Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Adventures In Adulthood: Job Hunting

I've heard that job hunting is no fun.

On Sunday I went to my sisters house to get some help with putting together a resume. The job proved more challenging than originally anticipated (mainly due to lack of content) but eventually she managed to put together a rather nice looking page for me.

Excited to begin my adventures in job hunting, I sent my resume out to a couple of places not really expecting many answers. To my surprise, one of the places answered me about 5 minutes later. After a couple of emails we set up an interview for the following morning.

The crowds cheered at the news and I was reminded that I shouldn't be surprised if I didn't get the job and that there are plenty of other jobs out there waiting to be taken. We talked about failed interviews and the woes of the unemployed and frankly, I was excited to have an opportunity to grumble and complain with them.

The next morning I went to my interview armed with the wise words of wisdom from my friends and family. In full disclosure, the interview wasn't great. My quietness and very obvious american name were noted and commented on. I did my best to assure them that my bad ass english skills were an asset in a mainly english speaking city but they didn't seem impressed. At the end of the interview they said that they weren't sure that I was exactly what I was looking for but that they would call me with an answer by the end of the day.

In a surprising turn of events, I got a call later that afternoon and was told to be in Tel Aviv this morning at 9am. The thrilling news was met by further cheers from my family members (but mainly from my very relieved father).

This morning I woke up bright and early to catch the 7:08 train to Tel Aviv. I got to the mall an hour early (at my family's insistence that "the earlier, the better") and found a nice chair to sit on for 40 minutes. At 8:50 I wandered over to the store and discovered that it was still closed.

Eventually I saw someone in the store and knocked on the window nearly giving the poor woman a heart attack. After recovering from the shock, she let me into the store. I was sent down to the sketchy underbelly of Azrieli to the office where I filled out what felt like a million papers. Halfway through the mountain of paperwork, the other girls arrived. Everyone filled out their papers and then we all got badges with our names on them and employee cards.

 The rest of the day was spent wandering around the store pretending like we knew what we were doing (spoiler alert: I had no idea what I was doing but following my fathers sagely advice, I smiled until my face hurt and then smiled some more.). When I wasn't smiling like an escaped mental patient, I was "organizing" the store. My mad folding/organizational skills came in handy and I got a whole bunch of compliments on my side of the store.

My job hunting lasted all of one day and I can't help but feel like I've missed out on a unique opportunity to sit around and complain (which in typical jew fashion, is one of my favorite past times) but somehow, I think I'll manage to survive.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think its time for me to go watch TV and maybe eat some ice cream.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

No Water, Some Problems.

Last week a notice went around the neighborhood notifying us that the water would be shut off from 9am-2pm. All of shabbos my family talked about it and speculated about why they were turning it off and what exactly they were "fixing" this time.

Last night my mother reminded me that the water was being shut and told me to fill up a water bottle so that I could wash my face and brush my teeth in the morning. Despite the fact that I was now undeniably aware of the fact that there would be no water in the morning, I decided not to heed her sagely advice and just "wing it".

Morning dawned and as per usual, I slept through a goodly amount of it. I finally managed to cajole myself out of bed and stumbled into my bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face where I was promptly reminded that the water had been shut off. I found some face wipes and mouthwash and then wandered downstairs to find some breakfast.

In the five minutes that it took me to get from my bathroom to the kitchen, I somehow manged to forget about the water situation. I decided to start my day off with a nice cup of tea so I found a mug and tried to wash it out. Unsurprisingly, the trickle of water that came out of the faucet was not enough to wash the mug out. The Crazy Lady directed me to some pitchers of water where I was able to somewhat rinse the soap out of my mug. I'm not entirely sure how much soap I ingested but I'm still alive so I guess it wasn't too much.

