Barbara’s Blog

Last day(s)

NNNNOOOOO!!!! Today is our last day!!! I don’t want to go!!

Well, actually today is our last day on campus if we want to be accurate. And truthfully I am already at home now, but I am typing about our last day. L

I think we woke up late, and then got jobs in the morning. It seems that Rona is always the mean person or person who gives out orders and jobs. Maybe because she is a mean pregnant woman, or maybe it’s a coincidence…..nah! So in the morning she gave us jobs like clean the kitchen, collect and fold all the blankets, collect all the extra and unwanted sourcebooks, take out the trash (like every hour) because everyone is packing and cleaning out their rooms, and collect recycling and paper. There were lots of other jobs but whatever. Basically we had to do our jobs, and pack all our stuff. And until everyone was done with their job no one was allowed to leave campus. I had to clean out the kitchen with two other people, (Annie and Zach) it was gross!!! We had to empty the fridge and clean the shelves, counters, and cups and stuff. Not fun!!! Plus at 11:00 am an air raid siren went off and we all had to go into our bomb shelter. Lucky for us its in our building. It wasn’t even a real siren, Israel was having a defense training week so it was a fake practice siren.  So we all went into the computer lab and found out what we would do during an air raid. We would all be on facebook, shocker!!! After the siren we went back to our jobs and then at like 12:30 we met with Yardena. She is the head of the Hebrew department at Milken and she is our escort home on the plane. I think it is really pointless and quite the waste of money to send someone to Israel for like a day and then have her fly back with a bunch of teenagers. Whatever. She asked us questions about TIF and people gave really good answers!!! It made me think about what my answers are going to be at home when people ask me about TIF. I realized that I really can’t describe TIF, you can’t summarize it in a few words. It is going to be so frustrating trying to tell people how great it is and how much I loved it, it is a whole different type of school and looking at school and trips and fun!!! But that’s for later, so after we met with Yardena we were free until the banquet that night. I was really excited for the banquet, it was going to be so fun!!! I don’t really remember exactly what I did, but I think I went to BTO’s for one last time, got a milkshake, and then finished packing. Plus I went out with my Israeli friends for one last time to say goodbye. I feel really bad because I had like 45 minutes to say goodbye. That’s like no time!!! We went out to a café and got really good cake!!! I got warm chocolate fudge cake, covered in a layer of chocolate sauce, plus it came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream with maple syrup sugar crystals and whipped cream and powdered sugar on all of it. It was delicious!!! But then I ended up saying goodbye quickly and running back to campus so I would not be late. I felt so bad, they have been so nice and welcoming to me. We went out to dinner countless times (really) they hosted me for dinners and weekends and they are just the sweetest people ever!!! I told them that I would write letters and keep in touch.  And even though I am really bad at that I will try my hardest. So  once I came back to campus huffing and puffing, I ran to the Beit Kenesset to help set up the food for the banquet. We all had to sign up for committees so I signed up for the food committee, duh!!! It looked great we were having sundaes and tons of toppings!!! And I got to see what the theme for the banquet is, it’s the TIF reunion in ten years. We will all be older and cooler! We were told to dress mature and futuristic. So cool!

