The Physical:
I went to the shuk yesterday morning and bought more fruits and vegetables than I could get my hands on (eggplant, cabbage, mango, bananas, onions, squash, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples, alfalfa sprouts) I also saw a nut guy selling scoopfuls of CORN NUTS. I thought of Sahg, who loves those things. In no time, my ugly kilt grocery trolly was brimming with dinner possibilities. I realized as a student, I will only have an hour break between classes on some days, and there are only overpriced cafeterias near Bezalel, so I will need to pack a healthy lunch almost daily.
The shuk is so much more relaxing on a weekday versus a friday. I could actually take a breath of air that wasn't polluted by a Hassidic man's B.O or the stench of dirty diaper wafting from the butt of some screaming baby. I was eyeing a spice stand towards the end of the market and I scanned the many shelves and burlap sacks stuffed with colorful powders and grains. Suddenly, my synapses became electrified as if I had just eaten a whole habanero pepper. A bottle of fresh ground hawaij: that amazing Yemenite spice my israeli friend, Merav, uses to make the most amazing soup. I went home and made a pot of delicious vegetable soup with some onions, squash, tomatoes, cabbage, and carrots. It was really yum.
I saved the seeds from the squash to roast in our new toaster oven. Our new apartments aren't stocked with ovens like they were in Tel Aviv, so 9 of us decided to invest in a really freakin huge a mini oven. It can bake challahs, chickens, whole fish, you name it. Noa, Agostina, Sarah, and I went to all the appliance stores on Agripas and Jaffa Street to find the best price. We settled on a place where the russian owner could speak pretty much perfect english. The model we wanted was 340 sheckles (roughly 40 sheckles per person). Nobody wanted to pay for it because they didn't want to be "that guy" going around asking everyone for their share of the money. I was like, come on, guys. Man up. I paid for it. Agostina and Noa gave me their share of the money. Agostina and I schlepped the giant thing home (it was roughly half the size of a refrigerator box) and cheered when we plugged it in and it worked.
This is where we get into the Mentally Fed Up:
After I roasted my squash seeds, Olivia comes in and announces that their apartment wants to buy their own toaster oven. That means instead of the price being split up between nine people, it's split up between four of us (88 sheckles each). And I just spent 280 sheckles on something we can't afford anymore. It doesn't make sense for me to keep the oven, because I'll only be here for a semester. I was a little pissed because Sarah, who lives in Olivia's apartment, didn't speak up when we bought the toaster oven. We had discussed this with the other apartments and they all agreed that if one toaster oven didn't work between us, our apartment would buy a smaller one (because who uses an oven THAT much? and can't we just share so it's more cost effective?)
I said we could sell them the Big Bertha toaster oven we just bought, except it doesn't really seem fair that Agost and I had to schlep this thing through the streets of Jerusalem, sit next to it on the bus, and price hunt for it, when they didn't do any of the work. I should ask The Ethicist.
All of this was after the day I went to the gym (for the third time) to ask about getting a student membership. Again, the crabby secretary said she could do nothing for me and directed me to this other guy who sat behind this polished desk decorated with all these mock sports trophies. He said Bezalel only subsidizes a certain amount for students to work out at their gym, and it doesn't subsidize students here for a semester. So he's going to call Bezalel, because I told him that it wasn't just me that was interested, and i WANT to give him my freakin MONEY (how much does it really cost him for a girl to run on a treadmill 4 times a week?). He's going to see if he can get Bezalel to subsidize us. But it has been more than a day, and I haven't received an email from him saying we've been approved.
That night, I went to ulpan, and Shoshana called my friend, Yiscah and told her that she can't get us into a higher level. She also said Yiscah and I emotionally abused the secretary. I, myself, was nice to her, because I wasn't sure if she had a mental disability or not.
Go figure.
So I'm just sick of dealing with people. Mainly dealing with Israelis...a stubborn people of the desert who have deserted any semblance of compassion and concern for kids like me. I don't speak hebrew, so I can see how communicating with me can be frustrating. I am also naive, and am looking to save money, so that's probably a turn-off too. And, I'm eighteen, traipsing around Jerusalem while their kids are training in the army, so that could be another source of resentment. Or maybe this is just how living alone is. Maybe this is the independence I thirsted for. I am my own advocate and own person now. This is just me realizing that as exciting and freeing this life is, it's also frustrating.
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