I've been a little busy these past two weeks and haven't had much time to blog. Some quick updates:
Last week, the conference that I had been planning for a nearly a year finally came and went. It ran smoothly and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. I had to take care of some logistics while it was going on but I was able to sit in on a few lectures and they were pretty interesting. The first one I sat in on focused on maps, so being a huge nerd who loves maps, I was pretty happy. It felt pretty good to see something I had worked so hard on finally come about. Though I must say I am relieved that it's over.
A random occurrence: while I was on the bus back toe Dimona last week, I noticed that a Russian man sitting on the bus across the aisle from me had a tattoo of a ring with a swastika on it. I noticed it as he was getting off the bus and was completely shocked. I understand the need to take in Jews and their families, but this is getting ridiculous.
Here's how my last real day here went:
I woke up around 7:30 and took Shoko out for a walk. Then I headed over to Orr's to study for my Arabic final. I had been having trouble forcing myself to study but this was do or die. We went over some important stuff, prepared our Arabic weather reports and then got on the Sherut to go to campus.
We headed over to the library so I could print out my test card. I ran into Yezvey which was great because I probably wouldn't have gotten to say goodbye to her otherwise. We then grabbed some lunch at Dalali, ate really quickly and ran to the test. This was no easy test. It was in four parts: 1. Translate a long Hebrew text made up of the texts we read this year into Arabic. 2. Translate a shorter Hebrew text. 3. Write an interview in Arabic with a Jordanian student. 4. Write a weather report for a hot country. I started from the end since I prepared more for that and worked backwards. I didn't get to finish translating the first story. I hope I passed.
After the test, I met up with Yoni, Loren and Yishai and we grabbed some dinner at "Little India." It's right by campus but I hadn't eaten there all year. It was great to hang out with them all before I leave. Yoni and I then went over to the dorms and hung out with Anwar and Elif. We just chilled, had some tea and joked around (an Israeli Jew, American Jew, Israeli-Palestinian and a Turk provide lots of comical material as you might imagine). I then went to say goodbye to Yalee. She was working at Munchilla tonight so she didn't have some much time to hang out, but by then it was nearly 10pm, so neither did I.
I caught a bus home and ran to take out Shoko (he'd been inside for almost 12 hours, but he still didn't have an accident). I saw that I had a missed call from Udi, called him back and he told me to come down to see him, they were having a birthday party for Reut. I knew what was coming but I played along. When I got there I walked inside and everyone was inside for my goodbye party. It was so great. They made me a cake with wafers and chocolate on top arranged like the caravans in the village (complete with fake solar panels!). They also made me a photo-collage of a bunch of picture of me, Shoko and the guys from the village. It was really thoughtful.
We hung out for a while and then I went with Afiq and Daniel to watch some Family Guy (a long overdue activity we'd been talking about).
Now it's time to pack. Not looking forward to this at all. I don't think Shoko has any idea of what's in store for him tomorrow...
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