Quick Update
We're about to head out of town for the weekend, tonight to Ashdod to visit with all your old favorites, and then tomorrow we'll be in Bat Yam to meet some new ones.

One is silver and the other gold...
- posted by @ 1:55 PM

 
The morning after
Yesterday driving to school, there were police all over the road and checkpoints in place at the entrance to all the Arab neighborhoods, like Abu Tor and Sheikh Jarrah. Security at school was tighter than usual..."my" security guard, who usually checks my ID and does a perfunctory, chatty search of my bag (enough to catch any real weapons, certainly) and waves me through, actually did a serious-faced, thorough search of my bag (though perhaps that is because his supervisor was there) that would have located a buried pocketknife. There is a bit of fear in the people's eyes; from what I understand, it will last for about two days and then life will return to normal. The site of the bombing was cleaned up within hours.

Despite my instinct, it wasn't Islamic Jihad after all; it was the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, the group that the media loves to point out is tied to Arafat's Fatah wing. And rightly so. The fact that this bomber is a Palestinian Policeman is awfully sticky for the PA. The very people who are supposed to be preventing these attacks are now perpetrating them.

Perhaps this explains why Israel's response is a very temperate one. It hopes that the world will open its eyes. The world needs to realize that even if Arafat doesn't plan these attacks, he is responsible for them. If Israeli citizens were to sneak into the Palestinian territories and murder innocent civilians, you can bet that Sharon would be held responsible, and with good reason. Not that the world will care, of course--they'll listen to Saeb 'Erekat condemn the murder of civilians, "both Israeli and Palestinian," listen to the tripe about Israel "creating an environment" in which terror can flourish, and criticize the attack itself...but will fall short of actually putting pressure on Arafat to do anything about it. It's infuriating.

Meanwhile, a jubilant Hezbollah has announced that, after Israel freed 400 for the return of one kidnapped Israeli businessman and three kidnapped soldiers' bodies, they may turn to more kidnapping as a tactic to get their compatriots freed from Israeli custody.

It's at times like this when criticism of the separation wall really irks me. Criticize Israel all you want. Condemn the occupation. But don't deny Israel the right to defend herself. You can argue until your face is red about Israel's responses bringing hardships on the Palestinian people. But do not tell Israeli civilians (or visiting American students) that it's our duty to die for the sake of Palestinian convenience.

- posted by @ 7:36 AM

 
Egged 19 Bus Bombing in Jerusalem
At least eight have been killed and forty injured (at least six critically) in a bus bombing here in Jerusalem, at the corner of Arlozorov and Gaza streets. We've been within fifty meters of there in the past, when on our way out of Jerusalem to just about anywhere, but never there. We were nowhere close to it; Elana is currently at JSS and I am going to be on my way to school shortly. We are both fine; we have not been on a bus in Jerusalem, nor will we.

The bombing was about 100 meters from Sharon's residence.

These militants are the Palestinian people's worst enemies. After all, an attack like this does not fight against the occupation, but rather reinforces it; how is Israel, especially under a Likud government, likely to respond to this? You can bet it won't be any sort of withdrawal. No, these groups know that as soon as the occupation ends, they will lose most if not all of their legitimacy, so they do what they can (which means brainwashing young Palestinians, who think they are actually fighting against Israel, when in fact this politcally hurts Palestinian aspirations much more than it hurts Israel--all it does is cause more grief and anger) to keep it in place.

Not coincidentally, I believe, Israel and Hezbollah are currently (as in, this hour) swapping prisoners (400 or so Israeli prisoners for kidnapped Israeli businessman Elhanan Tennenbaum--not exactly a balanced trade, is it?). When any one terrorist group starts to take any sort of step towards any sort of cooperation, as Hezbollah may be perceived of doing, with Israel, another, more extreme group (I would bet money this bombing was carried out by Islamic Jihad) will flank them and accuse them of collaboration. I think this bombing is Islamic Jihad's attempt to claim the vanguard of the Islamist fight against Israel.

Life goes on in Israel--for most of us. I'm going to shower and start calling people here to let them know we're fine. Then I'm going to school.
- posted by @ 9:51 AM

 
Tabula Rasa
The title of this post refers to my computer, after an old (2002) virus somehow managed to trojan horse its way into my system, run around like a wrecking ball, and force me to completely format my hard drive and reinstall everything.

Fortunately, none of my documents were lost. But when I think about all the little files I've installed in Israel...ESPN Motion...Yahoo! Messenger...Hebrew language capability...*sniffle.*

Seriously, I'm fine. With the help of my Dad, and DU's math department computer wiz Don, we poked around trying to fix the problem, and when it became clear that wasn't going to happen, we threw out the baby with the bathwater and wiped the slate clean. Fortunately I did not lose any of my important stuff, as the virus attacked only executable files which are easy enough to replace.

I have, as you see, already managed to get myself online again, which only took reinstalling the wireless network application CD and calling Internet Zahav to change my password. New virus protection coming soon (incidentally, ever since I got the W32.blaster worm this summer, I've been obsessive about keeping my virus files up-to-date; I don't know how this happened. I'm currently running Windows Update for a whopping 44 critical security updates).

So, no worries. Once I get MS Office and my games reinstalled, it'll be like it never happened. A big :-p to the dateless wonders who are undoubtedly giggling with nerdish glee at the thought of me having to reformat. You've won this round, dweebs...but this time tomorrow, I'll be living a real life, and you will still be cleaning your glasses (broken and taped in the middle, of course) on stained "Wang Computer" T-shirts, downloading naked pictures of Captain Janeway.
- posted by @ 8:51 AM

 
The Talpiot Mafia
Elana and I have just returned from "feeding" the cats who live on our street. I say "feeding," of course, but it must be understood that we are actually paying protection dues. In Israel, the stray cats are as common as squirrels, and squirrels are nonexistent. These cats are obviously territorial, and the three who run our street have tons of personality. That is how they earned the collective name "The Talpiot Mafia."

The Don is named Raggedy Sam. Raggedy Sam is the meanest looking cat you can imagine; squinty eyes with a constant sneer, a proud tail and long whiskers. He struts down the street slowly and confidently, surveying his domain with satisfaction. He is the unquestioned cappo de tutti cappi of the block. When dues ("table scraps from our neighbors") are paid, the other cats patiently wait for Raggedy Sam to eat his fill before they scramble for his leftovers. With humans, it should be noted that Raggedy Sam is very friendly, but those in the know are aware that it is all an act. He wisely gives us humans the illusion that we are in charge, while he knows that he could make any of us disappear with a mere twitch of a tail.

Below Raggedy Sam are the two Bosses, Napoleon and Tamurlane. Napoleon is dark orange with black patches and a twisted front paw, which gives a clue how he earned his name. Where Raggedy Sam patrols the entire street (though his favorite spot is on top of the motorcycle that is always parked in front of our apartment building), Napoleon makes himself at home in the plants lining the entranceway of the next building over. He is somewhat more cautious than Raggedy Sam, but is easily the most generous mafioso; he will meow loudly when being given food to let the other cats know that food is being served, and will unselfishly allow others to dine from his private stockpile.

