My Confusion and I

For almost nine months I've been carrying you. When I learnt that I was going to become a mother I was excited, confused and scared at the same time. How would I be able to bring a child into this world where there is so much hatred, war and horrible things happening. Little did I know. I wasn't bringing this child into a world with all that. I'll be bringing you into a world where we are fighting a war against something this world hasn't experienced before. You will be born into a world where hundreds of people even thousands die on a daily basis because of a virus, something unstoppable that has created a world where people are afraid of walking side by side. Where someone coughs and everyone around him moves away. People can't leave their houses without the fear of getting ill. You will be born into a world where no one goes safe. I always dreamt about holding you in my arms for the first time. Your grandparents meeting you and my friends and family seeing you f...

As the clock struck 20.00 last night the whole world around me stopped. The thousands of people surrounding me went silent. A minute of silence so powerful that my body shivered. A whole country stopped to remember the fallen soldiers and civilians that we have lost to terror and war. A whole country being silent for the ones that cannot share their own story anymore but their absence speak louder than any noise anyone of us could make. I don't have my own story. I haven't lost a family member or a friend but I have lost 23,741 soldiers and 3,150 civilians to terror. Even though it wasn't my own brother each one of them left a family behind; a mother and father with an empty bed to say goodnight to, a little sister that will never have that protective older brother to defend her and an older brother that will never get a chance to give his brother advice on girl problems. Each one of the 26 891 victims has a story, a story that we have to pass on for those who cannot. A s...

2018 has been an interesting year, just like every year. Nothing really exciting has happened this year but I have a very good feeling my next year will be an interesting one. This year I've been working, gone to Eilat, attempted to plan holidays that haven't happened, exercised and basically traveled back and forth to Tel Aviv more than the train (then again that's not too hard since it still doesn't go all the way). However, this year I have learnt a lot of life lessons and what better way to end the year than to dwell in all the things that went wrong. 1. Stay calm! This has to be my first rule because this year I've pressured myself a lot in many different aspects. By pressuring myself I've been also been driving my friends insane. Things come at the right time and sometimes staying calm will make things so much more worth it. Staying calm is also extremely important when arguing. As everyone most likely is aware of, arguments happen and sometimes over th...

I take the bus a lot. In fact, I take the bus on a daily basis and rely on the bus to get me from one place to another. With spending at least 1.5 hours on the bus everyday I have experienced extremely strange encounters that I somewhat wish I could forget. So to make it a bit better for everyone here are some things to contribute to people's bus etiquette. 1. Wear deodorant! I know it's warm outside and people sweat but there is a big difference between someone sweating that has put on deodorant and someone that hasn't. This is an absolute must, especially for people that are planning on lifting their arms up right next to my face. No one appreciates a sweaty, stinky armpit on the same level as your nose. 2. If the bus is full, move your bag. Standing on a bus is uncomfortable and sometimes hard since you constantly need to hold on to something. If your bag is hogging a seat you are preventing people from sitting and also taking up more space than you have paid for. Yo...

20th of January 1942 was the day when a group of people, that had turned into animals, established the final solution. The solution how they would get rid of anyone of jewish heritage for no other reason than that they were jewish. 50 years later, on the day, I was born. I am far from the only one that can claim to be a living proof that their solution didn't succeed and even if I was the only one I would have exactly the same responsibility to make sure that this horrible part of our history will never be forgotten. When I talk about the holocaust I do not only talk about the jewish people, I talk about my own history, my family and a part of who I am. As a 3rd generation survivor I cannot say that I understood what the victims went through, doing that would be disrespectful and nonchalant. It is impossible to imagine hell on earth if you never experienced it and thank G-D I haven't. However, as a 3rd generation survivor I can be a witness of my grandparents stories. I have th...

It's been a while. It's been way too long but there honestly hasn't been enough time to process the last 6 months for me to be able to sit down and put my feelings into words. I've now lived in Israel for almost half a year and I am starting 2018 with a stomach bug but with so much happiness in my life. I am not going to lie, the last 6 months have been challenging and frustrating at times, but it is all worth it in the end or so I would hope at least. When you move to a new country there are a millions of things to adjust to. For me the hardest adjustment was probably accepting the fact that this is where I am settling down. No more moving around trying to find myself because let's face it, there's only so many places a person can live until it gets exhausting to feel like you have several different homes but yet none of those places feel permanent. Please G-D, Israel will be the place where home actually feels like home. So what inspired me to get back to my ...

