I'd like to thank the Academy...and H____ R____...

In case you were wondering, the difference between an American seder and an Israeli one is that the latter is much, MUCH faster.  After much (little) deliberation, I came to the startling (obvious) conclusion that this Seder-on-Speed phenomenon is due to Israelis' fluency in Hebrew.  Can you believe it??  So could I.  בקיצור, The Hebrew Factor (as it will henceforth be called) enabled a lightening-speed reading of the "Maggid" section of the Seder--you know, the section that usually takes Americans/Canadians/pick-your-"ans" hours to plow through.  Now, since I know that you are curious, I will tell you what you are all dying to know: yes, I did take a turn reading from the Haggadah, and yes, it was from the section that I learned with my class for Perelman's Model Seder in third or fourth grade.  Ever thought that the Model Seder served no earthly purpose?  Well, you were wrong.  It was because of those weeks and weeks of grueling practice with H_____ R______, going over and over again the words "Raban Gam-li-el haya omer...--it's a mercha there, class, not a munach!" that I was able to avoid embarrassment at the speed with which I generally read previously unseen paragraphs of Rabbinic Hebrew.  Thanks to the Model Seder, I was able to stand my ground, the lone American at a table of Israelis.  H______ R______, out of sheer gratitude for all that you have apparently given me, I promise that I will never again recall the anecdote about the time my classmates put chalk on your chair at the front of the classroom when you weren't looking, so that when you sat down you would have chalk on your butt.  Never again.

The Beginning of My Never-Ending Vacation

I've given up on writing retroactive play-by-plays of the weeks-and-a-half that fall between my blogs.  It takes the excitement out of the experience.  For me and for you (Even if that's not true, just go with it.  You're telling me that by the time you get to reading about the fifth day that I missed, you can't hear the boredom in my tone?  I'd imagine it's pretty contagious.  And if for some reason you can't hear it, then I guess I'm a much better writer than I thought.  Spelling, on the other hand, not so much.  Before I rewrote it, two sentences ago turned out: And if for some reaosn you can't ear it, then i gues i'm a much better writer than it hoguht.  To each her own.  You stick to your strengths, I'll stick to mine.)
I'm at Daphna, Zeev, Noa and Michal's house right now.  Earlier today we returned from a lovely trip to the North with the entire Hutt/Schori/Lichtenstein family: at least twenty of them, grandparents, parents, teenagers, toddlers, newborns.  Delicious barbeque on Thursday night, a beautiful hike on Friday (so many wildflowers!  היה מדהים!  A bit difficult for the youngest kiddies, though...), and a סדנת שוקולד--chocolate workshop--this morning before pool time.  The views all around were beautiful (I feel like I say that quite often, but that's just where I am right now; every place I go in Israel has its own unique backdrop), with Mount Hermon visible from the road.  Despite the heat in our location of Ramot Naftali, the mountain's distant peak was as white as ever with the snow that most other places in Israel will never see.
My favorite part of the trip was the tiyul on Friday.  Five kilometers, a caravan of parents, kids, and cousins, some older ones with younger ones on their shoulders or backs, some walking solo, everyone making sure their walking neighbors were drinking enough water, keeping up spirits, taking pictures (okay, that last one was mostly me and Gadi).  I made friends with Gadi and Dana's eldest, Goni, a sweet six-and-a-half year old who became my walking and talking buddy for the second half of the hike.  Some members of the party were rather irked at the fact that Goni and I were speaking to each other in English--as they correctly pointed out, both of us should have been practicing our Hebrew--but I דווקא loved walking with a fellow English speaker.  Not that I don't love speaking Hebrew whenever I can; it's just nice once in a while to have an easier time of it.  Also, while I loved speaking to all the kids, it was definitely harder to make a good impression in Hebrew.  My childish humor is best conveyed--for now, at least--in my mother tongue.
I'm at Daphna's until Tuesday night, when the trains will start running again.  Vacation has officially started: two and a half of emptiest (homework-wise) weeks I think I've had since ninth grade at Akiba.  To anyone who's asked, I've been telling the absolute truth--that it's somewhat ridiculous that I've been given two and a half weeks of vacation, when it feels like I've been on some sort of vacation for the past three months.  Don't worry, I'm not complaining.  I'd much rather this little arrangement than whatever hell I'll inevitably be served next year at this time.  Let's not think about that, shall we?  I'll enjoy this prolonged "vacation" while it lasts.
Chag sameach!
Bed time :)
Ariel

"Usually 30, but for you--I give 25..."

