What the Fork?

After finding out the rental office had moved to my apartment building, I had a little extra time to kill in the commons so I decided to make the trip worthwhile by going window shopping. I stopped at two stores: Evolution and Jabberwok.
Evolution is at the far corner of the commons if you're coming from where I live. If you're not it's the near corner, but if you're not coming from where I live then you're not cool enough to read this blog so it doesn't really matter. Evolution was not as exciting as I had hoped. Besides the Indian Kathakali masks, fighting nuns, and various potato shooters I found only two things of interest. Ryeclothing.com t-shirts and Young Mozart. The t-shirt I liked was this green one with a peace sign that said shalom on the top in a wavy font. The Young mozart was a little mozart doll with a short biography on his life on the back at the box. What was interesting about Mozart was at the end of the biography it said "...but then he died." Trust me it's funny.
At the Jabberwok I found a sculpture of 2 forks, one bent in the shape of a banana and the other one with 3 of its 4 tongs bent back, with the lone still-extended tong balancing on the but end of the banana fork. Intrigued, I asked the woman working the shop where this sculpture came from. She told me the fork guy. The fork guy is a man who lives in the woods nearby Ithaca who makes forks all day. I smiled and left, glad that in this world there exists a man who devotes his entire life to forks.
There are many questions left unanswered about the fork guy, that I'm sure if answered would help lead us to world peace. The following are the questions I came up with. Please feel free to submit yours along with $5 (paypal) to berlinerster@gmail.com.
Is that really all he does for a living? Make forks? Doesn't he have to also make spoons and knives? If not does that make him crazy? What does he look like? Does he have a mustache resembling a fork? Does he himself look like a fork? Did he go to fork school? What's his alltime favorite fork? Does he drive a forklift? Does he know the fork canoe joke? Does it bother him when people use the wrong fork at the dinner table? Does he make specialty forks? Tuning forks? Have any celebrities every used his forks? Spork: ya-ya or nich-nich?
Ok. Time to stick a fork in it.

Bad Day

Even though I'm no longer across the pond I will still occassionally update this blog just for the hell of it. I need no reason, so don't ask for one. If you do, I'll just make one up.
Let me explain the title. First of all, I'd have everyone know that today was a good day. I woke up not late, had a delicious cup of coffee, slice of 12-grain toast, went to class, ate lunch, read a little, went to my next class, came home, and, it being a nice day out weather-wise, we guys decided it'd be fun to go swimming in the gorges. So we swam until the sun began setting, then we all came home. I came home, had a pita, egg, cheese, and hummus sandwhich, and did some reading. Good day.
So why "bad day?" The reading I did before my second class was for my legislative behavior class, in which before each session we do a "news drill" where we discuss current events. I sit down with the Times and start reading. First of all there is the hurricane splashed all over it. Clearly that's a downer. True it is happening many miles away, but any time you see people in such distress and pain your heart goes out to them. And when you see how your leadership is fumbling around helping them, and how the New York Times editorial begins with the line "George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday," you get a little scared. What is scariest is that thousands are expected to be dead. Just a horrible, disgusting disaster that should have been forseen, but was instead neglected due to more important issues, namely fighting Iraq. Funny, isn't it how the war in Iraq, this ambiguous war on terror, distracts us from the fact that we are being stolen from, that the ruling class is enslaving us to their will and we obediently march along with our tail between our legs because we don't want gas prices to go up any more. So clearly I was having issues with this. However, I'm searching for stories with Senatorial implications so I keep reading. On the bottom right corner on the front page I read that 950 Iraqis were killed yesterday from a stampede after hearing suicide bomb threats. That's a pretty big number. Three Americans, too, but no ones counting anymore. Once the number reached 1000, everyone stopped caring. Funny that almost 1000 Iraqis die in one day and it barely makes the front page. I guess we can't feel too bad for them; they were all freedom-hating terrorists anyway.
So I keep readin,g because theres still nothing about the Senate. Oh, Justice John Roberts is getting questioned by the Senate Judiciary committee next week so yesterday he went through a mock hearing. There's something senatorial! Bush's nominee for the Supreme court is going to get questioned and voted on by the Rebublican Senate. That's a great example of checks and balances.
So I keep reading and learn of another Senate Judiciary hearing coming up. Aparently 2 military officers from the Pentagon reported that an intelligence briefing was released identifying Muhammed Atta, the man who led the 9/11 attacks, as a terrorist, back in 2000. That's a whole year before the sorrowful day. The publishers of the briefing tried ushering it to the FBI for investigation into the terrorist not once, not twice, but 3 times, but always getting turned down by "military lawyers."
So now, they're coming out with this story and the Pentagon is reporting that there is no "evidence to back up the evidence" or some contrived cliche like that. Some are even claiming that these guys are making the whole thing up. The military officers claim that the Pentagon destroyed the evidence. The Pentagon denys everything. The Times, in the article, which was not an op-ed, said that if this info were to be found to be true then it would be an "embarrassment" for the Bush administration. No way. This is more than an embarrassment. This is an uncovery. People need to look into this and realize that all of these people who claim to their graves, Washington insiders, Pentagon officials, CIA agents, that Bush knew about a 9/11 attack are telling the truth. He's not negligent, he's not stupid. He took that information, and used it to his advantage. I'm not saying Bush was behind the attacks. But I am saying that he let them happen on purpose. He purposely did nothing to stop the horrific events. There is no evidence, no true evidence, you can give me that he's definately 100% clean on this. And don't say, "oh you're rediculous" or "oh there's no way." Good lord I would pray that there would be "no way" that our leader could allow such horrific events to occur. Just look at what's happening now. He publicly said that there was no way of knowing such a tragedy in New Orleans could occur. Right, because New Orleans isn't located below sea level. Sorry I forgot. Just like they want me to. I'm walking to school tomorrow.

