MemoriesAndThoughts

Good Things, Bad Things: Technology

2009-07-09T17:56:00.002-04:00

This post is part of the "Good Things, Bad Things" list I am trying to compile to describe our life here in Cincinnati before the first anniversary of our relocation.

A good thing about life here is the abundance of gadgets and technology. But it is not uniformly distributed around the US, between companies, or among people. For example, we are connected to the internet using a fiber optic cable and we have a bandwidth of 30Mbps download. That's something that most Americans can't get because the infrastructure just doesn't get to their houses. Some of them also don't want to be connected to the internet all the time, and prefer the old fashioned dial up.
However, if you are a technology enthusiast, like we are, you can get almost anything you want, for a price that is. I have a new Kindle2, which can download books using the cellular network provided for "free" by Amazon ("free" means it's part of the book's cost and there is no extra charge for it).

When we first moved here we decided that since we didn't have a lot of money we should not get a TV and rely on internet connection and online entertainment options. As most of these websites don't work outside of the United States, Israelis rarely experience them. However, we have found out that we can follow almost every show that plays, a day or two after it was aired, at any of the websites of TV channels: ABC, NBC, TBS, CNN, and I guess several more - all have sites that allow you to watch TV. There is also Hulu, which aggregates several of these networks for our convenience. From Israel we can watch channel 10 (except for the football games, which was very annoying), but their relying on Windows Media technologies is very annoying compared to the superior Flash technology that all American channels use nowadays.
And then you have Netflix, which for a very small fee a month ($9) streams unlimited videos and TV shows which were distributed on DVDs, or sends the DVDs (one at a time) home.
So, basically, we don't need any TV now. In the future we may get a computer to act as a media player and stream all the videos that we want to a computer monitor (30 inch maybe?).

The main problem nowadays is cellular connection. When we first arrived here this was one of the first thing we did, thinking that we will have to communicate in some way or another with one another and with others. So we went to the only company that was generous enough to give us a plan without credit history: Verizon. It was a huge disappointment. It seems that the company messes up the user interface of it's phones, in the name of uniformity and "ease of use". I couldn't deal with my pay-as-you-go phone, which was really horrible, and switched to T-Mobile as soon as I could. There I could keep my old Sony-Ericsson, because they have a GSM network, but they don't have a 3rd generation network in Cincinnati area. How pathetic is that? And what good does it do anyone that they have Google phones if they don't have the 3rd generation infrastructure to support them? In general it seems that none of the American networks supports 3G very well outside the main cities along the coast. And that is my main complaint about American technology: you can get it, but it is limited to the rich areas and rich people living in them. Try to get internet connection or 3G in Kansas or North Dakota. You'll be happy to have limited cellular connection and dial up internet there...

Good Things, Bad Things: Society

2009-07-02T19:55:00.002-04:00

This post is part of the "Good Things, Bad Things" list I am trying to compile to describe our life here in Cincinnati before the first anniversary of our relocation.

There is no way around it, American society is a very ill society, almost to the point of a-socialism. If I may add a word to the English dictionary I would call it asociety. From top to bottom, from social infrastructure to daily life - nothing works in this asociety. On the list of bad things in Cincinnati, and perhaps the entire nation, I would say that American society is by far the worse.
American society is plagued by the following social pandemics: xenophobia, prejudice, and puritanism. I will now go on to explain in short what each pandemic is and how it manifests itself.
Americans are xenophobic. I don't think it's the result of the atrocities of September 11, most probably it is rooted far more in the past. They hate, fear and are repelled by foreigners on any level from the federal to the personal.
On the Federal level, this xenophobia starts with their requirements for visas. For example, Israelis are able to enter Canada as tourists without a visa, whereas they are required to have a valid tourist visa to enter the US. One may say that this is because Israelis tend to overstay their visas and work illegally. While this is true for some Israelis, it certainly isn't true for all, but more importantly the same incentives for Israelis to overstay in the US apply also for the Canadian case, so why the difference in policy.
On the personal level this xenophobia manifests itself in the most bizarre ways that American will use in order to avoid having strangers and even acquaintances in their home. For example, if they throw a party, they will do it in their yard or garage, just as long as no one will be allowed in their home. We see that every weekend in the area and it's unbelievable. It is as if Americans are afraid of having people in their homes.
Unfortunately, this xenophobia is not limited to their domiciles. D now faces something that I realized when I started working at the University: people hardly speak to each other at work. When they do, it's mostly on work issues and not personal stuff. As unbelievable as it may seem, people can spend a whole day here without ever talking with any of their peers. In Israel, when you're working there is always people to talk to. When you enter the office there's always "what's up?" and "how are you?". When one gets coffee (another big problem here), someone always joins in and you talk while making coffee. You even drink it together most often. People go to lunch together, all in the name of socializing. People care about each other and become friends, and then they invite each other home. It is unheard of that people are not invited to eat lunch with others on their first day at a work place. Absolutely none of that happens here. People here are like impenetrable bubbles, or even repelling magnets; if two happen to be too close to each other they utter "excuse me" and scurry away from each other without making eye contact.
The strangest thing is that Americans do it with the utmost politeness. If you happen to walk across someone he or she always greets you hello or nod their heads. They smile. They say "excuse me", and "thank you", though they don't say "your welcome" here, just a kind of an impolite "uh-huh".

Xenophobia goes well with prejudice. It's not pure racism as used to be here in the past, but undoubtedly it's better to be a white male than a black woman. Not to mention an alien. In Cincinnati neighborhoods are color-coded: the good are populated by whites and the African-Americans reside in the bad ones. This goes on to affect the schools they will study in, thus affecting their chances of social mobility. In general I would say that a black may become rich and successful, but it will take a unique talent, whether in sports or academy. The vast majority, perhaps 99%, will not be able to escape the fate of their ancestors. Perhaps a new African-American president will help bridge these gaps, but I have serious doubts. I think that most whites are still afraid of the Blacks around them, either because they have a different skin color (thus evoking xenophobia) or because they are used to thinking about them in terms of poor and violent people.

