A Post!

And no one is going to get in my way!
oh wait, it's over.

Succos Break Production Update!

I woke up at 5:30 this morning. That is roughly an hour and a half earlier than I would ever wake up on a school day. Why, you may ask?
Because I'm gonna be rich!
Ok, not rich. I'm going to be 100 bucks richer. Probably not worth it. Somehow, my summer job of being a mashgiach (mashiach, if you will) of an old age home has extended into not only my summer break, but ALL of my breaks. Which is both a gift, and a curse. But today so far, has not been fun, and it's only 7:24 in the morning.
I got up, got dressed, ate a bowl of cocoa rice crispies, and then came to a startling realization: I didn't know where my ID badge was. The one thing that identifies me as the Messiah, and I had somehow misplaced it. No I hadn't misplaced it. I put it on the dining room table two days earlier! It had been cleared yesterday by fudge for a birthday party for someone I don't know! Now I was faced with a choice. I could wake fudge up and interrogate her as to where she put the badge, I could leave now and get to work on time, without the ID badge, or I could look for it myself, and the ovens at the home would have to wait fifteen or twenty minutes before I came, my majestic cape billowing in the wind, to turn them on. I decided to leave without it. I'm only working until 9 today, so I think they can forgive me not wearing it for 2 and a half hours. But if it's not found by the time I get home...
Anyways, I got into the car, freezing and shivering, honked the horn a couple times by accident trying to get the dang club off the wheel, and started pulling out. A few seconds later I realized I did not have my esrog and lulav with me. Sure I could still go inside and get it, but that would mean I would be extra late to work, AND I wouldn't have my ID badge, and so I left without it. So far, the morning has been almost a total faliure.
As I drove down the dark cold road in sheer terror without any rear view mirror (the back window did not defrost the entire drive there) I realized the only way this morning could get worse would be I crashed into someone, or they crashed into me (at this point I realized I didn't have my cell phone either). But I did get here with no problems, and now all the ovens and serverees are on and purring happily.
And they call it succos break. If I could live at home the rest of the school year, I might call is school break.

Goodbye summer vacation!!!

We'll miss you!!

I went on the superman ride!!!

Oh yeah.

This post is a little late in coming, since all of this happened more than a week ago, but it is still very fresh in my mind, and I hadn't really thought to blog about it until now.
We went to six flags with my Israeli cousins last week. I don't know if they'd ever been to an amusement park before, but I was sure they had never seen anything like this in Israel. Of course, as we drove up, we saw all the rides that go tall enough to be seen several miles out. And I had the usual thoughts of "there is not enough money in the world to get me on one of those, and especially not if I'm paying them."

Ha Ha.

