Since we did the סת"פ (company shut-down) the other night we didn't need to guard that night, too, but still got an extra hour of sleep (or at least we were told we did). Technically, they are supposed to give us six hours of sleep per night, but they only give us one free hour during the day (right before bed) to do everything we need to during the day (which isn't nearly enough) so we are all forced to use some of the time they give us to sleep to do lots of other things, too. Not to mention that it takes time to fall asleep and that we normally woke ourselves up earlier than the official time we were supposed to wake up because we wouldn't have had enough time to organize in the morning otherwise, so we really only got four and a half hours of sleep tops.

Wednesday - February 23rd
This was the day the whole idea of military lessons got really serious. We actually got a notebook to write down all the details. We had first-aid lessons which I personally really liked. Later we all demonstrated what we learned on each other (and near the end of it all we were tested on it...) I don't remember what we did after this, but I know I left in the middle to do my first round of guard duty (which wasn't as bad as I had expected). When I was done I joined my group. Another lesson, entirly about how dangerous it is to hitchhike and that you can basically be arrested if the military police catches you hitchhiking, was about to start. They showed us some movie that was supposed to demonstrate the dangers of hitchhiking, and even though the acting was horribly bad, I needed to hold back so hard not to cry (because the ideas they presented were really sad, not because of the bad acting!!).
In the evening (like 8-9pm) when we were already tired, as usual, we had some alertness exercise which means we had to put on the combat-vest (אפוד), helmet and two full canteens,which we're supposed to do really quickly. It's not really practical because it takes time just to find the key for the lock we used on the kit-bag B' and then it takes forever to take everything out, to fill up the canteens and of course putting everything on is an entire project, too. Something that slowed us down even more was the appearance of a frog on Yael's bag (she's another really really nice/cool girl I got to know there and keep in touch with). When the other girls noticed the screaming started... The terrified frog started jumping around from bed to bed, and even though I didn't take part in the throaty screaming I definitely didn't like having a frog hanging around in our tent and was generally afraid of the idea of it getting to my bed or bag eventually, too. Brave Chava (Chavi) took a stand and took the frog out of the tent. We all applauded her and were very grateful, relieved, and happy. We were told to lie down under our beds before we even got to the middle of putting on all the heavy shit. It was dark, and everything felt so uncomfortable and the atmosphere was pretty stressful (and even a bit scary). Arina and I were actually holding hands so we wouldn't loose track of where we were. Why on earth do I share these incredibly unimporartant and embarrassing details?!?!
Btw, we were told earlier in the week that we're gonna stay at the base for the weekend. I didn't really mind, but other girls who kept crying and whining about everything didn't like it so much. That evening we were also told it wasn't gonna happen, and that we would stay on the second weekend instead (which turned out to be better, because this way we only came back home once with the M16).

Thursday - February 24th
This day was dedicated to "RS"R duties" (עבודות רס"ר), which means most of the platoon did kitchen duty, a few enjoyed cleaning up the Shekem. The Shekem is a special store for soldiers that is usually found at every base and is similar to the American PX.

_{The Shekem}

I say the people who cleaned it up enjoyed it because cleaning the Shekem means just hanging out there and not working at all. Others put up tents (or at least helped in holding the rods and pegs for those who really did put up the tent) and some just picked weeds. Before they actually sorted us into teams, we were all "checked" by the medic (חופ"לת) and the "trouble-maker" girl faked fainting (and with this got a few days at home). It was a very entertaining show -- she fell slowely and spread herself out on the ground like a heavy bear. I, however, was with the kitchen girls. Arina and I got to work together. Our first job (that kept us busy for about two hours) was working in a place called the Cartonia (which is a storage area for cardboard boxes):

