I am decidedly unenthusiastic about the fact that the school years starts tomorrow, which is troubling - I want to feel excited. And I am, intellectually, glad that two days ago the Treasury Dept. and the university chairpersons reached an agreement that brought an end to the threat of a strike. But fuck, I only handed in my last paper 38 days ago, and that does not feel like enough time, not in the least, and for some inexplicable reason I've been feeling really tired all day, and I do not want to go to classes tomorrow.

On the other hand, a bunch of people I know are starting their BAs/MAs at my uni tomorrow, so that's good - whole bunch of new people to have lunch with. And I just returned from watching Appaloosa with sabrina_il, which was fun (and my, so slashy). And I have a new class about the USA tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to... mostly. I hope I wake up with better spirits than I'm in right now.


General updates on my whereabouts this week:

I returned from Eilat on Saturday evening - the trip both to Eilat and Petra was absolutely lovely, easy-paced and beautiful and I should post pictures. I spent the rest of the week meeting with friends pretty much all over the place - Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramle, Haifa. I got a cheap haircut in Jerusalem by a student in the Shuki Zikri hairdressing academy, which turned out okay. The weather's been great - heavy rains in the middle of the week followed by warm weather, and right now (damn Tel Aviv) I honestly feel like turning on the A/C. I nominated fandoms for yuletide. I continued picking my way through The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay which I'm really enjoying, although I can't seen to read more than a dozen pages at at a time (is there such a thing as "reader's block"? because I think I have it), and through episodes of life following sabra_n's rec (thanks for that, BTW). I have gotten absolutely nowhere in all the WIPs I wanted to write. My grandmother ended her post-surgery stay at our house and returned to her place, and my middle sister returned from her 5-month travels in the US and Central America and is wondering what the next step is. I went to a Halloween party last night, dressed up as Mrs. Lovett, which a few people actually got. My first Halloween party, really, and it had black and orange streamers and actual jack-o-lanterns and fake graves in the yard - this is how American we've all become.

You may or may not have known this, but once again, we're going to have an election. Thus continuing the streak of governments we've had since 1992 who haven't been able to complete an entire four-year term.

I know most of my American flist are planning to vote for Obama, and I know you all realize how lucky you are, and man, I have to say, I envy you so much. He seems like a great candidate and I hope he fulfills all that promise as president (if he gets elected, nach), but more than anything, I know how much faith you guys have in him, how much he inspires the nation as a future leader, and god, I wish we had that. I wish I had a candidate I believed in that much; I wish any of our bajillion parties had a candidate people believed in that much (well, unless they were the truly evil parties). I wish we had any chance of having a clean campaign, and inspiring campaign, I wish our campaigns could focus on anything BUT the security situation and Jerusalem and Iran, I wish our parties had something new and interesting to say, I wish our parties had new and interesting people. Instead, two of the three main candidates most likely to run for Prime Minister are Bibi and Barak - two ex-PMs from ten years ago (literally, ten) who both "retired" after their respective governments failed and made comebacks a few years later. Israel may not be a green country yet, but we're probably the world's leaders in recycling politicians.

So yeah, I envy the Democrats Obama. The one 100% shallow bright spot in our upcoming elections is that one of the candidates (and one I will probably vote for), Tzippi Livni, is a woman, and that she has a chance of being elected, and that if she is, the heads of all three branches - executive, judicial, and legislative - will be women, which is pretty awesome in theory, and vaguely feels like an achievement.

All right, I should really get to bed. Sorry for ranting, hope my mood improves tomorrow. *fingers crossed*