Perhaps as a method of helping them feel better about their ways, the people here tend strongly to be puritans. It's not a simple "bible-belt" thing, as we don't live in the area, but it's close and stems from the same Christian devotion. For example, women here tend to wear clothes that are less revealing than in Israel, while the summer here is as hot as in Tel Aviv. In D's new work place they have a booklet of instructions regarding proper behavior and attire: no Crocks, no jeans, and naturally no cleavage. Understandably, they will avoid saying words like fuck and shit, but they will also use words like gosh and hack, instead of God and hell, all in the name of the God they will not utter His name. Confused? So are we.

What's even worse, it seems to me that Israeli society is striving hard to become more American than American. Which means that we take the things that work well for us as Israelis and befoul them by imitating probably the worst society to have ever existed since the Roman Empire.

Good Things, Bad Things

2009-07-02T18:36:00.005-04:00

I have been toying with the idea of writing a list of things I like and dislike about Cincinnati, and America in general. The more I thought about it, the more it appeared to me that this list is going to be long and hard to complete. Not to mention the fact that it's going to be impossible for any reader to follow.
So, instead, I decided to compile this list in parts, where each part will try to encompass a single aspect of our lives here. I think that it is becoming to do it between America's birthday and the anniversary of our arrival here, so hopefully I will be able to complete it in the allotted period of time.
Naturally, most of the analysis will be based on a comparison between the two countries that I lived in: Israel and here.
What are the topics?

Society
Technology
Academy
Food and nutrition
Economy
Health
Weather
Infrastructures
Privacy
Services
Distances

Hopefully, I can make this list interesting and on time for our anniversary here, which is about two months from now.

The siege syndrome

2009-06-26T08:26:00.004-04:00

Israelis like to say that they are under siege. I don't know if it stems out of the Holocaust, the first decades of Israel's existence, or maybe from millennia of antisemitism in Europe, but it is quite preposterous now. It is not that Israelis, and Jews in general, are liked everywhere nor by any one, but enough with this siege syndrome. So, when I get an email asking me to support Dr. Yoram Blachar, who is up for or has been elected as the Worlds Medical Doctors Association (or something of the like, I don't really follow) against a fierce opposition that claims that he supported Israeli torture of prisoners, or a highlight about an Israeli Facebook group, whose goal is to counter another Facebook group that calls for a boycott over Israel, I am left speechless. This is preposterous. At least theFacebook group could attach a link for the other group that we know it is real.

And even if Facebook decides to boycott Israel - fine, let them. They won't be the first nor the last to do so. I think most Israelis drive cars manufactured by companies that used to boycott Israel until the 1990s, succombing to Arab and Isalamic pressure. Mazda, Toyota, Honda, and Mitsubishi - all had been boycotting Israel until the peace process with the Palestinians began and the Arab boycott was lifted in the 1990s. Of Japanes car manufacturers, only Subaru were selling cars in Israel in the 1980s or earlier. Mitsubishi were the first to break that boycott in 1989 or 1990 if I remember correctly.

Being paranoid is not a problem, naturally. People might be trying to hurt you. As anything, it is a good thing when taken moderately, until it makes you do stupid things. It seems to me, from afar, that the new Israeli government has been adding to this siege syndrome. I wonder if it is for political survival purposes, gaining internal cohesion before some controversial military act, or something done without a goal. In any case, playing with fire might get you burnt. I hope this will not be the case for us.

Design changes

2009-06-25T21:33:00.002-04:00

A few design changes have been made by D to make this blog look better. Thanks.

Las Vegas

2009-06-24T11:09:00.004-04:00

I promised in my Delta tirade that I'll write about our trip to Las Vegas. What can be said about Las Vegas that has not been said before? Probably nothing. Therefore, this post will only list a few points that I find unique.
Las Vegas is expensive. Don't let yourself be fooled by the low accommodation prices (we stayed at the Stratosphere for about $40/night). The main idea is to lure you in, and once you're there everything costs. A lot. I like to use an index that I call "The diet index" - how much you pay for a Diet Coke or a Diet Pepsi bottle at a vending machine. As I am addicted to these drinks this is an important index for me. In Las Vegas the average vending machine price was ~$2.50 for a 590ml bottle. That's about twice the price I pay at the university for the same bottle, and I think that the ratio of 2:1 is quite typical to Las Vegas. We ended up spending around a thousand dollars during the five days we stayed there, not including the flights and hotel room. And we actually spent less than the $100 we intended to spend on gambling, so most of the money was spent on food.
Las Vegas is disorienting. D already wrote about the way hotels are trying to disorient their visitors. However, there is more to it. Hotels, and lots in general, are just huge. I think that the lots are measured in squared kilometers (or their American equivalent) and not dunams. Hotels are built huge in order to be able to give it some theme, for example The Paris Las Vegas, The New York New York and The Venetian are all trying to imitate the look and atmosphere of their respective city. That goes both inside and outside. This imitation requires a lot of space and thought. Space is abundant as Las Vegas is practically built out of the desert, but it's not that simple. Since tourism is mainly concentrated at the Las Vegas Strip, which is a single boulevard, the best hotels compete for a central location ("Location, Location, Location").
The disorientation is not limited to the facades of the hotels. It's mainly inside the hotels. In an effort to block the outside world from the gamblers inside the casinos, there are no clocks and very few windows, thus the sense of time is lost. Add to that the constant bombardment of jingling sounds and dazzling lights and inside the casino from all the slot machines, and one can hardly process where one is or what was his or her intentions. The paths between slot machines form a grid that do not lead to or from any exit or entrance, again trying to create a maze where a person will get lost and start playing. Once you're seated at a card table or a slot machine, waitresses with minimal clothes will come to offer you free drinks, in order to keep you sitting. I wonder how come they don't connect people to mobile latrines.
Las Vegas is also the most liberal city I know in the USA. In this sense it even surpasses Tel Aviv. Prostitution is legal in Nevada, and so is gambling (of course) and drinking outside. Almost all the grand hotels offer topless spectacles with some kind of a plot or another. On the strip there are trucks advertising escort services 24/7 (or at least at any hour that we happened to be outside). At every strip corner you can find several magazines with nude photos with the same services. I have to say that you can find that in Tel Aviv as well, but at least in Las Vegas it's legal. D and I have agreed that legalizing prostitution is beneficial to all parties involved, especially the women working in it. One has to accept certain facts about human nature, even if they are not nice, for example people will always want to drink alcohol or prostitution will never be gone. Legalizing prostitution will take crime lords out of this business, just like the Mafia lost ground when drinking was legalized after the Prohibition.
All in all, it was a long awaited vacation and I'm glad we took it. Now we are already back to work: D at her new internship and I teach a (yet another) new class.

