The Week in Review: Kvutsah, Tiyul, and Turning 18

At the time of my last post, I was still dealing with the initial shock of getting into kvutsot, but a week later I can tell you that everything is going really well. For a quick breakdown of the group, we have Ilan, who brought a fly-swatter on Workshop; Lauren, who knows the entire dance to Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies"; Max F and Tali, who usually engage in behavior which would be deemed socially inappropriate in any other setting (for example, Max tried to put Tali's entire hand in his mouth the other day during a peulah); Max W, who's favorite TV show is Glee; and Shulie, the glutard who's health problems are the subject of most jokes. There are no dominant personalities, but so far we're meshing together really well as whole.

On Tuesday, the 8th, we went on tiyul, which involved hiking 25k through the desert for three-days, sleeping on mats under the stars, and doing everything we could to not go to the bathroom. Besides one case of a girl getting water poisoning (she's still in the hospital), there were no other serious health incidents. There were, however, a few emotional breakdowns (Ilan), in addition to seeing a fox and a spider the size of my face. Luckily, in the spirit of communing with nature, Charlie stomped on it before it got too far.

Tiyul finally ended Thursday, and the sense of accomplishment that comes with hiking 25k through the desert was only slightly diminished when we found out we just went in a big loop. Then, after listening to our madrichim use a bunch of shallow metaphors to compare our hike through the desert to our life journey, we finally got on the bust to go to kibbutz. Four hour bus-ride with kids who not only hadn't showered in days but who had also just hiked through the desert... I probably don't have to tell you that I was ecstatic when we finally arrived. At that point we had a chance to shower, unpack , and meet the Brits and Dutchies (a little anti-climactic). The funny thing about the European kids is that every time they talk, I feel like they're joking and they'll switch back to their real accents at any moment.

For my birthday Friday, we all went to the discotec at the kibbutz, where I was hit on by a lesbian. Despite the lesbian, I discovered that turning 18 in Israel isn't half as climactic as turning 18 in the States for a few reasons (which roughly include voting, lottery tickets, and porn) but mostly just because nobody cards here anyways. Turning 18 on Workshop, however, is an entirely different story (for reasons that have nothing to do with voting, lottery tickets, or porn, and everything to do with waking up to 30 people in our kitchen singing Happy Birthday) and it turned out to be an amazing day.

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. We swam, slept, and ate a lot of pretzels. We also didn't have internet, which was rough, but the situation is obviously fixed now. Our kvutsah also had our kupa asepha (glossary) in a record 4 hours. The asepha went really well, now we just have to see if it works.

Nothing else very noteworthy to report. We spend most of our time in peulot, doing chevrati's, and having Feelings Time. And blogging, obviously. Everyone here makes fun of my blog, but to all my loyal supporters (or whoever is reading this right now, even if you're a random who stumbled upon my blog on Google) I thank you.