So far, faithful readers, you will have learnt of rachoelgate and my tree-head surgery. Not a fantastic insight into what makes me, me. But how to describe, without paraphrasing my cut&paste 'describe yourself' paragraph on Jewish dating websites?

*In the middle of NYC there's a gigantic posterboard for Jdate, which reads: 'Why is this site different from all other sites?'*

Today is October 19th. In 3 months time, on the 19th of January, I will have been in Ulpan for exactly a week. I will have emigrated to the State of Israel. Ulpan. Aliyah. ALIYAH.
Can it be true? Am I really doing it? Somewhere far beyond the reaches of my memory or self-knowledge, it's always been my dream. Since I first went on BA camp and learnt of Herzl, of people like AD Gordon, Achad Ha'am and Rav Kook, I understood it to be my legacy.
I understood it as I understood the suffragettes fight to achieve the vote for women - Israel was something my ancestors had fought for, and I was never to take it for granted.
Unlike the power to vote; entirely dormant these last 6 years, uninspired by British politics as I am, the desire to live in Israel has waxed and waned. Inevitably following my gap year, I did all I could to convince my parents I should stay - I vividly recall crying down the phone to my mum, late one evening, in the light of a lamp-post somewhere off Ben Yehuda. I couldn't bear the thought of returning to the UK, to university, so far from the clarity and lightness of being that being in Israel can bring.
But I did go to university, I completed my 4 years and I'm glad I did. I've worked for 1.5 years in the 'real world'. I've saved up, I've realised where I'm meant to be, and it's time to go.

To take on the psychology of a country - a country where most of my peers have completed 3 years in the army or a year of national service, where most have lost family, old school friends, university pals, chavrutahs or work colleagues, to suicide bombings, to a war, to katyushas. Where the poverty rate is increasing month by month and unemployment is high. But also to a country where bus drivers wish you 'shabbat shalom' on a Thursday afternoon, where every person is extended family, where tempers are short and tensions high, but the women call you 'mami' and the taxi drivers continuously ask you to marry them.

I feel so content at the moment, because I know the grand adventure looms. And I mean grand with all its connotations - huge, looming, slightly terrifying. Israel symbolises, for me, a lot of hope. Things to look forward to - new faces, new challenges : enormous challenges, getting to drips with using a new language, making new friends, the increased size of the dating pool!

Recently one member of team icky said to another friend of mine, that she thought I was being resentful of their new relationship because I'm single. I quote:
"I get how it's hard to be happy for someone, when you're not happy".
I guess all it proves is how little she knows me these days. How could I not be happy for them? And how could she think that I'M not happy?! I'm escaping this horrid country, with its cold people and miserable weather, and I'm going to live out, try out, my zionist dream. How could I not be happy! Hashem has showered me with blessings! Praise be!