It was thirty minutes into a seminar on Critical Theory on Planning when I realized with relief that I was not the only one drowning in the Hebrew discussion on relative and absolute space. Another student raised her hand and flat out told the professor, "Excuse me, please slow down. I have no idea what you're saying."
But there was no such sense of sympathy in the school supply store.
The Academon is in the basement of the student union and is filled with the usual paraphernalia for studying - stationery, pens, pencil cases...and then loads of computer goods, an entire corner devoted to backpacks, and racks of toiletries. Really, Ben Gurion U. students? You can't find shampoo at your corner grocery?
What confounded me was how I would organize my papers in the land of no Five-Star notebooks with multiple subject areas and convenient built-in pockets. How to deal with A4 paper, which is narrower and longer than my old mainstay, A3? What to do with a standard filing system of two holes to a sheet, instead of one? Or with the national love for "nylons" - transparent plastic pockets with two holes designed to be placed in binders to hold onto the non-punched sheets.
I stared at the wall of binders and nylons, bewildered at the prospect of re-thinking the way I take notes. After ten agonizing minutes, I bought pre-holepunched loose leaf paper (which comes bound on one end, so it can be easily used in a clipboard) and two binders. I also picked up colorful pens to get excited about writing reams of Hebrew which may be indecipherable to me when I look at them later. I think I'll wind up taking notes on a clipboard, ripping the sheets off at home and filing them away in the two binders, which I'll divide into subjects using nylons.
This information may not be Earth-shattering, but it is just one more way in which I am realizing that studying in another country has many consequences beyond just the language. Foreign students everywhere, I salute you.
Showing newest posts with label ordinary life. Show older posts
Showing newest posts with label ordinary life. Show older posts
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Main Street Versus Mall Street
With the Dow Jones diving 700 points a day and Swiss banks joining the bailout party, America's next top cliche is the question, "How will what's happening on Wall Street affect Main Street?," meaning how will this crisis trickle down to the average guy.
But, as a recent adventure with my mother proves, the comparison between streets is not quite accurate.
Last week, we went on a mini road trip in search of a quaint downtown area within a 30-minute drive of East Brunswick, NJ, and where we had not been before.
The obvious choices would have been New Brunswick, home of Rutgers University, or its neighbor Highland Park. But these were out because we had been there many times. So we began to look on the map. Did Sayreville have a downtown? No. Milltown? One Main Street, mostly inhabited by Dunkin' Donuts and taxidermists. North Brunswick? No. Spotswood? Main Street populated by nail salons, Rite Aid and Dunkin' Donuts (again).
Eventually we gave up and settled on Highland Park, pop. 14,000. The downtown consists of one solitary Main Street running between blocks and blocks of single-family detached homes with lawns. To HP's credit, the leafy downtown area is attractive, with a pretty school building, a pleasantly small library, houses with generous wrap-around porches, and no taxidermists. On the other hand, Main Street is an extension of a busy road in the adjacent town and sitting outside means a constant drone of passing cars and trucks.
The street itself was disappointingly was full of banks, closed restaurants and a chain coffee house selling hotdogs encased in bagels. After walking up and down for an hour and pondering the fate of the recently vanished used book shop, we cut our losses and left.
As I looked out the window on the ride home, I realized that my mom and I had searched for the wrong thing in New Jersey. Rather than hunt for Main Streets, we should have been on the lookout for enclosed shopping malls and strip malls crowding highway frontage. This would have been much easier to find. East Brunswick alone has one sprawling enclosed shopping center, as well as strip malls along every major road - Summerhill Road, Race Track Road, Arthur Street, Rues Lane, Ryder's Lane, Route 18, Cranbury Road. Basically any paved surface gives birth to a strip mall on either side surrounded by oceans of parking spaces.
Here's Mega Movies at the East Brunswick mall, courtesy of a local realtor's Web site.
From the trip, I gather that the only people who really care about most Main Streets in America are apparently Dunkin' Donuts and taxidermists. Therefore, I would like to suggest a change in the national cliche: "We need to think about how what happens on Wall Street affects the mall street."
But, as a recent adventure with my mother proves, the comparison between streets is not quite accurate.
Last week, we went on a mini road trip in search of a quaint downtown area within a 30-minute drive of East Brunswick, NJ, and where we had not been before.
The obvious choices would have been New Brunswick, home of Rutgers University, or its neighbor Highland Park. But these were out because we had been there many times. So we began to look on the map. Did Sayreville have a downtown? No. Milltown? One Main Street, mostly inhabited by Dunkin' Donuts and taxidermists. North Brunswick? No. Spotswood? Main Street populated by nail salons, Rite Aid and Dunkin' Donuts (again).
Eventually we gave up and settled on Highland Park, pop. 14,000. The downtown consists of one solitary Main Street running between blocks and blocks of single-family detached homes with lawns. To HP's credit, the leafy downtown area is attractive, with a pretty school building, a pleasantly small library, houses with generous wrap-around porches, and no taxidermists. On the other hand, Main Street is an extension of a busy road in the adjacent town and sitting outside means a constant drone of passing cars and trucks.
The street itself was disappointingly was full of banks, closed restaurants and a chain coffee house selling hotdogs encased in bagels. After walking up and down for an hour and pondering the fate of the recently vanished used book shop, we cut our losses and left.
As I looked out the window on the ride home, I realized that my mom and I had searched for the wrong thing in New Jersey. Rather than hunt for Main Streets, we should have been on the lookout for enclosed shopping malls and strip malls crowding highway frontage. This would have been much easier to find. East Brunswick alone has one sprawling enclosed shopping center, as well as strip malls along every major road - Summerhill Road, Race Track Road, Arthur Street, Rues Lane, Ryder's Lane, Route 18, Cranbury Road. Basically any paved surface gives birth to a strip mall on either side surrounded by oceans of parking spaces.
Here's Mega Movies at the East Brunswick mall, courtesy of a local realtor's Web site.
From the trip, I gather that the only people who really care about most Main Streets in America are apparently Dunkin' Donuts and taxidermists. Therefore, I would like to suggest a change in the national cliche: "We need to think about how what happens on Wall Street affects the mall street."
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Biking in the Burbs
Along the same vein of the last two posts, I have been exploring ways to capture some of my year of urban living in East Brunswick, NJ.
A major facet of this past year has been my bicycle (or rather, my bikes, since the first was stolen). I was on that two wheeler nearly every day. My first bike had a rack and a crate strapped to it. My second had a front basket. They both had high style and a propensity for getting flat tires, and I loved them.
Tonight I decided to bike to the Brunswick Square Mall, otherwise known as the pulsing heart of urban life in my hometown. I slung my computer over my shoulder, got on my dad's bike, and started on the 10-minute ride.
I went from my neighborhood, where colonial two-story homes sit on enormous lots, to the busy two-lane Summerhill Road, home to 7-Eleven and a grey and purple concrete slab that is a medical center. Then I hung a right on Rues Lane, where on one side there are more outsized homes and on the other, a technical college, and then the mall.
Being that I wasn't in a helmet, I tried to keep on the sidewalks. This was difficult since my town saw it fit to install sidewalks, but not connect them to the street with any sort of ramp. The bike across the mall parking lot to the doors of Barnes and Noble took nearly as long as the trip from my home to the lot entrance.