Well, I've been thinking that ever since I saw the batman ride they have at six flags merely because it went upside down. I've sworn since never to go on the batman ride, and so far I've kept to that pretty faithfully.
I of course had no plans to go on the Superman ride when I came, and we even passed it several times before I ended up going in. We passed it the first time, and my mom, who loves the superman movies, declared "yeah you're not getting me on that thing." I agreed. My past roller coaster experiences were limited to the Wizzer, which was one of the few rides in the park that describe themselves as "family rides". The superman ride had a seat out front that said "Test Seat". I guessed it was a precaution that said something like "this is to make sure you won't fall out of the seat in the middle of our ride, because if you do, it will not be pretty." It also seemed to say "If you fit in this seat, you will be perfectly safe!! Really!!!"
I wondered if there was any paperwork to do while you waited in the 800 capacity line.
After a couple hours at the park, we split into smaller groups, and I wound up with one of my adult second cousins from Israel (who is in the military). He told me he was going on the Superman ride and I should go with him "because it would be fun". I had two thoughts about this: Never ever ever; and "what if it is fun, and I never know it?" I looked up at the screaming people. They looked like they were having fun. I guess. And of course, if I didn't go I would look like a chicken. So I reasoned that I would wait in line, but not actually go on the ride when the time came. Besides, it would probably be too long a wait anyways, right?
It turned out, since it had just been raining, the line was only about %20 full, and the ride seated like 24 people at a time. So I had about a half an hour to get my wits together and go on the ride.
I might have gone crazy watching those people go overhead every 25 seconds had it not been for all the clever distractions they had for you to look at while you were in line. Like giant posters of all the superman villians in world history and their eye colors and life stories.
When we were about five minutes away, my cousin split into another line. This line was only for people going in the front row. It could have said, "crazy people only" and the waiting estimation was four times the other lines. I tactfully decided not to go into this line, but I wasn't about to go on the ride before my cousin did. So I waited. Not exactly on purpose, but whenever the ride came back I would say "Uhh....do you want to go next?" and the people behind me would say "Umm...no you can go." And then I would just walk away, and they would go on.
Right before I got on the ride, I realized that this ride was not any ride. When you sat down, the seat
flipped over so that you were looking at the ground. I was going to go several stories high looking at the ground the whole time. This did not sound fun. I resolved to keep my eyes closed until the ride started going downhill.
Finally I got in, and lucky for me the only seat left was the one on the end. So I sat down next to some guy probably my age with long blonde hair, who was laughing nervously with his friends. I wondered whether or not if my cousin was sitting right next to me I would be saying something along the lines of "I am going to kill you."
So the right flipped over like I knew it would, and it was about then that I closed Omy eyes. I felt wind, and I felt us going up. The guy next to me was saying "Oh this is crazy" I kept my eyes shut. And we kept going higher and higher. I listened for signs of the ride tilting downward so I wouldn't be too surprised when it happened. I got it when the guy next to me said "I don't know who talked me into this OOOOOOONNNNEEEEE!!!!!!!!"
I opened my eyes for a second, then decided it might be a better idea to keep them closed.
I would occasionally open them for a couple seconds. Now, ironically, I wish I had kept them open the whole time, because those moments when my eyes were open were the best parts of my day at six flags. My cousin later said that it was even more amazing in the front row, since there was nothing in front of him and it actually felt like he was flying.
It was an amazing ride, the most amazing ride I've ever been on. When it finished (the ride was only about 45 seconds long) I had two thoughts "thank god that's over", and "I have to go on that again". You see, after a little while in the "stomach position" you get used to it and I think you can enjoy the ride a little more after that. I told my cousin when we got down that I wanted another go, but when he actually agreed to that and started going back in line, I realized maybe I didn't want to go through that again. So I told him I didn't want to wait another half hour for the same ride, and we left.
But when I left, I felt different. I had the feeling like "the first thing I'm doing when I come back is going on that ride". I think when you go on one of those big rides, it becomes less daunting and easier to go the next time.
So, keep an eye out for me up there!

The Nine Days...

Working in an old age home kitchen, one would not think that I would be disappointed about not being able to eat any of their all-meat meals for the next week. But the truth is, the meals at this place are not so bad. In some cases, they're actually amazing. Of course, the only meal I've found to fit the description of "amazing" here would be the beef brisket, which I only had once. But what were the chances of them having that again within these specific days when we can't eat meat?
Well, apparently good enough, because when I checked in today (monday) and looked at the schedule, the first thing I saw was

"BEEF BRISKET"


"Is this a joke?" I thought to myself. How can God expect me to resist the old home's beef brisket? That's like some of the best stuff you can get in milwaukee (without cooking it yourself). Especially when I have to serve it to 5 different floors? And I'm not even so sure why we're not allowed to eat meat during the 9 days.
We better be having something good for supper at home...

pt anatomy

fawnd this up on the fridge.
class is now in session.

coming soon:
"castle slugworth!!"

How did it come to this?

I saw this sign in the elevator where I work today...

"MONDAY- JULY 28th

BLACK AND BLUE JEANS DAY

Wear black and blue jeans...just for fun!!!!"

Is this what we have to do these days?...

funny anyways

funny if you've played the games

Deep thought in the kitchen

Worker 1: Hey, what's the good word?

Worker 2: Oh...Friday's the good word.

Worker 1: Friday? Why is Friday the good word?