As I'm writing this post I have less than 48 h left in England. Yes, that sounds extremely dramatic but after living here for 6 years it definitely feels like a big deal. There are many emotions passing through when I think back of the time I've had here. It's been a massive roller coaster and I've met so many different people and learnt more than I ever thought I would, I mean I only came for university and we all know you don't learn anything there. For a long time I have wanted to move to Israel and for some reason there has always been something stopping me but then one day I felt ready, it was time to break free from the familiarity of rain, pints, red skin in the summer and people walking without shirts on the second the sun comes out. To be completely honest, I don't know how to express myself about leaving because I don't know how I feel about it. A part of me is excited and extremely happy but then there's that part that makes me feel sad beca...

This week’s Parasha, Shelach, tells the story of the 12 spies being sent out to Israel to report to Moshe what kind of land there is. As you might know 10 of the spies come back with the update that there are inhabitants that will be dangerous for the Jews. However, two of the spies confirm this but say that with G-ds help they would be able to defeat the enemies if needed. The punishment for the people that believed the 10 spies was to wander in the desert for 40 years. When reading this there is one thought that comes to mind, if Hashem was going to punish the Jews for believing the 10 spies, why did Hashem even send the spies? Personally, I would say that this was probably a way for Hashem to test our trust in him. We had just received the Torah and we had already defied him once. Maybe we just weren’t ready to have enough faith in Hashem. We needed some more time to become a people that would put our trust in Hashem. Nachmanides explains that the spies were sent out to be ab...

So it has been a while and to be honest my interest in writing has kind of disappeared at the moment, mostly because I spend at least 8 hours everyday in front of a computer expressing myself via code. For me that has been a way to express myself because I haven’t been able to get my feelings out in any other way. Maybe that’s just me swallowing everything that I’ve experienced or it’s simply my cope mechanism. Anyway, I can go on about what’s been going on in my life for sentences, well essays, but that’s not why I’ve started this post.  Moving swiftly on, the topic I want to discuss in this post and that has given me a tiny bit of will to write is the TV-show: 13 Reasons Why. After hearing about it for about a month I decided it was my turn to take a look into the mind of a 17 year old girl who committed suicide. I am not going to tell you the story because I think it’s something that can’t properly be expressed with my words but for the ones that haven’t seen it, the show is ...

So there's been a while since my last post because there's been a few difficult months that I'm sure I one day will be ready to share but until then... As my mid-twenties crises I joined a book club. The first book we read was The Circle by Dave Eggers. I will not explain the story line in detail but basically a girl starts working for a company that is called the Circle which is in a way controlling social media. As you might imagine this book raises a lot of questions about what is public and what isn't. Before you continue reading you should know that this post will have lots of spoilers, not because that will actually change much when you read it since it is a very predictable book. Let's start of with the way the book is written; the language was extremely poor. I enjoy reading books where you can almost see the people and places in front of you but in this book there wasn't much to go on. It also bothered me that there was no chapters. I know that is a ...

Since my last blog post about Donald Trump I have become more involved in the American election, not only because I've felt the need to read more about it but it has also become an extremely heated topic. And so here we are the day before the election. You might not see it as a big deal since there is an election every 4 years but this election is a huge deal. It might even be huger than the wall that might be built. So why is this election so important? For me this election will show whether the world has come as far as we claim that it has or if we are simply taking several steps back. Regardless your political opinions there are certain things that these candidates represent. Hillary Clinton would be the first female president in America which would show that equal rights has come a long way since 100 or even just 20 years ago. If Donald Trump wins it shows that the Americans are ok with voting for a man who seems to think that it is acceptable to speak about women however he w...

Techic, what is that, you might wonder. Well, it's actually not a real thing but a made up term by me for a girl that works with technology so basically a tech chic. But this post is not actually about made up words but how it is to be a girl in a technological world. We all use technology but some more than others and by going into web development I have chosen a career that is extremely male dominated. This might be considered as scary to many of us but in my opinion it doesn't frighten me at all. During my whole life I have been interested in techie stuff and doing "boy"-things such playing football and not really being fussed about fashion and make-up. I know this is stereotypes and many of us don't fit into them but being friends with boys has never been scary to me. By being interested in technology and hobbies that are male-dominated you are, as a girl, often welcomed with a very surprised reaction. Sometimes you might think they haven't seen a girl ...

I have changed my mind about what I wanted to do in life many many times. First I wanted to be a teacher, mostly because I wanted to inspire people but also because I loved learning (something that hasn't changed). Then I wanted to be a flutist, which made me spend 3 years in high school practicing for hours everyday, then I wanted to be an actor, a career I gave up quite quickly and in a desperate need to find something that I thought was achievable I wanted to study engineering or something similar because science did interest me. Well, to be honest that phase changed quickly when I discovered that being a producer and organising things was something I really enjoyed so I decided that I wanted to be a TV-producer, a dream that I was determined to achieve and therefore applied to film and tv production at university and even got in. But as you might have realised, even before I started university I had a mere thought of becoming a doctor ( a dream I haven't really buried yet ...