But the best part: I had told my mother I'd be home at around 7, and I wound up staying an hour longer. Sure enough, my mother drove to the mall to offer to spare me from the dangers of the East Brunswick roads and drive me home. I declined and made it home safely alone, although I will admit that a helmet, a light and something reflective are probably all good ideas.
A major facet of this past year has been my bicycle (or rather, my bikes, since the first was stolen). I was on that two wheeler nearly every day. My first bike had a rack and a crate strapped to it. My second had a front basket. They both had high style and a propensity for getting flat tires, and I loved them.
Tonight I decided to bike to the Brunswick Square Mall, otherwise known as the pulsing heart of urban life in my hometown. I slung my computer over my shoulder, got on my dad's bike, and started on the 10-minute ride.
I went from my neighborhood, where colonial two-story homes sit on enormous lots, to the busy two-lane Summerhill Road, home to 7-Eleven and a grey and purple concrete slab that is a medical center. Then I hung a right on Rues Lane, where on one side there are more outsized homes and on the other, a technical college, and then the mall.
Being that I wasn't in a helmet, I tried to keep on the sidewalks. This was difficult since my town saw it fit to install sidewalks, but not connect them to the street with any sort of ramp. The bike across the mall parking lot to the doors of Barnes and Noble took nearly as long as the trip from my home to the lot entrance.
But the best part: I had told my mother I'd be home at around 7, and I wound up staying an hour longer. Sure enough, my mother drove to the mall to offer to spare me from the dangers of the East Brunswick roads and drive me home. I declined and made it home safely alone, although I will admit that a helmet, a light and something reflective are probably all good ideas.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Craigslist, for every phase of my life
Faced with the choice of either making productive strides towards making money, versus restarting my long-dormant relationship with Craigslist, today I chose option B and declared war on the clutter of my parents' home.
Note: this war did not include the years of personal rubble that is sitting in my bedroom closet.
I went into the Free section of Craigslist and began the breakup with a 14-year-old fish tank that has been out of commission for the last third of its tenure with our family. This is what I came up with:
Large fish tank with wrought iron stand
If you like displaying small gilled animals in captivity in your living room, have I got a fish tank for you.
It's a glass rectangular tank, 2 ft long, 1 ft wide, a foot and a half tall. It could use a cleaning, but otherwise the filter works fine. It comes on a wrought iron black stand, and it will make an attractive, living-room friendly home for your guppies or whatever other finned friends you decide to put in there. We stopped letting fish swim pointlessly in our home a few years ago, so if that sounds like something you'd like to do please collect the tank. It's yours.
##
I got about 20 posts within the day, including one from a guy who said "Swimming pointlessly in my living room? They can join me." By 7 pm it was out the door. Tomorrow: children's bicycle. I mean, getting some writing assignments.
I'll add here that I had a similarly rewarding experience in Tel Aviv when my landlord gave me an electric juicer I had no need for. It was an appliance created to satisfy no human need at all; think of a normal juicer, in which you manually squeeze half a lemon onto a cone that stands in the middle of a dish. Now imagine a machine doing this half as well and using electricity to do it. I went onto Agora.co.il, posted the machine, and was similarly availed of yet another useless jumble of plastic and metal.
Note: this war did not include the years of personal rubble that is sitting in my bedroom closet.
I went into the Free section of Craigslist and began the breakup with a 14-year-old fish tank that has been out of commission for the last third of its tenure with our family. This is what I came up with:
Large fish tank with wrought iron stand
If you like displaying small gilled animals in captivity in your living room, have I got a fish tank for you.
It's a glass rectangular tank, 2 ft long, 1 ft wide, a foot and a half tall. It could use a cleaning, but otherwise the filter works fine. It comes on a wrought iron black stand, and it will make an attractive, living-room friendly home for your guppies or whatever other finned friends you decide to put in there. We stopped letting fish swim pointlessly in our home a few years ago, so if that sounds like something you'd like to do please collect the tank. It's yours.
##
I got about 20 posts within the day, including one from a guy who said "Swimming pointlessly in my living room? They can join me." By 7 pm it was out the door. Tomorrow: children's bicycle. I mean, getting some writing assignments.
I'll add here that I had a similarly rewarding experience in Tel Aviv when my landlord gave me an electric juicer I had no need for. It was an appliance created to satisfy no human need at all; think of a normal juicer, in which you manually squeeze half a lemon onto a cone that stands in the middle of a dish. Now imagine a machine doing this half as well and using electricity to do it. I went onto Agora.co.il, posted the machine, and was similarly availed of yet another useless jumble of plastic and metal.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Suburbia, I have returned
My flight from Israel via London landed on Saturday morning, and after spending 13 hours sleeping fitfully at Heathrow airport I hit the ground running with a family outing to Manhattan.
This trip delayed the inevitable: confronting the fact that I grew up in a suburb nearly identical to most other suburbs in New Jersey and, for that matter, America. According to James Kunstler, author of Geography of Nowhere and other inspirational books, my parents' choice of living situation is "the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world," and it has three possible futures: as materials salvage, as slums and as ruins.
Seeing that none of these great destinies has yet to be realized in East Brunswick, NJ, I instead came home to participate in the town's daily life.
I went to ShopRite, a large supermarket chain that includes many soggy and oddly frosted baked goods, as well as a raft of products whose ingredients I cannot pronounce. This trip was of course done by car. I also played with my dog, Chloe, who lords over a quarter acre of weedy backyard but has no canine friends to socialize with, because large yards negate the need for parks within walking distance. Then I joined my mother for Latin Dancing at the New York Sports Club, a gym chain for all the people who have cut out physical exercise from their service-sector jobs and must therefore pay to enter a building where they can sweat.
We have bikes stashed in our two-car garage but at the moment only one of four is accessible because the others are buried in the detritus of our existence or hanging from the ceiling, above a car, reachable only by ladder which is hanging on the wall and obstructed by power tools and extension cables. I have considered biking to a few places around town, but everything is far away and in the end I just stay at home throwing compost out in the backyard.
It must be said: I love everyone in my family and I am delighted to see them, but we live in one urban planning black hole.
This trip delayed the inevitable: confronting the fact that I grew up in a suburb nearly identical to most other suburbs in New Jersey and, for that matter, America. According to James Kunstler, author of Geography of Nowhere and other inspirational books, my parents' choice of living situation is "the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world," and it has three possible futures: as materials salvage, as slums and as ruins.
Seeing that none of these great destinies has yet to be realized in East Brunswick, NJ, I instead came home to participate in the town's daily life.
I went to ShopRite, a large supermarket chain that includes many soggy and oddly frosted baked goods, as well as a raft of products whose ingredients I cannot pronounce. This trip was of course done by car. I also played with my dog, Chloe, who lords over a quarter acre of weedy backyard but has no canine friends to socialize with, because large yards negate the need for parks within walking distance. Then I joined my mother for Latin Dancing at the New York Sports Club, a gym chain for all the people who have cut out physical exercise from their service-sector jobs and must therefore pay to enter a building where they can sweat.
We have bikes stashed in our two-car garage but at the moment only one of four is accessible because the others are buried in the detritus of our existence or hanging from the ceiling, above a car, reachable only by ladder which is hanging on the wall and obstructed by power tools and extension cables. I have considered biking to a few places around town, but everything is far away and in the end I just stay at home throwing compost out in the backyard.
