Israeli Dating, Quantum Physics and Stanley Fischer

The last 48 hours have been good, and even with four hours of sleep I'm pretty peppy.

A few of the latest highlights below:

• One of my co-workers from the Macbesa is an amazing musician.  It was his birthday yesterday and a bunch of us went to a pub a another Kibbutz where they have jam sessions.  It was amazing!  Great musicians just rifting and having fun.  We also ate vegan brownies. 
• At said pub another co-worker asked me the following:

Yesh lach haver? (Do you have a boyfriend?)
Lo po (Not here.)  
Nahon, epho who?  (Right, where is he?)
Uh... it's complicated?
Ok, well at least I tried.


Although it totally took me by surprise (he's usually very quite) it was sweet of him.  The cool thing about Israelis is it's all out in the open.  No mind games.  Are you listening American men?  Although, there are downsides to this directness.  They don't always, or usually take no for an answer.  Additionally, they ask very direct questions up front.  "How old are you? Do you have a boyfriend?" are always the first two questions.  There's no, "let me buy you a drink" or "so what do you do?" Direct and to the point.

• I drank my first full complete beer.  Goldstar.  It was decent.  I am really working on liking beer, I want to so badly. 
• Tonight at the pub our new co-worker a German with American English spent ten minutes grilling me on Stanley Fischer and Israeli macroeconomics.  We then moved on to discuss Stephen Hawking's perception of quantum physics.  Eventually we debated whether quantum physics could overlap with Plato's forms and realized we must be severely bastardizing both concepts.  Tre fun! 
• The musician birthday boy is also a composer.  He's working on a piece that he wanted backup vocals on.  So for the first time I recorded vocals for a track.  It was fun, if not a little nerve-wracking.  It's been so long since I've really sung I was afraid of humiliating myself.  Well luckily it was a simple two part melody with just oohs and heys.  But I did realize that my voice is out of shape.  It's been so long since I've worked out vocally.  Also, I hate the sound of my voice on recordings.  It sounds nothing like what I hear in my head.  I think it sounds like a 13 year old with allergies. 
• Tomorrow I'm looking forward to catching up on sleep.  Sunday through Thursday we go to Gad Na, which is a week with the Israeli Army.  It's a week in which we experience a mini-bootcamp and learn about Army culture.  I'll be living in baracks, learning to shoot an M-16 (mixed feelings on this one), and camping outside (adamant feelings about this one).  So I may be MIA for those four days, but will surely have much to add upon my return. 

Until then, happy weekend and Shabbat Shalom!

Latraot!