Worker 2: Because Friday is payday.

Worker 1: So shouldn't payday be the good word?

Worker 2: Yeah, I guess...payday is the good word.

Worker 1: Why's payday the good word?

Worker 2: Because we get money on payday.

Worker 1: So shouldn't money be the good word?

Worker 2: Okay money is the good word?

Worker 1: Why's money the good word....

I could go on but do I have to? This while spending an hour and a half straight checking lettuce.
No, seriously, I love my summer job as a mashgiach (or as my id badge says "Mashiagh"). I kind of have a thing for cooking and baking, and part of the job is helping the kitchen staff with preparing and serving the meals. So I learn a thing or two on the job, and alot of the workers are nice people. And I get my own office. So things turn out pretty well. The only problem right now is getting there. Of my last two adventures with the transit system, I have been twenty minutes late getting home, and today getting to work. The alternative, which would be to drive (and which I do most of the time) is much more expensive, because I'm not the only one who uses the car, and filling up more than once a week is a killer.

Ho man!

What are we Going to Do without the Xbox? Seriously, I think we paid enough for this thing for it to not break within a year of buying it. By the time the summer is over, the people at microsoft will have finally gotten their feet off the table and started the process of walking-over-to-that-box-in-the-corner-and-finding-out-what-the-heck-is-in-it.
If anyone has any suggestions on a faster way to fix this than shipping it back to microsoft, please let me know.
(we don't have three lights. we have one in the bottom right corner)

The story so far...

You don't give much thought to some things until you have to. During the school year, I would never wonder for a second what I would be doing with all my free time over the summer vacation. But now that it's here, I spend most of the time having nothing better to do than play xbox or drive my sisters to and from their day camp. Which is kind of boring. Yes I have work, but I generally do not work for more than 4 hours a day (not my choice, that's the way the job works), and not even everyday. And I'm still making...lets see... five times what I made last year? If everything goes well, I will have enough money to live quite comfortably during my last year of high school. Which brings me to that. I have a reading I have to write an essay on for AP english over the summer, and I have to study for the SAT'a, because I have to beat my brothers apparently awesome score. And I have to somehow sell 50 raffle tickets for my senior class trip. So it's not like I have nothing to do, I guess. I just don't want to do any of that stuff. I'll just have to face the music eventually.

Some of you old timers may remember we were planning on making a Space- the movie for the summer of 2008.

As of right now I have no idea if this is going to happen or not. I asked them to write a screenplay for me, and I wasn't so impressed with what they came up with. So we'll just have to see what happens with this.
But I can tell you that if we do wind up doing it, it's going to have way more special effects than I've ever used before. Should be interesting. It'll give me something to do.

The end is near

It's June. I've waited all year for it to be June. And now it's June.
You know my older sister can't even remember what it's like to have school in June? She gets out in MAY, while we haven't even started having nightmares about finals until early June. That kind of makes me wonder: doesn't college have a much more complicated curriculum, and yet while we both start at the same time, the college is beating my Yeshiva by a solid month? I do have a chemistry teacher who tells us that we only have two thirds of an ordinary school year since we have so many breaks, but I've never seen that to be realistic, seeing as how we have something like a fourteen hour day.
But anyways, with finals coming up, sometimes I start to wonder about my academic career. Not like what I'm going to major in. I asked my grandfather if he thought I should know by now what I want to major in. He said "No, it's far to early. What, you're going to be a junior next year, right?" To which I had to tell him that I'm actually going to be a senior next year. But I'm not talking about college. Just about how I'm doing now, in high school.
The whole year people in my class have told me how I seem to have it so easy, and I've never really taken it to heart. I do practically no homework at all, study for less than an hour for every test I take, excluding gemara, space out a significant amount of time in many of my classes, and I'm still making honors, albeit barely. What can I say? I'm not terribly motivated in most of these areas. I pay attention when I'm interested, but that unfortunatly is almost never.
I realize that this means if I tried, I could be close to the top of my class. It's true that I was offered to move up last year to the next Gemara class. I turned it down because it would have been much more work. Meaning I would have been challenged. That's supposed to be a good thing, but it wasn't the only factor. I usually don't seem to have the energy to try as hard as I see my classmates trying. At least I think that's the reason.
And of course, when it comes to finals, it's really the ultimate test of if I'm going to be able to get myself to study. There's usually so much material, that I know if I try I'll never get through it all anyway, but for finals I usually put in effort. At the end of the day, though, I always wonder how much good it did me.
Sometimes I think if I make things a little more exciting, I won't have the boredom issue weighing me down, and it might help me get back on track (not that I'm really off track) Like the other day, I biked to my house. It was true that I had multiple excuses to go there, but I think I just wanted to do something new. It worked a little.
Well, I have to go type an english essay...that I finished two days ago...maybe I'll look it over again. You never know what he's looking for in there.

