the past few weeks

HI to all,

Life has continued to move forward and the past few weeks in the army have had their ups and downs. In the army we have moved from basic training to hebrew course and we are now learning hebrew for anywhere from 6-8 hours a day. Since my hebrew is not that great I have a private tutor and learn one on one with the tutor while the rest of my group is in the class. My hebrew has greatly improved and I am starting to understand and speak more than i did when i first started the army. This past week has been really busy at the base. We have had some very important people come to the base so there have been many ceremonies for that. We have a women from the knesset (israeli government) come to the base to visit with soldiers from other countries so we had a big ceremony for that. We also had the head commander of the education unit come and take a tour of the base. we also had a ceremony because today is Tubeshvat. so we had a flag raising with all of the groups from the base and the commander of the base gave us a speech. so this week has been full of important events and that has been a good break from just sitting in the classroom all day.
Many people have asked how i have been feeling lately. I am still struggling with the migraines and the effects from them. I have been having a hard time dealing with the pain and that has been really frustrating when you can't take the time you need to feel better and take care of yourself. I continue to push on though and not let the pain hold me back. Being in the army you can't just give up and i don't want to just give in to the pain, so i just put on a smile and move on.
I have been slowly making friends, but that has also been hard. in my group i am the only one that speaks english, the rest of the group speaks russian, so i am an outsider in my group. But there are other girls in other groups that speak english and i have been making friends with a lot of the other english speaking girls. I have gotten to know some of them pretty well and we hang out whenever we can during our breaks.
Overall the army has been good. yes you do not have your own time or your own space, but the you get used to the structure of the army and it has now become a part of my life. There have been many challenges, but slowly I am rising up to these challenges and overcoming them. I never fully understood how hard life really can be until now. and because of this i am learning more about myself and it has been amazing to see.
I hope that everyone is doing well! please keep in touch. It makes my day to read all of you e-mails and notes and it really means a lot to me!
Love,
Roxanne

hi to all

hi to all my friends and family,

It has been a couple of weeks since i have written. I have been very busy with the army and have not had much free time. The past two weeks have been hard both physically and mentally. Boot camp has been interesting to say the least. Last week we were at the shooting range for two days learning about the guns and how to shoot them. I actually enjoyed the shooting range more than I thought that i would. I realized that i am a pretty good marksman and that made me feel more confident in my abilities with the M16. Last week we also did outdoor survival as well as first aid, learning about the radio, doing guard duty, and a lot of team building. Then last weekend we stayed on base for shabbat and had guard duty all weekend. It was actually more relaxed on the base than i thought it would be.
This week has also been hard. We had a lot of testing because we finished our boot camp. So there was a lot of drills, and testing. We also had a very big ceremony on Tuesday where we got sworn into the army. The ceremony was held at one of the prisons that was used for holding soldiers of the underground army during the british mandate. The ceremony was really nice, but i really missed having people there to support me.
Today we got to come home for the weekend. I am staying at a friends house for the weekend and enjoying not being on a time schedule and being able to do what i want when I want. Being home for the weekend is also weird at the same time. I never thought that i would be looking for my gun and wondering why it is not on me. While on base you are always with your gun and this weekend i am not and it is really weird not having it.
Overall I am enjoying the army experience it is making me stronger both physically and mentally and I am definitely growing from it. I miss all of you and hope that all is well. Please keep in touch. it means a lot to me when I hear from all of you!
Love,
Roxanne

Happy new year!

Hi to all,

I hope that everyone has had a great new Years! I spent mine with friends in Jerusalem and rang in the new year with my army uniform on. I have now been in the army for two weeks and it has been an amazing as well as difficult experience. Going through the drafting process was very interesting. They have an assembly line system to get you through there quickly, but there is still a lot of waiting and confusion. As soon as you put on you uniform though you start to get yelled at by commanders that cannot do anything to you. After everyone has gotten their uniform we were taken onto the bus and driven to the base.
The first week on base you are taking tests for your hebrew level, having interviews and just getting oriented to being in the army. The first week is pretty intense, but it gets even more intense after the first week. During that first week there is no punishment and not as much moving around.
This past week has been my second week on base. We also started our second week of Tironut which is boot camp. This week has been more demanding and even more intense. We get yelled at, there is a lot of running, and you can get push-ups for making the littlest mistake. Even though it is more tough, I am making friends quickly and am finding a support system within the army. This past week we were also given our guns. So wherever we go we have our guns and we are having classes about the guns and how to use them as well as take care of them. We were able to leave base for the weekend wednesday afternoon and that was a nice break. I have to be back on base sunday morning, so having these couple of days off have been nice.
I am now half-way through the boot camp and after the next two weeks I will start hebrew classes to build a better foundation of hebrew. I am really looking forward to that so that i can start to understand more of what is being asked of me within the army.
I hope that this next year brings many joys to all of you!
Happy New year,
Roxanne