End of Tironut Tekkas (Ceremony)

Alot has happened these past few weeks. And by alot i mean ALOT!

On the May 31 after going to bed our Mefakedot did a drill with us where they pretend we are under attack. We figured it was one last test. Nope. They made us get into our Aleph Uniforms. Uniform Aleph is the uniform that we wear in public. Uniform Bet is the uniform we wear on base. We had 7 minutes to get into Aleph and make a Chet down in front of the building. Our Mefakedot presented us with our own official Michve Alon Unit Tags. 

It goes on the shoulder of our Uniform Aleph. Im really proud I got it. Im very very proud of myself.

Okay so for the actual ceremony. It was so so hot out. It was scheduled for 4 pm. I dont have any pictures of the ceremony though. I didnt have anyone show up to my ceremony so yeah, no pictures. I took some off of facebook that I found from friends. They arent that good. If I find better ones I will put the better ones up. Hopefully in my next ceremony I can have people come.

Okay back to the ceremony. In the very beginning when we were all lined up the Aerosap said that the Mefakedot, herself, and the Memem would be giving their guns to those they felt worked the hardest. In the ceremony we are being sworn in with M-16s. So if you received the M-16 of your Mefakedet or the Aerosap or the Memem its a very high honor. It means your surperiors respect you and see your hard work. Also your not being sworn in on your training gun. 

In order of power it goes as followed from least to highest: Mefakedot -> Aerosap -> Memem. 

The Memem has the most power and thats the highest honor you can get.

My mefakedet gave her gun to a girl named Anna from my group. The Aerosap gave her gun to my friend Sharon. Sharon definitely deserved it. Still does too. Shes a hard worker. We both work our asses off and take the army seriously. Not many of the girls do so its very easy to tell who really wants to be there. 

The Memem gave her gun to me. :D I wanted to cry. I am so glad that she sees how hard I am working. It is such an honor. I hope I can live up to the expectations that I have now set for myself. She told me she sees how hard Im working and even with all the problems I have Im not just giving up. She sees how well I put up with my Tzevvet. Im so happy to say I received such an honor. It really means so much to me. Im really glad my hard work is being noticed. 

 Thats my Plugot. Course Lahava.

After the Tekkas we had 50 minutes to do what ever. So I met my friend Sharon's family then just kinda sat down and talked to other soldiers. That was about it before time was up and we went to eat. I was lucky and went back to Kitchen Duty. Note that I love kitchen duty. Its ALOT of fun. You dont really do anything until its the guys turn to eat. They are funny. So they make it worth it because they are just so ridiculous and really dont know how to eat. But clean up time... yeah thats not so much fun.

Okay so till next time guys :)

Home Searching :/

This cat got me in trouble by the way.  You aren't allowed to have animals on you or pet them when in uniform, Its really really hard for me. When ever I see them I just want to play with them. I love animals. Some General walking by saw that she jumped on me and started pointing and yelling at me. I had no idea what was going on untill I realized the cat was on me. hehe silly me.

So anyway this whole apartment searching thing is slightly difficult. Everything is so expensive and its obvious that the army wont help me since they put me in this position. I hope I can work everything out soon. I found out where a few soldier hostels are. I by myself found good ones. It just goes to show how much effort they put into their Lone Soldiers.
But anyway Im positive I will get through this and I will have a place to live. I will be okay.

Cute kitty. Right before I got yelled at by the General dude. :P

Shmira 2.

This says Neshkia. Neshkia is the place where we keep the guns at the base. Why someone would want ME to guard there is beyond me. Neshek is the word for gun in hebrew.
Guarding at Neshkia was one of the scariest things ever. Probably because it was 2am and hearing a pack of wolves or Tan as I was told. Also animal calls are scary.
I thought I saw someone dancing and I heard weird Arab music. It was just too fucked up. I said "Stop, who are you, etc.." Whatever it was stopped moving and then I started hearing weird bird calls on a timed pattern. First every 15 minutes, then every 5 minutes, then every 10 minutes. yikes. Also I heard the wolves. I think they found food or were under attack because they were howling like crazy. I think one or two started crying. I heard bottles being thrown in between the vehicles. It was so scary. I went to call it in but then a mefakedet came and I told her instead. Then maybe a half hour later it was time to switch, so I told the mefakedet that checked me out of duty.

 The only English written graffiti I could find. Go figure.

Some more random graffiti. It was everywhere. There was Hebrew, Russian, and Spanish. Probably more.

