Imagine you're sitting in class on the day of a big test. Maybe it's a biology test, and you need to get at least a B+ to raise your average. You've been studying for days, if studying means looking at pictures of the new French exchange student on Facebook. I mean, you had a study guide open in another tab, easily accessible in case your mom walked by, which she often did. She knows how important this test is. After all, how are you going to get into Columbia (shout out to my crazy-smart sister) with a C- in biology? But you opened your textbook for the first time last night. You were up all night studying. Sure, pictures of cute French boy were dancing in your mind, but they were interspersed with images of a double helix and the dominant/recessive chart. You made flash cards, you created mnemonics, you even had a song listing the names of all the bones that you learned from that episode of Hannah Montana. Maybe you could've been better prepared, but you're ready. You know you are. You're almost certain. Oh my god you're never gonna pass Mr. Johnson hates you and wants you to fail and the girl you cheated off of earlier in the semester is in France on the exchange program and the girl who sits in front of you now is a total idiot and how are you ever gonna concentrate when the back of French boy's head is sooooo darn French-looking? No, you got this. You breathe.
Mr. Johnson walks around, passing out the thick packets of doom facedown as he weaves between the desks, his malicious smile lurking behind an icy stone face. As he reaches your desk and practically hurls your test down in front of you, you swear you see a lick of fire flame up behind his eyes. That man is the devil. You wonder how a man so clearly not human got licensed to teach biology, let alone to teach human children. You look to the side and see that French boy isn't in school today; good, he won't distract you. You briefly wonder if he's OK. No, clear your head, relax, think only of biology. Mr. Johnson cackles his evil laugh (at least, you swear it's a cackle. You'll testify in court that the man cackles, if you need to) and tells the class to flip over the test. "Best of luck," he hisses.
You turn over the packet, close your eyes, breathe deeply. You open your eyes with a picture of the study guide planted firmly and clearly in your brain. You read the first question and chuckle to yourself. Easy. You scrawl out an answer, detailed and thorough, the way he likes it. You marvel at your own genius. You read the second question. Oh god. You know this! You flip through your mental study guide but the part that answers this question is a blur. What, devil-man Mr. Johnson just expects you to memorize everything? He's the worst. WAIT! Wait. You DO know this. It's... It's... The answer is starting to formulate in your head. OK, you got this. You start penning your answer as the information floods your mind. You begin to scribble furiously, so furiously that at first, you don't hear the loud alarm that has gone off around you. All of the sudden, students start rising from their seats, you don't know why. Only then do you hear the alarm. What is this? Is this part of the test? You hear one of your classmates breathe "Saved by the bell," but you don't understand. Is it some kind of alarm that outlaws unfair tests? Fire drill, whispers your brain. You know what this is. But what do you do? Your mind is blank. "We're kind of in the middle of something!" you want to shout. But more than half the students have already filed neatly out of the room. The other 49% are standing by the door, waiting to exit. Only you remain seated at your desk, looking around with confusion and panic slapped onto your face. It's the first Monday of the month, of course there's a fire drill. But what do you do? How are you supposed to remember what to do when -- the test -- dominant/recessive -- you're stuck. What do you do? Mr. Johnson sees you and gives you a funny look. He says your name.
"I--" you stammer.
"It's a fire drill," he gives you a look. "Don't be a smart-ass."
You look around at the mostly empty classroom. What do you do??
There's a term for this person in Hebrew. It's called a shockist, or for a girl, a shockistit. It's when you're in such a state of shock that you completely lose all common sense. You forget your habits, your logic, your instincts, everything that makes you a capable human being. It usually happens when something you're not expecting happens, rendering you completely useless. Finding this type of person is extremely common in the army, especially in basic training, when a kid from a comfortable lifestyle is suddenly thrown into a world of orders and tents, commanders and long-underwear, guns and cleaning human excrement off the shower floor. At best, a shockist is someone who freezes up and doesn't do anything. At worst, it is someone who does something stupid. You know this guy, you've seen him before. It's the student who asks if there's going to be a test on this material, giving the teacher ideas. It's the guy on the basketball team who scores a perfect 3-pointer on his own basket. In the army, it's the guy who meets with a high-ranking officer, and upon leaving, forgets to take his gun.
This time last year, I, Rebecca Gabrielle Richman, was a shockistit.
In fact, looking back, it's safe to say I was the biggest shockistit in all of Israel.