Tamurlane has a serious limp (his name comes from medieval Central Asian conqueror Timur the Lame) and a genuine reticence to approach his colleagues. He, too, will meow loudly when food is given--but to complain that he isn't getting any, not to alert the other cats. He has a healthy fear of humans, but his disability makes him a favorite among them when it comes time for "collection;" his girth testifies to his success as a collector for the Talpiot Mafia.

The X-Factor is the cat that is barely seen, who always lurks in the shadows and the bushes, with dark grey fur and yellow eyes, the cat known simply as Wraith. It's not altogether clear who employs Wraith, but what is clear is that he is patiently waiting for his chance to take over the whole shebang. He watches the other cats with disdain, always from afar and semi-hidden, either by a shadow or a bush or a car. But he waits with the patience of one who knows that his day will come.

Many other cats pass this way, some who are even recognizable, though they have not yet earned their names. They are often chased off--just now, a very well-endowed orange tom, one of Raggedy Sam's enforcers, chased off an interloper with much yowling, hissing and screeching. All I can say is, I am glad our neighbors make a habit of paying their dues, or Raggedy Sam and his cronies just might decide that they've had enough of us, and liquidate the street.
- posted by @ 9:42 PM

 
*Long, Relaxing Deep Breath*
Yesterday night, we were out again, though not for dinner; at a movie. We've elected to stay in Jerusalem this weekend to get some work done, and to watch the coming rainstorm through our window. We did a big grocery trip this morning, and are now totally self-sufficient in our effecient little flat. Elana's making chicken soup, which is a food with three uses: first, the soup itself; second, the boiled chicken; and third, the lovely fragrance that it affords the apartment for hours.

The movie we saw last night was Gothika. The plot holes were horrifying, yet the horror was cliche. Elana pointed out how they used every archetypal horror convention--a bath in blood, lightening-quick flashbacks, vague images of a hand-and-face silhouette through milky curtain, and Shyamalan-esque music crescendos to nothing. But beyond the anti-originality, the very premise of the movie--that a psychiatrist, when she goes crazy, would be assigned to the VERY SAME MENTAL INSTITUTION where she worked in her saner days, and that her doctor would be her former colleague and friend--was so seriously flawed, it called into question whether the movie should ever have even been written, let alone produced. And (SPOILER ALERT, not that you should really care since this movie just ain't worth seeing), somehow at the end of the movie Halle Berry has been released, despite the fact that she did, oh, chop up her husband with an axe (true, while possessed--but I find it hard to believe that someone actually persuaded a judge that she was totally fine less than a year after going all Lizzie Borden on him).

After the movie, we took a long stroll around our part of Jerusalem, relaxing and unwinding and chatting. We found ourselves at a large gym at the other end of our street, part of a nearby school, which we had yet to explore. The playground reminds me of the playground my school had when I was in first grade in Haifa.

Which brings us to today, which has been productive and relaxing. We took care of some of the more menial things--laundry, cleaning, and homework--and have tonight to relax some more, and yes, probably do some more work. That's about it from here.
- posted by @ 5:20 PM

 
Yoja: Restaurant Review
Yes, I know we are not supposed to eat at restaurants. Well, it's certainly not something we are making a habit of; in fact, the few times I have mentioned it are indeed the few times we have eaten out. But once in a while, you have to heed the call of the night out. That is why we found ourselves at Yoja Sushi on Emek Refa'im.

We had tried to go there a couple of times, but it was always packed, with at least an hour's wait. We took this as a promising sign, and called ahead to make reservations for an early dinner, where it wouldn't be so crowded. We were a bit skeptical...after all, Jews don't do Sushi, do they?...but we knew we had to try it at least once. So here is the review of Yoja Sushi, with ratings from one * (poor) to five *s (great).

ATMOSPHERE - * * * *

I'll admit that calling ahead and coming in at a time when it wasn't crowded was a big help. We ended up at a table against a wall with a window open to the rest of the restaurant, giving us a feeling of quiet seclusion but without cramping us. It wasn't too loud, and although the lights seemed to be a bit schizophrenic (they couldn't seem to decide whether to be dim or bright), it had a nice, pleasant feel to it, with a window with a view of the chefs doing their preparation.

All or most of the customers were American, as good an indication as any of the state of the economy in Israel. It's the kind of place where you're sure you'll run into in-laws, even if they are not yours, and we did indeed; the grandmother from Florida visiting her daughter's family (four children) looked over at us from the next table and, without preamble, mentioned that someday it would be like this for us when we had four kids. She was quick to explain that she "saw the rings," and offered us a hearty mazel tov. The course of the discussion led to the revelation that today was her birthday, so we wished her a happy birthday and went back to our conversation. The kids were quite cute.

SERVICE - * * *

The service rates three stars because it was nothing special. Although the chefs were Asian, the waiters were standard Israelis with excellent English. In other words, it did nothing to be noticed...on the other hand, it did nothing to be noticed. The meals did come out as they were ready, which for Americans is unusual; however, they did explain in the menu that they bring food out as it is ready so it will be hot, so I won't dock them for that.

FOOD - * * * *

The Sushi selection barely earns the term "selection" at all. There were perhaps seven or eight types, almost all variations on the tuna roll, of sushi offered on the menu; not enough for spoiled Americans who enjoy Sushi at Hirosuke in LA. The menu followed the example of the lighting and was schizophrenic; the remainder of the choices can be classified in the most specific way as East Asian, with Thai and Chinese dishes marching alongside with the Japanese. For appetizers, we ordered sushi (tuna) and chicken satay. The sushi was quite good, and the satay, though not sweet enough, was tasty as a chicken dish that is not satay. Our main courses--Spicy Cantonese Beef and Teriyaki Chicken Salad--were a mixed achievement. The beef was outstanding, and instantly put me in mind of my favorite dish at my favorite restaurant: Hot Beef at the Tree Top on Prospect Street in Waltham. The salad was so-so; the chicken was bland, the vinaigrette dressing somewhat overpowering, but it was edible for what it was. If we go again we'll have plenty of tasty-sounding alternatives, including one of my all-time-favorite dishes, Peking Duck, to complement the Cantonese Beef, which we will undoubtedly order again.

PRICE

It is possible to eat at Yoja without spending a lot of money, but you have to be willing to forgo the sushi and many of the yummier-sounding entrees. In general, this is a nice restaurant on par with nice restaurants in the US--but we went in expecting to have to sell a kidney each on the black market to afford the sushi, so it was a nice surprise when it was reasonably priced.