Okay so Shin Gimel. Shin Gimel is the front gate. The main entrance. That was 3 hours of my life that I can not get back. There was another soldier who was guarding with me. He was not from my tsevvet or my course. He was in an entirely other group. He was opening and closing the gate. He was disgusting. Not in the eat like a pig way. But manner wise he was a perverted pig. For 3 hours I had to listen to him ask me "Why wont you fuck me? Is it because Im black? Will you leave your boyfriend for me? Does he satisfy you? Why are you so shy? Why wont you open up a little? Can you dance for me a little?" Honestly it was so disgusting and perverted. He was insulted when I said "No." Then he asked if I hate black people. He told me about all the girls he liked to have sex with and how much he likes Latina girls. This is not things I want to know. When I sat down he took a broom and kept hitting the barrel( kaneh in hebrew) of my M16. He kept showing off his M16. Honestly it was just so disgusting and childish. He kept trying to hurt the cats walking around. That just pissed me off. If you know me, you know I absolutely love animals. I was so glad when his time was up and he left.

The best part about Shin Gimel is that some random soldier driving in and out went to McDonalds. He came back with McDonald toys. He threw us Yellow Jacket plushed toys. I think they are from a movie or something. I dont know. Mine was a yellow jacket pilot. He had the plane hat and goggles on. It was cute.

So those are my stories for Shmira. Till next time folks.

Shmira 1.

Shmira- Guarding.
Okay so I had 4 Shmira times.
The first was at the bunkers. I did the bunkers first and last. The second was the Neshkia. The third was the main entrance gate.
Nothing really happened. It was just in the middle of a 3 way dirt road on the base. The first time was 10-12 then the second time was 4-6. When I say 4-6, I mean AM not PM. I was lucky I got it when it was nice and cool and when there was absolutely nothing going on. The first time there was a jogger and that was absolutely it. A yellow jacket and flies kept buzzing around. They were annoying. The first time I guarded the bunkers it was a girl from my tsevvet named Margarita. She speaks only Russian. The second time was with a girl who's name is Alina. Speaks Russian and Hebrew. We didn't speak though.
Okay picture time!
The top picture was on the door of the bunker. I think it explains it perfectly. I broke the rules of Shmira by talking on the phone and eating snacks. Sorry. I was hungry and lonely(This is to any mefakedot who read this or anyone from the army for that matter)
Okay now more photos.

1.

2.

3.

The first picture is my favorite. It is a sweet turtle. It was cute.

The second picture is for my mom. She asked if there were any peace signs. I found one.

The last one is written in hebrew and it says "I dont understand the need to be here. Why am I here?" Its a rough translation because I dont really remember the exact words and I cant really read it because of the picture quality.

Okay now onto the next blog post. :)

Yom Sidurim

Yom Sidurim is a day where we get off to run errands that we havent had time to do. For example going to the bank, the phone company etc...
My Yom Sidurim was not fun. I had to go to the Ministry of Interior to try and become a citizen. Apparently its smarter if you are. You get helped more. I need the help. One of the Mefakedets went with me. She really had no idea what she was doing. It was obvious she had never been there before. I needed an address and I dont have one. So I called David and asked to use his address. Turns out because I didnt use a Tel Aviv address I cant go to the Ministry in Tel Aviv. Because I used an Or Akiva address I have to go to the Ministry in Hadera. So next Yom Sidurim I have, I go to Hadera.
I had to move out of the dorms so because of this I am now homeless. I am staying at Davids house for a little bit. During the week I stay at the base. Weekends will either be at the base, Davids house, or a Beit Chayal. A beit chayal is a soldier hostel. The literal translation is Soldier House.
The Mishakitash gave me a beit chayal last week. So I went to look for it. Funny doesnt exist. If it does it is no where to be found. She never even gave me an address just bus routes. So I went to the bus and went to the towns searched the towns and asked people but funny, no one has heard or seen of it. I also saw no soldiers what so ever. I called her for 2 hours straight. Got no answer. I went back to the dorms and looked up online the hostel. Its not a hostel its a hotel apparently. Turns out I was in the right place too. She finally TEXTED not called TEXTED me asking where I was around 11.
This week I was supposed to go there again. I was smart this time. I looked for an address. The website is shut down. Also I found website reccommendations of the place. If that place is open I have no idea how. That is just horrible. No human should ever let a human have conditions like that. It was just disgusting and horrible. Dead animals, no water, no food, the staff steals your things, cat urine everywhere, broken windows and furniture. Sorry, but no. They wanted me to live there for a month or two.  I understand its only on weekends but still. No. Absolutely not. Id rather sleep on the streets. I guess Ill be sleeping on base now to get my point across.
This weekend Im going to spend it looking for apartments. I have a search to do. Ill put the guarding post with pictures up in a little bit. If not today, then tomorrow. :)
I have alot of work to do next Yom Sidurim. I know its possible to get more then once a month so Im gonna try for that.
Till the next post peeps.
Lesson Learned this week: Crying makes you feel better for a little bit but worse after and wont help you at all.

