Party Animal

So I have officially survived the first week of university..! Yay me! It was a little more intense than I had anticipated but I guess its all just a bit of a learning curve.

I'm not a huge fan of note taking but thankfully, one of my classmates is. We have come to an agreement, she takes the notes and I type them up. The only flaw in our plan is that my typing skills in Hebrew leave much to be desired and so the whole thing is a painfully slow process. I'm hoping that practice makes perfect and I'll get the hang of it soon!

Most of my nights have been spent partying it up and living the wild life of a university student, doing homework and getting plenty of one on one time with my laptop.

Getting used to living alone has been interesting. I can't quite figure out how one person manages to use so many dishes... Due to the limited counter space I find myself constantly battling to keep the sink empty.

It's not all bad though. Pants have become unnecessary and more often than not, omitted entirely. Not having to wear pants is quite liberating.

I've also been having fun figuring out how to cook for one. The other day I experimented with my crockpot. I cut up a bunch of veggies and filled the crockpot up with deliciousness before heading out to school. I left it on low but was a little antsy to get home after class ended, hoping that it hadn't boiled over or caused any other sort of trouble.

When I got back and opened the door I was greeted by the mouthwatering aroma of the soup. All of my fears melted away and I ate way more soup than I should have for dinner.

I don't have any classes today so I've just been taking it easy and trying to get things organized. Digging through a duffle bag to find clothes was getting old so I finally unpacked it and got things put away.

Later today I'm going to head into Jerusalem to see some friends and then its on to the SunHouse for shabbos to see the Fambily! :)

Eye See You

Lorbles accidentally left a bag of potatoes at the sun house.

Eye wonder why..?

Moving Out

The last few days have been a frenzy of running errands and packing. I somehow managed to fit most of my stuff into our van and The Mad Man drove me out to Ariel.

The Mad Man helped me put together the table and chairs that I got at IKEA and then returned to the SunHouse, leaving me to unpack.

Unpacking is about as much fun as packing, so its a slow going process.

I did however manage to put away a few of the essentials....

Am I doing it right?

The Naked Man(nequin)

The other day I went to eat my lunch and found a bunch of important people using the break room as a makeshift conference room.  There really isn't anywhere else to eat so they moved some papers around and cleared a little space for me to sit at. 

Due to the overcrowded machsanim and limited storage space they've been keeping some of the extra mannequins in the break room. Luckily for me, the place that they cleared off just so happened to be right next to a group of mannequins. 

I sat in my little corner trying to be as inconspicuous and unobtrusive as my new friends while eating my lunch and eavesdropping on the super secret meeting taking place in front of me. Things were going fine until someone sent me a particularly amusing text and I started laughing.

One thing lead to another and I accidentally inhaled part of my lunch and started choking. I caused a bit of a commotion and the meeting was temporarily interrupted while everyone turned to stare at me. 

I sat next to the naked mannequins with tears streaming down my face as I coughed away, attempting to (not so) discreetly dislodge the piece of meatball stuck in my throat. Someone thoughtfully handed me a cup of water which I promptly spilled on a mannequin before managing to get myself under control.  The rest of my lunch passed without any incidents and the meeting resumed.

The next day I arrived to find that the mannequins had been removed from the break room to prevent further damage, since someone had seemingly spilled water on one of them. I hear that they still haven't caught the culprit...

Later that day I discovered that the mannequins had been relegated to the machsan where they stood creepily in the shadows and watched my every move.

Thankfully this was my last week working in Azrielie so the mannequins will have to find someone else to bother.

I'd like to say that things will be going back to normal but I have a feeling that we're just getting started....

Real Life Jenga

Life has been a little hectic lately. University starts in just a few short weeks and there's lots to be done before then. I'm still going through the onerous task of packing up my stuff and trying to make sure that I have everything that I need.

Work has been extra crazy lately but not for the reasons that you might think. Something (no one is sure exactly what) went down at the big branch in Tel Aviv about a month ago and my manager has been working there since then.

With my manager gone there have been a couple of extra shifts up for grabs and I'm not one to pass up extra hours. Things got really interesting last Wednesday when my manager called the assistant manager and asked her to send me to Azrieli as backup.

Unfortunately I was already at work and no one was available to switch with me so it was agreed that I would finish my shift and then head to Azrieli early the next morning. The assistant manager didn't really elaborate much but after much poking and prodding she told me that something had happened with the guy that worked in the machsan and that they needed help getting things organised.

Slightly unsatisfied with her answers I reluctantly agreed to stop bothering her and instead spent the rest of my shift speculating about what could have happened to the guy working there and why they would need me to help.

The next morning I hopped onto a train and made my way to Azrieli full of anticipation. I was surprised to find two other machsanaim from different branches were also there to help. What could justify bringing in three extra workers? What horrors waited for us deep in the dank underbelly of the stores?

My manager came to meet us and was happy to see that I had made it. She gave us a key and the three of us made our way down to the machsan. We arrived at the machsan and cautiously attempted to unlock and open the door.

Stacks of haphazardly boxes filled the room. It looked like an especially horrifying episode of hoarders. The two guys with me noted the look of utter shock on my face and told me that it had been even worse the day before, that they had barely managed to open the door.

There was obviously much work to be done so we got started right away. Entering the machsan was like a real life game of jenga. You had to carefully choose which boxes to try and move in order to get into the room and then hope that they missed your head as they inevitably crashed to the floor.

The stacks of boxes teetered and swayed as we attempted to tackle the mountains of clothes. We worked diligently, trying to stay alert so that we could avoid the boxes that seemed determined on hurdling themselves to the floor littering the already covered floor in layers of clothing.

After a couple of hours we were able to get some of the boxes out and were able to take a look around to better assess the situation. Many of the boxes appeared to have windows cut out of them to display the merchandise inside. We were speculating who would have spent hours cutting windows in cardboard boxes with a razor blade for no particular reason when my manager walked in to check on us.

We asked her about the boxes and she told us that upon her arrival at the store she was dismayed at the state of the machsan and asked the guy in charge to straighten up a bit. The guy wasn't a huge fan of his job so in an effort to look busy he spent hours cutting windows in the cardboard boxes. After my manager had asked him several times to stop wasting time and actually do his job he decided that he was done and on Tuesday morning declined to show up for work.

No one particularly missed the guy and seeing as there was now no one officially in charge of the machsan my manager was finally able to go in and see what was going on. She wasn't happy with what she found (boxes of stuff that came over a month ago still waiting to be unpacked) and immediately began making calls to see what could be done. Some fancy people came to inspect the situation and it was unanimously agreed that it needed to be dealt with, fast.

And that is why I have spent the last few days slaving away deep down in the machsan, unearthing treasures untold.

Seriously though, we found a box of stuff from last years fall collection and I got two nice button down shirts (for my brothers, because I'm such a nice sister...) for a whopping 17 shekel each!

Who knows what else we'll find.