Nuthing lik a barbiku

Last Sunday, my class had a barbecue/baseball game at a local park. The reason was because our newly appointed class president felt we don't have enough "achdus" (brother-ness [?]) in our class. Which is true. My class is split up into several different groups, most of which get along just fine, but don't have much to do with each other. But as our president illustrated with vivid examples (my *cough* room) we are clearly not at the level of the current seniors, which we will need to be if we are going to be seniors next year.
We noticed during our class meeting that we never have any 2 am barbecues like other classes do. Some of us didn't like the idea of eating meat at 2 in the morning, but some thought it was a good way to bring the class together. Both of which are true. We agreed that we needed to do something, so after brainstorming several ideas, we eventually agreed upon the sunday afternoon barbecue and baseball game.
I was not so fond of that idea because I usually go home on sunday and do laundry and see my sisters, but since it got postponed until after an out shabbos anyways due to rain, that didn't turn out to be so bad. To illustrate how the whole thing went down, I have chosen to write my own PT book,

Nuthing lik a barbiku
by rafikee

this buk belogs to
rafikee

In the afternoon, i go to the park
our gril dosnt lik to
not vere

my roommate sleps lat

i cary the gril to the park and its legs fal off
my frends get mad


ware my meat is!!!!
bak at skool, that is ware it is!

("What's on this page?")

This is me striking out at bat.

(What's that in the background?")

Those are the guys at the other field drinking beer upside down.

("They drink beer upside down?")

Yeah, they like to do that!

("Who's the guy in the tank top?")

That's my team's pitcher. He's getting a tan!

wut cind of pich is this?
Wuat!?
You didnt get a gud pcih. You shud hav walked.

Ar you going to leve? Ar you going to call a taksi and go hom?
no, I stil want to hav a barbiku.

(What's happening in this picture?)

Dreaming...do dodo do do do...

(What's he dreaming about?)

He's dreaming a ball is coming his way all the way out in right field.
oh, wait, a ball is coming his way in right field!

I COT THE BAL!

now i gess i wont leve.


Wi do I cep geting bad pichs?
Probably because you're eighth at bat.

Wuat! my stek is so smal!

mabe barbikus ar good,

F for "forgot condiments"

A for alon (in right field)

barbikus are more important
evry other day

the end!

The Crackdown

this video has been removed. Please contact me at rafiskier@gmail.com if you want to get a link.

