"I know what you mean man... it's weird for all of us." "Do you? Your not acting like you do. I mean; we're leaving. Its not just some place man, its a time and a sense of safety as well, a sense of home." "A little melodramatic, maybe? Life goes on. Remember the fear we had coming here?" " Yeah, but that was a fear of the unknown, this is a fear of concrete fact man, we know what's gonna happen." "Once again the gun is not even loaded and you are jumping all the way over conclusion land and into arroganceville. Like we always say, leave it up to the Big Guy, we're only in this for the ride either way." "Ok but if we get lost again I'm blaming you," "Fine just stop whinging, Jesus you sound like a child!" .... All of my recent internal dialogues have run like this, and I do mean exactly like this.

Pool; the game of kings played by ruffians.

I keep thinking about how good it'll be to see my brother again and work in the Bell table and go cruisin' with my peoples but I still can't seem to make the idea of leaving Haifa forever feel right in my head. I know if I stay I'll just be delaying the inevitable beginning of my life and actually starting what I hope will be a cool career and serving in other capacities, I mean... I want to do all these things but they all come with the price of not being here, in this place and, at least I'd like to believe, at this time. We go play pool here like a million times a week, and on nights when the world and his girlfriend don't show up, we get a decent few hours of stress free pool in, in a nice place and with good people. The folk who run the place freaking love us, and not just because of all the money we tank in that spot, but because we talk to them and because we don't get shitty if something goes wrong. I told the guy who owns the place that I was leaving in February and he invited me up to play a few games with him and to have a drink on the house, I just hope he gets the fact that we don't drink alcohol, because I don't want him to get offended if I turn down a tasty glass of good whiskey, middle eastern folk are very proud of their hospitality and I like the guy a lot, not enough to go back on my beliefs but enough to feel hella bad about not taking what is still a nice gesture either way you look at it. The place is big and bright and has good security on the door in a lovely part of the city, and they make damn good chips to boot. It was a great feeling when me and Clorin went up there one night and I had my huge backpack on and the as I get to the door, I open it so the security dude can check me and he just says (in Hebrew) "No no, you guys are good; Welcome." with a huge grin on his face. How many bouncers in Ireland treat you like that, unless you know them really well, any one who went to Quinn's back in the days knows what I mean. Another long and whingey post but I'm in a whingey place right now and when I think of not hitting the pool hall with Clorin and Kiva and Ryan any more it just makes me kinda... I dunno, sorry I kept to myself for the first few months of my time here. All I can say is look out Mardyke ( fantastic pool hall in Cork) I'm comin to get ya. I'm telling ya John, Lounge music! Its the soundtrack to the revolution.

Things I miss.....hmmm..you know thats a good question.

I'm getting ready (in a purely emotional sense) to go home after what will end up being pretty much 1 year and 3 hours in another country. 1 year out of my parents house, out of Ireland and lets face it out of places where alcohol and weed have been involved and to be honest I'm not sure how I feel about the prospect of going back to that, not Ireland or my parents house just the vice to be honest. I know my homies wanna drink and get high and I'd like to think I'm OK with that, but I'm starting to realize that I'm really not, I don't wanna see people I love doing things I Hate. I think anyone who has ever done what I'm doing right now knows how I feel, I've seen some of the world out side of Limerick and it rocks, and I've learned about me and my faith and some more languages and..... lots of stuff and kinda think that pubs in little ol' Limerick will never feel the same again, not that its not a great place with a lot of potential. I can't wait to see the homies and roll with my "gangstas" for a bit and maybe play some gigs around the town but this place is so fantastic and I don't want to leave it yet, or maybe I'm afraid I'll forget what happened here if I'm not in it. Kind of an emotional conundrum really, and since that's the kind of stuff I tell people to just move on from I suppose I'll do the same my self, but this blogging thing is more than just a little therapeutic.