OVERALL RATING - * * * *

It seems unfair to let inconspicuous service drag the average down, so I tossed in an extra third of a star for the intangible satisfaction of an overall nice night out. If you are going to eat at Yoja, I strongly recommend you call in advance (unless you haven't seen Emek Refa'im, in which case you really should take the opportunity to wander around a bit while your name sits on the list) and prepare to spend some cash in advance. Going there too often would be an expensive bad habit, but for those nights when you don't mind shelling out some shekels, Yoja will give a good meal and positive experience that's worth every agura.

Yoja
Emek Refa'im 25
Jerusalem
02-561-1344
- posted by @ 11:07 PM

 
DIPLOMACY Plugged Back In
I owe you readers an apology. Apparently, the Israeli Ambassador to Sweden did no damage at all to the piece, "Snow White and the Madness of Truth." He literally just unplugged it. He, I repeat, caused no damage, thus rendering my whole argument irrelevent. Everything I said was, I feel, correct with the information I was given, and I see no reason to change my opinions on the question in general.

On this specific case, however, I am moved to acknowledge that the Ambassador's action--simply unplugging it--was a legitimate protest, and one which I support, especially since it could be repaired (what a shame that it was) simply by plugging it back in.

So, this act does not in any way demonstrate any sort of Israeli propensity towards violence or destruction, despite what some critics may say. There might be something to infer about the Israeli tendency to overdramatize, though, as well as about my own predilection for a good argument.
- posted by @ 1:30 PM

 
Fashion and Good Taste
Or lack thereof.

I don't really want to leave something contentious as the latest entry; this is supposed to be a feel-good weblog. I won't take it down, of course, because contention is a part of life here. That said, though, I still feel inclined to move on, especially since I have a worthwhile story to tell.

After Hebrew class (with my blood still simmering ever-so-slightly), I came down to JSS to pick up Elana so we could send one of her drawings to Denver. We walked to the Canion Harel Yisrael (Mall) where there is a Post Office, and went in to buy a tube in which to roll the drawing and send it. The clerk looked like she would rather be doing just about anything, up to and including shooting herself out of a torpedo tube, than have to deal with anyone. She rolled her eyes and said they didn't sell anything like that, nor did she have any idea where to find one. Remember, this is someone who WORKS in a bloody POST OFFICE. We wandered from likely-looking store to likely-looking store, hoping against hope. In a gift shop that we tried because they sold posters, the Englishman behind the counter prophesied doom, and told us we wouldn't have any luck finding such a thing because "they've gone out of style," He told us that we needed to go to this one place in town to get them, and that was our only chance. Five minutes later, when we were walking by his store with the tube we needed (which we got for free from the frame shop next door to his) I successfully resisted the urge to re-enter his store and give him two Henrietta Hens with the thing.

Wouldn't you know it, we got the same clerk when we went back, who was still looking decidedly like a cross between a thundercloud and a sour lemon. She was talking on her cellphone while I was waiting, so I did the Israeli thing and just continued speaking until she hung up in obvious frustration. I could have been standing there for twenty minutes if I didn't make a conscious decision to irritate her. Ah, Israel. Kacha zeh poh.

After that, we had dinner at Poyo Loko. At this juncture I am going to add a new section to this blog, for restaurant reviews. This is the first, of at least one. I'm doing this mostly for myself; you're welcome to read on if you wish. I promise to at least try to be amusing.

Israeli attempts at Mexican food are suspect at best. Israeli attempts at spelling Mexican words at this restaurant had already failed, but it looked charming so we decided to give it a try. After deciding to pass on the guacamole (which was described as having "cubed avocado") we ordered salsa and pita for appetizers, and had a discussion with the waitress about whether the salsa came with chips, which only succeeded in confusing everybody. The pita was spiced with chicken spices, and was actually quite good; the "salsa" was actually pico de gallo, and was indistinguishable from the "vegetable salad" that came as a side dish. The carne steak I got was pretty terrible: chewy and tasteless. Elana's chicken liver and onions dish was only slightly better. The food failed to live up to the promise the initial charm gave. Never bet a man with cards that can shoot cider, and never eat Mexican food where the Spanish spelling is approximated.
- posted by @ 9:55 PM

 
DIPLOMACY unplugged
I don't know if this is making news anywhere except Israel and Sweden, but the diplomatic rift caused by the Israeli Ambassador's destruction of a truly reprehensible piece of artwork is being hailed in Israel.

Let me begin by saying that I think the exhibit "Snow White and the Madness of Truth" that was exhibited in Stockholm at, of all things, a conference on genocide, is sickening. It depicts the Palestinian woman who blew herself up at the Maxim Cafe in Haifa as Snow White, floating in a pool of blood. Leaving aside altogether the possibility to interpret the multimedia piece in another way, its placement at the conference, and on postcards and advertisements for it, is at best a deliberate provocation and at worst a glorification of suicide bombers. The Israeli Ambassador, upon seeing this, reacted by unplugging it, which caused some parts to collapse.

I have to admit that when I first heard this, part of me cheered. The very Israeli-ness of that reaction awakens a sense of pride, that nobody is going to push us around, we have our state, we have our own strength, and if push comes to shove, we are strong enough to defend ourselves. This is a new situation for Jews in world history, and I certainly wouldn't trade it in.

However, with strength comes responsibility. Israel must not, or at least should make EVERY EFFORT to avoid, acting in a unilateral manner. I understand of course that sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and no amount of international pressure (which is often anti-Semitic in origin anyway) should stop you. I don't think this argument applies to the Bush team's ostensibly deceitful Iraq-entrance strategy, but that is a debate for another time.

Yes, the piece of art, if it can be called that, is disgusting. Yes, it causes me no small amount of satisfaction that it's been severely damaged. But what does this say about us, when we laud the destruction or attempted destruction of art because we don't like what it has to say? This came up in Hebrew class, and I was saddened to hear opinions along "it was a deliberate slap in the face and the ambassador responded strongly" lines. I felt like I was arguing against the class on this point: the teacher, at least seemed to agree with me. I don't mean to say it was vitriolic; we laughed about it afterwards, and there are no hard feelings. But a strong reaction is not always the best reaction. This is the AMBASSADOR, for heaven's sake. He's supposed to behave DIPLOMATICALLY. Sure, I understand his reaction, and I would have had the urge to do the same thing in his situation. But if you represent the State of Israel, you should make an effort to represent it responsibly.

Sadly, by the public reaction here, the Ambassador did indeed truthfully represent the Israeli people. Would not a stronger statement have been made had he demanded they take down the exhibit immediately, and if they did not, walk out? Why do we have to confirm the world's perception (largely erroneous, too) that the Israeli instinct is to respond violently? It's unfair, but I hold myself and my own people to a higher standard than I do others. I have higher expectations of myself, and of my people.

Silencing art and voices never works. If you are in the right, respond to art in kind. Criticize. Be loud, be firm. Get angry. Make your own art. But don't show the world that you have anything to fear from what sickos have to say by destroying what art they produce. Because now, not only has the violent Israeli stereotype been reinforced, but so many more people have heard about, seen, and had a chance to react to "Snow White and the Madness of Truth." It doesn't work.