Cops

I hate the show cops. It's just an excuse to exploit the mentally dim and milk that lowbrow "entertainment" for all it's worth.
It's on right now and the cop is curently interrogating a woman of color. They love making fun of people of color...making them look bad.
I haven't posted anything in a while because I've been all over the place. I moved out of my dorm officially last week, but unoficially stayed there until Wednesday. Now I'm at Zev's apartment for the next hour and a half, from whree I must head over to the Goldstein Youth Village to take a taxi to Ben Gurion Airport for my 6 a.m. flight to Warsaw.
Now I'd like to take some time to discuss an event that happened last week, Yom Yerushalayim, or should I say more accurately, Yom Gush Katif. It wsa impossible to walk 2 inches without seeing Orange flags, ribbons, t-shirts, or strollers. The anti-disengagement camp is SCARY, and it's only gonna get worse. I feel sorry for my cammpers this summer whose vision of Israel's beauty is goinig to be dulled by the ubiquitous shower of orange.
The arguments against the disengagement often vary but the one's who wear ribbons are the one's who are the ulra regligious zealots who believe that Jews are infallible and that gays are ok, but homosexuality isn't. Ignorant, obnoxious, racist.
I gotta go. I could keep going but I gotta finish up last minute stuff.

Twenty-one

I'M DOOOOONE!!! Finished! Finished with finals, finished with Ministry of Tourism, and finished with my film paper!! Feels good to be done, but it's all a bit bittersweet because everyone's already begun to leave... two of my closest friends have already left. But as soon as one thing finishes another begins, and I have already begun seminar training sessions 3 days ago. These sessions are interesting in that I'm beginning to meet my fellow staff members for the next 2 months but frustrating in that they're all in Hebrew. Of course, being a student of the Hebrew language for the past 5 months has improved my Hebrew dramatically, but not even close to the point where I am able to understand, let alone participate in most of these discussions. The upside, of course, is that being forced to learn Hebrew should no doubt continue to improve my Hebrew at a continually rapid pace, despite my Hebrew classes being over.
I remember when I was a camper on seminar during my "Mifgash" etgar in which our group met and interacted with fellow Israeli teens. I remember one Israeli girl telling me that I could learn and be fluent in Hebrew in "just 2 months." After 5 months of studying this language, I have to say "yeah right!" Again I've learned alot, but I doubt even if I was around Israelis all the time, I would need at least a couple more months until I was fluent. But you never know.
A quick note on being 21: Before becomming this age, I always thought the American law forbidding anyone under 21 from drinking alcoholic beverages was stupid, pointless, and hypocritical. Afterall, I always felt that once a kid turned 18, went off to college, the army, or wherever, he should be able to make the decision for himself whether or not he was ready to responsibly drink alcoholic beverages. Certainly, if someone is considered a "man" in newspapers or is tried as an adult or can die for their country then they should also have the freedom to have a beer after coming home from months in Iraq or before being executed. Plus, because many of these 18-year-old-kids are living away from home for the first time in their lives, they would be able to access alcohol anyway, legal or not, and the fact that it isn't legal only makes the drinking of such beverages more appealing. This law seemed counter-productive and useless.