Here are some photos that D took:

The Las Vegas Strip as seen at night:

Piazza San Marco - An indoors view at The Venetian:

Gondolas at the Central Canal, The Venetian indoors:

A night look of The Stratosphere, where we stayed:

My D standing inside a street of The Paris (indoors again):

This is a slightly exaggerated size of the actual daiquiris sold in Las Vegas. This one is from the indoors of The Miracle Mile shops, Planet Hollywood

The Paris outdoors:

This is a typical casino room at Las Vegas: a lot of noise and commotion. This one was taken at the New York, New York.

And this is how The New York, New York looks from the outside:

Kindle 2: impressions of the first two weeks

2009-06-21T22:00:00.003-04:00

One of the best things about living in America is the ability to experience all the newest technologies. That is, if you have the money, which we usually don't. However, in the case of Amazon's Kindle 2, one can almost find the perfect excuse for buying a Kindle: it will eventually save us money, as I am an avid reader. So, as the inventory of new books for me to read was diminishing we decided to get me one instead of new books.
After receiving the Kindle 2 I can say that it is a fun gadget and it does make you want to read more. It is fairly easy to use, although in today's world of touch screens I was expecting it to have one as well. I think, however, that there are too many buttons to control the device. For example, there are two "Next Page" buttons, one on each side of the gadget. Most of the functionality is controlled by the "Menu" button and is quite basic.
The display itself is very readable and easy on the eyes, due to the Kindle's best feature: the electronic ink screen. The display is very power efficient and uses battery only when the display is changed, for example when you turn a page. So far I am very impressed by the efficiency: I haven't charged the Kindle since the initial (and partial as I was too eager to start using it) charge. In the time until now I have already finished one book and more than a hundred pages. On the other hand I scarcely use the wireless capabilities, because I haven't downloaded a book from Amazon yet. The Kindle is equipped with an experimental basic text-based web browser. We tried to use it in Vegas to get some information from the Lonely Planet website, but it was too slow and awkward to use.
The web browser also emphasizes one of the few shortcomings of the device: the display refreshes very - very - slowly. There is a significant latency between the command you give (e.g. turn a page) and the refresh of the display. It's less than a second, but more than a comfortable time lag.
By a recommendation of one of D's classmates I downloaded several books from the free and open library of Project Gutenberg. The books in this library come in various formats, ranging from simple text files to a variety of e-book formats, but none of them is the Kindle's native - and property of Amazon - format. However, Kindle itself supports several e-book formats, some of them can also be found at Project Gutenberg. You can also use Amazon's services to reformat a file that is not supported by Kindle, e.g. Word documents or PDF files. To do that just send the file to an email address provided by Amazon. The reformatted file will be sent back to you either by email (for free, but then you have to manually transfer the file to your Kindle) or directly to the Kindle (for $0.10). See the link above for more details.
One last feature, which I find very useful and I enjoy a lot, is the built-in dictionary. If you happen to encounter a word that you don't know (and it happens a lot in Project Gutenberg's books, as they are all from the 19th century or older), simple use the navigation joystick to point at the word. The dictionary will automatically show you the meaning of the word, and if you want to know more, you can press "Enter" to show a page with the definition. If only I had had that before the GRE course I took...

In summary, I think that the Kindle is an excellent book reader and something that I will recommend to any book-lover. The only small problems with it are the slow refresh rate of the display, and the non-functional web browser. If Amazon are looking at further improvements to the Kindle I recommend they start there. In addition, I think that the price ($359.00) is too expensive, and should have at least included a free gift for several books to be downloaded from Amazon. In a short time the Kindle changed my reading habits and made reading a better and a more educating experience. Just remember: you cannot use it to read books during take off and landing, but I think it's okay to use it in steady flight if you turn off the cellular connectivity.

To Vegas and back with Delta

2009-06-20T20:36:00.003-04:00

We spent a few days in Las Vegas. A more complete account of that will follow sometime soon, I hope. In the meantime you can see D's account here.
This post, however, will be dedicated to the worst airline company I have ever traveled with: Delta (do yourself a favor: don't follow that link and book a ticket with them). For starters, they are the stingiest most penny-pinching bastards in the industry. Everything - and I literally mean everything - costs an extra. The extra for checking in luggage is not new, but is still annoying. From here it just goes straight down: do you want to eat on a four and half hours flight? No problem - you can either get two tiny "complimentary" peanuts packages or pay for a sandwich. Are you thirsty after eating "all these peanuts"? We'll fetch you drinks, don't worry. It will take us a full hour before we start doing it, and then it will take us another full hour to traverse the entire length of a Boeing 737 aisle (it's not long, believe me), and then we'll give you a small cup of water or soda. Don't think of getting another one before landing.

What about in-flight entertainment? Contrary to most airlines (including Delta) that use a small airplane that doesn't have in-flight entertainment systems, we had a system on both flights. However, this is probably only for extortion purposes: Delta charge for everything, except maybe some TV shows. They charge $2 for the headsets, and about $5 for every film, game or other entertainment during the flight. May I remind you that it's a 4.5 hours flight, which is roughly the time to fly from Tel-Aviv to any Western European destination?

The seats in coach have such a small leg-room that I think Delta actually broke El-Al's record here. Do you want to stretch your legs or God forbid use the bathrooms? You're pushing your luck, pal, because for every stray cirrus cloud seen from 40 miles distance the pilot turns on the "buckle your seat-belt" sign and you're not allowed to get up. This literally left about 10-15 minutes of flight without being constrained to the seat. Needless to say that with other airlines I was able to go to the restroom and use them while the aircraft experienced much greater disturbances.