My classmates asked me where my border was. At what point would I react as he did? I responded with another question: where was their border? At what point is it okay to destroy something because you don't like what it has to say? There is no answer either of us could give that would convince the other of the rightness of our perspective in this particular case. But leaving aside the Free Speech depate, which is worthwhile and salient, I closed by offering that the Israeli Ambassador did more damage to Israel than the exhibit ever could. Because now, so many more people have seen the piece of shi--uh, art--than otherwise would have, and Israel's critics have more fodder for their propaganda.

But, all this said, I must admit that the art world has lost nothing at all with the destruction of "Snow White and the Madness of Truth."
- posted by @ 3:31 PM

 
"Sketches of a Sculptor and Frivolity of a Film: Where Has All the Good Art Gone?" Or, "Driving in Tel Aviv Sucks"
Driving in Tel Aviv is perhaps the most maddening experience Israel has to offer (perhaps I shouldn't say that until I have to truly deal with some government bureaucracy?). Besides bearing an almost uncanny resemblance to Vice City (I have made this observation in the past, I know), it is composed almost exclusively of one way streets. It is more or less a grid, but the various streets that do not follow the grid--or rules of logic, or even, so it seems at times, Newtonian physics--make the city more confusing than a Boston- or Jerusalem-style "what's city planning?" layout. In Chicago, the off-grid streets all ran diagonal; in Los Angeles there ARE no off-grid streets. Even the freeways themselves form a grid. Tel Aviv managed to arrange itself in a reasonable grid, and then, for no apparent reason, toss in a couple of windy, aimless, direction-changing roads just to see if you're paying attention. Then it shrinks the street signs to hobbit-size for good measure (though this is a problem throughout Israel).

As you may have guessed by now (if you haven't, you're not allowed to read this anymore) we were in Tel Aviv yesterday. Our friend Nava was already there visiting family, and we were going to meet her there and then go to the Tel Aviv Art Museum, where there is a Giacometti exhibit up. It being Friday, we were under a considerable time pressure, as the museum closed at two. Once we got to Tel Aviv, it took us forty-five minutes to find her thanks to an unfortunate set of circumstances; her cellphone ran out of batteries, there was mad traffic, and the aforementioned "one-way streets in a crowded city that go nowhere in particular" joined forces to frustrate us. We were finally able to make contact and meet, and then we more or less rushed through Tel Aviv (crawled would be a more apt term, but we tried to rush) and got to the museum with about forty minutes to see the exhibit.

The exhibit iself was sort of disappointing. There were a decent number of sketches exhibited, but there were way too few sculptures for a sculptor's exhibit. We left, a little disappointed, but glad that we managed to enter the museum with time to see the whole exhibit.

After that, we had lunch at the museum's restaurant, which was surprisingly good. We walked around Dizengoff street in Tel Aviv (Israel's answer to Madison Avenue, but it looks more like a crowded Devon street in Chicago). Nava's boyfriend Leonid came and picked us up and drove us back to our car, from which we had strayed rather far. Nava and Leonid continued from there to Rishon LeZion, and we went a bit further down the 4 to Ashdod.

It was a very nice visit; we went to see Mona Lisa Smile with Liat yesterday night. I was not a fan of the movie, to be honest: like my friend Ricki said in her incisive review, Julia Roberts' character simply makes no sense in context. But the point wasn't the movie itself, it was to go see a movie, and we did, and that was fun. When we got back, we slept.

This morning we woke up and had a more or less relaxing day. I did all my homework this afternoon, bucking my recent unfortunate trend of leaving some small thing for the morning before class. We hung out with Alla, Vova, Tova, and Liat (and Eden was bouncing around all over the place, like always) and watched, I'm embarassed to admit, Paradise Hotel (which was new to us). After someone betrayed someone else and someone else had an alliance with another someone else, and the smug hostess kissed the betrayed goodbye as she left paradise, Elana and I kissed the family goodbye and we left Ashdod. Reality TV sure doesn't present a good image of Americans to the rest of the world. But it's better than FoxNews. Because thanks to, among others, FoxNews, not only are we perceived by much of the world as arrogant you-know-whats, but we are also seen as self-righteous and destructive, to boot. Perfect. All I can say is, thank the Lord for Hollywood, which occasionally puts out a movie, usually with Julia Roberts, that reminds the world that hey, we can be pretty cute, too.
- posted by @ 10:32 PM

 
Xiao Ping for clothes
There is nothing East Asian about this blog at all. Deng garners nary a mention.

My day before the aforementioned bill-paying was sort of bland, which is why I felt the need to post an entry exalting my Hebrew skills; I simply didn't have that much to say. But after that, my mood instantly improved. For one thing, it was an absolutely beautiful day outside in Jerusalem today (I hear this is not the case in Boston: for those of you in the frigid land o'the bean, stay warm), and immediately after posting, I walked out to JSS to meet up with Elana and see how her month-long is progressing (remarkably well, incidentally--though I am admittedly partisan, Elana is absolutely amazing), and then we walked together to the Beit Hadar mall across the street to have lunch/dinner at Aroma Espresso, where they make a very good goat cheese and pesto sandwich and a mean green salad.

Already being in the mall, we decided to go shopping after we ate; I was tired of alternating the same five sweatshirts over and over again. I bought a very cool long black jacket and two new sweaters, and Elana bought a funky new shirt. They are a little more, shall we say, European, than the rest of my clothes, but I like them and they are comfortable and and dressy. The first jacket I tried on was a little too "Achtung, baby" (in the original sense) for our tastes, what with its military shoulders, pockets, and buttons galore. Some of the clothes that didn't make the purchase cut were absolutely ridiculous...there is ridiculous clothing everywhere (the "walking billboard" attire is as big a problem here as in the US), but when two of the sweaters hover in that non-neutral zone between "Star Trek" and "Eurotrash?" Please.

After that we walked to Emek Refa'im, where there was an art show of one of JSS' graduates up, and looked around. This art gallery was an accident; the gallery owner, an American, started out by putting up a show for a depressed friend. Another friend of hers liked the job she did, and asked for a similar favor. Soon, she was having shows every six weeks, and she puts up shows of art she likes, rather than shows which make a particular statement. The gallery triples as her husband's law office and her family's home. Most refreshing.

Tomorrow we're off to Tel Aviv, to see a Giacometti exhibit with our friend Nava; then it's off to Ashdod for the night. It's been a couple of weeks since we visited our "home away from home away from home," and I'm looking forward to being back there.
- posted by @ 8:48 PM

 
Confidence Builder
Just a quick thought: you know your Hebrew is improving when you can pay all your bills (which includes navigating phone menus) and correct computer errors with the customer service representative without a word of English. Good stuff.
- posted by @ 3:20 PM

 
A Witty Title
Colds tend to linger, even after you feel better, and I've spent the last couple of days with the remnants: a cough, and morning congestion. But so what? I've made it to school without much difficulty, and will be back again today.