Finished Basic...basically.

IM DONE WITH BASIC TRAINING!!!! In hebrew Tironut.
Well Im done with the physical part. I have 1 or 2 written tests and then Im officially done and I start with Ulpan. My ceremony is on Tuesday at 4 in some jail in Akko. Apparently the jail isnt used anymore. My ulpan starts on Wednesday and is for 2 months.
Im so glad its finished. It was a really short week. We went in on Sunday and left Wednesday afternoon.
We woke up early on Monday and went out to the fields where we learned the basics in Combat. We practiced those for a few hours then went to the shooting fields where we had more shooting practices. We also spent the night there. And we had Shmira in the middle of the night. Shmira is guard duty. It was only for a half hour/ hour. It wasn't too bad. They would wake us up in the middle of the night and pretend we were under attack. They wanted to see how long it would take for us to get into position.
In the morning we had our 5 kilometer walk. That is only like 2.75 miles. It really wasnt bad at all. I dont know why everyone was complaining. Its the same thing we do everyday just not in a field. But whatever. They can complain all they want.
Im proud I finished.
Tuesday Night we went to a special ceremony for the 65th year after the holocaust. We were invited by Gabi Ashkenazi who didnt even show, he wanted new olim soldiers to go. New Olim are new citizens. Im not a citizen but maybe in time I will be. It will benefit me greatly to be a citizen in the army. The president and prime minister of Israel were there. It was really cool. It was all pretty much in Russian though which in a way sucked. I dont know Russian and its all I hear every day all day. I want to learn hebrew not russian. And to be honest it sucks when they refuse to try and learn and just be with other russians. How can we function as a group if we cant communicate? Im trying, why cant you?
The next day was Wednesday. Yay!!! We got to sleep till 830 which was great. We went down to Chet, ate breakfast, then went to a raising the flag ceremony. Natan Sharansky was there. He talked to some people when walking through the base. Then finally around 230 we went home.

President of Israel: Shimon Peres.

Prime Minister of Israel: Benyamin Netanyahu

Natan Sharansky...I have no idea who he is or his importance but apparently hes important and was once in the Knesset.

Week 2.

Oh boy. What a week. It was crazy.
On monday we went to the fields for shooting. It was scary to be honest. I didnt want to break my nose from the force of shooting. You know when you fire a gun and then theres like that whiplash after? I forgot  what its called.  I surprisingly did really really good. I impressed myself. I have no sense of aim at all. Apparently I do...somewhat. We spent the ENTIRE day there. We had 2 or 3 rounds of shooting during the day and then one at night. The night was scary because the girl next to me couldnt keep her gun straight. I couldnt wait till she was done.
We got back at 930 at night. I was so tired. On tuesday the base left so it was just my course and those who had to stay for the weekend. It was our turn to do guard duty. That will be another update because I have pictures :P We didnt really do anything Tuesday or Wednesday. It was pretty much guard go to sleep wake up guard go to sleep. Then Thursday we went back to normal. I had kitchen duty the first half. It was fun. You dont do anything. You sit there and get people food when they want food. The kitchen ladies were so funny.
There was a sports test that I didn't do because I got a doctors note saying not to run. I really hurt myself monday when I fell. They already know how well I'd do because Im the only one in my group legitimately running and trying to do this. Its a joke to everyone else. You know what? Fuck 'em because I know the other groups and my Mefakedet sees how hard I am trying. They see how much this means to me. I know its not for nothing. Emotionally and mentally its frustrating and hard. But its really not bad at all besides that.
Supposedly next week I get out on Wednesday (YAY!) because Thursday we have our errand day. Next week is the last week of basic training and then its Ulpan the week after next week. Ulpan im expecting to be very very boring.

Okay so the next blog update will be about guarding and with pictures :P
I have to go see my friends for dinner.



I also want to take the time to say RIP Anthony Bertolini. You will be missed so much.
He was a friend of mine from high school who died. <3 June 6,1990 - May 15,2010. Love you. Keep it Q with Scottie up in Heaven. <3

 RIP Anthony. Love you <3 You will never be forgotten.