In Memorandum

Long time readers may know that I own two palm pilots, by some strange twist of fate. One was quite expensive, but old, and the other was new and "school safe"-meaning it had no graphical abilities. Palm Pilots have taught me one thing; I'm very gullible when it comes to these ads and pictures of shiney new expensive electronics. I could see something I could not in my wildest dreams think of a way I could use it, but if it looks cool enough I will buy it. Such was definetley the case with these two gadgets.
After I got the first one back (it was confiscated in freshman year and given back to me at the beginning of this year) I was not sure what I was going to do with 2 palm pilots. I failed to sell either one. The idea of making a raffle for them with 1 or $2 tickets came to mind, but I never bothered. There were some useful things I kept on them, but most of the time they were not used or just unnecessary. I actually tried to return the white one 2 weeks after I bought it, but the return policy for Office Depot is 14 days, and I was on day 16.
So anyways, both palm pilots were sitting in one of my friends rooms over the afternoon (he needed to use the charger), and sometime between 5 and 8PM on April 8th, 2008, both palm pilots and the charger were stolen.
I was pissed off, but not crazy. I didn't use them for much, but collectivly they were worth $300+ and it seemed like a waste of money to let them just be stolen. So I went from room to room, searching. I had some suspects, but they turned out either not to have it, or hid it really really well. It most likley was not a janitor, because they don't work during that time. The Rabbeim were sympathetic, but they didn't do much more than I expected them to.
This is a trend in my Yeshiva now. Over this past year, more stealing has happened than ever before, especially in the last two weeks. As the director of the student kitchen, I can say that thousands of dollars in meat have been stolen this year from the freezers. Someone had $800 stolen over Purim break. Just last week an Ipod was stolen. Something, clearly, must be done.

The movie is finished! Expect a link very soon!

trailer

My Inbox

I probably shouldn't have given the PSATs my email address.

Purim 2008

Have you seen these renegade terrorists?

Sorry about the total lack of stuff

Between schoolwork and creating a major motion picture, I haven't had much time for blogging. I meant to put some material from the movie on the blog, but there are many reasons why I may not make it available to everyone with an internet connection. For one thing I am not so sure the rabb eim would approve of it. At all. It's not a bad movie in any way, but it may paint them in a less than positive light. I can't say they could suspend me for it, or punish me at all, but still...it would probably be best for everyone if they never saw it.
I have part of it on YouTube, but it has basically no tags, and I'm worried about putting any on it. I plan to make a trailer pretty soon, and that's what's going to go on the blog. Expect it sometime between now and Pesach. That's kind of a long time period, but I don't have any time as it is.

The Crackdown

New movie from the creators of other movies!
Coming soon to a computer near you!

Taking a much needed three day vacation

If you need me, don't. I almost died of exhaustion this last week. If I'm up to it, I'll make a post later.

Go Giants!!

the slip

Looking at all my immediate family's blogs, I can see that no one has brought up what happened last sunday. Of course, this could be for several reasons, a few could apply to me as well. Therefore there is probably a good reason why I shouldn't write this, but as I and Iguana are the only eye witnesses to speak of, I feel that many people will be wondering exactly what happened.
The end of winter break was dangerously close. So close in fact that I wasn't really thinking about it. But my brother was, constantly reminding me by asking me if I knew what it felt like to know your freedom was about to end or whatever. I just said no. That was the last two years. This year I don't care about going back to school anymore. I'm on top of things now.
So anyways, the end of break means...lice checking!!! No, not for me, for all those elementary school goers that are related to me, such as the PT and Iguana. After two futile attempts made by my mom to get them into the high security compound that is our elementary school (the doors were locked) my mom asked me to drive them over while she made lunch. Yes, I now have a license and can drive without a fully licensed person with me, but this was to be the first time I would be actually doing that. That was a little scary to think about, what with all the snow being on the ground, but I figured I'd be okay. And I was. That was not the issue.
After daringly turning a slightly busy corner to get closer to the school, we all piled out of the car to get inside the school. There are two entrances; stairs that lead into the building, and a ramp. Me and Iguana went up the ramp, and the PT, what with the goofball she is , decided to go around, and ran around to the stairs. "Whatever" I thought "If it makes her happy".
So after lice checking, we started to head out. When we left the building, this time me and Iguana went down the steps, which was the most direct approach to the car, which was right across the street. The PT, of course, ran down the ramp.
This is where things get creepy when I think about it. She was running down the ramp, laughing away, and right when she started running down the slush covered ramp, she stumbled and caught herself. I should have realized right then, and I was actually processing a warning through my brain to tell her when, as she reached the bottom, she slipped backward, landed on her back, and slid down the rest of the ramp on the back of her coat.
She was crying the kind of cry I expected to hear if she had pinched herself or gotten scared (which is what I assumed had happened) so I helped her up with Iguana and we started to head for the car. I was saying things like "don't worry" "it's okay" ect. because at the worst, I figured she had scraped her hand. On our way to the car, an older jewish woman I do not know came over to us.
"Is she okay"
"Yeah she's fine." I said.
"Here I have some stuff for her" the woman said back, reaching into her purse and pulling out a small glass bottle with a gold liquid inside and a dropper.
"Here's some rescue remedey" she said. The PT, of course would never take candy from a stranger and gave a very negative screech.
"Okay, she doesn't want any remedy, what else can I do?" the woman said half chuckling as she walked away. To this day I have no idea what was in that bottle.
So we went back to the car. The PT was still crying as we drove home, which was not something I had expected. I made the usual jokes which usually make her forget about pain, but she did not seem interested.
We got into the house and showed the injury to my mom, who took it much harder than I had. She did the usual "does this hurt" routine with her and ended up putting an ace bandage around her wrist. We asked the PT what happened to her wrist, and she said she didn't remember. I, at this point, thought she might have sprained it breaking her fall on the ground. Iguana was saying something about stretching her muscles. I never quite knew how either was possible. I didn't see her hands or wrists involved at all.
Yet, my mom told me she was almost certain that is was broken, and the PT wouldn't really eat her mac and cheese and was still moaning, so we ended up taking her to the hospital, getting an xray, and discovering that in fact, she had broken her wrist in two places. She will have a cast on for four weeks. This is her right wrist. To me, that sounds like she can't write books, play video games, use computers, eat, and tons of other stuff for four weeks. And she's only six. This is what is haunting me right now. There were so many ways that didn't have to happen.
But I called her tonight and she sounded fine, in fact not really interested in talking to me (she was in the middle of watching "kronks new groove"). She got a white and red striped cat in the hat cast, and she sounded perfectly normal, so I'm feeling much better about the whole thing now. I considered making a get well card and having everyone at the school sign it, but my mom told me she wouldn't know the difference (which is probably true).

