Sand through an hour glass and other over-used metaphors

With only seven-and-a-half days left in this country things are rapidly winding down and all the Last Moments are waiting there turn to be noticed and commemorated.  Last Saturday marked my Last Shabbat on the Kibbutz and my Last Opportunity to Go to the Club (which I had every intention of doing but ended up missing completely), last night was [probably] my Last Time Shopping in Rehovot, today marked the important and emotional Last Class with Our Teacher, and there are many more Last Moments ahead of me.  Each one will get their moment in the spotlight where it is potentially overly-cherished, celebrated, and wished farewell.

Saying goodbye to our teacher today was a fairly significant one of the Lasts.  Though we have a few more hours of class before our exam on Thursday our teacher will not be with us for them as she is flying to the U.S. with her son for a couple months of site-seeing and frivolity, so today we celebrated.  We bought her a hilarious thank you/parting gift, I wrote her a special card of my own, and she baked us a cake.  We took pictures, some girls shed a few tears, and we said our goodbyes.  It truly was one of those moments that renewed my faith and desire to be a teacher.

Thursday will be my last full day on the kibbutz and Friday I plan on leaving to travel a bit more before I leave.  Yet despite the fact that the next few days will be filled with packing, organizing, arranging, then traveling, hiking, hanging out, and more traveling, I have surprisingly few things on my mental list of Things I Want to Do Before I Leave Israel.  I suppose that's a good sign indicating that I have, in fact, experienced a lot while here and I'll be ready to go home without feeling as if I missed out on too much.  With the exception of eating at another hummussia and visiting the Banias before I leave, I don't feel there's a lot I absolutely have to do before I leave.  All in all, I'm feeling very fulfilled.

Additionally, one reason I don't feel the urge to do more here may have to do with the incredibly strong force that is homesickness.  Even now it's hard for me to believe that I picked up and flew away from my family and friends for so long, and the allure of seeing them again so soon is almost too much to bear.  Generally speaking I didn't suffer from great bouts of homesickness.  With the exception of the holidays and my birthday I usually kept busy and enjoyed myself enough to justify being so removed from normal life, but when I allow myself to stop and think about it the distance is almost too much to bear, especially when it comes to my friends.  Sure, I've made friends here, but nobody compares to my amazing group at home.  Ya hear that, girls and guy (you know who you are)?  We're only a week away from the most epic reunion we've had yet!

I know this is a short post (Who just exasperatedly said "finally"?), but rest assured there will be more posts coming in the following days.  After all, I have to give each of those Last Moments their well-earned minutes of fame, right?