corruption

damn. it's been a month or two, and i've finally sorted out the piles of papers that had accumulated on my table. that's tantamount to cleaning the apartment. i also got some shopping done, and watched a fun french movie (pièce montée, it surprised me).

i would totally buy the mechwarrior 2 mercenaries soundtrack if it was available on itunes.

---thursday:

have i mentioned not feeling good? it's very weird, and hard to explain. i've been feeling great the last week, except for in the mornings when i feel terrible for the first hour or so after i leave the apartment. it's not cool at all. as soon as i get my medical insurance card i'm going to go get myself checked out.

---thursday began with good meetings, and about halfway through the afternoon i came into possession of a large quantity of bubble wrap and an idea of what to do with it. every time an intern would come to me to report something positive, i handed him a square of bubble wrap. it's ridiculous, and even they found it so, but they were charmed nonetheless. and with that, the atmosphere in the office changed. work is supposed to be fun, and it's been miserable for everyone, and it doesn't need to be that way. that single act of silliness opened the gates, and aota, newk'd and i started relaxing and taking everything (and ourselves) less seriously.

the work will get done at the same pace, but we're not going to stress about it.

aota overheard me babysitting the interns, and asked me "how do you not want to kill yourself? with these interns?"

"we do the best we can with the tools we've got". and by "tools", i meant penises.

---i made an early break for it on thursday to make it to training: i'm definitely getting better with the jiu jitsu. i partnered up with a guy who only speaks french, and it made things, umm, complicated. lots of gestures and repeating unintelligible things.

kickboxing: either training's easier or i'm getting stronger. every time the instructor talks to me i add another item to my list of things to learn, and it's been a very long time since i experienced that positively. about a decade, actually. it's very exciting!

i got home and checked the weekend's snow report: so much for snowboarding, after the snow it was going to rain. i signed up to see warm bodies with a movie meetup group instead. i proceeded to watch the ultimate fighter season finale until late. what a satisfying finish!

---friday:

i lay in bed browsing my rss feeds until late, then woke up at 5.30. for nothing. i eventually got back to sleep, but then my alarm went off. "inception snoozing": when every time you snooze your alarm you get sucked in deeper and it becomes more difficult to wake up.

i watched friday's episode of strip search: it was positively mystifying! all i could think of was "you can't do that!!!", but then i realized that they've taken the whole genre and turned it on its head. the series is as much about mike and jerry as it is about the contestants. and it's so good!

we had perfect snow in the morning, which would all become slush by the evening. the day was relaxed, i played good music for most of it, and the only thing that sucked was getting caught up in something and not being able to leave on time for training. but then i didn't go anyway, because i got invited to godmother's for dinner.

dinner was really nice, and we all laughed as i took home a bag of canned chick-peas that my uncle had bought in bulk because it was on special.

i spent my night doing laundry and watching community and how i met your mother. and then vegucation, but my response to that deserves a separate post.

i was figuratively, literally and repeatedly shocked by the insane quantities of static from my bedclothes and clothing out the tumble-dryer.

---after sharing a video about arsim attacking the elderly, a couple of friends shared their thoughts about my leaving israel. aside from impressing myself with my ability to type in hebrew without letters on the keyboard, the discussion brought out some really ugly feelings. i *am* bitter; i feel betrayed and it's a painful feeling. to live in a country where complaining about someone being an asshole can score you a beating, and where normal people tell you not to waste your time trying to make a positive difference, is really hard. but it's even harder when you've given up the best years of your life in your country's service with nothing better than a kick in the teeth (in my case, literally) to show for it.