However, now that I am 21 I realize how stupid and ignorant I was. I realized this as soon as I turned that magical age, when I was immediately overpowered by a sudden surge of newfound responsibilty and wisdom. I now look down on college freshman through juniors and shun their irrisponsible and illegal drinking habits, for I now realize that what they lack in age can only begin to describe how not ready they are to partake in the responsible and patriotic act of indulging in an ice-cold Bud Light.
So shame on you, every other country in the world that has a drinking age of 18! Shame on you backwards, sick nations that doesn't lookout for the welfare of your state, the health of your youth, and the preserverence of freedom! May God have mercy on all your souls!

Nahag Chadash

I felt creative so I decided to write this song about the guy who drives the shuttle between the har tzofim and givat ram campuses of Hebrew U.

NAHAG ZAKEN

Eat sunflower seeds
Love he does not
Hate he does do
Or perhaps gum under his shoe
A drugless land
Keeps the junkies active.
Alive.

Thank you. I'll be here till August.

p.s. Nahag Chadash means "New Driver." New Drivers put a sticker with this phrase on the back of their cars. The popular band "Hadag Nachash," which means snakefish, is a play on it.
Nahag Zaken means "Old Driver." The driver of this shuttle is a very old man.

Hadag Nahash

Last night at a Hadag Nahash show, I bumped into my buddy Nati, aka Nati the Righteous aka the greatest rapper in J-town, and excited about this fortuitous encounter, he started to gab in Hebrew to me at a blistering speed. Not understanding a word of what he was saying, I politely interrupt and ask him to please speak in English. He does, saying, "You lived here for half a year and you still can't speak Hebrew?!"
I was a bit taken aback by this, for I felt like my Hebrew has improved to the point where if me today were to speak Hebrew to me in January, me in January would have absolutely no idea what me today was talking about.
My Hebrew has gotten dramatically better. I am doing better on tests. I got As on the last two quizzes (and "Mitzuyan!"s as well). The deal is, when I'm at a concert and I see a buddy who knows English pretty much as well as I do, there's really not much thought into speaking the native language. Seriously-- Israelis who know English love to speak English.
But my Hebrew's getting good. Not fluent yet, far from it, but it's getting good.
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Yesterday, using my ever-improving Hebrew, I interviewed my friend Kasa about Israel’s Ethiopian community for an Ulpan project. I learned a lot of interested stuff about Kasa’s personal history and her community, but what was most astonishing is that there are only 48 Ethiopian students in all 3 campuses of Hebrew U. I mean, there are thousands of Ethiopians currently living in Israel yet their societal status is heading in a bad direction. Luckily, there's still time for improvement. Hopefully something is done fast to solve this issue.
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Last month of school! The work-load is a bit lighter than it was at the end of last semester (when I got terribly sick and almost didn't make it) with just a 10-page paper, a 1-page exercise, and 3 exams. I am not too worried, just a little anxious. After all, the year I have been looking forward to for such a long time is very close to ending, and the transition stage of moving on after such a year looms deep. My plan is to make the most out of everyday I have left here by continuing to get out and see new things.
I put up several new galleries on the picture site. Check them out at http://www.pbase.com/berliner6/bens_gallery
shalom

mazel tov!

