Good Morning Fish / בוקר טוב דגים

Its been two weeks, enough time to establish a regular routine, one that lacks much free time, which I’m sure you all are curious about. So, here was my day (went to sleep at Midnight)
4:45 am Wake up and put on some warm clothes
5:00 am Arrive at work, have a cup of tea, take off all warm clothes and put on cold, wet clothing and a wet suit
5:30 am Get down to business. To sum up, this means treading through knee high mud with a net that takes five guys to pull, make a lap around a ½ football-field sized pool (swamp), and then pull the net in. Place the net on metal poles and then force the fish into one end of the pool by creating a wall that you constantly move closer. Then suck them up through this vacuum-like thing or take them out in buckets. Sound easy? Well its not, but no complaints, its exactly what I wanted. If you want a more in depth summary call me on skype. But here are a few important things I have learned: A) Never let go of the net B) Some of the fish jump, that means pay attention to what is most important, didn’t pay attention yesterday and took a hit from a 5 pound fish/torpedo right where I didn’t want to. C) Scour for the best gloves, all of them have holes or are ripped, because the fish have sharp fins—got 3 nice cuts yesterday. D) I’m going to work harder and longer than anyone else in the Ulpan (but at least fish shit doesn’t smell like cow shit)
12:00 Finished work, changed, showered, ate lunch, 1 minute to close my eyes until
13:00 -17:00 Hebrew Classes

On Mondays I’m doing a special army training program for people who want to be prepared for special forces tryouts. Since it was the first training session it was nice and easy and short, from 17:20-19:20 Maxed out on pull-ups, pushups, situps, dips, and a 2km run. Followed by Krav Maga fighting positions, push ups, Burpees, wind sprints, and other military drills. Was amazing, and typing now takes a considerable amount of energy.

So that was my Monday, and is the reason I haven’t written or talked to everyone in a while. Forgive me, and call me on Skype!

Becoming a Kibbutznik / להיות קיבוצניק

I arrived to Kibbutz Maagan Michael 4 days ago. Much has happened in these 4 short days, but I’ll try to recap everything and capture the excitement of it all. This is one of the largest and most prosperous Kibbutz in all of Israel, located on the Mediterranean with a wide variety of different jobs (Metal and Plastic factories, petting zoo, fruit farms, etc.) It is 3 people to a room, a little cramped but nothing that won’t seem like a 5 bedroom mansion once I start the IDF. Roommate #1 is Ruben from Italy and #2 is Gilad from Florida; I feel like I really lucked out with the roommates, as all three of us are a little older and have made aliyah (moved to Israel) and want to serve in the IDF—thus I have 2 good running/training partners for the next 5 months. There is a large group of guys who have made aliyah and are serious about joining a tough combat unit, so we will all train together and hopefully get coached by some ex-special forces once a week. Its amazing how Jews from every corner of the earth are here, around 25 different countries are represented on the Kibbutz ranging from Kazakhstan to South Africa to Switzerland. I am in the advanced Hebrew class which will push me and be a bit difficult but will be a tremendous help to improve my speaking and comprehension skills. Other than that, I found out that I was one of the few picked to work in the fish farm (starting at 5 AM) which I will start tomorrow, so more on that to come. One final note, the food is pretty good especially breakfast with fresh Avocados the size of my head.