so this is the new year

Today's song of choice: The New Year, Death Cab for Cutie. Obvious, but so appropriate.

The group spent the weekend chilling with a bunch of kibbutznikim about an hour from Hod. They were all kids about our age who had kind of deferred their army service to spend the year taking classes in Judaism and Zionism and get to know the country more-- not unlike what us HSI chillins' are doing. We spent the night on their little campusy area, talking to them and just hanging out. The idea was more fun than the reality; I had trouble forcing myself to really talk to people because I was so unintrigued by the awkwardness. I made a few friends, though, and had some bonding time with some of our group who I haven't hung out with so much. So a weekend well spent, I guess.

We had dinner at our teachers' houses last night, which turned out to be a lot of fun. We got to meet Aubrey's family and look through his photo albums and eat the AMAZING sufganiyot (fried dough with powdered sugar) that his wife made. We played a couple games of Chinese Whispers (that's what Aubrey calls it, for the rest of the world it's Telephone) and failed at one of those counting/clapping things, and then the bus took us back to Hod. An excellent bus ride, as a total side note: Brooke & I rocked out to Dashboard, and then Jack & I rocked out to Taking Back Sunday, and then I tripped over Ali's feet like nine times and Elliott made the smelliest fart in the world and Laura and Aimee made epic raps.

And then it was 10:30pm and omigawd it was almost New Years! Legs were shaved, asses were packed into denim miniskirts, glorious hiphop playlists were made. And then, once everyone (us and some kids from Akiba) were downstairs? NOTHING HAPPENED. Me, Sarah, Fallon, Jacqui, Brooke, and Ali tried so hard to make a party. We danced, we sang along, we drank Pepsi MAX and made Jack skip all the songs that sucked. Nothing.

As we counted down, I felt even less than I usually do on New Year's. The superficiality of it, how fabricated the time shift seems, left me smiling vaguely as the couples necked and one of my dancing buddies kissed me on the cheek. Three minutes later, Ben (the Akiba madrich and the older brother of one of the boys in our group, Sam) sent his kids home. In the immortal words of my father, and now Ben:

"New Year's ends at midnight. I want you home by 12:10."

After all the Akiba kids were gone and we were left to mill aimlessly around the moadon, Jack put on The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony and those of us still awake formed a circle in the middle of the room, swaying with our arms draped over each other's shoulders. Sandwiched between Bar and Nathan, I looked around the circle at all of my friends (and family, really) and felt myself cheer up a little bit. Each person took turns stating their hopes for the new year-- I hope we all do well on our SATs, I hope we all get into the colleges we want, and I'm so so glad to be celebrating New Year's with all of you who I've come to love so much.

We cracked jokes, we improvised a sacreligious rap, and I was happy about it. At 3:30am, I crawled into bed, Death Cab for Cutie slipping from my earphones to my subconcious as I drifted off to sleep.

This morning I woke up with a hacking cough, a splitting headache, and fever-sore muscles that refused to lift me out of bed. Yoni told me to go see the nurse, but I fell asleep by accident and didn't wake up until 1 in the afternoon when Rachel woke me up to ask if I wanted anything to eat. After being chastized for missing class, I showered instead of attending my first sequential, bought an iced coffee, and stumbled my way over to English. And now I'm here, in the comp lab, waiting for 4:40 and coughing mucus into a pile of Kleenex.

I go home in 19 days. I'm not going to miss Israel, I'm not going to miss classes, I'm not going to miss Mosenson Youth Village. But I am going to miss my friends. My God, am I going to miss my friends.

Happy New Year. I wish you all the very best.
xoxo