Since the seat-curfew was enforced on both flights (to Vegas and from Vegas) I am quite certain that it's a policy with Delta. Like in any crime one can only ask what is the motive behind this crime? Well, it could be as benign as the simple explanation: it's easier to control the crowd when they all are seated and buckled to their chairs. It could also be something more problematic: someone realized that this way people will not be able to get to the kitchenette and ask for more drinks, or nobody will use the restrooms, thus the airline can spend less on toiletries. I am not joking here, from all the stinginess I have experienced from Delta I am quite certain of the latter being the real reason.

Weather

2009-06-14T16:16:00.002-04:00

In Israel summers are very dull: hot, humid and no rain. In Cincinnati it's quite the opposite. It started as a nice day. Really.

Sitting on the balcony

2009-06-06T18:58:00.002-04:00

We have a small balcony. It was mainly unused so far, except maybe for piling up snow in the winter. As spring is almost over and summer is upon us, the neighbors all started putting garden chairs out. Today we also bought a couple of foldable chairs and now we are sitting outside, with our laptops, naturally. Thanks God for wireless LAN.

Israeli general consul at UC

2009-05-16T20:42:00.003-04:00

The Israeli general consul in the US for the Mid-Atlantic states was at UC on Thursday. He gave a nice speech in which he explained the Israeli stand on many issues, mostly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No doubt, he did a good job at that, and was able to answer many questions from the audience, even two provocative questions from a pro-Palestinian student.
However, I was disappointed by the scope of the address. I feel, and expressed these feelings to whomever cared to listen, that a formal Israeli representative should represent Israel - as a whole - not just a poor side of it, namely the conflict. Israel is so much more than a conflict, even though this is what attracts most of the media attention. Israeli representatives should show that Israel is a westernized, relatively liberal, democratic society with many success stories, especially in arts, sciences and technology. This is even more important when the meeting takes place in the College of Arts and Sciences!
There are many reasons why the focus of such meetings should be changed. Firstly, many Americans (and I guess many citizens of other nations as well) don't know Israel other than what the media shows, which is the conflict. That limits their views to only views regarding the conflict, and usually forces them to take sides based on this narrow aspect.
Furthermore, when all you do is talk about the conflict you shed light on both sides of the conflict. Some of this light, perhaps most of it, is spent on your side, naturally, but there is also some light that goes to the other side. Why waste so much energy? Why not show just your country? Just your side?
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when you depict Israel as what it is - and not what the conflict prism causes it to seem - you enable broader perspectives. I think it would be easier for a Westerner to identify with Israeli success stories than it would be for him to identify with Israel's stand on a bloody conflict. People are more bent towards things they can identify in themselves and their culture (modernism, democracy, liberalism) than towards conflicts and wars. Why not provide them with the opportunity to do that?

There are enough success stories to tell. Lately, I have just finished reading on how Americans are coming to realize Israeli success in the Clean-Tech field, which is the new buzz-word now. Why don't you tell us a bit about that, Israeli general consul?

Mediterranean Food

2009-05-16T17:57:00.003-04:00

We've been wanting to eat some Hummus and Pita for a while now. Today we decided that it's time! We Googled for Mediterranean restaurants in Cincinnati and found The Mirage. It's a mix of Mediterranean food and Russian ancestry, which makes it perfect for us: we both miss the sound of Russian and the taste of Hummus. We had a plate of hummus, which was tasty but a bit too watery, with real pita breads! The rest of the food was even better: I had lentils soup, which a very Mediterranean taste, D had Falafels plate, with real vegetarian salad, and I had beef shish-kebab. Everything was great. We will definitely go back for more great food and feeling of home.

Update: Work Load

2009-05-03T19:38:00.002-04:00

It appears that I am the only one that started teaching right on the first term. According to the associate department head responsible for teaching, usually they give new faculty a quarter to get settled, and only then, on the second term, they start teaching, and even then only one course at that quarter. I started right away with two and continued with that rate. I’m also the only one with 7 courses a year. Usually the faculty teach up to 6 courses a year, and they have one quarter off after three consecutive quarters of teaching. It sucks to be at the bottom of the totem pole.
So, now I try to use the time off that I have every now and then to prepare my classes for the summer. It's not easy: I work full time with the two classes I teach now, I try to get some research done (even wrote a paper), and most of the time I am just exhausted from starting to each at 8AM every other day.

We have better prospects for D's quarter, on the other hand. She has finished two courses already, and now her time will be divided between only three classes and her work. It's still not easy, but at least she will have Mondays off now, and will be able to free some time over the weekends. Or so I hope.

We even find some time to follow several TV shows: Lost, Heroes, Lie To Me, Hisardut, and D sometimes catches episodes of Grey's Anatomy.

40 Hours a week?

2009-05-01T17:15:00.001-04:00

I recently received my paycheck and there they took off the hours we spent in Israel over the winter. It seems that for the 10 days off I paid with 80 hours, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week.
I think that at the rate I have been working since we got here I already finished my working hours this year.

Yom Atzmaut

2009-04-27T20:49:00.004-04:00

My favorite holiday has always been Yom HaAtzmaut, independence day. I think that the reasons for this are rooted in my childhood. For one thing, when I was little, my family used to meet with other families of my parents for a Kumsits. As a child, staying up until late, eating barbecue food and being with the "grownups" used to be something I liked. Back then, when the national public television was the only channel, there was no TV on weekends and holidays, and independence day used to be the only day with TV. I used to enjoy the Israeli movies that were aired, though they were "burekas" movies.

The day before independence day is Israeli memorial day. The proximity of the two dates has always puzzled me: how can you be mournful one moment and joyful the next? Israelis are indoctrinated as children that the "fallen" have bestowed upon us our lives in Israel. Their sacrifice is the reason for us being there. I also remember that as a child, with - luckily for me - no known relative who had been killed in service, but with many family members, who had perished in the holocaust, I used to think that the holocaust remembrance day should be more significant than the IDF memorial day. Of course, as a grown up I understand that both are equally important: mourning cannot be measured in quantitative values. There is no "my pain is bigger than yours".