We had a cumulative quiz in Arabic, for which I knew all the words but may have missed some of the nominative voweling (not that it matters in the long run, since nobody speaks with nominative voweling and all work is printed without vowels, anyway: it's just to get people to think about sentence structure). My pronunciation, apparently, is improving, at least to the untrained ear; a message I left on my brother's answering machine from my Arab persona, a motorcycle-rider from Abu Dis named Sarif abdur-Rahum, was convincing enough to make him call me back and ask if I had given his number out to anyone. Sorry about that, Max.

It's ugly out today: wet and rainy, cloudy (visibility is about a city block) and cold. It's the kind of day that's especially hard to get up and face, especially when the heaters have done their work inside the apartment ever-so-nicely, but you can feel the outside encroaching when you sit, as I am right now, next to the window. The wet weather pretty much dampened any thoughts I had of going to the gym, but I content myself with the knowledge that Elana and I eat salads almost every night.

Anyway, with no great stories or epic narratives to share today, the time has come to let this entry come to an end. I've been nursing it for time-wasting purposes, and that's quite enough of that. At least it's more productive than Snood. Incidentally, it's been two years since my last play. I can move on to step nine.
- posted by @ 8:35 AM

 
BREATHING AGAIN . . . . A H H H H H H .....
And as quickly as the virus came, it passed.

I was still suffering this morning when I woke up at 4:18, for no particular reason other than my constricted throat. That was okay, though; it gave me a chance to be "up" for a little while and build up my strength to go to the 8 AM class. I was determined not to miss two consecutive days of class, and consequently made it my business to get there in time for the whole day.

I needn't have bothered, though I will say that the morning session today was by far the most fun I have had in that class. Perhaps that is a cruel thing to say, given that the professor never showed up. To her credit, she had done her part, and had called in sick yesterday. But there was a breakdown in communication, and they posted a note outside the administrative office on the fourth floor (the entrance and the classroom both are on the second floor, so there was no reason to climb the stairs). They were supposed to put a note outside the classroom, but apparently everybody thought somebody else was doing it, so we ended up sitting there for forty-five minutes. Not that it would have really made a difference...we all made it on time, and at that point nobody was going to head home for the extra hour of sleep. One would think that it wouldn't have killed them to find a way to let us know yesterday (after all, both the administration and the professor have our phone numbers and email addresses...apparently only to take up 20 bytes each on their computers). The class took the opportunity to get to know each other better in the cafeteria. I still felt quite sick.

I made it through Hebrew and Arabic, and then went and picked up Elana from JSS. She had had a frustrating day. When she got to the studio, she found the whole bottom half of her month-long pose--which, fortuitously enough, was only lines, and not worked to too significant a degree--had been ripped off and and trampled (it was several large pieces of paper together, so it could be repaired). The consensus in the class was that someone from the evening classes had needed paper and stolen it; another possibility is that someone accidentally knocked it off and stepped on it while getting their own bulky drawing, and then didn't bother to own up to it. From now on, she's going to keep her drawing separate, just in case. It's very lucky that the top half, which was very worked, was undamaged.

Needless to say, this put her in a rotten way all morning; it took her all of today to get the drawing back to where it was, but it is restored. So I picked her up early from class, and we cheered ourselves up at the supermarket. By this time, I was already starting to feel better; it was amazing how quickly I went from "as rotten as yesterday" to "mostly better" to "I was sick?". For tonight, Elana is making chicken soup (mmmmmmm!!!) and we are going to watch X-Men 2 because we both want some mindless good fun.

Oh, and one more thing: next semester's class offerings came out. If I take all the classes that I really want to take, I will have as many hours on Wednesdays as I will for the rest of the week. I think that I will keep looking for a better schedule. That seems awfully excessive...

More later. I need to see Wolverine beat some people up. They have it coming, anyway.

- posted by @ 7:23 PM

 
Woooooozy
This is perhaps the worst I have felt since third grade. I woke up today, and there was absolutely no question of going to school. I was staying home all the way. Consequently, there just ain't too much to report. Elana stayed home to take care of poor me, which was very wonderful; she made me food all day. I also learned the joys of the cough medicine called "Hacks," which is remarkably stong but tastes like $#!*. Later on tonight, when I started feeling a little better, we walked to our video store on Emek Refa'im to return the movies we had rented on Friday afternoon. Back home, we took it easy. I'm watching the first half of the Chiefs-Colts game (lose, Chiefs!), but there's no way I'm going to make it all the way through, and will probably hit the hay in about half an hour. I have an early class tomorrow, the 8 AM class which I ranted about last Monday. I'll see how I feel in the morning. If I feel mostly better (a cagey proposition at best) I will go; perhaps I will wait to go for Hebrew at 10:30. Good night.
- posted by @ 9:32 PM

 
Somebody stop me before I cough again
24 hours? Ha.

The way I feel right now, I realize it was foolish of me to hope for this virus to be a 24 hour virus. Fortunately, I am not going anywhere today...in fact, I plan to sit in the apartment (everything is closed on Saturday, anyway), and do some work--as soon as I finish the movies we rented. This is one of those "really no fun" bugs, where it hurts to go to sleep, it hurts to wake up and swallow, and only after having a throat lozenge for breakfast can you even tolerate water. Unfortunately, we were down to two (count 'em) throat lozenges yesterday, and one I took to to get me to sleep. So I'm rationing for a desperate moment.

Part of the problem (though I wouldn't change this) is probably that I was so busy yesterday. I woke up early (usually I get to sleep on Fridays) because my State and Society of the Medieval Islamic World class was taking a field trip to the Islamic Art Museum. The Islamic Art Museum, incidentally, was phenomenal. Tucked away on HaPalmach street in West Jerusalem (downtown...an Israeli area) this three-story, nine room wonder is like Islam's attic. It has the most random collection of artifacts and art one could imagine, with each small room (perhaps the size of an above-average living room) containing pieces from each of the different time periods (Umayyad, Abbasid, Seljuk, Mongol, Mamluk, and Ottoman, along with rooms dedicated to the Moghuls of India and Later Persia). In the Mongol room, they had pieces of an ancient chess set. In the Mamluk room, there was a whole collection of jewelry, pottery, and books from Samarra. The basement (ooh! you know this should be good, but...) was a disappointment. Usually they have an exhibit of weapons and one of music, but the weapons one (which was Professor Amitai's main reason for taking us there) had been temporarily covered up by a pictorial exhibition of Israel's clock towers. Professor Amitai, to his credit, still made this a very interesting visit, and eminently worthwhile: it's a great help, in a class like this, to expand the idea of "texts" to include what is beyond the printed word. And the best thing was he scheduled in time for us to wander around on our own (I should tell my Hebrew teachers, whose mess of a trip to the Israel Museum involved them ferrying us from boring lecture to boring lecture and then immediately back onto the bus, to pay attention), which I used to explore the music exhibit. I'm going to find out when they are putting the weapons back up, and then I'm taking Elana and going back.