After my slightly unsatisfying breakfast, I ventured over to Lori's place to hang out and put together my resume. Putting together my resume is proving to be a tad more complicated that originally expected. Mainly due to the fact that I don't have much to put on it and there are only so many ways I can say that I'm inexperienced but a very hard worker.
Being responsible is significantly less exciting than being unemployed.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

TeeTa

On Monday I ventured to Petach Tikvah to hang out with the Freddie's. Freddie made sliders for dinner and they were delicious.

Yesterday morning Freddie and I walked The Little Munchkin to gan and then I went to visit Freddie's miyun. I met some of the nurses that she works with and they seem really nice. After a short tour around the tiny miyun I headed home so that she could get to her patients.

After some lunch and TV I picked The Munchkin up from gan and hung out with her until Freddie came home. It was The Crazy Lady's birthday yesterday (and my grandfathers birthday on Sunday) so we went to Bet Shemesh for a big fambily dinner at Cafe Rimon. Dinner was great and the company was delightful. We even got some ice cream to commemorate the occasion.
Birthday Ice Cream!
Today was pretty much the same as usual. I wandered over to Lorbles house at some point and then we walked back to the Fambily house (via the post office) for dinner. We made some chicken and broccoli stirfry for dinner which tasted pretty darn good. Now I'm chilling like a villain with ma homies. The end.
Homies
Ma


Sunday, February 16, 2014

Wax On, Wax Off.

 Today ended up being infinitely more amusing than I had originally anticipated. The fun started when Frank (who was home from school with gastroenteritis) inadvertently discovered that the apricot jam in the fridge was spoiled. Luckily, he noticed that it was spoiled before spreading a generous layer of it on his toast.

Z was called up for miluim and headed out to some far off base for the week at around noon. It was looking kind of gloomy out and for some unknown reason I couldn't stop thinking about peanut butter cookies. After multiple attempts to ward off my cravings, I caved and whipped up a batch of delicious cookies.

Lorbles and Buzzy were bored so Frank and I packed up what was left of the cookies and headed out to visit them. It was raining outside so we sat around and talked about the high price of furniture and rugs, and fire insurance for lady bugs until we started to get a bit restless.

Frank heroically volunteered to undergo an impromptu waxing appointment for our amusement.  Lori heated up the wax and then we spent the next hour ripping the hairs out of Franks chest.
By the time we were done waxing it was almost time for dinner.  The Crazy Lady called and graciously offered to pick us all up and bring us home for dinner. We got ourselves ready to face the outdoors and then sat to wait for The Crazy Lady's arrival.

Meanwhile at the Fambily house, all hell broke loose. The Crazy Lady was putting some chicken soup up for dinner while Frankie watched from the chalavi counter top. Everything was going fine until Frankie decided to investigate just as Oscar came into the kitchen in hopes of finding some snacks. Frankie panicked as the dog entered the room and made for the stove top in an attempt to avoid him. The Crazy Lady let out a shriek and reached to turn off the fire just as Frankie got a little to close for comfort. The fire was shut before too much damage was done and the cat made it out with only a bit of singed fur. The stench of singed fur lingered in the air as The Crazy Lady regained her composure and remembered that she was supposed to be picking us up for dinner.

Minutes later The Crazy Lady pulled up to the building and we piled into the car. Dinner was delightful and now we're hanging out and watching some Fairly Odd Parents. Buzzy seems to be getting pretty tired and come to think of it, so am I.....

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The Old Man Who May (Or May Not) Have Been Drowning

Today I went to the beach with my friend Sea. It was kind of chilly out but really nice in the sun so we sat on a sheet and had a picnic lunch while enjoying the view.
When we were done eating we decided to brave the water for a bit.
Unsurprisingly it was pretty darn cold so our frolic ended pretty quickly. Apparently we weren't the only ones who decided to brave the water, a rather elderly gentleman made his way into the frigid waters to go for a swim.
He seemed to know what he was doing so we decided to let him to do his own thing. About twenty minutes later I turned around and noticed that he was laying on his stomach with his head in the water while flailing about rather exuberantly. I assumed that he was drowning and began to debate how we should go about getting him out of the water. Just as we had succumbed to the fact that we would most likely have to go into the water to fetch him, he picked his head up and sat up as if nothing had happened.