So, why this long introduction? It is my first independence day abroad, and I was wondering how I would feel, whether it will feel like a holiday or not, whether I will feel some mourning on IDF memorial day or holocaust memorial day. It turns out that I do feel and in some absurd way it feels that being abroad makes me feel even more. It is as if being abroad has caused me to feel it from the inside, rather than something that comes from the outside, from the public symbols of these days. Today the movie Beaufort was screened at the University's cinema. I felt that I had to go to the movie, although I saw it some years ago. It is not an easy movie, and seeing it the second time doesn't make it easier to watch. It is as sad as it was the first time, even worse, as one already knows how the plot develops. The screening was organized by the Jewish students organization and "Bearcats for Israel", which is the pro-Israeli organization here. I was expecting people to come, and was surprised to see that I was the only audience when the lights were turned off and the movie began. Afterwards several people came in, one of them I think I even recognized. The strangest thing is that I tried to think how these people interpret the movie.

There are several reasons why non-Israelis will have a problem understanding the movie. Firstly, the movie was screened with Hebrew soundtrack and English subtitles, and so many of the innuendos of Hebrew (and specifically the IDF jargon) just get lost. Secondly, they lack context. When I came out of the movie I saw only 4 other people, all of them looked Indian. There was no introduction to the movie, and I guess that no one leaving outside Israel or Lebanon can even try and understand the situation and all the feelings surrounding it in the year 2000. Furthermore, there are several strong scenes in the movie, in which the leading character - a young officer who is the commander of Beaufort stronghold - is tested. I think that this thing is simply lost to anyone who hasn't had military training, which is obviously anyone who watched the movie today. I couldn't help wondering how they feel when they see it. Some (may be most) of them left at some point or the other, and I wonder if it was because they couldn't understand the movie, or because they had other better things to do. Perhaps I am mistaken, because it seems that most of the comments left by people in IMDB are very positive.

In conclusion, I think that if anything, the fact that I am here causes me to identify even more with the Israeli memorial days/independence day. It's such a shame that I don't have anyone to tell (except D here and the brave readers of this blog).

Some updates

2009-04-15T23:26:00.002-04:00

Spring quarter has begun and we're about 25% in it. Spring itself, however, seems to be a crazy season here. The weather has been oscillating from warm shiny days to damp, rainy and even snowy days. The period of the oscillation can be measured quite accurately to 3-4 days. When the weather is warm everything looks very nice and indeed spring is beautiful here. D has posted some photos in her Flickr album.
Last weekend we also had our first ever guest here in Cincinnati! We had a friend of mine from New York over for the weekend. She had to rid herself from Passover sticky Seders (there are two here in the US, because diaspora Jews apparently celebrate each holiday twice) and fled to our sanctuary. She spent three days with us, which allowed her to experience the entire cycle of weather. On gloomy Friday (originally, Good Friday) we went to the Cincinnati Art Museum, which surprisingly was more impressive than what I had expected. The museum showed an exhibition compiled by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem on Surrealism and Dada works. This type of art is usually not my cup of tea, and indeed I could (and did) summarize some of the works as: hey, I can paint better than these blotches of paint on canvas. I did like the classic Alpha Romeo they put on exhibit in the museum: now this is art!
It cleared on Saturday and we went for a great walk in Ault Park, which is a lovely park minutes of walk from our house. Most of the photos in D's album were taken there (although a week earlier).

When it comes to observing the Passover tradition I'm glad to say that we didn't observe any of it. We didn't go to any Seder. We didn't eat any unleavened bread, on the contrary: we ate pizza. I think the only relation to the holiday's tradition was drinking wine on Seder. By the way, pizza and wine are our traditional way of celebrating this holiday, as we have done that in four of the last five years. Naturally, we also worked, studied and taught during the Passover week. So basically, we didn't feel any holidays spirit.

Today we made our first significant step into mutual recognition between us and the matrix, aka the State of Ohio: both of us took our driving test and passed. So now both of us hold a valid driver's license issued by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles of the grid. As stated in a previous post, we were required to pass all the driving tests administered, as if we haven't been driving for the past 17 years or so. At least now we hold a license that will - hopefully - enable us to be free of the passports we were carrying all the time: it is, after all, a valid ID. The driving test here is very short: about 15 minutes in total. The test has two parts: maneuverability test and actual driving. In the former one needs to drive from an original position through a rectangular area defined by 4 cones and then proceed either to the left or to the right of a fifth cone (called point), bringing the car to a stop with its rear at the line of the point, and parallel to the general direction of the area. Then, from this position one must reverse the car to its starting position (description of the test can be seen in this animation). The rules are that the motion forward and in reverse should be done without stopping and that the cones must not be driven over. Then, if one passes that part of the test, the second part of the test is a very short drive outside the testing center's parking lot. This proved to be very short and very easy. The funny thing, of course, that if we had failed the test, we would have simply get into our car, driving with our international license. Anyway, this is past us now, and thus, we have finally completed the work plan defined about a year ago for our relocation.

Spring Time

2009-04-07T12:54:00.002-04:00

I have never lived in a country that has actual winter until we came here. Here was the first time that I saw snow and experienced real cold temperatures (though not as cold as the Northern areas experience). Here is also the first time that I see and understand the meaning of a real spring. Back home, the winter is a sort of autumn, autumn and spring are mild versions of summer, and summer is unbearable version of it. What I see here now explains why so many holidays are related to the spring, and why spring is a symbol of life. During the winter, all the trees were without leaves. It took the first days of precipitation in a liquid form (i.e. rain) instead of snow to convince them that the worst is over and that they should get back to life. All of a sudden the world, that used to be colored by shades of gray and brown has been recolored with all sorts of colors: green for grass and shrubs, white, pink, red, and purple for the flowers on the trees and on the ground. On a nice day, like the one we had on Saturday, everything looks so beautiful, and then the true meaning of the word spring emerges: the world springs to life.

Naturally, not everything in life can be perfect. Thus, the American taxes season is upon us, and all the tax return forms are due April 15. Taxes here are much different than the ones we had in Israel. Firstly, there is an income tax at any level: federal, state, and local (city). Each one of them requires a different set of forms to be filled. Not only that, there are several variations for each form, and it is almost impossible to know which form to fill. For example, on the federal level the same form has the following types: for citizens, for resident aliens, and for non-resident aliens. To make it even more confusing, the residency of an alien is defined differently by the Internal Revenue Service (the IRS) and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (the INS). It turns out that you can be a non-resident in the eyes of the INS while still being deemed a resident alien by the IRS (I think that the other way around is impossible, but not sure of that). Furthermore, since there is a huge variety of non-resident visas, and the IRS considers each one differently for residency purposes, it is even more confusing. And if that is not enough, there are other forms that need to be filled out if you didn't have any income or if you changed status during the year.