Get Up

Ahh...the sheer bliss that is winter break. The truth is that for me, it's difficult for me to enjoy a vacation because I spend the whole time thinking about how much time I have left. It's like an automatic reflex
Me thinking: Cool it's winter break! Oh no! I only have Five days left and then I have a whole semester all over again!

So how does one enjoy the one week long vacation with no yom tovs one gets all year? Sleeping in? No, I tried to wake up at 6:25 this morning. I distinctly remember hearing my Palm Pilot's alarm going off, and thinking "oh shoot they're going to be pissed if I don't turn that off right now!" Then I turn it off and immediatly I start thinking about how I'm going to not fall back asleep. Often it is like a civil war.
"You need to get up for shul" I tell myself.
"But I don't want to get up!"
"But you have to!"
"But it's cold outside the bed, and I'm tired, and it would be so much better to just go back to sleep"
"But you set your alarm for now, and it was probably for a really good reason (that I can't quite remember being 3/4 asleep) and anyways you're already up, so get out of that bed, put your dang clothes on and get to shul somehow before you miss the 6:45 minyan! After all, wouldn't it suck if you slept in and missed it?"
That gets me maybe half the time to get out of bed. This morning I was not so fortunate. I don't remember going back to sleep. My last thought may have been something like
"I'll just lie back for a minute so I can work up the energy to get out of bed."
So anyways I wake up and it's 8:15. I don't have an issue WAKING up, just getting up. This is a very fine line. So my brother (Out of Ammo) of course gets up right away and starts getting me up.
At this point in the morning I am never in the mood to put up with crap, especially since I always know right away that I slept in even though I was up and thinking earlier. So my brother starts being annoying so I'll get up. I believe if it were anyone but him I may have gotten up, it's just something about the tone it's said in in combination with my already annoyed additude that bugs me. The conversation this morning went something like this:
"Get up!"
*muffled grunt*
"Come on get up!"
*no response* (at this point I think if I don't bother you you won't bother me)
"Get up!"
*slightly irritated grunt* Noise I can take.
"Get up!" (starts pulling at my blanket, not very succesful. I have improved on defending my blanket after years of crappy veckers)
"Get up!"
Now I will do anything to stop him from saying that.
"Will you cut it out?"
"but you need to get up!"
"That's great, but it's not your problem! I'll get up when I'm ready!"
slight pause
"But you need to get up!"
Around here i'm just like "this is going nowhere" so I just get up since I'm mostly awake by then anyways, but really, not the best way to start the day.

