Bus 74

OK, first some housekeeping issues. I think we can all see that I failed majorly in the 30 Day Blog Challenge. The only thing that I have actually been able to finish this week is a 10 page paper on Bahrain and a 800 calorie piece of cheesecake. 

Said piece of cheesecake (Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple to be exact) actually was my depressive carb binge that occurred when I left work Wednesday afternoon, definitely the worst day of my year so far.

I was sitting in my computer at my internship that Wednesday morning, trolling on Twitter when I found out that Elizabeth Taylor had died. I texted my friend Jenn with the sad news, lamenting the national catastrophe when she replied "And the bombing in Jerusalem, too!"... It was then that I finally got to refreshing my Twitter feed and literally saw a flood of Tweets coming in talking about a bombing in a Jerusalem bus. 

30 Day Blog Challenge Day 3

Day 03 - A picture of the cast from your favorite show

I got hooked on this show after my friend Gabby told me to watch it while I was slumming it up in her apartment this past summer. I caught myself up on all the series in like 3 days. It is mildly pathetic how quickly I caught myself up. But anyways, I love this show. I quote it daily. I apply their episodes to my every day life and the every day lives of everyone around me. It reminds me how, in high school (the all-girls Catholic kind), I had this one religion teacher who would convince us that every song written could be applied to God. Sure, whatever- I'll give her "Jesus Take the Wheel" but no way in hell is anything with the lyrics "I like 'em real big and juicy, so find that juicy double" about God. Otherwise, there are some way bigger issues in the Catholic Church than abortion and pre-marital sex. But I digress. I love the characters (even though Ted does get kind of annoying and whiny at times) and most importantly- I love the Barneyisms. My favorite being:

A Fail and a Win

OK So obviously I failed with the 30 Day Blog Challenge by not posting yesterday, but allow me to explain as I have a pretty good excuse.

So unfortunately this past semester I have been plagued with the terrible affliction known as "Senioritis". I can barely be bothered to do any work, let alone go to classes. So, when I saw that my soccer team FC Barcelona was going to be playing in a match against Arsenal at 2:45 I naturally decided to skip class in favor of watching the game. I bribed Jenn into coming with a beer and then the shenanagians began.

Weekend Round Up

So it is Monday. Which means another day at work with me staring at a phone that refuses to ring (definitely not complaining about this!), avoiding homework (I made a deal to start it at 11) and Facebook chatting with everyone I know (it is not my fault all my friends living in time zones 7 hours ahead of mine and the only time we actually can speak is some ungodly hour in the morning). So anyways, a large portion of my Monday routine is refreshing Twitter every 2 seconds and writing blog posts about my weekend so my mother can read all about how I got embarrassingly drunk after one wine spritzer (6 months of sobriety killed my tolerance) and was too hungover to attend the $40,000 classes she pays for each year. Oops.

Anyways I know everyone looks forward to this so here is the weekend roundup:

30 Day Blog Challenge Day 2

Day 02 - A picture of you and the person you have been closest with the longest

So Maura and I met back in high school which literally seems like ages ago. We were both kind of outcasts at our all-girls Catholic school; me being Jewish and Maura being... Maura. 

So we found each other and became really good friends and bonded over completely random things. We also ended up both going stag to our Senior prom and having a much better time making fun of every one else and counting down the hours til we could head back to our friend's house for the after party of drinking beer out of Coke cans. 

Although I maybe see Maura a handful of times a year, it never really matters. We are the type of friends that can pick up after ten years and not really have any awkward silences. She always has fun and hilarious stories and is on the track to becoming a hard-core alcoholic but still maintains a 4.0. A true rolemodel. 

30 Day Blog Challenge

Everyone wants to be loved, right? Well so does freefalafel. And I have decided to venture out of my little spot on the blogosphere and go out and try to make some new blog friends. I also have so many incredible and fascinating things to share with the world, and I believe I have a divine mission to spread my knowledge and wisdom to the entire internet community (not really, but just go with it). I also do not really fit into a specific blog genre as I literally write about whatever I am feeling- from politics to shoes. But anyways, I decided to copy my friend Leanna from OMG I moved to NYC  and enter into Fierce, Fit and Fabulous' 30 Day Blog Challenge. Due to Spring Break happening next week, this challenge might end up like me committing myself to the Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred... by making it into a 62 Day Shred. But I will work my hardest because A) I want to get all my eight readers to learn more about me and B) I like answering questions about myself and pretending that people read it and are genuinely fascinated by it. So here goes with Day 1: 

Day 01 - A picture of yourself with ten facts 

This is my favorite picture because A) I am a tan and B) it is incredibly ridiculous and features a manic-depressive cat who may or may not be bipolar. 

1. I have a plethora of fun, unrelated and generally unuseful facts that I tend to not remember whenever they are needed and instead bring up in incredibly inappropriate situations (re: funerals, elevators with strangers, lines at the DMV).

2. I obsessively drink eight glasses- at least - of water every day. I just generally love water. And I have been known to have panic attacks if water is not in close proximity. No big deal. 

3. I love to travel, if you can't tell from speaking with me after five minutes. I can talk about traveling for hours and really pride myself by how well I can usually adapt to other places. I am also more than slightly proud about my ability to make offensive jokes to any culture possible. It is a gift. 

4. I am 22 and I wholeheartedly believe in the existence of leprechauns and unicorns. 

5. I have friends that live on every continent except Antarctica, but I do donate to Greenpeace, so I think the polar bears are my friends. So let's just make it every continent. 

6. I am obsessed with my dog Couscous. Look around my room and there are about eight pictures of him strategically placed. Call it love or compulsive obsession, I will never stop calling my mother and asking her to put my dog on the phone. 

7. I am currently training for a 5 mile run in May. Considering the last time I ran in my life was when I was 8 to catch the ice cream truck, this is a big deal for me. Be proud. 

8. I refuse to watch commercials. I will literally change the channel any time a commercial comes on. They are the bane of my existence, 

9.  I watch QVC for fun. 

10. I am a closet romance novel reader. And yes, by writing this I am coming out with my greatest secret. I just can't get enough of my highlander romance novels even though it sets me up for a lifetime of disappointment and Ben & Jerry's late night binges with Lifetime movies. 

Israeli Film Review

So I am an avid fan of Israeli cinema. I was lucky to grow up seeing a lot of foreign films with my avid cinemateque-obsessed father and a good percentage of them were Israeli. I have taken two Israeli cinema themed classes now and love to discover new movies. One movie that I recently saw was Ajami. The movie was released in 2009 so I am a little late in discovering the film, but I loved it so much that I had to write about it. 

I could not help but compare the film to the American movie Crash in that Ajami consists of five separate stories that ultimately collide and are neatly woven together. The characters are all set in Yafo in the Ajami neighborhood. A couple of things make this movie incredibly remarkable, though. For one, the film is a collaboration between a Jewish and Christian Arab-Israeli director. Secondly, all of the actors in the film are actually not actors. In this sense, it is a "non-film" and it heightens the sense of realism and grittiness of the drama of the film. I really enjoyed the movie when I first watched it, but after learning about the story behind the film, I had a greater appreciation for the value and quality of the film.

Where Have I Been?

OK So I know that I have been majorly slacking on my blog. It's been almost a month since I last published. But in my defense, I have barely had a free minute to breath, let alone blog (seriously my laundry has been piling up for weeks now, I just need to actually make the time/have enough energy to do it). But I have done some interesting and mildly fascinating things these past three weeks. Here are some highlights: