Introduction

I created this blog a month ago in order to chronicle the experience of studying abroad in Israel and Palestine, and yet I still haven't utilized it. I have often opened a draft and sat staring at the blank page for what feels like an eternity before closing my laptop and walking away. I admit that had I started to write on the first day I arrived here, like I was supposed to, I would have saved both my mind and my GPA a significant amount of stress. However, we have reached the halfway point, and I suppose that there is no better place to start than now, in the middle of it all.

Truthfully, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on why I have not actually blogged. The first is that I am a naturally anxious person, and the thought of turning in assignments makes me deeply uncomfortable. I am always afraid that the work will not be good enough and that there is no use in trying if I think that I will earn a failing grade anyways. Obviously this behavior is extremely unhealthy, and quite simply I need to get over it. I have attempted to re-frame my perspective of this blog assignment from a fear to an opportunity, an outlet to record my personal observations about the various encounters I have had on this trip thus far. Yet even this approach is problematic to me because it requires a level of emotional honesty and depth that I'm not sure I can truly give.

All brooding aside, I cannot deny the fact that everything I have encountered on my travels has left a deep and lasting impression on my inner self. I came to Israel and Palestine in order to have a respite from my current life in the United States. I wanted to go outside of my comfort zone, to be transplanted somewhere new and raw and different with none of my old habits or coping mechanisms to fall back on. I wanted to stop overthinking and to just exist, to flow with the events happening around me without distraction. I am grateful to have been fulfilled in all of these ways.

Going forward I plan on blogging three times a week to fulfill the criteria for the last month of the program, as well as to supplement opinion pieces of mine that I have been slowly working on over the course of the summer. These posts include my thoughts on the seminar in Jerusalem, living on a kibbutz, interacting with different denominations of Judaism, interviewing members of the IDF, and reflecting on the places that I have been able to travel to.

Again, I realize that it is not the ideal blog by any means,however I am going to deal with the problem in the best way that I see fit.