as usual, i ought to be studying. but hey, in my life, pretty much i'm supposed to be studying all the time. so it's inevitable that when i write an entry, i'm actually supposed to be studying.

my first week back from vacation, i was golden. i was sleeping only like 6 hours a day, totally adjusted to Israeli time, no jet lag bc i keep such odd hours wherever i am, and being pretty good about studying. this past week, my second week back from vacation, i slept like 12 hours a day. i have no clue what happened. i was exhausted all the time! maybe it was delayed travel weariness?

so briefly, bc i want to talk about other stuff, i have to report on Frankfurt. basically i spent 12 hours in the airport at Frankfurt. i spent maybe 20 minutes walking outside around the airport just to get some fresh air. the rest of the time, i was waiting on lines to be re-routed, find my baggage, and wait to see what would happen to me.

when i landed in Frankfurt, i was supposed to meet up with my roommate Irene and another girl from my class. we arranged to meet at my gate, bc my flight arrived after theirs, but they weren't there. so i wandered around for a little bit in my terminal wing, found out what gate they had come into, and looked there, and finally went to information to page them. paged them twice, but they never turned up. the lady at information asked where our final destination was, and i said tel aviv. then she told me that all flights to tel aviv had been canceled due to a general strike in Israel! ack. so i got on this incredibly slow-moving line for the unfortunate, and a lady told me that bc my flight was canceled, and bc the strike was lasting anywhere from 4+ days, they had to fly me back to new york!!! i was shocked. and thinking i just got off the plane, and there's no way i was going to get back on that plane for an unnecessary 14 hours. i'd rather just stay it out in Frankfurt somewhere.

anyways, in the end, i had to go from line to line to line, tried to get on an El Al flight standby. let me tell you something about El Al airline. it is the safest airline to fly to the middle east. best security, it's an Israeli airline. very safe. BUT, they interview at length and in depth you like crazy before you're allowed on that plane. no joke. i'd heard about it, so that's why i elected to fly Lufthansa instead. but seriously. they asked me questions for literally a half hour at least. questions like what i was studying in Israel, where did i live, did i have any evidence that i'm studying where i claim, did i have any evidence that i am a med student like books, did i have any phone numbers of people i know in Israel that they could call to confirm that what i was saying was true, why was i in Frankfurt, why had i gone home? what was i going to be studying when i returned, whom did i live with…it went on and on and on. incredible. and irritating, especially when you're just a poor standby who probably can't get on an overbooked flight. but that's why El Al is the safest.

anyways, so i had arrived around 10am, and at around 3pm, i was being turned away from El Al-no room left for me, and returned to Lufthansa and found out that my original connecting flight which was supposed to depart around 10pm that day might not be canceled after all. i had to wait until 6pm to find out. so i went to mcdonald's and studied the only thing i had with me, Hebrew, and read a new Yorker.

come 6pm, i found out my flight was confirmed to fly. Israel was still striking, but somehow they were allowing the flight to enter and the plane to be re-fueled. so at around 8pm, i headed over to the gate, and everything went smoothly from then on. BUT i had spent my whole 12 hours in the airport when my original plans were to spend those 12 hours out and about in Frankfurt looking at castles. THEN, Karin, one of the girls i was supposed to meet up with in frankfurt, arrived at my gate to board, and she had spent the day out!! i was so jealous. see, bc i had gone to information to page my friends, i found out more info that i needed. Karin had arrived, wandered around looking for me and Irene, and given up, and gone out. she never heard that the flights to Israel were canceled, etc, etc. so it was just ironic that i could have spent the day out, but instead spent the day stressing out and waiting on a zillion lines.

the upside is that i studied some Hebrew, and i think if i hadn't, i wouldn't have started going to Ulpan this term (Ulpan is what Hebrew class is called). so, i'm thankful for that, bc i didn't touch Hebrew during break.

and it turned out that Irene is such a dork, that she thought her flight was the same as ours, even had my itinerary when she went to the travel agency, but was on the same flight twenty-four hours later. so funny, bc she went to the airport to leave for Israel the day before her real flight was, and was told at check-in that her ticket was for the next day. so twenty-four hours later, she arrived in Frankfurt, and went to my gate to meet me, where i had passed by the day before!!

what a mess! but Karin saw some great stuff, so maybe another time…

anyways, onward! i just suck at writing, and everything becomes long-winded even if i'm trying to get past it. gotta learn to cut out unnecessary detail.

so today was a great day. great because i had dinner with Eric and SunHa. Eric is a second-year at Sackler, and SunHa is his Korean wife. fyi, eric is not jewish. well, his father is jewish, but his mother isn't, and he doesn't consider himself jewish. anyways, i had seen them at the thanksgiving dinner at the Hilton, and noticed sunha, bc there ain't that many Asians around. and i noticed the guy she was with, eric. but i'd never met them.