This Sucks

While I realize that many of you will not have much interest in reading this, and it will probably invoke some "who cares" faces out of many of you reading it, it's pretty much what's going on with me right now and I need to blow off some steam about it.
To the untrained eye, I have the perfect dorm room this year. The treasured "5 man room" (even the alumni came in and told us it was the best room in the school), the best shower, and I even got all the roommmates I had requested the year before (+ one I had in freshman year and created many social complications- but I can get past that). But if you spent ten minutes in there with everyone together, you would see things are not as good as they would appear. That something the Rabbis have trouble with. But we'll get to that later.
The thing is, one of the people on that "request list" is not quite the same person he was a year ago. Maybe that's just how I see it since I didn't spend a ton of time with him last year, maybe he actually did get worse. But he's definetly got plans for his life that would differ with the yeshiva's more than a little. For those yeshivish readers, he would be called "off the derech". But that's not to say he's a mean person. A little...forceful maybe, but all in all, definetly a nice guy. Even though every other word he utters is a curse word as bad as they come, and although the things he discusses are not very "neshoma enriching", he's still not a mean person. He has however, practically admitted to us that he doesn't believe in God, and never goes to davening.
Do I care about all this? A little, not enough to really do anything about it.
But there's another guy (one I didn't request) who may believe in God, but is half the time a total jerk, and the other time an awesome person. This one baffles me. He plays the worst type of rap music on the radio in our room 24/7 (or did, until the radio was confiscated) but recieves dvar torah's once a week from his father, which he graciously forwards to me. I can't stand him when he's being a jerk, but when he's in a nice mood, he's great. Him and the other guy I talked about are great friends and both love the room.
That leaves me and two other people. We're the "Jewish" half of the room. That basically means we come to davening, don't mouth off to the rabbeim, and don't have goyish friends (as opposed to the other two). And we didn't really enjoy the influence of the other two for the first four months or so. We were worried we would be like them by the end of the year. Meanwhile another friend of mine desperatly wants to switch out of his two man room because he can't stand his roommate, and was pushing for a room switch. Things all got really complicated, with vast plans of who did and didn't want to room with who, and in the end one of the three jewish guys from my room went to the Rabbi. He told them he didn't like their influence and wanted a change. He also told them that me and the other jewish guy wanted the same thing (which was true- but to an extent). So the two of us got pulled out of class and talked to by the rabbi about all this. We didn't snitch. The Rabbi told us first that we were not going to snitch to him and nothing we told him would get them in trouble. Okay. So he asked us if they were doing certain things, all of which they were. Then we discussed what the change would be. The two guys definetly did not want to leave the room (one dropped in right before the meeting and told the rabbi that) but the rabbi decided that if they're going to be a bad influence, they're going to have to leave. We said okay. That night, the rabbi broke the news to the two roommates who would be forced out of the room. They did not take it very well. For the first two days not much was said between us. But after a while, the jerk started accusing me of snitching (an accusation that still is going on) and the other one said he didn't trust me but otherwise has made his peace. (the plan called for him to get his own room)
Things have died down a little, but basically I wound up with most of the blame, since I'm kind of the goody goody in our room. Things were much more serious a while ago, but the resentment can still be felt for sure. No switch has actually happened yet (the rabbeim take forever to do anything) but things might move smoother now that someone was expelled (extra space). Sounds cruel, but is very true.
Thanks for reading Dovid Safir.

Sorry

I've been meaning to post for a very long time but I still don't have enough time to make a post.
That should tell you how busy I am. (or how hard it is for me to get to the internet) I'll try to post again soon. I think facebook has really distracted me, and hasn't done me very much good.
Something should go up this week.