21st post - sickness

I know that much of my blog has been positive and very much written with a love for my new life and Israel.  There are many things however, that are not so great about this country and I wish I could ratify. As I write rockets are hitting the south of Israel.  100+ katushas have hit where my friends live and other citizens both jews and muslims .
Healthcare in htis country is bull.  I was majorly sick and i waited for the dr for 4 hours.  finally i burst into his office and demanded and he sees me and send me home.
So drs. here are incompetent and i need a break to feel better.
Tonsillitis sucks 
that is all for now,
Michali

20th post

i admit i havent writen in a very long time.  I have been super busy.  Since I have last written I finished my second course that specialized in weapons and knowing their opperation, history, parts, bilistics, and different shooting practices. After this course we were each given a base to go to.  I was expecting to work with reserves.  It is not as prestigious out of all the jobs but I thought I would be better equipped being 22 and more go with the flow. To be honest i was ready to take on what ever job happily and do the best I could.  The last day we had a ceremony to mark the ending before we found out our placements.  I recieved Mofet which is like best all around from what I gather, of the course. Yay.  Then I went in first for the placements and the head of the depertment asked me how the course went.  " It was one of the most exciting and great things I have gone through"   He took a moment and looked me over and said "well good because you are staying here."


"what?"


So this placement was the very last thing I thought I would get .  I didn't even put it down as an option when they asked me my preferences. WHat this placement means is that I am a Mitkan Adam girl.  It is one of the perstegious jobs for shooting instructors.  Your home base is Mitkan Adam (where I did my course) and every week you travel to a different base to teach different type of soldiers shooting.  There are pros and cons to this.

Cons: every week you have to travel with your gun and huge bag and go to a different base
you dont know anyone on that base ( excpet my garin boys )
its harder to make friends
I wont know where the things on each base are like the gym
I never know my missions ahead of time


Pros: I get out every Thursday!!!
I get to wear half uniform
I get to see all the guys in my garin : ) since we have guys in every infantry unit
I  go all over the country
I make friends with the two or three people I travel with to the base
I can have fun and have no distance from the soldiers


So this past week I was in Mitkan Adam to meet everyone and get ready to instruct.
Next week I go to the paratroopers (Tzanchanim) and get to see three of the guys in my garin so excited : )

I will updated you all about it. 
Other then that I am excited to start my job and am loving life.
I really appreciate every amount of free time I get to spend with my garin.  They have become my brothers and sisters and I love it here.  In Israel i feel free and happy and myself.  I dont always feel that in America.
But we will see.
I am trying to get premission from the army to coem back 30th of april for a month : )
Love you all,
Michali

19th post

This weekend was the perfect weekend.  It was my roomie's birthday. She turned 20 and I decorated the room and got her a present and we went out to a nice dinner with her host family and went out dancing at night.  Then today we slept till 2 am and hung out with the guys from the garin who were home.
Tomorrow I am headed back to my base and much like the other soldiers in this country, I am outraged by the new law that passed.  Till now all soldiers could ride public transportation for free. Now starting this week they are charging soldiers who take the train full price sundays from 6 am - 11 am . 
Right, it's not enough we are defending this country, you want us to pay to be tortured.  Got it. Assholes.  Excuse the language but this tottaly screws up my comfortable nap time. I had a routine down and starting tomorrow I say goodbye to being comfrotable and might have to stand for the journey.  We are very bitter. 

In any case this course is going by so fast.  I am really liking it and think its challenging but a lot of fun.  I don't want it to end.  Which is a weird thing to say about the Army. 
I am missing everyone very badly and wish everyone a great week.  Its machine gun week so I am pumped.
Lots of love,
Michali

18th post

I am back home to Regba with Gimelim (days off for sickness) since I kept myself up with coughing , dizzyness, shaking and snot.  ew.
In any case last night I stayed awake in my adopted family's house and witnessed as my best friend in the entire world took the most amazing important step in her life and got married to the love of her life.  I watched it all on a skype cam that connected me an ocean away.  She was the most wonderful perfect person I have ever seen.  That is not biassed .  It broke my heart not to be there but I was so greatful for skype and the way it allowed me to see her place a ring on his hand and  look into his eyes. 
This event was the hardest for me to miss since I have been here. A thousand times harder then missing my mom my dad my friends my college my cats or my warm bed. 
I think this is the first time this move to Israel hit me over the head in such a big way. I am missing out on so much and I have taken for granted so much being in the states so close to everything.  Here while laying in bed sick I don't have my mom to make me fake chicken soup or be misrable and watch horror movies with my best friend till we laugh and spit out m&ms .   dont have the luxiery of going to a Pilates class.  I cant just go and hug my dad.  I cant curl up with my cat and cry if I have to.