There is another word in Hebrew, or at least in Hebrew army-slang, that you should know in case you're ever in a situation where you need to know random Hebrew words that are only applicable in the army, and that is pazamuledet. Your pazamuledet is the day that you drafted into the army. For example, I drafted December 17th, 2012, and so yesterday, December 17th, 2013, was my pazamuledet. The significance of this day is twofold: one, it means I have been in the army for an entire year, and two, it means I have half completed my army service. This may not sound like much, but a big part of army culture is wanting to get out of the army. So while I did choose this life, and I do enjoy it immensely most of the time, I'm still counting down to the date of my release. But for me, the main significance of my pazamuledet is that I can look back at my actual draft date and laugh at how young I was. As a wizened old soldier, hardened by a year in the army, with an unbreakable heart of concrete, I really can look back and see exactly how big a shockistit I was.
As I mentioned earlier, the defining feature of a shockist is someone who forgets some basic facts in the face of pressure. The common sense that I lost first was this simple truth: people are people. A year ago yesterday, I got off the bus at a strange base and right away I was bombarded with instructions. It was there that I first lost sight of the fact that the people yelling at me were people. No, I was certain that they were divine creatures, that every order they issued must be treated like it came from the mouth of God. A few of the other girls believed this as well, but I was different in one important aspect: I didn't speak Hebrew. Imagine if all of the sudden, God Himself boomed His voice down to earth and, with an inexplicable sense of urgency, commanded you to do something. But He commanded it in Swedish. And you haven't brushed up on your Swedish recently. So you don't know what to do. That was me, all the time. I wanted to be a good soldier, I really did, but every time a commander yelled at me, I just cocked my head to the side and put on a pretty convincing puppy-dog face that I can only hope portrayed my utter lack of understanding. And because I wanted to follow orders so badly, I sometimes filled in the parts I didn't understand with my own information. For example, I knew I had to be somewhere at 2:45, I just didn't know where. So I assumed it was the dining hall. I assumed wrong. And not once in that entire month of basic did I ever think to myself, Hmm, this commander is human, maybe if I ask him for help, he'll explain something to me. Nope, that just never occurred to me.
The second truth that I lost was this: if you seem mean and snobby, people aren't going to like you. It was only after basic training that I realized that the girls I was with probably didn't understand how little I spoke Hebrew. To them, I was that weird girl who was always doing the wrong thing and answered all their questions with one word answers. In addition, there were two other Americans in different platoons in my base, so of course I was immediately drawn to them. I seemed cliquey and snobby and still I was so hurt that none of them wanted to be my friend. But it's only because I seemed to have lost all the basic friend-making skills that I learned in kindergarten.
However, the main thing that made me a shockistit exactly one year ago yesterday was that in addition to the shock of the army, I was also experiencing some pretty heavy culture shock. The very first day in the army, when we were given uniforms and being assigned serial numbers, a girl next to me made a crude Holocaust joke. You can't say that, I thought, and I classified her as the kind of girl I wouldn't want to be friends with. But apparently that's acceptable in Israel, in this weird country where no one is apologetic for even their most egregious of flaws or most offensive of actions. I was stunned by how arbitrary everything seemed, but that's just how Israel is. They see a need for something, they create a solution however they can. They need to make a ceremony seem special, so they choreograph a ridiculous gun routine and play cheesy music. They need a soldier to stay for the weekend to fill manpower quotas, so they make up a rule until someone breaks it. It's hard to adjust to a system that's constantly changing without a clear reason, and my stumbling journey through basic training was a testament to that difficulty.
But the beauty of a pazamuledet is that I can look back and laugh. Everything has improved exponentially since my days of friendless, Hebrew-less basic training. The past year has been simultaneously the hardest and most fulfilling year of my life thus far. I'm in an interesting job where I've made some pretty great friends (though I'm still with one of the American girls who was my only friend during basic, so I haven't branched out that far), my officers have become human in my eyes, and while I still respect them (most of the time), I feel comfortable expressing my needs and asking for help. My fear of the army has faded into a minuscule speck in the back of mind, and would disappear completely if it weren't for the need to remind me not to do anything illegal. I now have the simple confidence of a person who knows what he or she is doing, and I don't take it for granted because of the very long time that it took me to get here. Of course, I still have my shockistit moments - just last week I forgot my gun in the shower for 10 minutes before running back to get it - but for the most part, this year has gotten me pretty well adjusted. I do have a feeling, however, that by the time I'm fully adjusted to this army life, it will be a year from yesterday, and I'll be getting released.
My fellow American friend and me on one of our first nights of basic training.
The same American friend and me at the shooting range months later, looking like pros.
