If you like these thoughts and want to hear more...

I have been thinking about a few different things lately that haven't made it into the play-by-play account of my days, so I'm going to take this opportunity to tell you about why I like buses, street signs, and my fully stocked kitchen at home in Rochester.

I like buses here a lot, both intra and inter city. I hate bus terminals, and waiting for them, and being squeezed on them, but there is nothing more magical than the scene that pans out before me when I am seated comfortably by a window, listening to my iPod. The landscapes and illuminated skylines from Haifa to Tel Aviv, the diversity within the neighborhoods of Jerusalem. I feel like I am watching a hundred different previews, just a few frames each, of the movies of other people's lives. For example, on the bus home from Haifa on Saturday night, we stopped to let off a few people and a soldier got off the bus and went to a car. A beautiful (I think, at least-it was dark) young woman was sitting on the hood of the car and as he went to put his stuff in the back seat, she turned around, unsmiling, and flicked him off. This was such a cinematic moment! I imagined what came before and after that moment for the rest of the ride home. Was she mad he was late? that he went to the backseat first to put down his backpack, instead of passionately embracing her upon arrival? Had she learned something about him while he was away that he forgot to mention? All of these ideas delighted me.

I also love street signs. Not only street signs, but any kind of shop awning or billboard announcement or movie poster. The entire country is filled with signs for me to decode and read. Every day I learn another preposition, conjunction, or verb that opens up a whole world of understanding. A big day for me in Ulpan was when we learned about the sounds "ch," "th," "j," and "w," which are all sounds that do not exist in the Hebrew alphabet but are instead marked by apostrophes. With that, I could sound out "Juice Bar" at the bus station, instead of wondering why it was called "Goose Bar," and I'm glad I live next to King George St, instead of King Gorg. I have always loved reading street signs, and I vaguely remember trying to read signs on the highway in kindergarten and first grade while I was still learning English. Now that I get to re-experience this rapid literacy gain with full 18 year old consciousness of thought, I can fully appreciate the power of the language and the miracle of reading. It's not always rainbows and butterflies though, and there are heartbreaking, frustrating times when the bus is driving too fast for me to try every permutation of vowels and "sin" versus "shin" possibilities.

There is another heartbreaking, frustrating thing about my life, and that is that the kitchen outside my room does not have dish towels, a drying rack, a dishwasher, an easily accessible soap dispenser, a feng shui arrangment of fridge/sink/toaster, or a pantry. This is terrible! Who knew that people actually go out and BUY mats to stand on whilst at the counter, or that a paper towel rack doesn't come with the sink? Shouldn't these things be automatic? Apparently they aren't, and I am suffering. SUFFERING! I also don't have a plate, so whenever I make peanut butter and jelly, which happens about six times per week (that, by the way, is not a cause of suffering-I would (and have) eat(en) pb+j for every lunch and dinner for a month straight...and I would like it) I use a plastic bag or a piece of scrap paper upon which to rest my bread (this revised and improved sentence is dedicated to Seffi).

So those are a few of the things that occupy my time when class gets boring or I am forced to close my eyes on the bus as a result of extreme nausea, which may in turn be either the result of outrageous Israeli driving styles, facing backwards in my seat, or a particularly pungent armpit smell.