It must be said: I love everyone in my family and I am delighted to see them, but we live in one urban planning black hole.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
It's Not Consumerism, It's Education!
One thing I love about Israel is that you can be a graffiti artist, or a consumer of banal commercial garbage, and yet it is colored by the historical contours of Zionism and so it feels educational.
Here's a great analysis of Herzl graffiti. One of Herzl's most famous lines is "Im tirtzu, ein zo agada," or, if you will it [namely, the Jewish state], it's no dream. But this graffiti says "Lo rotzim, lo tzarich" - in other words, "We don't want it, leave us alone." The analysis focuses on the sense of disgust and hopelessness Israelis feel toward their government.
Another case in point: I was watching Super Nanny (Web site, in Hebrew) last night. The nanny visited a family on Kibbutz Hazorea, a formerly communal farm. The parents were having difficulty raising their four daughters. Essentially, the wife was lazy and the husband did everything, and together they were completely ineffective. The girls watched four hours of TV a day.
Well, you might think, that sounds like it could happen anywhere. But this is where you would be wrong. Keren (the mom) and Reshef (the dad) Bisker both grew up on the kibbutz back when it was still a socialist communal experiment. The two of them spent the majority of their childhood in the children's house, spending four hours a day with their parents and the rest of their time, including nights, in the care of communal caretakers with other kibbutz children. Now that their kibbutz has done away with the children's houses, Keren and Reshef don't have an idea of how to put their children to bed, wake them up in the morning or even prepare their meals. Super Nanny had to give them advice on getting the kids to set alarm clocks. She also had to train Reshef not to leave his work (in the cow dairy) in the morning to help Keren get the kids to school.
And the best part - at the end, the family had their neighbors over to see the new and improved Bisker family. My heart melted when one of the neighbors, Mike, told the family in American-accented Hebrew about how far they had come, and then they all sang along as Mike strummed classic rock on his guitar.
Here's a great analysis of Herzl graffiti. One of Herzl's most famous lines is "Im tirtzu, ein zo agada," or, if you will it [namely, the Jewish state], it's no dream. But this graffiti says "Lo rotzim, lo tzarich" - in other words, "We don't want it, leave us alone." The analysis focuses on the sense of disgust and hopelessness Israelis feel toward their government.
Another case in point: I was watching Super Nanny (Web site, in Hebrew) last night. The nanny visited a family on Kibbutz Hazorea, a formerly communal farm. The parents were having difficulty raising their four daughters. Essentially, the wife was lazy and the husband did everything, and together they were completely ineffective. The girls watched four hours of TV a day.
Well, you might think, that sounds like it could happen anywhere. But this is where you would be wrong. Keren (the mom) and Reshef (the dad) Bisker both grew up on the kibbutz back when it was still a socialist communal experiment. The two of them spent the majority of their childhood in the children's house, spending four hours a day with their parents and the rest of their time, including nights, in the care of communal caretakers with other kibbutz children. Now that their kibbutz has done away with the children's houses, Keren and Reshef don't have an idea of how to put their children to bed, wake them up in the morning or even prepare their meals. Super Nanny had to give them advice on getting the kids to set alarm clocks. She also had to train Reshef not to leave his work (in the cow dairy) in the morning to help Keren get the kids to school.
And the best part - at the end, the family had their neighbors over to see the new and improved Bisker family. My heart melted when one of the neighbors, Mike, told the family in American-accented Hebrew about how far they had come, and then they all sang along as Mike strummed classic rock on his guitar.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Moving Rice
There are a lot of advantages to being dirt-poor, and in Israel, where health care is still socialized and I am getting a living stipend that is enough to live off, I have been enjoying my status. I have become a great cook because I can't afford restaurants, I have learned to enjoy partying on my roof, and I take a cheap, small watermelon to the beach on Saturdays instead of buying ice cream there. The only part of low-class living I find hard to swallow is the status of my apartment. I pay 1400 shekels a month for a place where the ceiling is disintegrating slowly over our bathroom sink, shower and clothes rack. Leave a shirt hanging for more than a day and expect to have to pick the plaster off it.
But this pales in comparison to the now frequent guests we get in the kitchen - maggots, or as I like to call them, moving rice. This morning was the second time when I woke up, went to the kitchen, and saw what looked like dozens of rice grains scattered across the floor, especially near the garbage can.
"Tightrope Warriors," a piece in the Maggot Art project.
I knew from last invasion, two months ago, that these were no rice grains. They were yellowish, and wiggled and pushed dust bunnies across the floor. They emitted a violent odor, at least from closed containers like our trash can.
At least at this point we have the cleaning routine down: take out the garbage, get everything off the floor, sweep it, mop it, and then douse it in high-strength chemicals before leaving the house. Any remaining maggots have to get individually popped like pimples because stepping on them only divides them into two, doubling the infestation.
When I found the maggots this morning I was alone in the house and wound up doing the bulk of the cleanup by myself. By the time I got to work, half an hour behind schedule and still shuddering inside from the disgusting way of opening my day, I decided to own the experience by writing a poem in error-ridden Hebrew in the style of Poe's "The Raven" - rather than "Quoth the raven, nevermore," my repeating line is "Quoth the maggot, I'll return." Hebrew readers, enjoy. And actually, there is a Hebrew translation of the Raven in its entirety here; I found myself one night watching two of the regulars at the cafe I love take shots of booze while reciting the Raven loudly in Hebrew and English to each other.
But this pales in comparison to the now frequent guests we get in the kitchen - maggots, or as I like to call them, moving rice. This morning was the second time when I woke up, went to the kitchen, and saw what looked like dozens of rice grains scattered across the floor, especially near the garbage can.
"Tightrope Warriors," a piece in the Maggot Art project.
I knew from last invasion, two months ago, that these were no rice grains. They were yellowish, and wiggled and pushed dust bunnies across the floor. They emitted a violent odor, at least from closed containers like our trash can.
At least at this point we have the cleaning routine down: take out the garbage, get everything off the floor, sweep it, mop it, and then douse it in high-strength chemicals before leaving the house. Any remaining maggots have to get individually popped like pimples because stepping on them only divides them into two, doubling the infestation.
When I found the maggots this morning I was alone in the house and wound up doing the bulk of the cleanup by myself. By the time I got to work, half an hour behind schedule and still shuddering inside from the disgusting way of opening my day, I decided to own the experience by writing a poem in error-ridden Hebrew in the style of Poe's "The Raven" - rather than "Quoth the raven, nevermore," my repeating line is "Quoth the maggot, I'll return." Hebrew readers, enjoy. And actually, there is a Hebrew translation of the Raven in its entirety here; I found myself one night watching two of the regulars at the cafe I love take shots of booze while reciting the Raven loudly in Hebrew and English to each other.
יום ראשון אחד מוקדם
קמתי מהמיטה וגם
שאלתי את עצמי בקול רם
איזה ארוחה אבחור?
למטבח נכנסתי פנימה
ואז פתאום ראיתי רימה
וכמה עשרות אחיה
זוחלים מכל פינה וחור.
על הרצפה לקראת האור.
"דוחה!" צרחתי. "איזה גועל."
וכבר ידעתי את הנוהל
טיאטאתי את הכל בבוהל
ניסיתי לא שריד לשמור.
אמרה הרימה, "אני אחזור."
הרימה יצור די חזק היא.
