The State of Being Funky

I never know how to start these emails. I usually spend like the first two minutes starting at my screen saying "Hey Again!, no, how about Heya, or yo, nope too gangster, or Greetings, nope that sounds too alien..." and so on and so forth. I couldnt decide this week so I just started typing and I hope you all will just imagine your own favorite opening line inserted here. or rather in the place of this short rant. 

This past Shabbat I went down to Kibbutz Ketura to visit my friend who is studying at a co-existence program on a conservative kibbutz. This translates into me praying with the men and eating friday night dinner with a group of arabs. My friend is one of two people on the kibbutz who are shomer shabbat (keeping all of the laws of shabbat, as in, not using electricity or writing or driving etc) but despite that it was still clearly Shabbat on the Kibbutz, which was kind of cool. They still had services and all the stores and the pub were closed and everyone was still treating it as a day of rest. Anyway, my friend Alana and I hiked up one of the nearby mountains and got a tour of the kibbutz with the Ben Gurion University kids who were also visiting for the weekend. I got to see a new born cow (one hour old!) stand up for the first time, and I learned that algae under stress turns red and that donkeys make the most amazing noises. All in all, it was a wonderful Shabbat, totally worth the miserable 3 hour busride back to jerusalem on saturday night.

The rest of the week was not as entertaining. I woke up Monday morning in a funk. This is apparantly a word that not everyone is familiar with so I looked it up in the dictionary so that I could give you a more coherent definition. Dictionary.com defines a funk  as 1.state of great fright or terror or 2. a dejected mood. (other options were 3. music having a funky quality, 4. the state of being funky, or 5. a strong smell; stench)

The funk I was in was more #2, but I think there was some underlying terror of the "what am i doing with my life" persuasion. (And I like to think that I am always in a state of being funky.) In response to my funk, I went to Efrat aka my comfort place. After a few days there and some therapeutic cleaning (Shosh, I think almost all semblance's of my former slobbiness are gone) I felt better and went back to Jerusalem to have dinner with a group of soldiers who were being taken out by the group I volunteer with. And even more exciting than the endless train of meat being brought out to us was the plethora of young, english speaking soldiers. And even more exciting than that, was finding that one of them was my friend Abe, who I met about a year ago and hung out with for one Shabbat but havent really seen since then. Anyway, we chatted for most of the meal and exchanged numbers and all that, and while, sadly, he is going back to the states for Pesach, I now have one more friend in Jerusalem when he gets back. 

Next week will be kind of crazy with Pesach (haha all you who have to do the three day chag and double sedarim) but I will try to write at some point in the next two weeks. I hope you all have a wonderful Pesach, or for those of you who dont have to give up the leaven, a lovely two weeks. At this point you can insert a well worded, friendly reminder (of your choice) to write to me :)