On the state level it is approximately the same thing, only that here you have an even more complicated task: if you moved from state to another you are considered part-time resident. Since we came here in September we are part-time residents. However, we arrived from out of the country, and this is a completely different story, which I don't know how the local officials treat.
Then you have the locality tax. In Israel the locality gets its money from the tax on your property (Arnona). Here it's another form of income tax (perhaps there is a tax on your property too, I don't know).

I have had my taxes withheld during the year. It means that I receive a salary after some of the money is put aside by the university as part of the taxes I owe to the federal government, state and city. Apparently, this is not like in Israel where the payments are accurate and usually you don't need to do anything at the end of the year. Here they take a "rough" amount and in the end of the year you fill out the tax return and learn how much you still owe the government, or how much the government owes you. It turns out that the government owes me quite a large amount of money, almost half my withheld taxes. Strange.

Thinking about all the forms and paperwork sent by April 15 to the federal and state services just makes me shiver. Let's assume that there are about 200 million tax payers in America, and each one prepares a single federal tax return, a single state tax return and a single locality tax return. That's already 600 million forms, each with multiple pages. There goes some forests...
Then, someone has to read these forms and make sure that no one tried to pay too little or get too much money back. Assuming that it takes 10 minutes per form per person, 6 forms are processed each hour, making it 100 million work hours. The checks from the government(s) usually come back within 5-7 weeks, according to their site. This means that between 15-20 million hours are done each week, or 3-4 million hours a day, or between 300-400 thousand people are paid to do it. That's not including hierarchy and supporting personnel (IT, HR, administration). It is a safe idea to believe that for every official that checks a form there is at least one that is either above in the hierarchy or support this person's work. Thus, 600-800 thousand people, not including the 10% of hidden unemployment, redundancies and undesired bureaucracy.
These people are paid, their offices have electricity, heating and cooling, plumbing, and other necessary working conditions. The offices themselves are in buildings, taking up place and real estate value, usually within the downtown of some major city. I guess that the costs of these services are about $100K per person (at the very least, probably as much as twice that amount). So, it must cost about 50-100 billion dollars just to collect, process and return all the tax forms.

Perhaps collecting taxes as it is done in Israel would be much more efficient. Everything is collected upfront. There is little need for additional tax returns at the end of the year, and those who venture it usually are turned away with nothing, which deters people from actually trying to do it. This could save dozens of billions of dollars to the American tax payer. Come to think of it: this could save money to me!

Back to the Grind 2!

2009-03-29T21:54:00.003-04:00

So spring break is over. It was far too short and I feel that I am definitely not as rested as should be before the beginning of a new quarter. The previous quarter was very busy indeed, and in the last weeks of the quarter I was working too hard - around 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. The students seemed to like my work, especially the students in my new class. I did try to give them a full academic curriculum as well as a nice time in class, using clips and figures. It seemed to be working and I am glad that they felt good with that. One of them has even left a comment that he hopes the department will keep me in the next years. After the comments in the fall quarter I am glad to have this kind of a feedback.

Meanwhile, it seems that we need to pass a driving test in order to obtain a drivers license from the matrix-controlled state we're living in. As newcomers to the US we are required to prove that our driver's license is real. This is of course absolutely preposterous: in order to take the driving test we will drive our own car to the exam center, and should we fail we will simply get back into the car and drive it back home. That's because our driver's license from Israel is apparently good enough for driving as tourists, but is not good enough for driving as Ohioans. As part of this ridiculous process we took a written driving test (aka "theoretic" test) and passed it (naturally). I was expecting to get the license right away and got very upset when I was told that I need to schedule a driving test. D received the news with much more acceptance than me, which is funny because it's usually the other way around.

Back to the quarter ahead of us: again, I teach two classes, only this time both of them are classes I have already taught, so there is much less work preparing for them (checking assignments and exams is still a hard work). I also take 6 credits of "research", which means that I am free to do whatever I want, as long as the adviser agrees with me. D is going to be very busy with a full curriculum and her part time work. The worst part is that I teach (as always) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays starting at 8 in the morning, while she starts her day in the afternoon. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the opposite: she goes to work early in the morning, while I am not teaching, and intend to spend the time at home. Thus, we will rarely see each other at the university, and I will not have a partner for lunch.

Chicago

2009-03-26T15:56:00.002-04:00

Spring break is almost over, and I haven't updated on our trip to Chicago. Chicago is located almost 300 miles north-west of Cincinnati. According to Google maps, that's almost 5 hours of driving. Naturally, we didn't think that driving for 5 hours straight is a good idea, so we made a few stops for food, coffee and basic i/o functions. The drive up there took us about 7 hours, and after this trip I can add two new states to the list of states in which I have been: Indiana and Illinois. (The others being: California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming). But, that was just the road trip.

Chicago itself is everything we were promised. I was worried that people promised us too much, but the city lived to the expectations I had. We found a hotel in the financial district downtown (aka 'the loop'). The hotel itself was very good and was worth the money we paid for it, but the area itself becomes very dull at nights and during weekends. Next time we'll take the Near-North area, which is right to the north of the loop. The Near North area reminds me of Vancouver, and that's a very high reference in my standards. It is not as beautiful, or full of parks/forests as Vancouver is, but it has all the vibrant life of a city center with people living in it. For those of you who are not accustomed to North America, city centers are usually zoned for finances and business, and become desolate and sometimes scary places at night. Near North, on the other hand, is quite the contrary, with posh residence towers, lots of shops, and great restaurants. The best part is that Chicago's public transportation is efficient and safe, which is excellent for people not wanting to move their car in the city. This, too, is different than most North American cities, where owning a vehicle is a must. In short, this is an excellent city which combines all the good things from NYC (vibrancy, variety, public transportation) with the good things of a smaller city (safety in the areas where we have been).

It's hard to summarize a city into words. D took quite a few photographs of the city and here they are:

This is the Chicago Cloud-Gate. A beautiful metal bean that was recently added to Chicago, and have become a major tourist attraction - and for a good reason. It cannot be described in words, just watch the photo and go visit!