I am not a massive politics geek. To be honest I try to avoid politics as much as I can because it tends to annoy me more than it interests me. Just to clarify, this doesn't mean I don't care about voting or what happens in the world but I simply try to avoid getting involved in the discussion. This has changed, however, this year with the election in America happening. Mostly because the fear of Donald Trump winning the election has made me realize that some people clearly don't share the same opinion as me. We all have the right to have our own opinions but it's got to the point when I believe people aren't actually considering what could happen when you vote for someone that very clearly doesn't have the people's best in mind but wants to turn the country into a business. Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware of that some parts of politics involve treating the country as a business since a country needs to be financially stable and this can only be do...

This was suppose to be my 101st blog post which explains the title but things came in between. However, these 4(?) years of blogging hasn't particularly made me an expert in blogging so I don't feel like I am the rightful person to give advice. What I can do though is share what blogging means to me and how it has changed my life. I used to have a lot of opinions that I didn't share with people. These opinions kept burning inside of me and I became angry and frustrated with the world. This was one of the reasons for why I started writing a blog; I felt the need to express my opinions and my friends were getting sick of hearing it. When having an online platform where I could write whatever I liked I suddenly became less afraid of expressing my opinions and I actually stand for what I thought. It was relieving to not be afraid of speaking up for once. Having a blog means a lot to me, it's a place where I can say whatever I want (thank g-d for freedom of speech) but it ...

Dear Independent, There is an article about mental strength that keeps popping up on my social media news feed. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/mentally-strong-people-dont-do-these-13-things-a6760646.html This article is explaining what people that are mentally strong don't do. As someone who is suffering from mental health issues I took offence by this article. You are explaining traits that some people have and basically saying that if you don't have these traits, you are weak. First of all, thank you! Thank you for making me feel even worse about myself than I already did. Now when I've said that I think I might need to give you an explanation for why I think you've simply got this all wrong. Everyone is different and priorities varies things in life, for some pleasing others might be the most important thing whilst others might just want to think about themselves. Some people enjoy taking risks, others don't. These th...

Today is yet another day created to raise awareness for mental health. It's time to talk about the my experience of depression because believe me, each experience is different. It's been a while since I expressed how I feel here and shared the difficulties I've had with this mental health lately. It's always been there inside of me, bubbling and trying to get out but I have pushed it away. So I cried myself to sleep? So what? That is probably because I had a stressful day. It's completely normal. So I cancelled my plans with my friends? I'm just tired after a long day. These were the excuses I constantly made without realising that I kept shoving my feelings deeper down. By doing this I ended up being filled with so much hatred and anger that I didn't even know how to express it anymore apart from taking it out on everyone, including myself. I blamed the people around me for my feelings and I avoided to accept the truth; I was not myself anymore and I needed...

Technology is constantly evolving which means that there are many opportunities to invent new ways to handle day to day chorus. We are no strangers to the fact that some jobs are being replaced by robots and that we are easier accessible due to technology. However, we tend to forget that technology doesn't have to take over our lives but it can help us to come up with answers to the most challenging questions. One of these uses is to use programming for medical purposes. Now-a-days we are inventing apps that can check blood pressure, dashboards that can do regular check-ups and algorithms to calculate the risk for cardiovascular diseases. The Royal college of Physicians is constantly encouraging their doctors to get involved in technology and co-operate with software developers to be able find new techniques to save lives. NHS have also realised the importance of technology and established NHS hack day where they are trying to combine technology with medicine. The inventions they...

Today is my birthday. I have now lived on this planet for 24 years which has given me a lot of knowledge about life but far from enough. However, I would want to share with you what I've learnt so far. 1. Age doesn't define who you are. Some people grow up quicker than others and just because you're 20 years younger than someone doesn't mean you know less. 2. It's important to admit you're wrong when you are. No one is perfect and the quicker you realise that the happier you'll be because it will encourage you to grow. 3. It is never to late to change your game plan. During a game, things change constantly. This means that you sometimes have to change the way you are playing. There is no point sticking to the original plan if that's not working. You need to adjust and adapt to the situation. 4. Don't give up on people too easily. Some people simply go through rough patches in life, I do at least. This doesn't mean you should give up on th...

As mentioned in my previous blog post, coding has helped me to handle my depression. After some research and discussions with other people that like coding I came to realise that there might actually be some kind of connection between code and depression, at least it seems like other people share my belief. According to a thread on reddit there are a split view on this topic. These were some of the different opinions on it: Some people believe that due to people with depression sometimes can feel intimidated and overwhelmed with a lot of people around them and also being uncomfortable interacting with people, coding gives them an ability to avoid these situations. As one member said "You can hide in your office/cubicle and nobody really cares." By doing this, people with depression can feel comfortable in their work environment and that way be able to channel their worries easier; at least at work.  Other people argue that being a programmer is one of the reason...