Here I have to pretend  to be tough.  and sometimes thats not easy when all you want is to watch youve got mail and veg out on the couch.
Still this is not a complaint this is just a realization that the little things in life make the biggest difference. My new life here is wonderful as well. My adoptive parents gave me a key to their place and told me to come over when ever i wanted watch tv and eat veggie soup they made me.

As for the army.  I am finishing my certification on the Rovay this week (M16 , Tavor, Flattop, and MicroTavor) I am really enjoying this course and people in it.  The only moral delima came along when we had to learn final Bilistics. 
Which is basically which bullet goes through a body at what vilocity and what is most deadly= which we want to use.  Where do we want to aim to "stop" a person.  *the Israeli army is a humane army and therefore we are not allowed to say kill only stop. or so I have been told.
This lesson was really hard for me.  As I stied about the blacktalon bullet which once it hits the body breaksoff into 6 different shards that rip through tissue which is even too dangerous for the dr to remove without damage to him/herself.  I thought to myself a year ago I was at Purchase learning about Duchamp and his Fountain. 
Things have changed....

I am still morally conflicted about how I feel about knowing this type of information.  everyone in my class seemed to be ok with knowing this .  I am a vegetarian  animal rights pacifist . 
and now I will be teaching people how to aim for the right body parts.
sigh.


As for now the fat incompitant idiot russian dr toldme to sleep a lot so I am going to do that.
Best wishes for the most wonderful couple,
Lots of sicky hugs,
Michali

17th post - new base

I just moved to a new base to start a new course for two months.  My first week there I just came home and I am loving it.  This place is called Mitkan Adam and its near Modeim - it has a very cool history of counterterrorism training and lotar. The entire base is built like a kibbutz it has a lot of trees and flowers and a mini bus to take us from place to place on base. My course is built out of 35 people - including guys and girls.  The guys in my course are mainly combat soldiers that fell from their position based on injury so they are a little bitter but they are really really nice.
The girls are most of my friends from the previous course and otheres that joined from education branches and airforce. 
We have no distance with our commanders - I call mine by her first name (Anna) which is Hebrew for I am a Russian girl who has pretty blonde hair and am going to speak really fast so you dont understand anything in Hebrew about your weapon.
I got really lucky and got a Micro Tavor which is one of the newest weapons in the IDF I call her Lucy.
The food is pretty crappy and my cot isnt  the greatest but the company of my friends and the many Americans on the base makes up for it .
I love the more chilled out atmosphere and I am learning a lot of really cool things .
Everything and anything about the weapon and the balistics behind it .
I love you all,
Shabbat Shalom going to celebrate my new years in style in Tel Aviv with my Garin family,
Michali

16th post

Finishing my course was one of the most exciting things that have happened to me since I have been here.  There was a long ceremony where I marched left right left and got a pin, a new rank , and a ribbon that I wear that means I am fit to teach .
We got our new positions - infantry instructor is more basic and within that there are different things I could teach on, I was assigned a weapons instructor.  I will be teaching reserves and special unites how to shoot on a number of weapons.  This was my first choice and on the day they called each of us into the room to tell us I was very nervous. They call it Mesdar Dmaot (everyone cries)
They played around asking how I felt about Hummers - I said not so good. ahhhhh and then they told me that I was to be a shooting instructor! YAY! : D
So now things will be different I moved to a new base .  It is beautiful there everything is so green and beautiful and looks like a Kibbutz.  This week I had a week off before I start this new two months course and then start instructing.  It was a bit lonely this week but I saw Bat El and my grandmother and Ayelet just came home so its all wonderful .

Thinking about how lucky I got to be here with my amazing host family who came to the ceremony, and a great roomate that doubles as a best friend and a supportive garin family, it makes my first Chanukah away from home bareable.  I still miss everyone. a lot.

Lots of Jelly Doughnuts and sugar kisses,
Michali

15th post

     Getting up at 5 am to do a run with your army vest and crawl through sand dunes while not having changed your underwear for 3 days really puts your life into perspective. I just finished my week of army camping.  As someone who has never camped before in their life - it came as a shock. 
we get to our campsite - i was apprehensive and pensive.  This is what the epitimy of army life is when it comes down to it  , roughing it ; eating sand and being one with nature while you kick some ass, right?
      The first thing we did was put up tents.  Watching 90 eighteen year old girls put up tents is really a funny sight.  It took us 2 hours and several bruises later.  Soon after being the spoiled only child I am i looked around for a porta-potty, to my shock and dismay there wasn't one.  What was to serve us for the next week as a toilet was the back of a sand dune . aka the dirtiest piece of earth. EW.  So after pooping in front of 90 other girls I can say I conquered a fear.  After we put up the tents , the flag (which if there was an enemy and he was confused as to where we were staying - he needn't be with this flag.)  and settled in we were given a safety pep talk.  The usual don't separate in night time, don't get eaten by coyotes, step on scorpions or let anyone into the camp sight .

