sigma

Music: Rage Against the Machine
Mood: Rage Against the Machine

Where to begin? Do I begin with my first impressions of Israel as a small child? With my first trip here? With my return here? With the beginning of the intifata?

I think this story starts with a young upwardly mobile version of myself who was all set to go to school at Georgia Institute of Technology and gain all sorts of Student Loan debt in the process thanks to my parents wasting all the money they had saved over the years for my education on their divorce.

At this point I'm so angry at my parents that I would do anything to get as far away from them in every respect imaginable as I can. I've been dressing preppy for about 5 months, I've decided to burn out of the Memphis Jewish Community Scene rather than fade away.

All the variables were lined up against me. If the very attractive college in Israel just said the right thing, 'full ride scholorship', there would be nothing forcing me to go to GeorgiaTech.

I get in the car after one of my last days of school. My whole future laid out before me. The picture of serene contentment. A liberal youth in a sea of Republicans. A 8 year Memphian who has never seen 'Gone with the Wind' or been to Graceland.

This is me. Everything is clear and happy. I read lots of Joseph Campbell, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung. I think I have a very clear fix on how the world works and everything seems to be headed in the right direction.

The first thing my mom tells me when I get in the car is that the IDC called and offered me a full ride scholorship if I only go to their school.

In that moment up became down, left became right, black/white, orange/blue. You see the truth is that I've been stuck in this exact moment ever since and will remain here until I finish with this school. The truth is that later on that week I saw Fight Club for the first time and my thinking was inexorably altered.

The truth is I saw my whole future fall apart in that instant and I said (I swear to god you can ask my mom and sister): 'No...too much...I can't handle this...PLEASE let's talk about something else until I get home'.

And while I am dealing with truths, let me explain why I really stayed here. Sure - I came over money and the Zionist reasons I'd been taught as a kid - but that has NOTHING to do with why I stayed.

You see about a year before I saw 'Fight Club' I had read 'The Fountainhead'. I recall my impression of it was that everything was backwards and upside down in it. The second time I read it (a year ago) I remember thinking that it was the only thing NOT upside down and backwards in my immediate universe at that time.

So anyways it was the foundation I had from having read 'Fountainhead' that helped me understand 'Fight Club' and it was ultimately 'Fight Club' that made me decide to do the opposite of what I wanted to do and stay in Israel.

The time in between making the decision (if you could call it that) to go to school in Israel and the time when I actually got on the plane is all a daze. Literally 4 months of just a daze. All I know is that in that time I read a lot of books and made a lot of good decisions that everyone else thought were bad. I was experimenting with new ways of life - use your imaginaton.

Once on the plane to Israel what I had done (or what had been done to me I should say) finally began to sink in. My reaction was to try to utterly block out my past because it was too painful and to go headfirst into my future.

Mistake.

I should have left the moment I saw the living accomidations that they were offering like so many other did. I should have left when I saw that the guy who convinced me to come had just quit (he's now the CEO of Compaq, btw). I should have left when I saw that the math was way above my head. I should have left when I saw that there were no textbooks.

I should have left after the first day of Discrete mathematics and Logical priniciples class.

But I didn't. At that point I was only 2-4 weeks in and I was still in a complete daze at how increasibly gorgeous the Israeli women are. It took me far too long to realize what price is paid for that beauty by their men.

So after that daze wore off I DEFINATELY should have left after I failed my midterms.

But I didn't. Call me a Zionist. Call me suckered by my Judaism. Call me an idiot - the initfata was one month in by this time and we had all already learned that the peace process had ended.

Next entry: The opening of Intifata from the perspective of a Computer Science major.
====================

Rania and Smuffy: I had a dream we were road tripping through Turkey together.