Hm...What to tell, what to tell...
I'll start with an enlightening cultural experience.  For my "Markets, Games and Strategic Behaviors" class (probably my least favorite of the four--I like math, but only when it's taught in a way that's comprehensible to the average human being), we have to do a project on bargaining in Israel.  My partner, Josh, and I chose to test the effects on prices of bargaining in Hebrew and English.  We began our project on Wednesday morning in Daliyat Al-Karmel, the Druze village fifteen-minutes away from campus by bus.  The first thing we learned was that bargaining is best done quickly; the longer you linger in a store without accepting or offering a price, the less pleasant the storeowner becomes until you as the patron actually feel that you are doing him/her a favor by leaving without buying.  (Granted, in the first store we were essentially just testing the bargaining waters, with no real intention of making a purchase.  So I guess he had a right to be something less than pleased.)  There weren't enough stores in the village to be able to draw any conclusive conclusions from our experience just yet, but it was interesting to note that when we bargained in Hebrew in one store, the storeowner assured us that he would not be giving us "a tourist price," a response which one could take to mean that because we were using the local language, he did not see us as one hundred percent, fresh off the plane, culturally ignorant tourists.  (On the other hand, one could also imagine that "I won't even give you a tourist price" is a line that he feeds to tourists on a daily basis, in an attempt to trick them into believing that they're facing an especially good deal.  For the record, we made him bring the price below this "un-tourist" price before making our purchase.  Please excuse me while I brush the dirt off my shoulder.)  If you ignore that section in parenthesis, then you could say that our research is off to a pretty good start.  If nothing else, this project is helping me get over my fear of bargaining (I always just feel so bad!).
This weekend I'm in Herzeliya/Ramat Aviv/Rishpon with the Hutts.  Michal and Noah's English never ceases to amaze me (though I love catching their slang when they speak in Hebrew, too :P), Amir is no longer too scared to talk to me (he showed me his Go-Gos!  Remember those?  Weird plastic faces.  I think mine came in a purple coffin back in the day...), Yaron remembered my name, Maya lent me her beautiful room, and Ohad told me about his love for tennis.  The weekend's off to a wonderful, zen start so far, though sometime tomorrow I will have to be somewhat productive.  מה שבא בא.  Sababa.

לילה לילה

The Young and the Mistaken

I stand corrected:
As my dear father pointed out, סרט does not relate to VHS technology, but rather to movie film reels (though apparently both technologies did use a ribbon!).
I guess I'm not as old as I thought.
Not necessarily a bad thing.  I do so love passing as 18-and-under for the cheap bus passes...

What's in a nombre?