ניצולים רבים נשארו לי
מפתים אותי אותם למעוך כי
אחרת ניקיון לא יעזור.
לשווא כי הרימה עוד תחזור.
אז החלטתי לפוצץ
את כל רימה קטנה שיש
עם ריסוס חזק ומרגש
מכה אדירה אלוהים ישמור.
אמרה הרימה, "אני אחזור."
"די!" אמרתי. "די, מספיק.
תפסיקו כבר לי להציק."
הרי אינני מדען מבריק
רק עולה חדשה עדינה בעור.
שבקלות אפשר לשבור.
מאז היום ההוא אני
תוהה כל אחד מהרגלי
למצוא שינוי אפשרי
למנוע מרימות לחזור.
אמרה הרימה, "אני אחזור."
אבל אפילו אם אפסיק
לצבור קצת קומפוסט בשקית
לא נראה לי שיספיק
למנוע מהם לדירה לחדור.
אמרה הרימה, "אני אחזור."
נותרה לי רק ברירה לראות
לשנות את הדעה אם לא העובדות
ללמוד לאהוב במקום לבכות
כי אני כבר יודעת שהיא תחזור.
אמרה הרימה, "אני אחזור."
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Knesset and evolving Israeli society
I went to the Knesset, or Israeli Parliament, yesterday for a discussion on the right to health of Bedouin Arab women in unrecognized villages of the Negev. The outside reader may not understand any of those terms, so here is a glossary:
Bedouin: originally nomadic Muslim Arab people who wandered across the Middle East; in Israel, most Bedouins are settled now. A majority live in the Negev, which is the desert that makes up southern Israel.
Unrecognized Villages: About half of the 80,000 Bedouins of the Negev live in communities the government does not recognize. As such, they have no roads, electricity, water, or health services. The discussion focused on what that situation means for Bedouin women, who often have to travel long distances, with kids, to get medical care.
Anyways...I found the meeting fascinating because half the attendees were Bedouin women themselves, who came to the Knesset wearing traditional long dress and head coverings, and spoke to four MPs about their plight, including walking an hour across the desert to the nearest clinic.
The only part of the meeting I found hard to wrap my head around is a new dress code in the Knesset itself. Three years ago I went to the Knesset as a reporting intern at the Jerusalem Post. I was struck then by the aching informality of the place. People wandered the building in jeans. Corpulent politicians waddled the halls. At a small, highly-covered meeting, lawmakers blatantly answered their cell phones. In the main plenary hall, only a handful of the 120 MPs even bothered to attend a hearing.
Therefore I was shocked when I got into my coworker's car in Tel Aviv yesterday and he told me that my jeans could be a problem. Apparently a year and a half ago Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik laid down a dress code outlawing jeans, short pants, skin-baring shirts and other informal attire.
However, when the guard at the door asked my coworker "Who is the princess in jeans?" he seemed satisfied with the answer "She's American," which I guess explained and excused my slobbish appearance.
This is one of a few events that have surprised me in Israel and made me think that perhaps this country is moving behind its roots as a hub of elbowing, loud, demanding and unapologetic people. About two weeks ago I was biking down a main street of Tel Aviv when a car came zooming out of a side street. I braked so hard I nearly fell off my bike. The driver braked as well, and then took responsibility. "It was my fault," he said. "I'm sorry."
I was so flabbergasted, I would have been happy if he had done it again.
Bedouin: originally nomadic Muslim Arab people who wandered across the Middle East; in Israel, most Bedouins are settled now. A majority live in the Negev, which is the desert that makes up southern Israel.
Unrecognized Villages: About half of the 80,000 Bedouins of the Negev live in communities the government does not recognize. As such, they have no roads, electricity, water, or health services. The discussion focused on what that situation means for Bedouin women, who often have to travel long distances, with kids, to get medical care.
Anyways...I found the meeting fascinating because half the attendees were Bedouin women themselves, who came to the Knesset wearing traditional long dress and head coverings, and spoke to four MPs about their plight, including walking an hour across the desert to the nearest clinic.
The only part of the meeting I found hard to wrap my head around is a new dress code in the Knesset itself. Three years ago I went to the Knesset as a reporting intern at the Jerusalem Post. I was struck then by the aching informality of the place. People wandered the building in jeans. Corpulent politicians waddled the halls. At a small, highly-covered meeting, lawmakers blatantly answered their cell phones. In the main plenary hall, only a handful of the 120 MPs even bothered to attend a hearing.
Therefore I was shocked when I got into my coworker's car in Tel Aviv yesterday and he told me that my jeans could be a problem. Apparently a year and a half ago Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik laid down a dress code outlawing jeans, short pants, skin-baring shirts and other informal attire.
However, when the guard at the door asked my coworker "Who is the princess in jeans?" he seemed satisfied with the answer "She's American," which I guess explained and excused my slobbish appearance.
This is one of a few events that have surprised me in Israel and made me think that perhaps this country is moving behind its roots as a hub of elbowing, loud, demanding and unapologetic people. About two weeks ago I was biking down a main street of Tel Aviv when a car came zooming out of a side street. I braked so hard I nearly fell off my bike. The driver braked as well, and then took responsibility. "It was my fault," he said. "I'm sorry."
I was so flabbergasted, I would have been happy if he had done it again.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Lag BaOmer: A Holiday American Jews Will Never Adopt
If Purim has succumbed to American influence, rest assured that Lag BaOmer is far out of the reach of neurotic Jews in the States.
The origins of Lag BaOmer are unclear, but it is connected with the great sages of Jewish tradition. There was a plague in the time of Rabbi Akiva that killed off 24,000 of his students, and Lag BaOmer was the day it ended. It's also the day one of his best students, Shimon Bar Yochai died.
Israeli children celebrate the holiday by dragging wooden boards, old furniture and anything flammable to bonfire sites and then torching it all, with or without parental supervision. There's usually a grill going at the same time. Also, there are often special campaigns to convince kids to stop throwing live cats and dogs into their fires.
Unsupervised children, unsanded wooden surfaces, kids being out at night alone, fire - the average American insurance policy for this sort of holiday would cost more than all the wood, meat and lighter fluid used in Tel Aviv on the occasion.
The bonfires go up in the countryside and in Kikkar Hamedina, a tiny circular park surrounded by Ralph Lauren, Prada, Gucci and the other flagships of Tel Aviv's upscale shopping district.
I biked to the circle to see how Tel Aviv's classy area would look like with bonfires blazing ten feet apart. I have never seen so many observant Jews in my city of sin. They were giving out yellow "Mashiach" (Messiah) flags and hanging out for the most part in gendered groups.
Foreground: bonfire. Background: the signs of the shops in Kikkar Hamedina.
There was a bewildered-looking woman in a hijab with her husband shooting video of the bonfires. I went over and talked to them - Abdulhamid is an accountant at the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv, and Zainab is his wife. I tried explaining the story of the holiday in Arabic, which was a challenge. They walked off with a "those crazy Jews" expression on their faces.
Abdulhamid and Zainab, two confused Egyptians.
I spent about half an hour trying to get free food from the families who were grilling. At first I played the curious tourist and asked about the holiday. This got me diet coke. Then I went for the direct approach: "Do you need help getting rid of leftovers?" This got me nothing. I decided to keep my dignity and bought grilled meat at the overpriced neighborhood restaurant.