This is the view from the John Hancock Center towards downtown. John Hancock Center is the fourth tallest building in Chicago (the Sears Tower being the first, and you can see it in the right half of the photo, with the two antennae), but the view from it is better than the view from the Sears Tower, because it's not too close to the other sky-scrapers.

This is the old water tower, one of the only remaining buildings from the Chicago great fire. Once, it was the highest building in Chicago, but as you can see from this photo, the John Hancock Center simply dwarfs it now.

From the John Hancock Center, if you look to the north, you can see the shoreline of Chicago and Lake Michigan to the right. The lake (I guess in Hebrew we would call that a sea) is large enough to have actual harbors and ships. Chicago has prevented people the shore from being used by entrepreneurs, making it a beautiful shoreline. The beaches that you see to the left of the lake are not really sand beaches, as they appear from above. Rather, they are concrete shores covered by a small layer of sand. To the left of the beaches the big road is called Lakeshore Drive, and the buildings on it are considered the most expensive real estate in Chicago. Well - something to aspire for.

The John Hancock Center as seen from the beach I described earlier.

The Chicago Cloud-Gate again, this time - if you look really carefully - you can spot D and me!

This photo, taken from Millennium Park, shows you how the city is layered up with towers and sky scrapers. I love this one.

However, Chicago is not just beauty and no brains. When we were there we were amazed at the number of academic institutes in the city. Six universities in or immediately adjoining the city, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, DePaul University, University of Illinois Chicago, Loyola University Chicago, and the Illinois Institute of Technology, are among the top echelon of doctorate-granting research universities. We saw the University of Chicago as part of our tour of the Hyde Park area and D was impressed by the school of business. In addition, during that tour we saw this building (photo taken from Wikipedia):

This building is right across from the Booth School of Business. It is a beautiful house designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and it undergoes major reconstruction. It will be ready towards its 100 anniversary next year. It will be interesting to visit there in a year from now. In general, I think that Chicago is worth a few more visits.

Ohio is not a real place

2009-03-18T19:55:00.000-04:00

Recently I have noticed that too many weird stories are related to the state of Ohio. While this is a large state, it is by far not the largest or most populated in the United States of America, and since California is both the most populated state and the weirdest one (i.e. creatures like Michael Jackson have a residence there) it should be California that gets all the weird media attention. However, this is not the case. Just in the last 2-3 months I read in Ynet the following stories:
An actress fell to her death after hanging from a rope during a show in the church. (Dec 19, 2008)
A 4 year-old shot his babysitter! (Jan 6,2009)
A father was sentenced to 16 years in jail after electro-shocking his children.(Jan 31, 2009)
A family objects to execution of a son who murdered his mother. (Feb 7, 2009)
An autistic 18 years old is accused of killing his mother. (Feb 25, 2009)
A transgendered woman forced her husband to train until his death. (Feb 15, 2009)
A university dean sprayed on a sign of another university. (Feb 25, 2009)
A woman breast-fed her baby while talking on her cellphone and driving! (Mar 1, 2009)
A letter finally reaches its destination in Ohio after 47 years. (Mar 14)

And, finally, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, is an Ohioan (timeless). Need I say more?

So, after all the aforementioned evidence, I can only come to the conclusion that Ohio is not a real place. It's a matrix-oid state, where the rules of the universe do not apply, and reality is controlled by a giant sentient computer. It is probably all a secret project of the Feds. Oh, I hear someone knocking on my door. I knew Google shares information with them! I knew it!

(Tomorrow's headlines on Ynet: Israeli arrested in Ohio for raving unintelligible nonsense on Ohio Matrixoids.).

Weekly summary: signs of spring

2009-03-08T19:12:00.000-04:00

The last week was very busy. On Tuesday I had a presentation at the Dayton-Cincinnati section of the AIAA (that's the aerospace counterpart of the more famous IEEE). It felt like attending the Israeli aerospace conference: you drive an hour north, the conference has many small rooms with little attendance, and everyone tries to be polite. It was a new experience for me, being my first conference ever, and I'm not sure if I liked it.

On Wednesday I had my birthday. As always, this is a good time for reflections on the previous year. I received a lot of emails and posts on my wall in Facebook with birthday wishes, and thanks for everyone. D and I didn't have time to celebrate, as both of us are extremely busy at the moment with end of the quarter tasks. D wished me a happy birthday, bought me two books, and we promised that when the quarter will finally be over we will have more time to celebrate.

A positive development is the vast improvement in the temperatures. The last few days have been warm, above 20 degrees (Celsius of course), and yesterday's weather was very nice. I wish I had not been so busy with work and laundry yesterday so that I could have enjoyed it, like some of my neighbors did. On my way to the laundry room and back I saw a few of them hanging outside in the parking lot, playing music and getting some rare rays of sunshine. Today is a different story. It is still warm, but we have already had two sirens warning us from the risk of a severe thunderstorm, which could develop into a tornado. And since the buildings here are basically built as boxes of cardboard and wood, a tornado can simply lift everything up and crash it down. We can hear the wooden beams attached to the roof stretch when the wind blows. The trees have not started blooming again.

Others signs of spring follow also: the infamous spring break (that's when all the young American students fly to resorts in Mexico, get drunk, naked, and wild) is just around the corner. Today started the daylight saving time ("summer clock" as it is referred to in Israel) in the US. So now, not only that we are 800 Km west of where the Eastern clock is (meaning that the sun rises and sets late relative to the East coast), now it will happen even an hour earlier. So, again, we will wake up before the sun.

