With my course, at least.  Sunday I have to report to a new base and see what they wanna do with me.  But before that, more pictures!
 

So when I get to the base the morning of the "graduation ceremony," I find this guy from my course passed out in the corner of the classroom...bootless.  Turns out he was pounding beer and vodka at the BBQ that the course had the previous night in Tel Aviv that I skipped in favor of going home to sleep.  After drinking enough alcohol to kill a small horse (he's russian, if you were wondering), he tried to wander home, but was too drunk to have any idea how to get there.  He somehow stumbled onto a train that was heading north (soldiers get free use of trains and buses) and got off the train in Haifa.  Turns out that, in his drunken stupor, he decided it was a wise idea to remove his boots and socks while he was on the train and had long since forgotten this decision by the time he disembarked.  He ended up sleeping (barefoot) at one of the train stations in Haifa.  When he was woken up in the morning at 4:30am by the first train, he decided to wander back to the base and crash in our classroom.  He was a little hungover, as you can imagine.  He borrowed some boots for the ceremony.
 

This was taken a little before the ceremony.  Israelis love to smoke.  I'm sure they also are leading the world in terms of complete disregard for the rules govern where you can and cannot smoke.  The guy in this picture was smoking too, but his "smoking hand" is just out of view (and tons more people in that warehouse were smoking, too).  The sign in the background says "no smoking" in hebrew.
 

So when I got to the mess hall after my ceremony it was filled to the brim with israeli soldiers in american uniforms!  wtf?!?  Turns out that there is a new officers course that started the "preparation" part of their course (which basically just means "lots of running") at my base and they have to wear these uniforms as their work uniforms.  The course is mostly girls, but the uniforms are way too big for them, so they end up looking like DMX's back-up dancers or something.
 

There is actually a law in the army that boys and girls have to stay 40 centimeters apart at all times.  This is a picture of my sergeant showing one of my commanders who is in charge.  I mean, he already outranks her, but you gotta keep 'em in line.  One of the benefits of being in the commanders' office was seeing scenes like this (although sometimes with the roles reversed) unfold on a regular basis.  About "the 40 cm rule," it's worth mentioning that they sell condomns in the army-run stores at every base.  That rule (like many rules in the army) is more about "castach" than it is about directing the behavior of soldiers ("castach" is a hebrew abbreviation that means "covering your ass").
 

This is a picture of the commander of my course (Captain Tal Shamir, if you're curious) and myself.  He was awesome and made me laugh pretty much every time I talked to him.  I enjoyed watching people ask him stupid questions...suffice to say, he wasn't havin' any of that.  It was also fun hearing everyone do their version of an imitation of Tal.
 

I'm sure you all prefer my posts with train pics, so here you go.  These trains are the really new/nice trains.  It was empty when I got on (hence I was able to wander around and snap this pic), but promptly turned into "standing room only" when we pasted through Tel Aviv.
 
I think I'll be able to come home about every day from my new base, so I should be posting a lot more often starting next week (unless things or just really boring or I am really lazy).