Here, a fire is born.
Kids put the finishing touches on the teepee-shaped bonfire skeleton.
They dump live coals onto the base and fan like hell.
Soon the whole base starts to glow, again with the city lights in the background.
And eventually the whole structure is up in flames, and parents are unruffled.
And the fire rages on unattended.
The origins of Lag BaOmer are unclear, but it is connected with the great sages of Jewish tradition. There was a plague in the time of Rabbi Akiva that killed off 24,000 of his students, and Lag BaOmer was the day it ended. It's also the day one of his best students, Shimon Bar Yochai died.
Israeli children celebrate the holiday by dragging wooden boards, old furniture and anything flammable to bonfire sites and then torching it all, with or without parental supervision. There's usually a grill going at the same time. Also, there are often special campaigns to convince kids to stop throwing live cats and dogs into their fires.
Unsupervised children, unsanded wooden surfaces, kids being out at night alone, fire - the average American insurance policy for this sort of holiday would cost more than all the wood, meat and lighter fluid used in Tel Aviv on the occasion.
The bonfires go up in the countryside and in Kikkar Hamedina, a tiny circular park surrounded by Ralph Lauren, Prada, Gucci and the other flagships of Tel Aviv's upscale shopping district.
I biked to the circle to see how Tel Aviv's classy area would look like with bonfires blazing ten feet apart. I have never seen so many observant Jews in my city of sin. They were giving out yellow "Mashiach" (Messiah) flags and hanging out for the most part in gendered groups.
Foreground: bonfire. Background: the signs of the shops in Kikkar Hamedina.
There was a bewildered-looking woman in a hijab with her husband shooting video of the bonfires. I went over and talked to them - Abdulhamid is an accountant at the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv, and Zainab is his wife. I tried explaining the story of the holiday in Arabic, which was a challenge. They walked off with a "those crazy Jews" expression on their faces.
Abdulhamid and Zainab, two confused Egyptians.I spent about half an hour trying to get free food from the families who were grilling. At first I played the curious tourist and asked about the holiday. This got me diet coke. Then I went for the direct approach: "Do you need help getting rid of leftovers?" This got me nothing. I decided to keep my dignity and bought grilled meat at the overpriced neighborhood restaurant.
Here, a fire is born.
Kids put the finishing touches on the teepee-shaped bonfire skeleton.
They dump live coals onto the base and fan like hell.
Soon the whole base starts to glow, again with the city lights in the background.
And eventually the whole structure is up in flames, and parents are unruffled.
And the fire rages on unattended.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Liking Stuff
It was a matter of time.
Taking their place among Stuff Iranians Like, Stuff Educated Black People Like and Stuff White Trash People Like, the Jewish lists are out.
This news came as a blow to me because I had just figured out how to explain Stuff White People Like #71 - Being the Only White Person Around - in Hebrew to describe the sinking feeling I get when surrounded by other Americans in
In keeping with what I am sure will be item 42, “Having three opinions for every two Jews,” there are two lists. Despite the clunkier title, Stuff Jewish Young Adults Like is a more established blog than its competitor, Stuff Jewish People Like.
As a white, young adult Jewish person, I present my favorites from the two:
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Apartment Laundry Wars
Recently I heard that a true aging Israeli man has no hair and a giant potbelly. My neighbor fits the description gracefully, and he has it in for my apartment.
It began about two weeks ago. I had done hand laundry in a bucket, a common event. It's an energy-efficient (ok, cheap) way of washing my shirts. I was clipping the wet clothes to the clothesline outside our kitchen window when my neighbor, a bald man in a white undershirt, looked up and started screaming. Our conversation reveals some interesting facts about my living situation. Note: most Israeli homes do not have dryers. Hanging laundry here is as ubiquitous as sushi stands.
Neighbor: Hey!
Me: (frightened) Hi.
Neighbor: What are you doing? Every day you do your laundry and every day you drip right on us!
Me: Look man, this is what it means to live in an apartment building. Everyone else uses clotheslines too.
Neighbor: They don't drip! Do you need me to come up there and show you how to wash your clothes?
Me: (frightened) No!
Neighbor: When you take your clothes out of the washing machine--
Me: We don't have a washing machine.
Neighbor: --hang them on a rack in your living room.
Me: We don't have a living room. And it's early morning, isn't that a good time to wash the clothes?
Neighbor: You do it in the morning, you do it at night, you do it all the time!
Me: Look, we have no other choice.
Neighbor, disgruntled, gives up.
I thought we had reached a stalemate where we would continue to hang our clothes and maybe wring them out a little better, and the neighbor would stop screaming. This morning I was hanging laundry again when the neighbor appeared downstairs and glared up at me. I ran away from the window and cowered inside for a half hour, checking our peephole to see if he was standing outside our door with a hatchet. Sure enough, as I left the apartment the neighbor was standing outside on the sidewalk. I pedaled across the street and fled the area.
This may be ruining any chance of convincing him to start a compost pile in the backyard. On the other hand, the rest of my apartment building has turned into a hub of social activity because of the common roof. Gradually, from the top floor down, we are starting to hang out, to invite each other to gatherings on the roof, to eat ice cream together, to play guitar and smoke hookah. It's a really unusual stroke of luck that we are for the most part all between ages 23-30 and extroverted.
It began about two weeks ago. I had done hand laundry in a bucket, a common event. It's an energy-efficient (ok, cheap) way of washing my shirts. I was clipping the wet clothes to the clothesline outside our kitchen window when my neighbor, a bald man in a white undershirt, looked up and started screaming. Our conversation reveals some interesting facts about my living situation. Note: most Israeli homes do not have dryers. Hanging laundry here is as ubiquitous as sushi stands.
Neighbor: Hey!
Me: (frightened) Hi.
Neighbor: What are you doing? Every day you do your laundry and every day you drip right on us!
Me: Look man, this is what it means to live in an apartment building. Everyone else uses clotheslines too.
Neighbor: They don't drip! Do you need me to come up there and show you how to wash your clothes?
Me: (frightened) No!
Neighbor: When you take your clothes out of the washing machine--
Me: We don't have a washing machine.
Neighbor: --hang them on a rack in your living room.
Me: We don't have a living room. And it's early morning, isn't that a good time to wash the clothes?
Neighbor: You do it in the morning, you do it at night, you do it all the time!
Me: Look, we have no other choice.
Neighbor, disgruntled, gives up.
I thought we had reached a stalemate where we would continue to hang our clothes and maybe wring them out a little better, and the neighbor would stop screaming. This morning I was hanging laundry again when the neighbor appeared downstairs and glared up at me. I ran away from the window and cowered inside for a half hour, checking our peephole to see if he was standing outside our door with a hatchet. Sure enough, as I left the apartment the neighbor was standing outside on the sidewalk. I pedaled across the street and fled the area.
This may be ruining any chance of convincing him to start a compost pile in the backyard. On the other hand, the rest of my apartment building has turned into a hub of social activity because of the common roof. Gradually, from the top floor down, we are starting to hang out, to invite each other to gatherings on the roof, to eat ice cream together, to play guitar and smoke hookah. It's a really unusual stroke of luck that we are for the most part all between ages 23-30 and extroverted.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
A smokin' new roommate
This is my second post about personal defeats. It could also be called Shambles Gets A Hookah.