about mid-way into finals, i got a call from eric. he said he called to ask if i knew of where they could buy red pepper paste in tel aviv. meanwhile, i knew who he was, bc of the thanksgiving dinner, but i'm thinking, uh, okay. this is a thinly veiled way of asking me to bring some red pepper paste for him while i'm home on vacation, bc they've been here for over a year, and if anyone would know where to find red pepper paste here, they would know, not me. i was also thinking, um, does he even know who i am? bc we'd never been introduced! so it was just kind of forward that he was calling me like this. in any case, i offered to bring some back plus some ramen, and when i came back from break, i gave them a call.

and they came by to pick it up, and invited me over for dinner some time. turned out to be tonight. and i had a GREAT time. and i'm a little ashamed of myself that i didn't have a better attitude about bringing them Korean food from the states. not that i had a negative attitude, but i was just like, uh, sure…who are you?? kind of. you know?

anyhow, they are a really neat couple. and i'm really glad i got to meet them. they're just very much what you sort of wish you could be. they've got great chemistry, very comfortable with each other, very sweet, very fun dynamic. they live in this tiny tiny dorm-studio with a very narrow kitchenette (way too cramped and small), decent bathroom, and a room that is really only big enough to accommodate one person comfortably. especially bc a full-sized bed takes up half the room. so live in this tiny room, but they're very happy.

they've traveled everywhere! Egypt, Prague, paris, italy, turkey, mexico, spain! and more, i think, but that's what i remember. they travel cheap, too. good deals, and they see everything! eat everywhere! they have plans to go to italy again for Passover, it's right around their four-year wedding anniversary! Sunha's English is incredible for someone who grew up in korea, went to college in korea. she reads kafka and Faulkner! she is writing short stories and novellas, and Eric has written a SciFi novel, and one day they'll try to publish.

i don't know. they are just incredible. they've been all over Israel, and they just seem to know how to travel and love it. and they have this writing and travel passion in common, and they are fun together. and just that they are kind of living in a humble setting, but still so happy. i guess they travel with the money they save. it was just a very enjoyable evening.

it was also so good to see someone Korean, too. not that we talked about anything Korean-related, really. but it was just good. i don't know how to explain it, but i was drawn to her even at thanksgiving, i wondered who she was. weird. i guess i miss my Korean friends more than i'd like to admit? there's just a bond, familiarity there. so it just kind of hit this spot in me. but any couple like those two is really special and very beautiful. a lot to draw out from just one extended meeting, but if what i saw really is a reflection, expression of what is there, they're a lucky couple.

anyways, they've totally revived my desire to travel. and made it look so do-able with limited spendable income and limited time. so Irene (who came with me to dinner) and i are inspired. we're going to look into going somewhere neat for Passover. our original plans were to go to Eilat, which is south Israel, and a great place to go snorkeling, but Passover is a busy, crowded time to go. so maybe we'll go to Prague or something! cheap food!!! maybe it will make up for our botched "trip" to Frankfurt. :P

before i forget, i want to just say that i really like the song "Thank You" by Dido. have you heard it? go get it on napster before napster starts charging, and listen to it.

so i think the rest of this entry is going to be devoted to the little i know about politics here. i had a nice conversation with a different eric-he's in my class, about what's going on. i basically asked him lots of questions, and he did a pretty good job of clearing up some confusions i had. he's orthodox, and told me that he was basically giving me the right wing conservative view on things. but it was very interesting and made sense to me. but it's also all i know until i hear the other viewpoints.

so from eric i learned that should Israel return land to the Palestinians, they will be the first nation in history to ever give land back that they didn't have to. (sorry, i don't have any history to back it up, i'm just repeating what he said. not sure how territories that like the brits settled or whatever and eventually gave back count as) i guess it's like the west bank and gaza and everything was won, and it's israel's, and they developed it. and there's no reason to return it, except that the palestinians want it back for their own state, plus east jerusalem, which barak and rabin were willing to do for the sake of peace.

the problem is that conservative right-wingers don't believe that the Palestinians will be satisfied with just these little pieces of land for their state. they won't be satisfied until they get rid of Israel. this is supported by the fact that Barak basically offered to give up the territories PLUS east Jerusalem (which is a huge deal) for a peace agreement, and Arafat said no. so if Arafat was really looking for peace, he would have taken the agreement or negotiated with it, but instead didn't want to work with barak at all. so that's why people say that Arafat won't be satisfied, otherwise he would have made an agreement.

so sentiments towards barak were very angry, bc he was offering up Israel on a silver platter, and when Arafat said no, he was still trying to make peace agreements. and Israelis had enough. obviously the Palestinians in control aren't interested in peace. so Israel looks like a dope. from what i gather, that's why barak is out and Sharon is in. bc Sharon is not going to hand over Israel at all. he's a hard-liner or whatever. and barak was being a dope. he'd end up giving all of Israel away.