                So I had run to the Beit Kenesset and guess what? They didn’t need any more people or help, whatever. So I went back to the dorms and got ready for the banquet. I put on my dress and earrings and then at 6:00 we all went to the dining hall for our special dinner. It was decorated so nicely!!! (Not all of it, just a small part) The placemats were full of pictures of us and we all got stickers that said what our jobs were. Since it was in 10 years we all had jobs, I was a biomedical scientist. There were a few funny ones like dog whisperer, housewife, and dean. Plus cupcake designer, dentist, and just tons of jobs. Lots were pretty good, I liked mine! So we had dinner which was just a normal dinner, and not a good one at that! Yuck! Thank you Alexander Muss! But after dinner we went to the Beit Knesset and our banquet started. We had two hosts, Beej and David M. They were so good and funny!!! I don’t really remember the order of everything but here is some of the stuff we had. Our madrichim did a skit about us and it was hilarious. It was their favorite five things about Milken and they acted like us. So funny! They were its always a fashion show, you make friends so easily, you love the dining hall food so much, you are always on time, and something else. It was really nice,. Plus we had speeches about our teachers. All the speeches were really sweet and thoughtful. All about how much we loved our teachers and our class and it was completely truthful! We truly had the most amazing experiences with our teachers. I liked Danny’s speech the most. Yes I am a little biased but you could tell from the speech how much we respected Danny and loved him as a teacher. We even quoted him a bunch of times, we love him!!! Plus each class got their core teacher a present which was given to them the night before. We got Danny a fleece jacket which was reversible, a picture frame, and a basket of all his favorite snacks. Everyone snack he mentioned in class had been written down and we got him all of them. Rona’s class got her cloths for her baby and Phil’s class signed a hat and gave it to him. Plus we made Danny a huge card. It was nice. After our Core teacher speeches we had speeches about our madrichim. All of them were heartfelt and sweet. People really put a lot of effort into making the speeches good, and it showed. Additionally, we saw our TIF video. Basically, every class did a skit about their Core class. Everyone was in it, they dressed up, and we worked really hard on it. For Phil’s class they had a mock class and Phil (Matt K.) was really energetic, and he turned down their stress levels. Then it was Danny’s class. (I must say, since the person who made the video was in our class, our video was the longest. YAY!) We had David M. dress up as Danny. It started with him gliding into class a few seconds late. Yes, I said gliding. He was on a skateboard and had his arms up to the sky and was gliding but in the camera it looked really cool!!!  Because we call him the messiah, so he was flying in our video. Plus we had a bunch of class jokes in the video. Like when he gives us quiz questions that are really vague and make no sense, and then the whole class complains and yells even though we are taking a quiz, and Danny asks everyone not to cheat on the quizzes, and he says “Good morning boys and Goils” , and when Hannah sneezes everyone fans their notebooks at her because we don’t want to get sick, and how Hannah and Yarden always fight about Arabs, and how Danny forgot the video and our essays so he runs back to his house to get them, and then he comes back like 30 seconds later. And plus we got to film David actually going into Danny’s house and we videoed his closet. It was hilarious!!! We put his two pairs of cargo pants in there, (One for hikes and one for everyday) and his hat, his red fleece, and our essays. That was it! But it feels like that is all the clothing he has. I remember one day he bought a new shirt and EVERYONE noticed!!! Haha, plus in our video we had many Danny quotes and our chant, it is the will of god!!!! Plus of course we “sacrificed” Hannah. It was the best video EVER!!! I loved it and couldn’t stop laughing!!! Then it was Rona’s video. It was pretty good, Rona was fat and pregnant and very mean and kept turning on the air conditioning. Funny, but ours was much better!! And we had two girls sing the song from Tarzan, “You’ll be in my heart”. It was the perfect song to sing and by then everyone was crying. It was so sad! Plus we saw our TIF slideshow. OMG it was the most amazing slideshow I had ever seen!!!! I remember someone told me it was 22 minutes long and they cut it down from 35 minutes. I thought to myself wow its long and I am going to be in like no pictures. I will just be bored sitting there for 35 minutes. But it was not boring in the least. I was in enough pictures and there were different songs (Each song was perfect) and different parts to the slideshow. She went around and asked people what their favorite parts of TIF were and then they put the videos and then pictures from that. It was amazing!!! The last song, it ends tonight, really made everyone cry. Because it was our last night and it did end tonight! L We were crying and there were all our names on the screen, then our core teachers, our madrichim, and then our TIF picture. Really the best slideshow ever! Then we all ate tons of ice cream and toppings and then went back to the dorms. We had an activity at 10. I loved it! The madrichim made us sit in a huge circle and there was a ball of yarn. One person holds the ball of yarn, winds it around their wrist, and then throws it to another person. A person who they were not close with/didn’t know before TIF and who they really bonded with on TIF. Then that person winds it around their wrist and throws it to someone else and says something about them. It just keeps going until everyone has had the yarn. Then there is a giant really cool spider web (It looked really awesome!!) and then we cut the string and we all have friendship bracelets. (It is now two weeks after TIF and I still have my bracelet on!) Shaun said really nice things about me and then I passed it to Liana. I absolutely loved the activity! And then……we got our TIF sweatshirts and T-shirts!!! They are awesome!!! Our sweatshirts are green and on the back they say meet me in the Hod. (For Hod Hasharon, plus there are three strips representing the three core classes) And our T-shirts are purple and they have all our names on the front in the letters TIF and on the back they