Lamity

As I often create words, I have created yet another: lamity.  Lamity: something that is full of lame, slightly pathetic, a little obnoxious.  As in: my week was full of lamity.

For the past two days I have been in Moda'in with family friends of mine.  Here is my impression of Moda'in: it's kind of like Oakton, Virginia (where my cousins live): there's a mall, there's a pool, there's a cinema, and there are parks, but it's full of big apartments full of people that work OUTSIDE of Moda'in.  Like Avi, for example.  He works in Tel Aviv.

On Wednesday, I slept really late and then when the kids came home from school (may I reiterate that Israeli kids get out of school at 1:00-1:30), we (that is, the kids and their mother Amira and I) went to a falafel place.  After falafel, Roni, who is six, did her homework at the kitchen table with her mother and then she and I went to a park where I took pictures and she played.  We came home, and then we all had dinner (save Yoav, who was out at a friend's house).  Then, as a family, we watched the Israeli version of Big Brother, which is huge here.  It was actually really funny.

Yesterday I pretty much wasted away the morning online/reading.  After lunch, I walked down to the mall and bought a pair of pants for myself from Fox, a pretty standard Israeli store.  (Did you know that Fox is being sued by Abercrombie and Fitch for stealing their designs?  Hopefully the pants I bought don't look TOO American...)  After my purchase, I explored around the neighborhood of Moda'in.  Moda'in is pretty much on a thousand enormous hills, so you think after you've climbed to the crest of a hill you have the down-wards to look forward to - no.  After about two seconds of a downwards decline, you have yet another incline to pant through.

While all of this is nice and domestic and uncomplicated, I am incredibly bored.  I think it was good for me to come to the Kagan household, as I feel very comfortable around them and it gave me a chance to do some things that I haven't done in a while - hang out with kids that are semi my age (the oldest is 13), see a movie (The King's Speech with Amira - very good), etc., etc. - but in general I was so bored.  I was contacted by mentor about a possible project for me with the internship - translating Spanish into English for promotional materials.  I sent him back: awesome, let's start right away.  He wrote back: what's the rush?  The rush?  THE RUSH IS THAT I AM DYING FOR SOME ACTIVITY.

I wrote to the woman I'll be working with that I'm anxious to get started and so she should email me/call me at her earliest convenience.  I figure that if it ends up that I don't have a terrible amount of stuff to do for La Escuelita, I'll talk to my mentor from Sadaka-Reut and see what I can possibly do for her in addition to La Escuelita.

Today is different - I woke up early to go to a festival at Roni's school (MEMORIES. OF. MY. CHILDHOOD. DEAR. LORD.) and now Avi is taking me back to Tel Aviv.  I'm stopping by to say hello to Udi and Alon, drop off some stuff and pick up some new stuff.  I'll go to La Escuelita for the Friday evening classes, and then a friend of mine from the program I was in two summers ago is picking me up from Tel Aviv and we are going back to Kfar Saba, her home town.  Tomorrow I am seeing everyone from that program.  It feels good to get up and do something instead of get up, laze around, and then go online (THE ONLY REASON I AM ONLINE RIGHT NOW IS BECAUSE AVI, RONI, TWO OF RONI'S FRIENDS, AND ORI ARE PLAYING A LOUD GAME OF MARIO KART ON THE WII).

I am frustrated that I don't have a lot to do but I realize that that is in my hands as something I can change.  Tonight I will talk with my mentor about when I can start on the translating project.

I did take a crap load of pictures of Moda'in (there are some really weird/interesting/ugly apartment buildings here), and so I will upload a Camera Party blogpost soon.  Until then, I will wallow in my own boredom.