Welcome to Gaia! ::

Cool, Dis. Let us know how you enjoy it, once you've had a chance to read through.

My shul's siddur has a prayer for our government, and a prayer for the State of Israel as well.

Is it helping you learn the hebrew?

I think this is really cool. It tells you what brocha to say on each food. You shoud try it out.
Say A Blessing – Electronic Keychain

When I was first becoming observant, I had to sit and write down the proper Hebrew pronunciations of everything. I also would write down the brachot (blessings) to use on various things. I labelled the milk or soy milk with "she-ha-kol" to remind me to say that blessing, for instance, and I'd put "m'zonot" on the baggie that held my bagel sandwich (for Sephardim, bagels are not ha-motzi, not bread, but rather they are considered 'cake or pastry' which takes the m'zonot blessing). I also photocopied the yatzar prayer and made it into a framed print for the outside of the bathroom door, so that I'd be reminded to say the blessing after relieving oneself, and how to say it. That sort of thing might help you, too.

Heh. I've been there, Dis. It's kind of amazing, once you stop feeling only "someone's there" and progress to "...and that someone is listening," you start to want to engage in conversation. Brachot/blessings are an easy way to break the ice, I guess. I never used to talk to Hashem, figuring he knew what was in my head already. Lately, though, I find that I look for reasons to utter a brachah, just some quick little connection.

Yes! The very first prayer in the prayer book is the one that you say right when you attain consciousness, before opening your eyes or setting foot to floor. It is called the Modeh Ani, and it goes:

Mo-deh a-ni l'fah-neh-chah,
meh-lech chai v'kah-yam,
sheh-heh-cheh-zar-tah bi nish-mah-ti b'-chem-lah.
Rah-bah eh-mu-nah teh-chah!

Translation:

I acknowledge before you (literally: I bow before your face),
living and eternal king,
who has restored my soul within me in mercy.
Great is your faithfulness!

A woman would say "Modah ani..." instead of "Modeh ani..." because that's the feminine form of the verb; the rest remains the same.

I love this prayer because of its fanciful nature. The sages of old imagined that, rather than remain within the body, the soul every night would go out wandering and dreaming. Yet, whenever one was ready to be awakened, the soul would be whisked back into the body so that the body could retain consciousness. When I was a little girl, I thought the same. I'd tell my parents at naptime, "I'm going to my room. If you come in and I'm not there, it's because I'm dreaming somewhere else." I think the ancient sages had much the same idea, except that they knew the body didn't go traveling, only the soul. It's just so cute.