Day One Begins

After a three AM wakeup call for a full 20+ hour day of sitting on airplanes, I have finally settled down into the AMHSI bunk. I was unsurprised to find that the initial terror of the night before faded relatively quickly after making past the first security checkpoint in SEA TAC. Bolstered by my miniature victory against the TSA, The remainder of the morning passed uneventfully. Once seated I came to the odd realization that I was no longer concerned with my surroundings. The wonder of flight had officially worn off, perhaps for good, and while the flight between my home and Santa Cruz no longer holds the thrill of adventure in my heart, I always thought that New York would tempt me a little stronger. Perhaps my eager anticipation was diluted by the stop in desolate-brown Phoenix Arizona. Perhaps the real excitement would begin once the trip to my final destination had commenced. Perhaps the eminent foreboding at my journey had not quite passed me by as much as I thought...

Anyhow, as I sat, reading at page 434 The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay , on the flight leaving barren Phoenix, my bemusement at the miracle-of-flight slowly faded to boredom and I was forced to double the pace of my lazy reading in order to entertain myself. After what I assume to be somewhere in the neighborhood of a six hour flight, slanted somewhat by my sleep addled half waking state, and rounding the six hundredth page of my novel, I landed decisively in New York. Following my luggage claim and a brief, confusing foray into the layout of what I now understand to be the vast expanse of JFK Airport, I came across the loose and awkward conglomerate that would comprise my network of peers in the upcoming weeks. I recall wondering, never quite taking myself seriously, whether any of the multitudinous Jews I saw around me leading up to my induction could be heading my way. Whether, perhaps, my neighbor on the New York bound flight with the hairy arms and prominent nose could possibly be following the same path as myself. I entertained a fantasy of running into him again on my next flight and realizing, laughing at the coincidence. I allowed myself to imagine dozens of meetings with dozens of people around me. It helped fill the time of the endless, mind-killing, drudging, continuous, perpetual boredom.

But that was in the past. I had found AMHSI.

I picked out a quiet boy in red, very good looking in a Jewish sort of way, but unsure, as if he wasn't sure what he was doing there. His name, he told me, is Adam. I asked him if I was in the right place? who were we all waiting for? was this AMHSI? Pointless questions designed mostly to advertise my presence. It worked. The crowd turned to me for a brief moment. I was Jacob, from Seattle, as they all were answered one by one. Then the conversation rotated back to the usual epicenters, the alpha-males. Some of the boys looked like they'd been cut out of Aggressive Sports magazine, with the bodies of small albino gorillas and faces that I couldn't help but think of, much to my own internal amused chagrin, as Aryan. It quickly became clear that the head honcho was another boy named Adam. Taller than the rest but, lean, and with the face of Persian royalty, sporting a bucket hat that he proclaimed, effectively so as it appeared, to be bringing back in style. He would turn out to be my flight neighbor, where we would in turn discuss social caste, academia, our flaws, our skills, and his own charisma. He has yet to prove to me a reason to be disliked, although I feel there is one below the surface. His aforementioned charisma is nearly an affront to comfort. His constant alpha-male demeanor a little off putting. He is positive that I will hate him before a few days have passed. I must admit, the pseudonym he assigned me sent him down that path. I am Conan.

Yet, once the circles had been drawn (using the guidelines of previous acquaintance to the other participants, of which I seem to be the solitary loner) I found conversations. They were stilted and awkward, they took the effort of a dialogue with a partner who themselves lacked the conversation skills to be included in a circle but, thank god, they existed. I talked on and off with dozens of people, all fascinated for a brief time with the distant land of Seattle, then after completing my 638 page book on the trans-Atlantic flight, we arrived in Israel.

It was not, as I had hoped, complete with an exultant wave of awe. Seen from afar, it is by no means a beautiful country. Its residents, those who do not posses the ethereal beauty of the middle east, are old, fat, dark, wrinkled, and more likely than not enshrouded in conservative black. Its buildings are short, brown and stained to so many shades of beige that they eventually resign themselves to neutral gray. The dust is everywhere.

We arrived on campus to a waiting meal and a heap of new people, three of whom are now clumsily unpacking in varying degrees of undress as I write these final words. The taste of this country is so foreign. Our simple dinner of pasta, salad, and pudding refused to cooperate with my exhausted taste buds. I have yet to wash up from my journey.

Now, in the taunting promise of imminent sleep, I will close my first Israel post with this. Tomorrow is going to be incredible.