Great.

      After that horribly moving talk we had lessons about camouflaging- ourselves and our movements, how to attack in formations, how to scower the fields and grounds , about the history of attack and element of suprise.  I was amazed at how much i connected to this information and wanted to learn more.  Between learning the proper way to step to the different techniques the IDF takes in fooling its enemy it was amazing.

     I am not proud to say that the first night I hit a little breakdown and cried.  We had been running up and down rocks and gravel for an hour in formations.  I couldn't see an inch infront of me and was supposed to keep up with my class and be sneaky and not fall all over myself.  This was very doable during the day  but at night it was horribly and I slipped and fell all over and down slopes.  It was not my idea of a good time.  I started crying and as the temperture dropped significantly from - oh its really freaking cold to I will never feel my nose again I broke down and told my commander I was going home.  um no I wasn't she informed me. Right so this is what it means being in the Army. haha.

I decided to go to bed (well it really wasn't my decision you go to sleep when they tell you to).  In this tent the size of Harry Potter's closet, fit 4 of us girls. You had your dirty army blanket under you,  a sleeping bag over you (because they are small and fit pod people) and you slept in the same uniform you just finished crawling in the entire day.  You spooned with your M-16 and you couldn't turn around since there wasn't enough room and your water canteen was attached to that side of the belt anyhow. It was such a wonderful nights sleep : (.


I just realized sarcasm doesn't really carry online . sorry.




Anyways, every night we were woken up for guard  duty, and a different drill.  Some times you have 3 mins to put your shoes on and run outside, get into laying down position and pretend you are shooting at the enemy.  Ash ash ash (fire fire fire) and other times you need to get your shoes on in 3 mins and run away from an imaginary fire.  After a really long day in field this is really not what I wanted to do .

Ok and this was the food situation.  you get one box for 11 girls .  Each box is for a different meal but has the same continents inside.
The meal for the week includes:

Loof
Tuna
a can of corn
a can of beans (bad choice and everyone is farty, as if we don't smell enough)
a can of vegetarian spread
a loaf of bread
pickles




being a vegetarian and eating corn, pickles and beans on bread for breakfast lunch and dinner made me lose a good 5 lbs.


When the second and third day came a whole new wave of enthusiasm and energy and  a willingness to be there came over me.  I decided I was going to love camping and living out in the field.  I was going to love being tired all the time, sand where sand should never be and going from really hot to really cold in this desert.  And I did.

The fourth day of us being there we were taken up to a rocky hill top.  It overlooked a Bedouin camp sight and we could see all the way to Ber Sheva. It was the most peace of mind I have had all week.  We learned we would be shooting an M24, Mag and Machach.  I got really excited and never missed a target.  Knowing that there is a history to these weapons and that they win and lose wars (more correctly that the people that use them win and lose wars with them made me feel empowered.)

It is a weird type of feeling you get. 

I am not really sure how to describe it or why it suits me but it does. Right before you pull the trigger you are supposed to take a breath so that you are as stable as can be on the ground. You are supposed to close both eyes then open one and then aim again. 
With that breath the world goes away.  You don't hear the other guns firing, the girls talking or anything else.  There is just you on this hill top, the wind, the cold winters sun and then you exhale and pull the trigger with the middle part of your finger.

I think i found out I want to be a shooting instructor in this way.  Knowing the importance that weapons have in protecting our troops and soldiers I love.  I want them to know everything about the weapon, just like I want to know everything about hte weapon and be amazed by its amazing power used for good and bad.





Coming back from the shooting range we had some bonding activities dry runs with our M-16. (earnie)

and went to bed.  The final morning I woke up my friend who slept next to me was itching her head. She informed me she had lice.  Then I saw one on her jacket.

MMmmmmmmmmm..... greaaaaaaaaaaaaat.
Just what I wanted.  we informed our commander we had lice and within the hour they had a truck waiting to take us to base to shower and get our stuff ready to go to the army base dr and then out to get product to kill our new pets.



I can' t say I expected lice or wanted lice or even thought it would be an option of going into the field and getting lice but sometimes you have to go with the flow.  Coming back home none of the girls were home.  I was panicked but my Garin came to my rescue and two of my firends sat patiently and combed out my hair.  Boys are very sweet sometiems.
It's nice knowing you can count on your family here and mine is my garin.  I can't explain how much it means to me coming home to them, knowing that through everything we go through we have each other. I know that is kitchy and cliche' but hey I had lice so give me a break.



Yours,
Michali