Slumpdog Millionaire

It's been a weird past few weeks here in Israel. The majority of my class, including me, has completely checked out of this year. We're ready to go home. Been there, done that. We're over it. Finito. גומרים. Nothing more to see here, folks. Peace Out, Yerushalayim. 

And yet, I know there's more to come, unfinished business, and more adventures to be had. I don't want to accept it, because that means the 81 days before I fly back to California are actually real. The fantasy of going home tomorrow is delusional, but it attempts to assuage the general malaise I've been feeling. 

The weather has been awful recently, too. We had a disconcertingly mild winter. One where not a single Israeli could get through a conversation without complaining of the Galilee drying up. And now, for the past few weeks, it has rained nonstop, (presenting us with a mild little flood in the apartment) and it's been freezing and bitter. No one could be in a good mood with that shit raging outside. 

I've been dealing with a weird host of health woes recently, too. Last week, it seemed as though representatives from various parts of my body decided to hold a meeting in my liver and say, "okay... let's really freak her out." Random disconnected things - but most prominently some really annoying leg soreness and pain - started happening to me last week. Though I've come a long way with my paranoia and anxiety, let's just say I wasn't the easiest patient at the medical center to deal with. Not being able to walk properly was really scary. I'm doing better, but you know what? Being sick sucks. And being sick in a foreign country really sucks. 

The February 10th election is still unresolved. Israel doesn't have a Prime Minister yet, or a Coalition in the government. And every day, when I click onto "Haaretz" and "JPost," I'm greeted with the same parade of messages: Bibi meets with Tzipi, Peres meets with Bibi, Lieberman is wackadoodle, NO coalition reached. It's hard to take the whole thing seriously when it seems like nothing is moving forward, or ever does. 

However, Israel doesn't seem like a foreign entity to me anymore, and hasn't for awhile. I'm so accustomed to this way of life, to the way people treat each other, to the problems in this society, to the way people carry themselves, and to the daily rigmarole of Jerusalem, that it's become engrained in my way of living. It's not a surprise anymore. Nothing in this country throws me. I just get it. I don't like it, but I get it. That's something that comes with living abroad for eight months. 

I'm in a slump. I know it. I've been going going going for eight months straight, with some serious ups and downs, and now I'm just pooped out. Eight months is a long time to be in a country that isn't yours; in a program that demands every inch of your soul every day of your life. I'm a bit suffocated here in Jerusalem. It's the intensity of the program coupled with the intensity of this city. Gam v'gam. 

Anyway, because I like this blog to have a positive spin, and don't want to come off like some big Negative Nancypants, I will say that there's much to look forward to. Next week is Purim, and HUC has a ton planned. Then in two weeks I'm meeting Adam in Paris (hooray!) and then immediately after heading down to the Negev with school. I love the Negev, but haven't spent any time there on this particular trip. So I'm excited. Then there's Pesach, and the parents will be here, and then the end of school. It's hard to believe, but it's happening. 

So perhaps the weather will lift, and perhaps my legs will be back to normal again, and perhaps I'll remember to see the silver lining in all these adventures, and perhaps I'll be reminded of what I'm doing here in the next few days. Until then, I'm just a lonely Slump-dog. Sitting in a chair. Of a Millionaire. 

-Jaclyn