaking of lots of new things to put into suitcases, Batia Colette and I went shopping yesterday! Batia and I had both wanted to go to Tuscola outlet for a while, and Colette and I do everything together anyways, plus she needed a hat and pants and stuff. And the trip was really successful! Not just cuz of the awesome people in it (which was a plus, definitely) but also, we did end up buying a lot of things. Granted, we did go into two different underwear stores, for a reason unbeknownst to us. I bought perfect pants, and am now regretting not buying 3 pairs cuz they were only 20 bucks and fit me sooooo well ☹. Also I only bought one pair so now I still don’t have very many pants.

After a long tiring day of shopping, and the eating of many a candy coated fruit (oapples and banonos), we headed home, and had to say farewell to Batia, which was really sad. I can’t imagine life without her, and even though I’ll be in Israel next year, I’ll never find as good an Israeli buddy ☺. After waving goodbye for as long as we could, we drove off into the sunset. Just kidding it was like 6. We made a quick trip to Strawberry Fields and Bread Co. and then ate a really yummy dinner with Sara S., I ranted for a long time about CRS, but with lots of love. Hehe. Then Sarah M. came and we talked and talked and talked and got ice cream and took tonnnns of pictures (soon to be featured on Facebook). It was a great Home Hi buddy reunion of doom and awesomeness. Way way fun.

Sadly though, our Home Hi buddies are splitting up (only physically, not in spirit), so we then said bye to both the Sara(h)s, which was really really sad. I’ve been their friend for so long and it hasn’t really sunk in yet that I won’t see them for a year.

We went home and watched a bit of Conan O’Brian before going to bed, but all in all it was a very friend filled goodbye filled happiness filled day! Yay!

...some are born to sing the blues...

Alright! I'm moved in to the DeJongs, and have been for a while, Mo is gone, my parents are gone...Rose is gone :(. Hopefully the rest of our class is still here...there are a couple parties i guess this weekend. But yeah, also all the U of I people are moved in basically, I visited Ariana last night and we hung out, which was fun...but still weird! I feel really young cuz I am the only one not in college. ok yes, there are 6 other people deferring. but whatever. So basically, a lot of my friends are gone. Except Lillian said I could come visit her, and I'm going to go to quad day with JMLau and Ariana. But other than that, I am really pretty lonely in this house! So people should all call me or something, but don't come here and freak me out. cuz we all know that Noam freaks out when she is scared of people in her house.

In other news, I feel kind of ready to go to Israel! I mean I am not fully packed since I unpacked a bit to live here, and the DeJongs haven't even come back, but in some ways it has sunk in that I'm leaving. I'm verrrrrry excited. It will be so so cool. I will miss all you crazy America people.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok, my internet SO died for the weekend. Anyways, now the DeJongs have arrived! Their flight was delayed overnight, which was a *BUMMAIR* as we all say ;), but now they are here.

blech, just imported 164 photos from my camera. most of them suck. the rest will go on facebook. Blogging pictures is gonna take me a bit to start doing, so stay with me here. But the time will definitely come. Currently, my to-do list has about 20 items. Which sucks! Cuz during the school year my to-do list consists of various papers and homeworks but I end up always doing them at 3 in the morning while discussing important "drama" of the week. So then, the lists are worthless. Now they actually have to be done!

Time to go to quad day with JMLau and Iiaeaux, errands later!