As anyone who has had the pleasure of smoking it knows, I have a hookah pipe (nargila, shisha, hubbly-bubbly) that's just shy of four feet tall. I got it for free in Chicago at a party I organized, in which we raffled off the nargila. For reasons I cannot understand, the winner didn't want it.
Anyways, since my sister was coming to see me for a week, I asked my parents to send it with her as a second piece of luggage. Surprisingly, they obliged, packing the hookah pipe, its glass base, two hoses and a box of top-tier coals in a long box.
When my sister got in, we unpacked the hookah only to find that the glass base had broken. We gathered the shards and resolved to buy a new base in Jerusalem.
I bought the new base for 40 shekels (around $12) and showed it off to my roommate...and managed to let it shatter on my ceramic floor. Dejected, I put the second set of shards in with the first set in a plastic bag. I ate dinner that evening to the soundtrack of Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass."
The next day, we biked to Yafo to buy yet another base. On the way out we threw out the bag of broken glass. I got a new base for 25 shekels this time ($7.50), came home to put the pipe together, and realized that I threw out the coals with the glass shards. You can't win.
I managed to light up the pipe last night using coals from a barbecue, but I have been accessorizing this thing like mad, peeing away money like I haven't since I got my new bike. Total spent:
Glass base #1: 40 shekels
Two boxes of crap tobacco: 10 shekels
Glass base #2: 25 shekels
Two boxes of good tobacco: 20 shekels
A packet of tin foil: 5 shekels
A roll of bad coals: 8 shekels
A box of decent coals: 7 shekels (go figure)
A wind screen: 6 shekels
A box of really REALLY good tobacco: 35 shekels
Grand total: 156 shekels. Total I paid for the actual pipe? Zero. Total I spent to ship it from Chicago to New Jersey last June? $30. I have to say this is the most expensive carcinogen I have ever had.
As anyone who has had the pleasure of smoking it knows, I have a hookah pipe (nargila, shisha, hubbly-bubbly) that's just shy of four feet tall. I got it for free in Chicago at a party I organized, in which we raffled off the nargila. For reasons I cannot understand, the winner didn't want it.
Anyways, since my sister was coming to see me for a week, I asked my parents to send it with her as a second piece of luggage. Surprisingly, they obliged, packing the hookah pipe, its glass base, two hoses and a box of top-tier coals in a long box.
When my sister got in, we unpacked the hookah only to find that the glass base had broken. We gathered the shards and resolved to buy a new base in Jerusalem.
I bought the new base for 40 shekels (around $12) and showed it off to my roommate...and managed to let it shatter on my ceramic floor. Dejected, I put the second set of shards in with the first set in a plastic bag. I ate dinner that evening to the soundtrack of Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass."
The next day, we biked to Yafo to buy yet another base. On the way out we threw out the bag of broken glass. I got a new base for 25 shekels this time ($7.50), came home to put the pipe together, and realized that I threw out the coals with the glass shards. You can't win.
I managed to light up the pipe last night using coals from a barbecue, but I have been accessorizing this thing like mad, peeing away money like I haven't since I got my new bike. Total spent:
Glass base #1: 40 shekels
Two boxes of crap tobacco: 10 shekels
Glass base #2: 25 shekels
Two boxes of good tobacco: 20 shekels
A packet of tin foil: 5 shekels
A roll of bad coals: 8 shekels
A box of decent coals: 7 shekels (go figure)
A wind screen: 6 shekels
A box of really REALLY good tobacco: 35 shekels
Grand total: 156 shekels. Total I paid for the actual pipe? Zero. Total I spent to ship it from Chicago to New Jersey last June? $30. I have to say this is the most expensive carcinogen I have ever had.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Shambles Goes Hiking
My sister has been in town since Saturday and we decided to go hiking in the North. We went through the motions of preparing - borrowed camping equipment from a friend, bought a map, loaded up at the grocery store. Too bad we didn't do any formal planning.
Yesterday we wound up going to sleep half-packed at 1.30 AM, waking up four hours later, shoving food, a pan, our toiletries and water into our bags, and getting on a 7 AM train to Haifa. We bought a gas canister at one bus station, bussed across town to another, and took another bus to the junction closest to our trail, arriving at 10.30 AM.
The weather was above 100 degrees, as Wednesday was the peak of a nationwide heatwave that is only letting out tomorrow. We each bought more water, shifting the weight in my sister's bag because it was her first time carrying a frame backpack and she was struggling. Then we followed some friendly Israelis to the trail. They had been hiking for four days with bags half the size of ours.
The day declined from there. Hiking at noon meant there was not much shade. The weather was oppressive. We stopped every 15 minutes - or less - to catch our breath. Because it is Passover break, the trail was overrun with school children and religious families who tore through the path singing yeshiva songs.
The high point of the day was a one and a half hour lunch we spent in a shady nook, eating as much food as we could to lighten the load on our back. The first low point was an hour later when a trail ranger told us we couldn't pitch a tent in the park and that even if we did, we wouldn't have enough water to make it through the next day. He recommended we walk out of the reserve to the neighboring town of Tsfat.
We merrily went on our way, figuring we would just camp out in the forest surrounding Tsfat. The plan seemed to be working as we made it out of the nature park and into a low path surrounded by olive groves. There was a flat patch of earth without much growing on it, so we put our bags down and looked around us - only to find a decaying cow carcass. This was the second low point.
My sister, 16, who to her great credit had been fine until this point, suddenly urgently wanted to go back to Tel Aviv. I realized that we didn't have much choice. We walked to the road nearby to thumb a ride to the nearest city and bus station.
The first car to pull over was an oldish British white couple who offered to take us to a junction where we could catch another ride to Tiberias, a major city in the North. The conversation went like this.
"So, what are you doing out here?"
"Hiking, but it got too hot and they won't let us camp."
"Ok, well we can take you to a junction to get a ride to Tiberias."
"Thanks a lot. Actually, if you know of any place we could pitch a tent up here, that would be great."
"You know you could pitch it on our back lawn. We live on Kibbutz Kfar Hanasi, it's right near here."
"Oh that would be great."
"Or you could just sleep in our spare room. What do you want for dinner?"
The couple took us in, let us shower, fed us dinner, put us up in their spare room, and drove us to the bus station the next morning, sending us off with two avocados from the kibbutz orchards.
Today I turned 23, and I realized that I'm definitely none the wiser for it.
Yesterday we wound up going to sleep half-packed at 1.30 AM, waking up four hours later, shoving food, a pan, our toiletries and water into our bags, and getting on a 7 AM train to Haifa. We bought a gas canister at one bus station, bussed across town to another, and took another bus to the junction closest to our trail, arriving at 10.30 AM.
The weather was above 100 degrees, as Wednesday was the peak of a nationwide heatwave that is only letting out tomorrow. We each bought more water, shifting the weight in my sister's bag because it was her first time carrying a frame backpack and she was struggling. Then we followed some friendly Israelis to the trail. They had been hiking for four days with bags half the size of ours.
The day declined from there. Hiking at noon meant there was not much shade. The weather was oppressive. We stopped every 15 minutes - or less - to catch our breath. Because it is Passover break, the trail was overrun with school children and religious families who tore through the path singing yeshiva songs.