have lots of funny pictures and inside jokes. They are awesome! Plus we got a TIF picture, a picture of our madrichim, and a picture of our room. AND a  keychain chamsa with our names on it. We all tried on our shirts and sweatshirts and then people played music in the moadon for the last time and everyone was having like a dance party. It was so perfect, I can’t even describe it! But then we had to go back to our rooms. In our room we talked a lot and took down our candy wall which was really sad. Honestly, Sofia was crying when we took it down. It truly was heartbreaking. All our hard work, gone! Four closets full of candy:gone, one door full of candy:gone, our front door decorated with signs, ribbons, wrappers:gone, Ariela, Cassie, and Sofia’s decorated walls by their beds:gone, our window with writing on it and flowers above it:gone, our desks with papers, cards, and other stuff:gone. As you can see we really had to take down a lot of stuff. All our hard work and decorations from four months of living there:gone. Then we just sat on the ground and reminisced and talked about stuff. For hours we were sitting there and around 3:30 am we went to sleep. At 6:30 we woke up.  And got dressed, had breakfast, packed our lunches, finished packing our Bags, and finished our jobs from yesterday. But by the time the dorms were absolutely clean we were two hours behind schedule! That is VERY BAD! Because of that we lost all our free time in Jerusalem, where I was going to spend the last of my money! But back to the dorms, after cleaning we gave back ours keys, locks, and left our rooms. It was really sad! Goodbye to our homes. We got on the buses and drove away. (I am tearing up right now because I am really writing about the last time I was at the dorms, and that makes me very sad.) I remember that before we left, Hanna, Ariela, Sofia, and I were in our room and we sang “Our Song” one last time. Even though the room was empty the song filled us up. It filled the room and we remembered countless times we had played that very song while we were doing homework, putting up wrappers, and just goofing around. So we left on the buses and drove to Jerusalem for the last time. We firstly went to the cemetery on Har Herzl where we saw many graves of brave Israeli fighters we had learned about. Then we visited Herzl’s grave and learned a little more for the last time. Then we went to the kotel and we all had a little more time there before we went to dinner. We had a really yummy dinner there and we got to spend time with our core teachers for one last time. And on the bus to the airport we were sitting with and talking with our teachers and madrichim. I feel like we did more in Jerusalem but I can’t remember! I remember that since Danny is a Cohen we had to take a very roundabout way in the cemetery as to not get too close to a grave. And at the kotel I burst out crying. At dinner I ate a ton of food and the girl’s bathroom was completely filled!! (There was only one bathroom) And on the bus I growled and Danny heard me and thought it was really cool. It had been in Mine, Ariela’s, and Sofia’s journals but now he got to hear all of us growl. So then we got to the airport. We all got our bags, luggage carts, and said goodbye to our core teachers. Many people got pictures then but I just said goodbye. It sounds so peaceful and easy when I write about it, but it was not! We had to wrestle our luggage off the bus and it was very cramped and everyone was trying to get their stuff, plus there was a long walk to the luggage carts so we had to leave our stuff in a pile walk to get a cart , walk all the way back, navigate through tons of other luggage, say goodbye to all the teachers while keeping track of our stuff, and then carefully make our way to the building while trying our best not to have our carts fall off the curb because then all our stuff falls off the cart and we must put it back on and try again. Then we all had to wait in line FOREVER until we made it to the place where we check our bags. My line was by far the slowest line because the lady was really mean!!! She didn’t let a single TIF kid go through without making them pay a ton of money or switch and shift weight in their bags. Finally it was my turn. I weighed my bags, one was overweight 5 kilos and one was under weight. You would think I could just shift the stuff but it wasn’t that simple. Both were incredibly full and I doubt I would be able to put anything more into either of them. So I would have to pay 25 dollars, not that bad. Fine. Then guess what, the lady did something that was not allowed!!! I checked the website and she should not have been allowed to do this!!! But she told me I could only have one carryon!! That bitch! Plus she weighted my carry-ons!! She can’t do that, she told me it was a full flight and I could only have one carry on and it could only weigh 6 kilos. Both my carry-ons weighted 10 kilos. Then she told me I had no options. I could not take both my checked bags because one was overweight and I could not take either of my carry-ons because they were overweight too!!! But I could not check another bag because the plane was full and it would weigh down the plane. She was so mean!!! Finally after 40 minutes of me crying and sobbing in front of her she told me I HAD to check another bag which would be my carry-on and it would cost 290 dollars. Where did she get that number???? All my friends got through with two carry ons and some had to pay 25 dollars tops. This Lady was horrible. By now I was the only TIF kid not through security. All the madrichim had gone and I was on my own crying in front of this lady who would not let me take my things. Then after 1 hour and 20 minutes of crying in front of her she gave me a tag for my second carry on and I went through the gate. Guess what?? I never had to pay and didn’t get any more crap from anyone after that! She was just mean! So I went through security and literally RAN to the gate to board. I got there just in time (the plane boarded a few minutes late though) so I boarded and got into my seat. I had had no time all day to buy anything and spend my last shekels so when I returned home I had over 100 shekels. So let’s see, I got on the plane and was sitting next to Jake and Brandon. I had a window seat. The plane took off and yeah that was it. TIF was over. We had a nice flight, we landed and cheered and went to get our bags and see our families. Done.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Israel, TIF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.