now when Sharon made trouble by going into the Temple Mount when all of this business started with the rock-throwings, etc, i think it was a political move. it was done so that Sharon would be gathering up support to become prime minister. bc a lot of people were pretty pissed off that Sharon would make trouble like that, but more people were angry bc as an Israeli, he had every right to be able to visit.

in any case, political. bc the violence was already brewing, but this was just one of those sparks that made things come out. and people got fed-up with barak's inability to deal with it.

people say all-out war is inevitable here, bc the Palestinians and arabs do not want peace, they just want Israel out. and they back that up with arafat's behavior. and the Israelis believe that the state of Israel is meant to exist. that's why people from lots of places move out here to support the boundary lines, risk their lives. they feel very strongly about the state of Israel. and the arabs and Palestinians who are in power hate Israel, and don't want peace. so the only response Israel has, is to have a strong military, and hold fast. people say that Israel was stupid enough to let the Palestinians refugees into the country, bc it's among those people, that the terrorists who plant bombs in buses and cars are. and that's why we deal with these terrorists attacks.

i don't know. as i said, i don't know anything about politics. but i found what eric had to say really interesting, and i don't know, i couldn't help but agreeing with him. maybe it's because i haven't really heard the other side.

it strikes me how important israel's military is. without their military, Israel would be history. seriously, it's the only thing that keeps them alive here. without their military, they couldn't survive. it's incredible. i think israel's beaten every war it's ever fought. and they've taken on lots of arab countries all together too.

people have told my classmates that we're being brainwashed out here in Israel. but my friends who i think know more than i (bc i can't really judge bc i know so little about politics to begin with), say that cnn totally misrepresents Israel and makes this country seem so terrible and merciless to the arabs. i don't know. but i guess i feel a lot more of an empathy/support for Israel bc this is the side i see?

anyways. it's just interesting. i'm happy that i'm learning Hebrew and that i'm learning a little bit about Israeli politics. it's exciting. i just really don't want to leave after being here for four years, without gaining some sort of understanding of the language, people, culture, history, politics, future of Israel. what a waste it'd be! but i'm such a lazy bum, i know it's totally possible. actually, more than possible, it's likely!

anyway. tomorrow i may check out a church in herzeliah. it's a town north of ramat aviv, and i heard there is a Christian congregation there that meets, service in English. there's a messianic congregation that meets pretty close to where i am, but everything's in Hebrew. i wish i could go somewhere close by. i just don't like traveling far away for church. it's bugged me since high school when i commuted to manhattan for church, and then throughout kcpc. you just need to be near the area that the church is in. to make it do-able to be at bible studies, and other random stuff at church, and to feel like you're part of the community. or maybe near isn't quite what i mean, but it has to be fairly convenient for you to get there so that you can participate in these things without transportation being a hindrance.

anyways, you can pray that i find a place to worship. my roommate lidia has pretty much settled in at her Romanian SDA place. so i'm on my own for finding a church of my own.

i always, of course, have my tim keller tapes, which i'll listen to anyways, but i miss going to church and being with other believers.

btw, one reason i wanted to re-read the lord of the rings series is because i think once the movies start coming out (which i thought was christmas 2001, but i could be wrong), tim keller is going to do a sermon series on them, and i want to have the books fresh in my head. although to keep them fresh until christmas 2001, i'll have to keep reading them! i'm like george. i just felt like reading the return of the king, so i started there.

so a couple more random notes, during finals last term, i was totally having a tough time getting myself to sit still and study. and no one was updating their pages, so i had nothing to read! (after i'd read all of marshall's entries, which was a new thing). so i started reading many old davehong, danny, and henry pages. turns out that it's a bigger and better way to procrastinate than reading new entries, bc it's like there's years worth of entries to read! and i noticed two things, one, that yup, davehong was much more holy back then (but just as pimply). and two, that i've grown more comfortable with danny's style than when i first started reading danny's myminds back during junior year (i think). i remember thinking they were very hard to read bc the style didn't fit in my head or something.

anyways, the other day, i was looking at some of the old fics pictures danny put up, and wow, waves of memories! and some pictures of people are so funny-looking! i'd forgotten what we used to look like! and it's just funny. it's weird, bc i love the pics of people i know at events/places that i wasn't at, especially in my frosh year and the year before. like jane kim! and claudia park! they were my drawmates junior year, and there's a picture of claudia at the old kcpc office during her frosh year and of jane at a winter retreat!!!

i also loved the recent pics. i think it's the contrast and you can feel the weight of the years that have gone by. henry's pics of Thailand were like that too. really nice.

have to remember to take more pictures in the present. but i've gotten so lazy about toting my camera around and grouping people together.

okay. i have to go study now.