The high point of the day was a one and a half hour lunch we spent in a shady nook, eating as much food as we could to lighten the load on our back. The first low point was an hour later when a trail ranger told us we couldn't pitch a tent in the park and that even if we did, we wouldn't have enough water to make it through the next day. He recommended we walk out of the reserve to the neighboring town of Tsfat.
We merrily went on our way, figuring we would just camp out in the forest surrounding Tsfat. The plan seemed to be working as we made it out of the nature park and into a low path surrounded by olive groves. There was a flat patch of earth without much growing on it, so we put our bags down and looked around us - only to find a decaying cow carcass. This was the second low point.
My sister, 16, who to her great credit had been fine until this point, suddenly urgently wanted to go back to Tel Aviv. I realized that we didn't have much choice. We walked to the road nearby to thumb a ride to the nearest city and bus station.
The first car to pull over was an oldish British white couple who offered to take us to a junction where we could catch another ride to Tiberias, a major city in the North. The conversation went like this.
"So, what are you doing out here?"
"Hiking, but it got too hot and they won't let us camp."
"Ok, well we can take you to a junction to get a ride to Tiberias."
"Thanks a lot. Actually, if you know of any place we could pitch a tent up here, that would be great."
"You know you could pitch it on our back lawn. We live on Kibbutz Kfar Hanasi, it's right near here."
"Oh that would be great."
"Or you could just sleep in our spare room. What do you want for dinner?"
The couple took us in, let us shower, fed us dinner, put us up in their spare room, and drove us to the bus station the next morning, sending us off with two avocados from the kibbutz orchards.
Today I turned 23, and I realized that I'm definitely none the wiser for it.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Saggy Boob Lady
One of the major perks of living in any major Israeli city is the produce shuk (market, in Hebrew). In Tel Aviv the main one is one long avenue that begins with cheap clothing and then gives way to vendors selling fruits, vegetables, piles of herbs and greens, bags of bread, sacks of beans and chickpeas, boxes of spices. In side avenues you can find fish mongerers, less-than-appealing meat counters, and hole-in-the-wall restaurants serving classic Yemenite food.
For the story I am writing on strawberries, I have been spending quite a lot of time in the Tel Aviv Shuk HaCarmel, interviewing fruit vendors. One of the beauties of the shuk is that you see the same people standing in the same places day in and day out. You know the chain-smoking 60-year old will be there in his leather beret selling strawberries. The man I buy dried pineapple from always croaks "Od mashehu?" (anything else?) after each thing I ask him for.
But the most famous shuk character is Saggy Boob Lady, whose breasts easily reach her belt. She sells bread in the beginning of the vegetable market. But her main occupation is just being incredibly, devastatingly annoying. She hounds anyone who comes within a 20-foot radius of her bread cart. "Hey, mister, good morning! Hey miss, come here!" Two weeks ago I went to take photos in the shuk at 7 in the morning. SBL grabbed my finger and pulled me over to her stand. "Come here, miss, help me make my first sale of the morning." She has also shoved a friend of mine who was walking through the market with a video camera. It was her way of saying she didn't want to be filmed.
The best part about SBL's legacy is that you can tell anyone to meet you in the shuk by her bread cart - and everyone knows exactly whom you are referring to. Freshly arrived Americans, veteran Israelis, vendors in the shuk - it doesn't matter. In fact, this morning, I was talking to one strawberry seller and somehow SBL came up. I called her the annoying lady for politeness sake. "Oh her?" he said. "She is the worst person in the shuk. She makes everyone hate us."
For the story I am writing on strawberries, I have been spending quite a lot of time in the Tel Aviv Shuk HaCarmel, interviewing fruit vendors. One of the beauties of the shuk is that you see the same people standing in the same places day in and day out. You know the chain-smoking 60-year old will be there in his leather beret selling strawberries. The man I buy dried pineapple from always croaks "Od mashehu?" (anything else?) after each thing I ask him for.
But the most famous shuk character is Saggy Boob Lady, whose breasts easily reach her belt. She sells bread in the beginning of the vegetable market. But her main occupation is just being incredibly, devastatingly annoying. She hounds anyone who comes within a 20-foot radius of her bread cart. "Hey, mister, good morning! Hey miss, come here!" Two weeks ago I went to take photos in the shuk at 7 in the morning. SBL grabbed my finger and pulled me over to her stand. "Come here, miss, help me make my first sale of the morning." She has also shoved a friend of mine who was walking through the market with a video camera. It was her way of saying she didn't want to be filmed.
The best part about SBL's legacy is that you can tell anyone to meet you in the shuk by her bread cart - and everyone knows exactly whom you are referring to. Freshly arrived Americans, veteran Israelis, vendors in the shuk - it doesn't matter. In fact, this morning, I was talking to one strawberry seller and somehow SBL came up. I called her the annoying lady for politeness sake. "Oh her?" he said. "She is the worst person in the shuk. She makes everyone hate us."
Monday, March 3, 2008
An IDF of One
Any time I have to deal with Israeli bureaucracy I gird myself for a day of frustration. Usually some stone-faced woman tells you that whatever you want needs to be done in three additional steps. A prime example is my bank, which says for me to be able to switch to a branch location near my house, I have to close my account at their other location – even though both branches are owned by the same bank. It’s no WaMu.
As another step in the long process of my immigrating to
I left Tel Aviv at 9.50. By 11 I was at the recruitment office. By 11.10 I had a stamped piece of paper saying I never have to serve. I went down the four flights of stairs to the exit, passing dramatic photos of soldiers in camouflage or holding massive guns. It was a far cry from the pimple-faced teenagers I saw lolling around the building. The hardest part of the day was finding my way to and from the office from the central bus station.
Frankly, the process was so simple and painless that I almost wanted to serve in the military. Yeah, my work hasn’t been very satisfying lately…
Now that that’s behind me, all I have to do is get my high school records and a letter from each of my parents saying where they worked from when I was age 14-17.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Israeli Chemistry Classes
One of my roommates is in a pre-med program, and she went to chemistry class on Thursday at Tel Aviv University.
"Today we are going to talk about soap," said her professor. "Who knows what soap is made of?"
"Jews!" answered the entire class, except for three bewildered Arab students, who didn't catch the blatant Holocaust reference.
"Today we are going to talk about soap," said her professor. "Who knows what soap is made of?"
"Jews!" answered the entire class, except for three bewildered Arab students, who didn't catch the blatant Holocaust reference.
Friday, February 15, 2008
The best laid plans
Three weeks ago, I saw ads for a joint Ehud Banai-Mashina concert in Tel Aviv on Thursday Feb 14. Seeing as they are both musical legends in their own rights, a double-header would be doubly fabulous.
I rushed home and told my roommate about it. We went online to order tickets. "Wait a minute," he said. "What if we order two each? This way either we'll sell the extras or find some hotties to take with us."
Not thinking clearly, I put down 360 shekels (at this point 100 bucks thanks to the sinking dollar) for two tickets.
Flash to Wednesday, February 13: my roommate picks up a kusit (little vagina, or hot girl) who lives in our building to come with us. This means that at the last minute I am stuck selling one ticket. I called everyone in my phone. My roommate called everyone in his. No takers. We started yelling at each other about how awkward the three-person date was going to be. I quickly regretted all the fun things I had taught him to say in English as my roommate called me shit-for-brains.
Eventually, the three of us got to the concert hall and I sold my ticket to a geriatric woman for 90 shekels - ie half price. The only good part of the transaction was that she mysteriously did not sit next to me. The concert itself wound up being 4 hours long and piss-poor.