I rested most of the afternoon, being exhausted, and when I woke up the virus had morphed from a squall into a hurricane. We rented some movies and spent the night relaxing (well, I did; Elana took care of me, made me food and tea, and stuff) and then went to sleep. Of course, I slept badly, with weird dreams, waking up every half-hour to forty-five minutes or so, and taking about that long to get back to sleep. So I only got in a few hours. On second thought, maybe I won't do any work today. I'm frankly amazed that I could wrap my head around writing coherent sentences, here. Of course, it's just a matter of time before Elana gets this damn thing, no matter how much we try to avoid it. The trick is to be prepared: as soon as the sun goes down and businesses reopen, we're buying some more lozenges.
- posted by @ 9:13 AM

 
Worst. Ahab. Ever.
I've never been of the mind that one should simply sit at home and feel sick. I know they say you should rest when you have a cold; being out and about and busy, especially on cold days, is exactly the wrong thing to do. However, the thought of sitting in the apartment, focusing on how rotten I feel, was almost too much. That's why, a couple of hours ago, I dragged Elana to the only movie playing at the Rav-Chen that looked mildly interesting: Master and Commander. Let me begin by saying that Elana gets to pick the next movie.

David Hyde Pierce has a line in one of his movies, to the effect of, "Men like movies where a lot of people die very quickly. Women, by contrast, tend to prefer those where one person dies very slowly." Master and Commander was not even engaging, and somehow failed to make even the "lots of people dying quickly" part fun to watch. I can only imagine how it was sold to the producers: "It's like Gladiator on H20 and A.D.D. all at once! Can't miss!"

I am going to write about it briefly, and although I will be discussing the entire movie, I will not put in spoilers--mainly because I can't, as spoilers presuppose a plot, which Master and Commander lacked. It was two-and-a-half hours of Russell Crowe, strutting around a ship like a proud peacock, pausing every ten minutes or so to pose, either scouting on the mast or hanging off the side of the ship (regardless of the weather), inviting the audience to bask in the splendor that is him. Toss in a passing reference to Lord Nelson to prove that someone at least read a book about the Napoleonic Wars, a subplot involving a naturalist (not Darwin) who keeps just missing his chance to put ashore and do the seminal work on the Galapagos Islands (he doesn't get to, after all), a nobleman who starts to think of himself as Jonah, several unrelated scenes where the naturalist gets shot and operates on himself and some old guy on the ship who keeps blurting out crazy things, mix it all together for two hours and voila! Master and Commander. I won't say it was worse than thinking about how sick I feel, but I will say that Kevin Costner's Water World is looking sort of okay right now. Oy, maybe I'm feverish.

I want to mention one other thing, mainly because it's not every day you meet a walking stereotype. To the movie, I wore my One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest hooded sweatshirt, from the play I directed at Brandeis in 2001. On the back, the white sweatshirt simply says, in block print, "PROPERTY OF SEIFER STATE MENTAL INSTITUTE." It was meant to have people ask what it was all about, and that's happened a couple of times in Israel...and it happened again tonight. There was an older middle-aged couple from Long Island sitting two rows behind us, who laughed and asked what it was. This of course drew us into a conversation with them (note: I'm glad that Israeli theatres only let you in ten minutes before showtime; it severely limits the scope of such conversations) where they dropped such gems as, "We don't so much care for this 'rock' music. Except for the Beatles. Of course, we were against them, too, when they first came out, and you know, they just conquered the world," and "Remember when there was all that fuss when the Star Wars movies came out? There were a lot of special fans who started calling themselves 'Trekkies.'" As former Trekkies, we nearly hissed at them. And then, "No, we didn't see Lord of the Rings. From what I understand, it's a bunch of people who have to deliver a ring for someone, and lots of people try to kill them for it. It sounds very much like a quest." They also, incidentally, hated Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail (you can follow her thought process!). I resisted the urge to ask them if they were put on the earth by Satan, and hate all things good and true. To the rock and roll comment, I responded deferentially that we tend to prefer the music of our parents' generation rather than our peers, and the woman replied, "Oh! You like Frank Sinatra?" The man said something that implied that we wouldn't know who this Frank Sinatra was. At that point we were saved by the dimming of the lights.

Although, when you consider what followed the darkening of the room, perhaps "saved" is the wrong word.
- posted by @ 10:29 PM

 
Sick again
Blllllleeeggggghhh.

It's hard to tell when you get sick just how bad it is going to be. Right now, I've mostly lost my voice and feel pretty rotten, though I've been in a good mood all day. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I took four pages of single-spaced notes today on Patricia Crone's book, "Slaves on Horses" (yes, I am aware that book titles should be italicized or underlined; but for some reason those functions don't work on blogger, and I'm not interested enough to try to figure out why). Why is this such a good thing? Well, consider that if you double-space the notes (they're on the computer) that makes eight pages; throw in the fact that these notes are on only the first 91 (out of about 300) pages of the book, and that this is the first book I started reading on the topic, and you draw the conclusion that, if I spend all of February break (as I plan to) researching and writing this 50 page paper, I can be highly selective with my notes and thus produce a high-quality report. And that's what I plan to do. When I was bruising my skull agains the Ismailis (my first choice of a paper topic) the idea that I could get more than ten pages of any quality was a dubious one at best; now I feel like I can actually write this thing, and write it well.

It's raining today, and it's the first real cold rain we've had. Of course it's rained quite a bit this winter, but it's always been kind of like a pleasant rain. This one makes me shiver just to look at it. Of course, being out in it today did wonders for my throat. Bad wonders.

A couple of nights ago, we got together with Sechy for the last time before she went back to Canada. An easygoing night, as always; dinner at Norman's, the burger joint where we went with Jacob (incidentally, she knew the owners!) and some relaxing back at the apartment before we drove her back to Givat Shaul (near the University). She said she'd be back in Israel, and we're going to hold her to that.

Elana has started a month-long pose, if you can imagine that. I don't have the patience to do anything for more than a couple of hours; she has to draw the same model, in the same pose, for a month. It's amazing to me the amount of patience that must take. We had to buy a large piece of wood for a drawing board for her at the Home Center nearby ("Hohm Cehntehr"). I'll say parenthetically that you always have to be on your guard here, because somebody is always looking to rip you off, and you have to be willing to walk away, even from something you need, to get a fair price.

I'm sorry that that's all I have to say. Despite the gusts outside, being sick has taken the wind out of my sails. While I wait for your heart rate to drop after this, the most exciting of blog entries, I'm going to go take out my contacts, lie down in bed, and pray that this monster is a 24-hour monster.
- posted by @ 4:36 PM

 
Something I Never Would Have Known/ Not Knowing Knowledge Never Ennobles
I was feeling argumentative in class this morning.

Our professor in the Cross-Currents class, who has no right to criticize any sort of disorganization on our parts, got more than she bargained for from me this morning.

