Thursday, May 14, 2009

Next step-- approval!

You thought I was going to say I got approved for aliyah...no, not quite.
I did, however, get my documents checked by Shai (the Jewish Agency shaliach), gave in my financial affidavit and passport pictures (printed earlier today) to NBN-- see this entry for a bit on that; I decided to practice being Israeli and ignore what they said. Worked out nicely-- now let's see if they don't lose the documents...
I should hear back about approval and Etzion after the summer, but Shai doesn't think there will be a problem (Hi, Murphy, because I said something. I should go back and erase that and bite my tongue. But I'm not-- which may come back to bite me in the tooseek (thank you Benji Lovitt of "What War Zone"-- see my oleh blog links-- for the spelling. Not that he knows who I am, but I found his blog and think that spelling is great. Benji, if you would like to link to my blog, feel free))...but-- back to the mother of all Israeli phrases-- "יהיה בסדר"-- "y'hiyeh b'seder-- "it'll be ok/fine." (I'm just full of cliches tonight, aren't I? And parentheses.)

But back to the meeting. I met with Robin Berman, who works in the employment dept. of NBN. Really, I don't think I need to have any more "pre-aliyah meetings" unless it's for a very specific purpose, like this was. This one was to get my documents checked. I don't need employment meetings, unless it deals with OT specifically. I don't need "community meetings" because I know where I'm going to start out and have some ideas-- and I'll go away for Shabbatot, so I'll see what communities I like. I know that the large populations of singles are in Jerusalem (Anglos in Katamon, Rechavia, German Colony, etc.) and around Bar Ilan (Givat Shmuel-ish area). I know that I want to live up North eventually, but there aren't really singles up there. Which limits my dating pool...If there's the word "informational" in the meeting-- odds are I don't need it. I have the information, I know where to find the stuff I don't have, and I know how to use my email to email people questions. I'm really good at that.

If I haven't heard back by September, I'll email NBN and Shai. Because really, that's only 4 months. I mean, it's Israel and I could do this 4 weeks before and no one would say boo-- Shai goes, "This is for the summer?" ...which is in about 6 weeks...it was funny when Robin went upstairs to get Shai. I had my meeting with Robin-- she gave me a few tips about employment and then went to check about my affidavit and if someone could come look at my documents. So Shai comes in and goes, "Hey! How are you?" Robin goes, "You know each other?" It was a "you-had-to-be there" moment, I think.

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