efffffff... my life, kind of

today, i had my documentary workshop class that takes place on hebron road that leads into the west bank. the class trekked up and down גיבת המטוס and looked at some amazing landscape views of jerusalem. that place just can't be beat. however breathtaking and awesome the place was, i just can't find something i want to do. i want to observe the israeli-arab interaction but that's kind of hard seeing how the neighborhoods are segregated. it is also hard that i'm not originally from israel so i have no background information of the historical meaning of the place. it's quite infuriating, to be honest. the teacher, yaakov, was very encouraging and told me to think beyond the box and what i'm used to and just photograph what i feel. well then, i feel like making a journey to hebron, the city hebron road leads to. it's going to be dangerous since i will be going into the occupied territories with a camera... and sometimes being a foreigner with a camera is not a good idea, so i've learned. we shall see.

i also got to develop film for the first time today since... march 2008? it's been a while. developing color is going to be a big pain in the ass. everything has to be in the right temperature... the water level has to be right, i have to dump this there, dump this here, blah blah blah. but it was nice working with toxic chemicals. i'm not going to lie: the more toxic the art is, the more i'm intrigued by it and will dip my bare hands into it. speaking of, they wouldn't let me process color bare handed so boo but i got to do b&w with no gloves! i probably shouldn't be so excited about this because my hands are super dry and smell toxic... but it just got me in the photo mood, which is exhilarating! however, the film was not so exciting. they came out crappy. oh well. stupid bulb setting! dammitt! i had some really good shots today.

anyways, sarah invited me over for dinner. we had hamburger patties, mashed potatoes, israeli salad, two veggie dishes of some kind, indian rice, zucchini soup and bread. quite amazing. sarah then busted out mango & passion fruit sorbet. yum! i should host a dinner party soon and show off my awesome cooking skillz. haha. just kidding. but honestly, i need to start exercising or i'm going to put on the weight i've lost!

after dinner, i went salsa dancing! rothberg international school holds weekly salsa dance lessons. it's fun. my first time and i liked it. what i didn't like was this israeli translating condescendingly to be as if i didn't know anything. honestly, that's the one thing that bugs me about israel. i don't care if you have an opinion about how you think i'm some stupid american tourist, just keep it to yourself. don't show off. it doesn't impress me. (so far, only guys have done this to me.) another thing, this really weird looking dude gave me the once over... twice and tried this come hither look on me... what?! no. after the lesson, i danced with joseph and he's an aggressive leader. but the boy can move. :) afterwards, i was asked to dance! haha. it was fun dancing and i might go again next week!

lasly, i think for my pesach break, i'm going to go to egypt and jordan for the first half and travel israel for the second half. i'm going to stick to the middle east instead of eurotripping because i'm here and the middle east is just as, or even more, fascinating and fun than europe. that said, i'm tired so i'm going to bed.