A few lessons from this experience: never try scalping Israeli concert tickets, and never pay more than 100 shekels for a concert.
Thankfully, I went to a party after the concert that wound up salvaging the night.
A few comments:
*I have a friend working on a pig farm who just got promoted from pen cleaner to pig masturbator. jeffyosko.blogspot.com
*Tomorrow morning I'm going to Egypt for the week with my dad and sister. Should be a blast. Maybe I'll get a tan, the weather here is really making me feel Ashkenazi.
I rushed home and told my roommate about it. We went online to order tickets. "Wait a minute," he said. "What if we order two each? This way either we'll sell the extras or find some hotties to take with us."
Not thinking clearly, I put down 360 shekels (at this point 100 bucks thanks to the sinking dollar) for two tickets.
Flash to Wednesday, February 13: my roommate picks up a kusit (little vagina, or hot girl) who lives in our building to come with us. This means that at the last minute I am stuck selling one ticket. I called everyone in my phone. My roommate called everyone in his. No takers. We started yelling at each other about how awkward the three-person date was going to be. I quickly regretted all the fun things I had taught him to say in English as my roommate called me shit-for-brains.
Eventually, the three of us got to the concert hall and I sold my ticket to a geriatric woman for 90 shekels - ie half price. The only good part of the transaction was that she mysteriously did not sit next to me. The concert itself wound up being 4 hours long and piss-poor.
A few lessons from this experience: never try scalping Israeli concert tickets, and never pay more than 100 shekels for a concert.
Thankfully, I went to a party after the concert that wound up salvaging the night.
A few comments:
*I have a friend working on a pig farm who just got promoted from pen cleaner to pig masturbator. jeffyosko.blogspot.com
*Tomorrow morning I'm going to Egypt for the week with my dad and sister. Should be a blast. Maybe I'll get a tan, the weather here is really making me feel Ashkenazi.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Perspective
On Saturday, I went to my favorite cafe and managed to let my cell phone fall out of my pocket and into the toilet as I flushed it. Thinking quickly, I dove for the phone, washed it off and took it apart. The whole time I was cursing to myself and feeling frustrated that for the 4th time in five years, I have damaged my phone, possibly irreparably, with water. The only exception is when I left my first-ever cell phone in a taxi cab, and spent the next two weeks calling it and pleading with the guy who answered it to give it back.
My experience has taught me that as long as you take the battery out and dismantle the phone immediately, it should be fine 24 hours later. I was at home Saturday, two hours after laying my phone's six component parts out on a towel to dry for the night, when my roommate stumbled in nearly too drunk to stand and definitely too drunk to stay on a chair. He spent the next morning getting a plumber to fix our freshly clogged bathroom sink. Makes me feel like a little less of a shambles.
As a further feather in my cap, my phone is now fully dry and back in action.
My experience has taught me that as long as you take the battery out and dismantle the phone immediately, it should be fine 24 hours later. I was at home Saturday, two hours after laying my phone's six component parts out on a towel to dry for the night, when my roommate stumbled in nearly too drunk to stand and definitely too drunk to stay on a chair. He spent the next morning getting a plumber to fix our freshly clogged bathroom sink. Makes me feel like a little less of a shambles.
As a further feather in my cap, my phone is now fully dry and back in action.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Dennis
There is a homeless man named Dennis who lives on the streets of Evanston, IL. Dennis has matted grey dreads and panhandles outside the movie theater. Most aspiring journalists, including me, have at some point interviewed him as a "human interest" story. You think it's cool when you talk to the token homeless guy, but then a few months later you realize everyone else has as well.
I find myself identifying with Dennis more and more lately. This Monday will be three weeks since I got to Israel and I still have no permanent apartment. It's not for lack of trying; I see at least two a day, sometimes as many as six, and I must speak to around ten different landlords/roommates a day. I don't know if it's like this in New York, but the Tel Aviv housing market is really insane.
For the most part I am searching online classifieds. There is one site literally called homeless (www.homeless.co.il) that I find offensive, considering it's true.
As for the posts, you can't make this stuff up:
- "The resident will be renting two of three rooms in an apartment. The third room is not to be entered for any reason. If the resident enters the room, he will be expelled from the apartment and sued. This applies even if the resident hears crying from the room"
- "A great apartment, big bedroom + common balcony. 3 minutes from the beach. There remains in the apartment a roommate you can say a lot about, but since it's me it's not nice."
For some reason, there is also a huge preference for people over 25. Everyone has a cat or a dog. There is rarely a living room. Sometimes a kitchen is really just a souped-up sink. There are a handful of men in their 30s who are looking for younger women to share space with.
I have a few leads, but still have a long list of places to see. I have noticed though that the better I dress, the more successful my searches seem to be. I showed up to a few places yesterday in a sweaty t-shirt and shorts and backpack, and I could read the disgust on my potential roommates' faces. Another life lesson.
I find myself identifying with Dennis more and more lately. This Monday will be three weeks since I got to Israel and I still have no permanent apartment. It's not for lack of trying; I see at least two a day, sometimes as many as six, and I must speak to around ten different landlords/roommates a day. I don't know if it's like this in New York, but the Tel Aviv housing market is really insane.
For the most part I am searching online classifieds. There is one site literally called homeless (www.homeless.co.il) that I find offensive, considering it's true.
As for the posts, you can't make this stuff up:
- "The resident will be renting two of three rooms in an apartment. The third room is not to be entered for any reason. If the resident enters the room, he will be expelled from the apartment and sued. This applies even if the resident hears crying from the room"
- "A great apartment, big bedroom + common balcony. 3 minutes from the beach. There remains in the apartment a roommate you can say a lot about, but since it's me it's not nice."
For some reason, there is also a huge preference for people over 25. Everyone has a cat or a dog. There is rarely a living room. Sometimes a kitchen is really just a souped-up sink. There are a handful of men in their 30s who are looking for younger women to share space with.
I have a few leads, but still have a long list of places to see. I have noticed though that the better I dress, the more successful my searches seem to be. I showed up to a few places yesterday in a sweaty t-shirt and shorts and backpack, and I could read the disgust on my potential roommates' faces. Another life lesson.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Professional Masseuse
Do single women get hit on more than women in groups? Is there anything like strength in numbers? I was debating this with my friend, with whom I'm staying for the next few days, yesterday morning before we went to the beach in the city of Bat Yam. Bat Yam is just south of Tel Aviv, and right next to Holon, where I'm staying.
Three of us (all female) walked to the beach and put our things down. We had a swim and were lying on the sand. We were half asleep when a guy approached our towels and said, "Excuse me girls, I am a professional masseuse. Is there a chance I could give one of you a massage?"
"There is no chance," I said. We started laughing.
"Come on," he said. "Don't act like your from north Tel Aviv!" As in - act like the trashy girls from Holon that you are.
Such a charmer!
Three of us (all female) walked to the beach and put our things down. We had a swim and were lying on the sand. We were half asleep when a guy approached our towels and said, "Excuse me girls, I am a professional masseuse. Is there a chance I could give one of you a massage?"
"There is no chance," I said. We started laughing.
"Come on," he said. "Don't act like your from north Tel Aviv!" As in - act like the trashy girls from Holon that you are.
Such a charmer!
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