Glad to be ballin'!

Ive been slacking on my blog and emails recently. Today has been great and is only going to get better. The sports track morning activity was basketball at the country club. We were told to meet there at 9:30, but we didn't start until 11, so I got a good lift before. I played really well in ball. Nobody except those volunteering with me had got to see me play yet, so it was fun playing competitively with those who I play a variety of sports with. Now we're at our apartment just chillen. I'm about to go to the grocery store because of fridge is bare(as its been the past week). Its so hard to shop for seven guys. If we buy a lot of food, it goes quickly and we waste our stipend money. If we buy too little, we have no food, we need to shop more frequently, and frankly we just eat poorly. It also stinks having no food when guests come over. After I shop im going to take a nap before the Israel vs Bosnia basketball game! Its a qualifying game for the Euro Cup. I also scored tickets to another basketball game on Saturday. I don't have to go to my volunteering today because of the game which is great. After working with the Israeli kids, the Arab kids seem like SUCH a hassle. They're so disrepectful, it's like they don't even want to be there. Mike and I left so discouraged last time, it was a shame to feel like we couldn't make a difference with these kids. Hopefully we'll be able to be with the Israeli kids twice a week and the Arabs once as oppose to twice.

On Monday, I had another Ulpan class followed by a nap, and then volunteering. I feel as if Ulpan is moving slowly, and Im discouraged by my struggle to grasp hebrew, but it's only been two weeks. Nonetheless, I could make a better effort to learn quicker and more efficiently. Volunteering, like I said, was a struggle. I was extremely happy to leave when we did, because an hour later I would be boarding a bus to go on a night hike in the Negev desert. I was happy I had signed up, because I easily could have decided against it and stayed home. Once a week every week Year Course sets up trips like these. Last week I decided not to go, and this week none of my roommates came. I had an amazing time though. Normally the siyurs ( trips) are on tuesdays, but monday was a full moon so they planned it for that night. It was more of a trek then a hike. We walked through canyons which will be flooded in the winter. We got breaks during the trek to take everything in, which really helped me and enhanced the experience. Unfortunately, we had a bunch of annoying Brits in our group that wouldn't stop talking. I wasn't around them as much, but I know some peoples experience got ruined because of them. They were extraodinarily rude to the tour guide ( which, by the way, was amazing. All of our tour guides thusfar have been spectacular), and if I wasn't enjoying myself so much I probably would have yelled at them. We got back at 5 in the morning, but we had most of Tuesday to sleep in. Our first activity was Krav Maga at 2:15. Our instructor was one of the craziest looking dudes Ive ever seen! He's about 5'7, 240 pounds, and is a world renound martial arts master. He used to be Sylvester Stallones stunt double ( its scary how much he used to look like him). After that I went to the gym, and I went to bed fairly early ( like 11:30). There was a huge foam party in Tel-Aviv last night that I decided against, and it turns out it wasn't that fun (YES). Ok I have to go grocery shopping. PAYCE

jAKEY