I've been watching the news more closely since last week, and I'm happy to report that the top story on Haaretz.com (when I started writing this post--about Monday or Tuesday) has nothing to do with Israel--a fact that I am eager to see as a sign that, since the bombing in Jerusalem last week, things have gotten better.  Or, perhaps more likely, at least have not gotten any worse.
I spent the weekend with camp friends near Modi'in, the last stop on the train line that friends and I usually take to Tel Aviv.  The place was creepily similar to how I imagined it since I started going to camp the summer before sixth grade: the majority of residents are Bnei Akiva affiliates, everyone knows Chana Spiegelman, and on Friday nights the whole community socializes outside next to the צומת until the wee hours of the morning.  Of course, I coerced Estie into bringing me to Chana's house Saturday evening for a quick hello--I knew I would never live it down (Bubbe sighs of disbelief--and my own, in fact--would have haunted me for eternity) if I didn't pay a visit to the Rosh Mosh when I was just a stone's throw from her house.  As expected, she asked me what I would be doing this summer and, to my extreme relief, I was able to say with confidence that I was planning on staying in Israel--the one answer that, I am pretty sure, was seen as the single acceptable alternative to a summer at Moshava.  Incredibly, I'm only half joking (though I don't say any of this with disdain--after nine years in the system, I have been programmed to think similarly).
Sunday was MASA's Hallelujah Contest auditions at Beit Hatfutsot in Tel Aviv.  I think I mentioned before that I was mainly going to the audition for the experience; still true, but since they went a lot better than expected (a.k.a. they didn't cut me off after two notes), I'm awaiting the results with slightly more optimism than I had originally planned.  The audition experience itself was really neat: I was on stage, the judges sat in the 3rd-ish row of seats facing me, there was a camera positioned in front of me and one on the side (that one followed my every move, which was a bit weird), a piano man behind me, a microphone and stage lights.  It felt very professional, which in and of itself was pretty awesome.  My first verse (of the Hebrew song "Mah Avarech") was actually rather dismal, but since the judges didn't stop me, I kept singing and got much better.  The judges must have felt so, too, because soon then they made me stop and sing the song higher, and then they made me sing an English song (so they could hear what I sounded like "in my mother tongue").  That, I hadn't prepared (they never told us to!), and I chose "Seasons of Love" from Rent because it was the ONLY English song that had not exited my brain at that very moment, of course.  Funnily enough, it was also the only song that their piano man--whom the judges had claimed at the beginning of the audition to know every song ever written--did not know how to play, so I started singing it a cappella and the piano man joined in later.  Long story short (though I guess you've already heard the long story, so this is really just making it longer) it actually went well, and I'm slightly more excited to hear what they'll have to say.
Last night (Thursday) there was a party at the Technion dubbed, quite accurately, "The Champagne White Party."  Yes, there was a lot of champagne; yes, everyone was wearing some element of white; yes, there were a lot of stereotypical Technion חנונים; yes, it was fun.
Tonight, Doreen and I went to Shabbat dinner at Kibbutz Naama, an urban kibbutz in Migdal Haemek.   The kibbutz does not exist on a piece of farmland: Kibbutz Naama collectively owns/rents a number of apartments and houses throughout the area, and its ~80 members live there in their kvutsot (smaller "family" units--we were with Kvutsat Hayovel).  For those who are curious, here's there website: http://www.kyovel.org/index.htm.  Two of the kibbutz members were in my ulpan class (it was one of them--Emily from Australia--that invited me to dinner). 
Dinner was lovely--great food and great company.  Personally, my favorite part of the evening was when the older of the two children in the kvutsah, Kinneret (4), asked me to read some of her Hebrew storybooks aloud to her before she was made to go to bed (yes, you were right: we DID read the טלטאביז book twice).  Kinneret began talking to me almost as soon as she came upstairs and saw me and Doreen chopping vegetables in the kitchen, and our friendship quickly progressed: from Disney Princess talk, to gift-giving (she gave me a green, beaded cell phone charm; she took it back about two minutes later), to ''הנה מה טוב ומה נעים'' swaying, to a discussion of the Hebrew word for "Penguin" (it's פינגווין--go figure), to the our previously mentioned dive into the profoundest of literatures.  It was probably the most effortless friendship with a kid I've ever had: as soon as Emily told Kinneret that "Ariel" was coming for dinner, Kinneret--Disney Princess fan that she is--was already excited to meet me.  Never before has my name gotten me so far.  
A Hebrew thought before you (I) go: the word for "movie" is the same as the word for "ribbon," "סרט."  Tonight, with the help of one of Kinneret's storybooks, I figured out why: remember when (am I that old that I can say that?) we used VHS's, and the the movie was printed on the ribbon inside?  Genius.