Going back to the base. Sunday - February 27th
Yael and I had our first experience taking the train on Sunday morning. It was like the realization of all my nightmares -- the train was totally full, the people were standing and packed in like sardines and pushing each other, there was no space, no air, it was hot and noisy and stuffy. Baa. I hate Sunday mornings in the train.
We got off the train in Tel Aviv (Ha'Hagana) and quickly found the central bus station. On the bus from there to Ashkelon everyone was asleep other than us. We were talking the whole time. I have no idea how we found the energy not to sleep, but it was nice. We met all the other girls from the north at the stadium near the central bus station of Ashkelon and went to the base from there.
I wasn't sad at all to come back, even though I knew that I would be there for two weeks in a row. I was even kinda happy because I knew I was gonna have fun. Other people just didn't appreciate it!

The first thing we did at the base after leaving our backpacks in the tents was go to the armory to get our guns. I got the crappiest M16 ever (the kind with the triangle shape/smooth grips) but whatever (I gave it back after two weeks anyway). When we got our M16's "fresh" from the armory they were totally oily, but the oil was very quickly transferred from the guns to our clothes, so they didn't feel that oily later. The M16 was lighter than I remembered, but in these circumstances we obviously had to carry it around 24 hours a day: when we used the bathroom, when we showered (well... then we don't really carry it, but it has to be in front of us and we must not forget about it) and to sleep with it (it turned out to be a nice improvised pillow.)

***

This week we got a lot of M16 lessons, more first-aid lessons and others... We practiced unloading the M16 all the time and hated it, especially at the times when they made us do it really slow and hold it at "60 degrees" (which is really something like 85 according to the way they showed us) for far longer than is really comfortable. I still don't get wtf we were yelling before the words "M16" in that silly drill. It's so gay that I just have to put it here and commemorate the gayness of it: (red - the commander. blue - us)

"נשק 60 מעלות"
"נשק 60 מעלות"
"___ M16"
"___ M16"
"ב-ש-ו-ת-פ-ת"
"ב-ש-ו-ת-פ-ת"
"הלאה פעל!"

we weren't supposed to repeat that last line, but every fucking time at least half of the girls did

"האם הנשק פ-ר-ו-ק בבבבב-ד-ו-ק ווווווווונ-צ-ו-ר?(?!@#$%&?!)
"הנשק פרוק בדוק ונצור, המפקדת!"

During the week we had to to guard duty twice at night, as well as another couple times during the day. I always got the worse hours ever, plus the list never changed so it was the same slow-minded retarted girl after me every time. I wasn't aware of her data processing problem, and treated her totally normal at first - I woke her up ten minutes before she was supposed to replace me (as everyone did) and she didn't come out of the tent until two minutes after the switching time and she wanted me to wait "a little bit longer" so she could use the bathroom. In the end she replaced me 15 minutes later, which is a lot when it's night, because other than the fact you're totally exhausted it's also crazily cold! Plus! The night-guarding duty is only 30 minutes, so if she was 15 mintues late it means that she was guarding for only half of the time and I was guarding for 150% of the time, which is just against any moral sense. Anyhow, I didn't give her that extra time ever again! *satan face*


A day in the range. Wednesday - March 2nd
We woke up around 4am. We needed to take the combat-vest, the ridiculous plastic pancho for the rain (שכמייה) lol, the helmet, and two full canteens. The walking to the range while carrying all this shit was incredibly obnoxious. The actual shooting didn't take long, and most of the time we weren't shooting, so this day was mostly a waste of everyone's time.

I never had to redo any shooting because my results were good enough the first time, and that's all I needed or wanted. We ate field rations that day, but I only got to eat it for breakfast because after my first time shooting I was told to go back to the company area with a few other girls (Arina was one of them) and do "RASAR duties". It was great because we didn't really do anything that I would call work, and we bought some tasty stuff in the Shekem. After we went back to the range and were ready for another round of shooting, I felt really bad. I couldn't get to the commanders because they were too busy yelling at everybody, so I had to shoot in this condition. My hands were shaky and I could hardly see my target. I actually saw the other targets better than mine. Somehow I did it, and the results were fine.
On our way back to the base I needed to carry an extra M16 (it belonged to some girl who was sick and had an asthma attack or something and was sent to a hospital.)

"RASAR duties" day. Theursday - March 3rd
I was in the kitchen. Again. Me and Arina managed to be on the same team again -- we were in the dinning room this time, and generaly, working in the dinning room means an easy job. We didn't do much most of the time, but again, all the walking on a watery floor makes you tired quickly. The thing I remember the most about this day was lunch: I was in charge on serving the meat and some guy was supposed to help me with taking the lids of the huge and hot casserole pans, and also switching them when they were empty. The problem was that he wasn't really useful and tried to take the serving work from me and make me move the huge casserole pans that are heavier than me. What a fucking gay jerk! I didn't let him do it, though :) In general my job turned out to be quite stressful itself considering the guys insisted on getting the biggest pieces or wanted extra servings when I'm only allowed to give one peice per person or bugged me with all kinds of smart-ass comments. The guy who was constantly bugging me from one side and all the others with their demands from the other side made me feel pretty uncomfortable.

Later Arina thought she would have more fun doing this asked me to switch, I warned her but she didn't take my advice, so in the end we switched. Soon after our switch, she switched with some other girl who quickly switched, too, with Yael. During all the switching I kept complaining about him to the guy who was in charge of the dinning room (Moshiko! who's also known as "The Moshiko man" איש מושיקו, בשבילכם :) and told him about how useless and obnoxious that guy was. It seems like he liked Yael because even though he made her do the hard work he brought her tee and borekas (maybe because she was basically the only one who agreed to do his job and let him do hers).

All in all this day was pretty boring. I didn't really get to work with people, and when I finally got to talk to people they just talked about how miserable they were (like we weren't all in the same situation). It was the end of the second week (two thirds finished) but it was also my first day of depression. All this talking about how bad and horrible everything was got to me eventually. I remember crying to Adi and my mom that evening and feeling stupid for doing it at the same time (and commenting on that).