My Day

I think I will take some pictures of my work area so everyone can see what I am doing. So this is how my schedule goes now. Either I work in the morning and have classes in the afternoon, or visa versa. When I work in the morning I work from 6 am to 11:30am. Then I have class from 1 pm to 5 pm. When I work in the afternoon I only have to work 3 hours. But if I work an extra hour every day then I get that Friday off. It ends up that I have a 6 day week. That is how they work here. The 6th day is a half day though.

So I am working in the laundry room. It is more like the laundry factory. We wash, dry, fold, and iron the clothes of 1,500 people. It is an amazing operation. There are only 4 washers and 4 driers, but they could fit probably 8 people inside, comfortably. We iron almost everything even the pants!. There is this huge iron roller that irons sheets and table clothes. Mostly I have been doing the folding. And when we fold we have to put the clothes in special cubbies. We look for # and color on the tags. Every person on the kibbutz irons on tags with a #.

Needless to say I fold a lot of laundry. And in the words of Ali G's Borat character; maybe I will find man who wants fold skills! Either that or I will never want to touch a piece of clothes again. Or maybe Hugh, I will become even weirder about how I fix my clothes. (Hugh thinks I am crazy because I button my jeans before I put them away.)

I work with a girl from Sweden that is also on the ulpan and then about 10 to 15 women. It was funny. The first day I came with sneakers and more work-like clothes, like in the US. But this is Israel. Most of the woman work barefoot. And all wear sandals. So today I was comfy.

A great thing is the woman speak only in hebrew, unless I am really not understanding. So it is forcing me to learn quicky. There is a lot of gossip and chatter and I try to follow the conversations.

And in school I am in Kita Bet. That is like second grade. But it is perfect for me. It is a struggle. And I am studying every night, a lot. But I think it is a great level for me. Ben, I learned more in one hour here than I learned all semester in Zev Ze-av Garber's class. So take that!

My teachers name is Rutie, not Ruthie, Rutie. You must say it like an Israeli.

The good thing is, is that most of the kids want to party or hook up so my room is quiet and plus there are so many good spots to study. Like tonight for instance. the cafe is open and I will get a coffee and study my verbs. Life is pretty good.

I find I don't have much in common with the other students. They are so rapped up in "having fun". I am rapped up in learning the language. So I have a few people I talk to, but for the most part the others just look at me funny.

So now you have it. I dodn't have much time to go to the beach anymore, but I can squeeze it in. I have to sqeeze it in.