Confused and still slightly panicked we watched him repeat the process several times until he was done and began to crawl back to shore on his hands and knees with a big smile of his face.

At this point he had attracted a bit of a crowd and we all stood around with bewildered expressions on our faces as we attempted to make sense of the situation. When he got close enough to the shore two people helped him stand up. He thanked them for their help, shuffled over to his clothes, got dressed and then made his way off of the beach and on to his next adventure leaving the rest of us to figure out what exactly we had just witnessed.

Sea and I decided that we had had enough of the beach for one day so we packed up and headed off to find a bus. While we were scouring the street for a bus stop, someone asked us for directions to the azrieli shopping center. We pointed them in the general direction and then decided that we wanted to go to the azrieli center as well. After a quick consultation with google maps we began our trek across the city for no particular reason other than "it seemed like a good idea at the time".

The walk was actually quite nice and we made it to the mall in about half an hour. I bought my train ticket and then we wandered about until it was time for me to go. The train ride was quiet and I made it home just as Lori and The Crazy Lady were putting the finishing touches on a very delicious dinner.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Pancakes For Breakfast

Today seemed like the kind of day that needed pancakes. Fortunately, I happen to be quite skilled in the art of  pancake making. I whipped up some pancake batter and then tossed a couple of blueberries into the mix because I was feeling adventurous (and because I really like blueberry pancakes). The pancakes were delightful and everyone enjoyed them.
Even Oscar tried to join in on the festivities.
After breakfast I made some snickerdoodles for shabbos and annoyed my father with my loud music which he un-affectionately refers to as "noise".

At some point in the late afternoon Lori&co arrived to escape the paint fumes in their apartment. We watched Leap Year, one of The Crazy Lady's favorite movies. It was just as hilarious as we remembered and it ended just in time for us to get started on supper. We made some pizza, sushi and baked ravioli for our feast. Buzzy was pretty tired and kvetchy so the party broke up pretty quickly after we were done eating.

I washed a bunch of dishes before retreating to my tower to blog and watch TV. 
We're gonna have a full house for shabbos so tomorrow should be pretty crazy. Woo.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Adventures In Time Travel

The other week I fell asleep while I was trying to avoid studying for my test. I don't normally nap during the day so when I woke up I was a bit disoriented.

I had fallen asleep at around one in the afternoon (on January 23rd) when the sun was still shining, when I woke up it was considerably darker in my room. I looked at my watch to see what time it was and was surprised to discover that it was 6pm on January 22nd. I had somehow managed to achieve time travel. I frantically began to search for my phone so that I could spread the exciting news. I finally found my phone and was confused to see that my phone still seemed to be stuck a day ahead. Come to think of it, all of my clocks seemed to be stuck in the 23rd.....

Muddled and confused, I sat up to take toll of the situation. In my dazed and slightly sleep deprived state, my mind began to piece things together. I recalled that my watch happened to have two time zone settings and that I had set one of them to a day earlier in hopes of avoiding any confusion. I gingerly pressed the button on my watch and held my breath as it switched to the second time zone setting. Unsurprisingly, my watch now proudly displayed that it was 2:45pm in the afternoon on January 23rd.

I may not have achieved time traveling but I did finally take my psycometri exam on Monday. For those who are wondering how it went, it was OK. The grades should come out in about a month so I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

Now that I have no test to study for posting can resume as per usual. I say "can" because it can in fact happen but don't mistakenly think that it will. I may not have a test to study for but I'm still as lazy as ever. :)

The next few weeks are unplanned and unknown. There are many adventures waiting to be had but will most likely be filled with me attempting to make a career out of watching TV while my poor disgruntled father begs me to find a job. Maybe in a surprising turn of events I'll make some sort of attempt to learn how to drive. Who knows? The possibilities are endless.