_{it's so pretty...}

We just needed to move cardboard boxes from one place to another in a radius of two meters. While doing this we noticed funny titles on cardboard boxes like one that said "Be Careful! Fragile! French Fries" (!זהירות, צ'יפס שביר). We also found boxes of things we could only dream of at the moment like "Kinder Bueno" (I'm sooo addicted to this stuff. I LOVE it). I'm not sure I mentioned this before, but there was some creature in the base that was like half-dog, half-coyote. It was really ugly and scary looking, however, while we were organizing the cardboard boxes (which is surrounded by a metal fence, btw) the coyote-dog got into there and we were trapped. In the end it left and we did, too. When we were done no one really told us what to do so we just sat close to where we were working for awhile. We didn't want to get in trouble, so after resting for a bit we went to bug the person who was in charge of us again, and he told us to go to some other guy whose name was Yossi. We went to Yossi and he wanted to separate us. I asked him not to (and added something about how we were such a useful little team) and he sent us both to help Ganadi in the confectionery. Ah, the confectionery. At first we felt so lucky, because the guy offered us cookies that were fresh from the oven, as well as coffee/tea and later fresh rolls (later we smuggled a few for other girls), too. The work wasn't hard at all and was actually quite intersting. I mean, you don't see mixer that is three feet wide everyday. It felt crazy to throw in 30 packages of margarine and 10 packages of sugar. Just. Insane. The good part lasted until around 11am (which is a long time for having a good time in the army considering our day started before 4am). Then we had dozens of cakepans to wash, which was the most exhausting and annoying thing ever. We did not like washing the cakepans (if I wasn't already clear on this). We also had to clean the huge mixer, and we had to do it three or four times (my reaction to that was "baaaa!"). For dessert we needed to clean the entire room: sticky tables, shelves, inside the cabinets and the sticky floor. We had to empty the garbage can as well, of course (like four times), and it was heavy so we carried it together (and got disgusted by the trash containers outside and the smell around them everytime we went there). This work makes your body hurt really bad (especially the back, shoulders, and legs). The big problem with kitchen duty is that the kitchen's floor is constantly full of water, so you have to walk like a duck in order to avoid slipping, but this way of walking hurts a lot after a few minutes of doing it. So when you need to walk like this for hours on end, it's really painful. Arina and I were too useful and were done cleaning everything quite early. Genadi, who was in charge of us, had left, so it then became Sergey who gave the commands. He was very satisfied with our work, and liked us so much that he gave us an extra long break (40 minutes instead of the usual 15 for "Zman Prisa"). When we came back he decided to send each one of us to a different place. He took Arina to do easy stuff in a storage area (where they keep field rations, jars of jelly, and other fun condiments and what-nots for breakfast and dinner), and me to the dishwashing room. I H-A-T-E-D this place. Technically it just meant walking from one side of the room to the other and looking at how the N.C.O.s (נגדים) did most of the work. Looks nice and harmless, but! this room was like hell! The floor was all full of water AND food, and the steam from the dishwasher filled the room and made it crazily hot and stuffy. I'm really sensitive to being in stuffy rooms, and a bit claustrophobic, so I preferred to be anywhere else and do whatever as long as it wasn't in that room. I found Sergey, explained the situation, and he told me to join Arina :) in the storage area.



Later we didn't do anything particularly difficult. The last mission was to go to the refrigerator (a very cold room.) and put 360 eggs in some flat cakepans and 360 more eggs in a huge pot. Some of the eggs were broken, so it was a bit disgusting (I have a little eggphobia: always afraid to break them). Just as an FYI, if someone shuts the door while you're in, there's an emergency button, but I wouldn't count on it, so it's good we didn't get locked inside :P .
All in all, I guess the idea of going home the next day made this day easier to all of us, even though I didn't really care much. My expectations from basic training were so low that I couldn't be disappointed. That "preparation for IDF" week I had about two years ago really helped a lot. I expected everything to be so much worse, especially the people, so everything turned out to be a good surprise: the people were really nice, most of the time I didn't feel lonely at all, I actually enjoined being surrounded by nice, new people, and stuff like sleeping in a tent didn't really bother me. To be honest, the one thing that did bother me was the fact that I felt like I was the only person who wasn't terribly bothered by things. The only thing that made me feel lonely was when everyone around me kept complaining and feeling so sorry for themselves, and being all self-centered and begging for attention.

First week is over. Friday - February 25rd
We woke up around 6am, which was later than usual (they give you an extra hour of sleep the morning you go back home). Everyone was glowing from the happiness of leaving this place and going back home, but was really stressful because of all the packing. When we got the kit-bag B' neither the sleeping bag or the blakets were actually inside of it, they were just waiting for us on hour beds. Actually one canteen, the silly hat, and pair of pants and shirt weren't in them to begin with, as well. However, the kit-bag was still really overfilled at the very beginning, and now they are telling us to put EVERYTHING in it, including the stuff I just mentioned. So that was an impossible mission... Everyone freaked out because they couldn't pack things this way. My hands were very dry and full of little cracks from the entire week (especially thanks to the kitchen duty) and it hurt a lot to try and push everything into the bag, plus... it was just impossible and so frustrating. I went to my commander and told her about my hand situation and that as mush as I tried, I just couldn't get everything in the bag. She had to show me that it was possible, so she helped me and we managed to put everything inside and almost lock it (there are four loops that need to be hung on the hook, so we did three and I used a piece of rope on the fourth one). It was a great relief to get it done. We didn't get breakfast that morning because the idea was technically to let us go as soon as possible. From some reason it was very necessary to give us our first M16 lesson just before leaving and test us on it, too. After the lesson, that was it -- nothing left, we were finally officially leaving! They gave us a ride to the central bus station in Ashkelon, and then me and most of the girls made the mistake of taking a bus to Ashdod, and then walked from the bus station to the train station while we were carrying our huge bags of 75-95 liters AND the kitbag A'. From the train stop we obviously took a train to the north where the idea was to switch at Binyamina. Yael (who lives in Haifa too) and I decided to switch in Tel Aviv because the station is nicer, we knew it better plus this way we would get on the exact same train to Haifa but somehow have more time to wait (and eat or use the bathroom or whatever.) I remember the feeling of using the new ID card as a credit card in the train station for the first time :) *the sophistication* LOL and just showing it to the guards everywhere instead of having a security check. The joy and innocence of recruits. When we finally got to Haifa, my dad was already waiting for me. I felt like it was Purim and I was wearing a soldier costume. My dad looked at me half proud/impressed and half confused and wondering "is this mine?!" When we got home my mom and Elad jumped on me. Soon I got to enjoy all the things I missed (like a good warm and long shower, my mom's great food, my soft bed and my warm down-filled blanket). Adi came over on Saturday and it was great to finally see him, too, and we had a great time.
It was a happy, but way too short weekend.