back inside the green line

back on the kibbutz again - what a nice breath of fresh air! and i'd been dreaming about getting in the pool for days, so even though i'm incredibly self-conscious about my inability to swim lengths i really enjoyed immersing myself and chilling on the side with my freshly arrived copy of wired (only a couple of months late, bless the postal network).

i discovered my luck last night just before going to bed - something had been irritating my heel the entire day, and it turned out to be a shard of glass... and my foot's fine. the sock needed to be tossed, but that's alright.
it's a sharp turn from the beginning of the week, when i discovered how not to use a thermos.
the only time i've ever used one was in france, and then only for cold water. this led me to believe that pouring directly into one's mouth was an acceptable way to do things, only the scalding hot tea poured straight over my lower lip and chin and i was lucky enough that the burns didn't progress past first degree.

the week guarding settlements was mostly great but extremely tiring. we ate a lot of tuna at the beginning, but by sunday we were able to go shopping and we feasted on steaks, kebabs and chicken for the next three days.

our team covered two settlements, both of them really nice. i was hosted by a family for friday night dinner and not only was the food great, but the people were really friendly and interesting. the only issue was meeting them all for the first time, unfortunately sitting down directly under the spotlights next to the littlest daughter.

"he's sweating, daddy".
thanks, sweety, that made me a whole lot more comfortable.

i finally learned all the words to amazing grace (the original version), and i also learned not to engage in any debate that may at some stage include drugs. i seriously pissed off the guy i was guarding with when i tried to explain that part of the freedom that we fight for is the freedom to make mistakes.

we scored an hour and a half being thrown about in an armoured vehicle on friday. most of us slept fairly well.

our commander's incredibly amusing when he's not being serious, and we enjoyed the few days with him. he's an incredibly enthusiastic cook, and we got an opportunity to "break distance" and joke around a lot.

a couple of the shifts i pulled were serious physical exercise. dragging a heavy gate manually for the duration of the sabbath was hard work, but not nearly as hard as patrolling three hours on a rolling, rocky mountain top. i get breathless just thinking about it.

i watched bits of the saw iv while doing homework, and i've realized that it's a quadrilogy that needs to be viewed. my list of next-to-buy movies: thursday, independence day and of course, all of the pirates of the caribbean movies. how i haven't obtained those until now is beyond me. at least i got home to find starship troopers and the two bill hicks dvds on my bed.

i had a long (more than two minutes, probably less than five) chat with the new flatmate this afternoon about interviewing the kid's replacement. i told him that i'm most likely going to move out after january in any event, but that it's important that all three of us get along until then. i wonder how things're going to be when i get back home in a month's time.

speaking of which - we have approximately two weeks left of the course. it's awkward that on the one hand i can almost taste the end, and on the other i'm terrified that this is when i'm going to put a foot wrong somehow.

on the bus back to base last night, i suddenly had a craving for ice-cream. within five minutes after voicing this the bus pulled into a mall and we had a refreshment break, and the ice-cream was pretty good :D

i thought about two things on the bus to tel aviv this morning:

1) i caught one of my team-mates napping while on duty. he swears blind that it was no more than half a minute, but i had to report him anyway. i did it in a way that won't hurt him, but it was unpleasant nonetheless. you don't fall asleep at your post when the enemy's gate is less than 500m away.

2) singer. i think i need to tell her that we can't be friends anymore, because she's still under the false impression that we're going to get back together at some stage. our last talk was weird and it keeps replaying in my head.

i don't like burning bridges but this one is unhealthy.

i managed to get to the bank on time this morning, i went to transfer the cash for the snowboarding holiday. that turned out to be more complicated than i'd expected. i hope it goes well :S

right, now that i've gotten all that off my chest, it's time for a nap. for the past half a year i've been leaving out all the gory details, i hope i don't miss them one day when i decide to publish my more obscure experiences... like my national geographic moment when i entered the guard hut and a wasp was fighting with a giant moth (larger than my hand).

daylight savings time confuses things.