Welcome! Good Morning!

Howdy, Folks!

As you may have guessed from this blog, I've started a blog. Grrrr. Not exactly my cup of tea, but since I keep moving around a bit, updating people regularly has gotten to be a bit of a hassle, and has made me more negligent than I would like. I realized it might not be a bad idea to start a general information site when at least once a week I get the question, "So.....where are you? What are you doing? Still in China/Africa?".

First things first: the upcoming Israel trip (the one I leave on tomorrow).
Here's the run-down of how things sound like they might turn out:
My flight leaves tomorrow evening, Turkish Airlines (yes, the one that crashed, which one hasn't?!?!) to Istanbul, arriving in Tel Aviv the following early morning. My instructions, as per this Kibbutz Office I've been in contact with, are to take some public bus into the city, find their Kibbutz Office, walk in, and have an interview with them. About what? Who knows. Am I qualified to volunteer? Let's hope so. If not....what have I been doing with the last 3 years of my life?!?!?! After said interview, they will look up available positions on various kibbutzim throughout the country, and place me at one such kibbutz. This decision on their part could take anywhere from whithin a few hours after the interview to a few days thereafter. So, I could be arriving in T.A. and leaving that same afternoon/evening for my designated kibbutz, or I could be chillin in the city for a few days, taking pictures, and hopefully, making some friends. This Kibbutz Office also provides me with a 6 month tourist visa, and health insurance.

Get this: Shekels! How cool is that? I get to dabble in shekel-ery whilst there!

About the kibbutz (from what I've been told):
If you want more information, you should google or wikipedia "kibbutz" and read what it spits out. I know I did. But here's the gist of it: a kibbutz is a community of anywhere between 150 and 300 people, aged 18 to 35, living and working together in rural areas. In exchange for labor (6 days a week, I'm told, with the Sabbath being our day off), we get a room with 2 or 3 others (I'm hoping same-sex), 3 meals a day in the community canteen (back to college days?), and free laundry service (woohoo!). The goal of these kibbutzim is to live and work with others (both natives and internationals) to "till the land" or something like that.....they're very much ecologically friendly, usually attached to orchards (the labor will mostly be manual), boosting Israel's economy (perhaps). Since it sounds like we're destined to be in the middle of nowhere, there should be no cause for concern for my safety whatsoever. So please, sit back and enjoy my ride. After about a week I'll probably be wishing I were a bit nearer some tension, but at least I'll have the hot weather to battle (finally!). I'll also look into camel renting/racing.

That's the story so far. Not much to tell, but hey, I haven't even left yet. That's what this is for....to keep you updated as things happen. Hopefully. Since this blog is strictly for informational purposes, I would really appreciate it if you didn't post any comments. What's the point, anyway? That's not to say I don't want to hear from you, but we all have that thing called FB, so if you read something here, please comment/message there. K? Thanks!

Also, it would be in your best interest to take most things I say with a grain of salt. But you already knew that. That's also partly why you're reading this.

Well, folks, it's been great. No, really, I enjoyed typing at myself, wondering what it's all about.

Thanks for tuning in. Have a wonderful life!