It started a couple of weeks ago, when she asked us to go look up certain words in the concordancia of the Quran. This meant a trip to the Givat Ram campus (some of you may remember this) and a search for these words. We had originally been scheduled to do this a week before, but none of us did, and she freaked out at us (she's not a screamer, or anything, so "freaked out" must be taken with a grain of salt). So I and a couple of friends from the class, Konnie and Matilda (the former from Germany, the latter a lawyer from Sweden) went to Givat Ram together and looked up each occurrence of each of the eight words, and the list was long.

Well, we didn't address it the next week, or the next, or the next...only today did we get to it, and basically it involved her going over many of the occurrences in the Quran (which we had already done on our own), and not making any sort of commentary about it. We did not need to go over work we had already done at home, and we can all read. Besides, what was so important about these words? Why did it have to be done that week or, as she presented it to us, we would get nothing out of future lectures? I was frustrated.

Then she decided to move on and discuss in detail an article she assigned five weeks ago and hadn't mentioned since, and which I hadn't looked it since I read it: after all, what goes on in that class seems so haphazard anyway, why would it occur to me to review it every week?

Answer: it wouldn't, and I didn't. So we begin discussing it (more apt to say, she begins speaking about it, and gets upset when we don't carry the conversation, since nobody remembers this paper from their first reading). So I decided that I had better say something; it was getting awkward in the room, when she would ask a question and nobody would answer. Problem is, she tends to slip into Hebrew half of the time, which is very frustrating for the other five people in the class, none of whom speak Hebrew as well as I do, not that I speak that wonderfully. But that's just my point. Some don't speak any Hebrew at all. So instead of waiting through another hour of "So, Hevreh, who can tell me ech the different mishtamshim of words meaning soul, like, l'mashal 'nafs' and 'ruh,' baQuran...eh, mi yachol lehagid li in what situation mishtamshim b'hem?" ("who can tell me in what situations different words meaning 'soul' are used in the Quran?"), followed by a sullen silence and much floor-staring...instead of that, I nitpicked one point in the article, which I picked out mostly at random, and argued it for forty-five minutes, under the assumption that I'd get more out of making an ass of myself by going out on a limb than continuing to examine the tiles. As it happens, I lucked into a defensible, even correct, position.

The article made the assertion that body and soul are not separate in the Quran--then the author immediately discredited his own argument by pulling the Quranic descriptions of paradise (which is essentially a list of physical (READ: BODY) pleasures which are forbidden in life but await you in Allah's Garden). There was no description or even attempt to describe what the Quran says happens to the soul in the afterlife. Now, granted, the Quran is very vague on that point--but knowing that, why would he make such a ridiculous statement, especially when, according to one of the other students who has some experience in studying the Quran, there are applicable verses? At first the professor hedged, saying she understood why he would write that, since the Western conception of the afterlife tends to involve the soul and not the body. I argued that if he was simply dissenting and making outlandish statements that even a second-grader could tell you were logically flawed, then the academic value of his paper is suspect at best and detrimental to learning at worst. She continued to argue the point with me, and I didn't back down. In the end she agreed and called the article "problematic"...and then (and this bothered me) she said that she brought in the article because she hoped it would encourage precisely this discussion. Now, that may be true, but if it is, why bring it up (and why wait five weeks before discussing it)? Did she simply need to restore her academic status, to confirm that she was in fact (as it indeed appeared to all in the room) not defending the article's fallacies, but rather playing the devil's advocate to further the discussion? I freely confessed during the discussion that I don't know my Quran very well at all, and I offered her several easy opportunities to prove me wrong ("I have only read the Quran for this class, and I have no prior experience with it. Is there anything I'm missing?") It would seem that if she simply wanted to encourage the discussion, she had already succeeded, and could have taken the opportunity to clear up a misconception. Apparently, my conceptions were on the mark. I thought she was getting frustrated with me, that I wouldn't simply accept her answers at first, and at one point I even said, "I'm sorry to take up so much of the class on this point," to which she relaxed and answered that she was happy to have this discussion...but she continued to seem frustrated with it. So I don't know exactly what to think about that.

For the whole semester I've beat my head against this course, fighting the battle every Monday morning to get out of bed at 6 AM so I can be there on time (I haven't missed a class yet), and finally today I get something out of it because I argue basically for the sake of passing the time--and the first thing the professor does is downplay it, and suggest that she masterfully manipulated me into this discussion. Well, maybe she did, and maybe she didn't. Perhaps she said that to save academic face. Either way, though, such an assertion doesn't particularly make me want to speak up again. So what's keeping me in this class? Well, the fact that the whole grade is based on discussion (which I had better get a good mark for, after today's display) and a single five- to ten-page paper at the end of this month means that there is not a lot of work left to do, and to lose this credit would put me severely behind the eight ball in terms of finishing my Masters in two years (remember that I received no credit for for my undergrad course, which I took for background, so I'm already a little behind). What kept me in the class through the semester? Stubbornness, and faith in idea that you get out of a class what you put into it--and at the beginning I put in a LOT of effort. Recently, though, as the class bogged down, going in circles over the same material for weeks and spending too much time reading passages she brought in out loud (and ignoring the assigned homework, which she termed "essential"), I got frustrated and reapportioned my time to other classes. I will stay in the class for the credit, but hopes of actually getting more than a couple of factoids out of this class are fading fast. My hopes of discovering an overall theme of the course have long since disappeared.

The others in the class share my frustration. But to say that the class does not contribute to our academic careers would be a lie. Konnie told me she took the opportunity, while I was arguing my point, to learn the words for the Arabic vocabulary quiz we had later this afternoon. That, indeed, was a comparatively efficient use of class time.
- posted by @ 4:12 PM

 
Hee-haw
Oh, Broncos. What happened?

Did you need me to watch that badly? I was tired. I needed to sleep. Besides, you can't criticize. Apparently, you all slept through your game, too.

*Sigh*. Oh well. Let's go Avs!

Besides the Broncos' debacle in Indianapolis, we are both doing well. I changed my paper topic in State and Society in the Medieval Islamic World. I found too much of the relevant source material was written in French and German (which have emerged as the next languages I have to learn, after Arabic and Russian. I'm going to be occupied for a few years). I also realize that I picked too narrow a topic right at the outset, especially if I want to write 40 pages on it. Instead pf an obscure branch of the Ismaili sect in Syria, I am going to start with my original fascination--the mamluks, about whom much is written--and I'll develop a topic as I go along. All of this is with Professor Amitai's blessing, of course; I'm thrilled that he's so approachable.

I've become increasingly frustrated with my Cross-Currents and Cultural Influences class, and my undergraduate class (Rise of Islam) is over. All in all, though, this is shaping up to be a very good semester. Life feels like not just a good, but also a happy thing, most of the time.