Whenever I'm up before 6 AM, it's very difficult for me to function on a normal, cognitive level. The process of rolling out of bed causes an intense jolt of adrenaline to rush through me that I am too tired to really know how to handle properly, and in that process I tend to do certain things I would not usually do. Such as daven morning Shacharit.
The knock on the door comes at 6:04. It is Noam, our madrich, reminding us, loudly (as Israelis often do), that it is time to get up and get ready for the hike. You see, this is the 3rd day of our Sea to Sea hike from the Mediterranian to the Kinneret and we have a long ways to go. I roll out of bed, finish the sodas in the fridge, brush my teeth, then, due to my lack of abilitiy to think for myself due to the earliness of the day, I go on to daven with my fellow religious brethen the weekday morning service. I even wrap tefillin. Yeehaw!
After the prayer ritual I drudge down the stairs of the Pequin hostel in the Galil to breakfast. Breakfast at this hostel is typical Israeli guild: various cream cheeses (none as tasty as Philadelphia), tomatoes, cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs, laffa, chocolate pudding, and Elite instant coffee (of which I just cannot get enough of). Rarely do I eat a regular breakfast during the workweek, but considering I was on vacation and that this was all on the house I was excited by what lay ahead of me. So excited that, in my early-morning stupor, after taking my plate from the stack I began absent-mindedly flipping it with one hand. After the second flip, however, my slippery hands missed the catch and the plate crashed to the ground, shattering into smaller pieces. Coming from tefillot, the dining hall was already packed with breakfast eaters that morning and the shattered plate brought them all to attention. There was a sudden silence throughout the hall, followed quickly by a loud applause. Not quite knowing what to do, I did what any normal human being does when a large crowd applauds one's actions -- I took a bow. I even considered an encore performance (there were plenty more plates where that came from!) but instead helped the page clean up my mess.
So last night my Argentinian suitemate Sebastian, two of his Israeli friends and I took a road trip to Tel-Aviv to do something that is simply impossible to do in Jerusalem -- all you can eat meat. We went to thisBrazillian-themed restaurant called Papa Gaio, which, for around $25, the lively waitstaff continually brings different kinds of cow and chicken to your table until everyone becomes terribly sick. I realize $25 for a meal is a bit steep, but I figured I should a) reward myself for landing the Poland seminar job this summer, and b) enjoy my last real meal before the lovely harvest festival of passover, in which I will be forced to eat-in for the next week (oh boy!). Plus, Sebastian drove, so the transportation wasn't a factor money wise.
During this meal there was live-Brazillian music and entertainment in the form of salsa-dancers and kick-boxing demos. Afterall, what better way to stuff your face with steak and wings than do it while watching incredibly toned shirtless adolescents do back flips and roundhouse kicks to eachothers faces? (weird, I know. An "only-in-Isreal" example if ever I saw one.)
Anyway towards the end of the night one of the waitresses (the bald one) was returning a tray full of empty glasses and caraffes to the kitchen when one of the glasses fell and shattered all over the floor. This, as I expected from prior experience, was followed by a roaring cheer from the remaining crowd. The waitress stopped in her tracks, and while still holding the tray with one hand, curtsied for the gleeful audience. Constrast that with how an American (or British) room full of eaters would react to a waitress dropping a glass (at best try to ignore it; at worst, slowly shake head in disappointment), and you begin to see why I love this country so much. I asked my Israeli buddy to my right, Dan, in English, why Isrealis always cheer when someone breaks things. He answered as many Israeli's do, first with a shrug, then simply, "it a tradition." Ahh, tradition. I always felt embarrassed for the kid at the chadar ochel, back at camp, who would drop a tray and everyone would cheer for him. It always seemed childish and mean-hearted. But now I realize it's not childish and mean-hearted; it's Isreali (as indistiguishable from one another the two often may be). For all of my former campers who I yelled at in the past for cheering after a dropped tray -- I'm sorry. From now on, I will cheer along with the rest of the crowd. Just make sure you get up and help the poor kid as well.
Hope everyone has a regular Pesach. Hag Sameach!