I don’t think I’ve ever been more nervous or more excited for something in my life. Every time I talk about going to Muss, I feel my stomach tighten in anxiousness. People ask me about the program and I can’t seem to stop talking about it. I also have never procrastinated this much. Ever! I have gotten new clothes, traveling supplies, money mediums, and more. Yet I still don’t think it has set in that I’m going to Israel. As I’m writing this blog I can definitely tell that it hasn’t set in yet. I’ve met with my teachers, have family coming over to say goodbye and am filling my Instagram with pictures of my friends before I leave and I just can’t process that I’m going to be in Israel. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Masada and Golan Heights will be trips and experiences I’ll tell my grandchildren about, and halfway through the story I’ll say, “And about three days before leaving I finally realized I was in Israel.” 

I’ve never been to Israel before. Or anywhere else in the Middle East. Or the eastern hemisphere. Every trip I’ve taken that wasn’t to a graduation or B’nei Mitzvah was still in the same half of the earth. A six hour time difference at most. Now I’m gonna be awake while my parents, or my dad really, are asleep. I’ll be trying to call people and no one will pick up. It’s terrifying, but also exhilarating. I have a feeling that Alexander Muss is going to be a liberating experience, that it’ll be transformative in a way. Not like going into one of those machines in movies where you go in a human and come out a butterfly. No, more like those movies where the protagonist somehow ends up alone and then finds a wandering soul and is able to discover them self through their interaction with said soul. That’ll be AMHSI, minus the alone and wandering soul. And the being filmed part. Okay, maybe not that movie, but something similar. Either, it’s going to be amazing. I really can’t wait to go.