To add to the happiness, I didn't bother to stay awake for the Donkos phone-in effort, so I'm reasonably well-rested for my early class. And I can tell myself the same thing that I tell myself every year when one of my teams is eliminated from championship contention: "Oh, good. That's one less thing to stress about." It often happens fairly early on in the year. My sympathies (again) to Red Sox Nation.

- posted by @ 5:48 AM

 
Radio Jordan
It used to be that I didn't listen to the radio while driving to school in the morning. There were probably ten or eleven stations that played nothing but Middle Eastern music--which starts to blend together, after a while, into a single ululating cacophony. But then, as I was waiting for the Shtinker to warm up one morning, I was scanning through the channels and heard BNL. This was a surprise, as to most Israelis "Barenaked Ladies" are something you want to look at, not something you want to listen to. The American pop music continued, playing songs that ranged from Creed (lowest of the low) to the Beatles. I had found Radio Jordan, live from Amman.

Unfortunately, as the weeks went on, Radio Jordan continued to play the same songs, in the same order, every morning on the Breakfast Show. The DJ, also, plagiarizes without mercy. He has the gall to claim that he made up Deep Thoughts, though, to be fair, he does change them ever so slightly to speak to his target audience. Today's Deep Thought was, "When I was little, I used to make fun of my friend Khalid during his piano lessons. But look at where we are now. Well, actually, I don't know where he is. But look at where I am, that's my point." Yes, that's right: he changes the names to Arab names. Immediately following the Deep Thoughts section, he lifts the Onion's horoscopes and reads them on the air, again with only the slightest of alterations and absolutely no citation: "Nobody knows the trouble you've seen. Nobody knows your sorrow. Nobody except your quiet neighbor Abu-Issam, the one with the binoculars. He knows."

This DJ, whose name escapes me at the moment, also is often terribly confused. Today, when I turned on the car, "Here Without You" by Three Doors Down was playing. After that came the Deep Thought, followed by the Horoscope, followed again by "Here Without You," at which point I was already almost at school. They then took a break for the news.

I can't really fault them for the news; they're a Jordanian station. But somehow having the top story be how Iran publicly thanked the Kingdom of Jordan for its support (which amounted to little more than moral support, in reality) in dealing with the earthquake tragedy in Bam, seemed a little overblown. Much was made of this, including an analysis of Jordanian-Iranian relations and several sound bytes, all of which served to glorify his Majesty King Abdullah II the Hashimite, and certainly proved to me that Jordan is, in fact, the greatest nation on earth. At the end of the news, they toss in some anti-Israeli propaganda so they can stay on the air, and then it's back to the music. Today, that meant...what else..."Here Without You," by Three Doors Down, YET AGAIN. Fortunately, by that point, I had parked the car, and turned it off with a feeling that can only be described as bewildered relief.

I will continue to listen to Radio Jordan, for absence of an alternative. But hearing your DJ mispronounce basic words, like "shampoo" (this error actually caused me to chuckle), or misuse certain words, like "behoove" (which, despite what he thinks, is not a part of a horse) is a bit grating. But at least it's not music that goes "a-la-la-la-la-la-la-lu-lu-la-la-la" all the time.
- posted by @ 9:47 AM

 
Friends, Family, and Freshening up the Flat
We've been running around like chickens with their heads cut off this weekend. Happy New Year.

We started out the weekend on Friday afternoon. After a relatively lazy morning Friday (though I did have to deal with my medical insurance, which has changed because the school changed carriers; however, they mistakenly put my student id number in place of my passport number. It only took a couple of calls to find out that this was, in fact, intentional), we set off for Tel Aviv for a visit with Jeff and L.

A quick word about Tel Aviv. It is not, as is so often assumed, the largest city in Israel. It doesn't even rank in the top five, I think. Jerusalem is the biggest, topping out at around 600,000. Even Ashdod is bigger than Tel Aviv. However, Tel Aviv is the downtown of a megalopolis that includes Petah Tikva, Rishon LeZion, B'nei Brak, Herzliya, Ra'anana, Kfar Saba...all of them fairly large in and of themselves.

Tel Aviv itself is a study in contrasts. On the one hand, there are towers and skyscrapers right on the beach, and it is a thoroughly modern city. However, where we were, right next to all this modernity, there was a shuk (a market) that looked like a third-world country. Parts of it bore an uncanny resemblance to Vice City. This duality was interesting, and though I can't say that Tel Aviv looks "good," per se, I can't be too hard on it since Elana was born there.

We met up with Jeff and L on the beach, where L was talking her way into a horse ride from a couple of caballeros who were trotting up and down the shore. They somehow agreed, and after she took a quick canter around the area (with all the nearby dogs going absolutely ape), we took a walk down the beach, chatting and catching up, though it had not been that long. Sadly, it looks as if we are going to have to miss their wedding. We made our way back to the area where we met, and sat at a small coffee shop on the beach. We were sitting outside, despite the rain, under an umbrella; when the wind changed and the rain started to come down harder, I insisted that we move inside, as I was receiving an unwanted second shower of the day. L and Elana called me a wimp, but Jeff backed me up, and we moved inside. Inside, they were playing ungodly music, which we had to ask them to turn down several times. The food was mediocre but the company was good, and we left feeling positive.

We spent last night (hold onto your hats) in Ashdod, about a half-hour drive down the coast from Tel Aviv. Alla and Vova have some people staying with them, a couple of kids (our age) from Canada. We chatted with them for a while, which was nice, and then went and collapsed at Grisha and Valya's.

This morning we got up to take a walk, and sat down at the apartment building where Elana's great-grandparents Dina and Volodya (her grandfather and Grisha's parents) had lived until the mid-80's, on the same block as Grisha's house. As we were driving by this building a few months ago, Elana remarked to her grandfather's cousin Luba that that house was very familiar. Luba looked at her oddly and told her that her great-grandparents had lived there. Everyone was pretty impressed that Elana was able to pick out the one house, out of a row of very similarly-built and identically-colored houses, that she had last seen when she was, at the oldest, five years old.

After our walk, we made our way back to Jerusalem, where we immediately set out on our first mission of the New Year: the thorough cleaning of our apartment, which we nearly accomplished with not too much difficulty. It is still a little bit messy, but it is very clean; the floors, the kitchen, everything. And the mess is the kind that is left-over from cleaning. While we were working, Micha (our landlord) knocked on our door. The Professor who lived next door to us had moved out (probably muttering something about "not being able to take it" anymore, ha ha), and he had a bigger kitchen cabinet, and Micha wanted to know if we wanted it, since it was just going to sit unused until he rented out the apartment next door anyway. We eagerly accepted; our experimentation with food and Valya's apparent compulsion to give us lots of food every weekend (this should be read in a very grateful tone, despite your instinct to read it perjoratively) has left us bereft of storage space. Now we again have plenty. It's really nice to have a landlord who will make that kind of extra effort when it's not necessary. Let me reiterate that I'm very glad that we have this apartment. Especially now that it's clean.
- posted by @ 10:15 PM