Yearly summary: 35

2009-03-05T21:15:00.000-05:00

It was my birthday yesterday. I am 35 years old now, and it's a good time, as any birthday, to think about the previous year and analyze it in terms of successes and failures. As always, my categories are: family, love, friends, work, academics, and life in general.
Before progressing to the analysis itself, two things overshadowed any other thing this year: the death of my mother and the relocation to Cincinnati. These two play a major part in any of the categories that follow, but more importantly they have an enormous impact on my daily life in general.
Family: undoubtedly, the death of my mother this year was the most significant event that changed my family life. The obvious thing, of course, is her being missing. She was the most significant member in my family to me, and I don't mean that I loved her more than the others, but simply that she was the closest one to me. My relations with my father and sister have always known ups and downs, each for its own reasons, that this is not the right time or place to divulge. However, my mother was always a person to whom I could talk and tell much of my life. Naturally, it was the case when I was younger and still lived with my parents, but even after I moved out permanently we still had a good relationship. Seeing her losing the shape of a human being - physically and mentally - was very hard for me. At some point, towards the last days of her life, when she could not control her body anymore due to the tumors in her brain, I was even hoping that the suffering would end for her. It's not easy, and it's not something to be proud of, but that's how I felt at the time.
After her death something has changed in the relations I have with my father and sister. This is also accompanied by the fact that I am away, but I think that now we are a bit closer (in the emotional sense) than we have ever been. I don't know how long this will last, and whether it will withstand the distance of me being here, or when I get back. Only time can resolve this question, but as of now I think that my family relationships have improved, and some of it is due to this tragedy.
In all, I'd say that the family aspect of the last year was very bad, but hopefully some good will come out of this.

Love: I consider the past year to be the best year for my relationship with D. It started with her moving to my place, continued with her being by me in the worst days after my mother died, and then we moved here. The only reason I could survive all these changes is her. I found in her strengths that I hadn't seen before. Less important, but worth to mention, is that my sister finally came to appreciate what D is, and came to respect her for being my true "significant" other. Not in the way the term is used by P.C. minded people, but by the essence of that term: she is part of my life that I cannot live without. Any other words that I can write will only diminish this message.

Friends: it takes bad times to realize who your best friends are and how much they are important to you. Last year had enough of those times and I can say that one of the hardest things now is the lack of my friends. I didn't even realize how many friends I have and how close I feel to them until we relocated. At first I wondered how long will I continue to write my weekly updates, but I felt that I had to do it, because I wanted my friends to be part of my life even though I'm far away. It became an important part of my life, and though it is a "half-duplex" - I only transmit and rarely receive answers, the importance is there. I think that I will try to make it more interactive in the future, with more personalized mails, especially if time permits. However, no technological means can be a substitute for face-to-face, same-room, interaction. Nothing. It's better than it was before, now that we have Skype, and messengers, and emails. Yet, it's not the same. It takes more efforts to maintain relationships like that, and, very understandably, it is far more important to the one away (me) than it is to the ones left behind. The other side of the equation is that I (or we) haven't made any friends here. Will I feel differently if we do make some friends here? I think not.

Work/academics: these two have become one now, and therefore should be discussed together. It was important to me to continue my studies, after a long and logical analysis of how my career is about to come to a dead-end. I think that this has not changed, but I doubt if we have made the right choices. Some of our doubts were expressed in previous posts. I think that this is a new experience for us, and it certainly the first time that I have an opportunity to see how academic life look from the inside. I have not developed any inclination towards academic life or professional life yet, and I am not sure that the University of Cincinnati should be the model upon which I make such decisions. I miss being around people that constantly challenge me. I had that at Ness. I think I can have that at other universities, but I don't feel that here. From the economic point of view, our situation has deteriorated relative to the one we had before moving here. It was expected, and I think that we are doing much better than I thought we would, and certainly our situation is better than most of the rest of the world right now. So, the right decision has been made and implemented, although the situation has not improved. However, right decisions should be judged by the view of a longer time period than a few months. Next year we will be a good time to make such decisions, and follow them through.

Life in general: last year was a year of great changes and not for the best. I think that I am less satisfied with my life now than I was a year ago. However, I have some optimism, because some things improved, and these improvements have the potential of staying for life. Unfortunately, some things have deteriorated, and they will also stay for good.

Weekly update: Back to the Future?

2009-03-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

After feeling bad last week, many wrote responses and suggestions that were nice to read. Thank you all for that.
This week was a bit better than the previous one. The amount of work was not reduced, of course, but now we have something to look forward to: Chicago! We booked a room for the weekend after the final exams week, and we are looking forward to having the best weekend possible. By the way, if any of you happened to be in Chicago and you are willing to share some ideas and suggestions, feel free to send them our way. There are two weeks of lessons and then another of finals, but it lifted our spirits to know that we have something to look forward to. I hope we won't be disappointed.
Another thing that lifted our spirits was that we decided to take some time off for walks. We're still very much out of shape, but at least we're moving again and are not just couch/desk potatoes. Today we even visited the gym in our apartment complex for the first time since we got here. It makes us feel better with ourselves, and I even feel that walking together allows us some quality time together, which we rarely share otherwise due to our other obligations. Hopefully the weather will continue to improve and we will keep doing it; it can only do us good both physically and mentally.
On Tuesday I will give my first conference presentation. It is a small conference in Dayton, Ohio, about an hour drive from here. The presentation is about the little research I was doing in the previous quarter. To prepare myself for this presentation I did some research and found out that I accidentally re-discovered a well known algorithm for solving mazes. Moreover, I expanded this algorithm to the multi-agent case. This suddenly sheds a whole new light on this four days gig.
Finally, a farewell wish to the only person (besides D) that I was talking with on a regular friendly basis: B, another graduate student (or should I say former graduate student). He left on Friday to his new job in a company in New England, and I hope he will have a great time there. He has finished his Ph.D. and awaits the defense of his dissertation in a month. I wish him the best of luck with the new job and the defense.

Save English words

2009-02-23T20:43:00.000-05:00

I came across this site, which asks you to use a long forgotten English word so that it will not be lost for good. I got this word: apanthropinization. Even the spellchecker in Firefox thinks it's a misspelled word. It means: withdrawal from human concerns or the human world. Perhaps this word is suitable to describe itself? :-)

Weekly Summary: Uncertainty

2009-02-22T20:36:00.000-05:00

The past two weeks have been very busy for both D and I. They were so busy that we barely had time to anything, including the weekly update of last week, which has been turned to weekly thought (actually, two thoughts). As a result our lives are dull. We don't do much that isn't directly related to work/studies, and both of us are nervous, stressed out, and basically fed up with this situation. We are looking forward to the end of the quarter and to the (too short) spring break, which will come in about a month from now. The plans are basic: get away from Cincinnati for a short while, probably to the Chicago area. Chicago is the "big city" around here, and when I say around I mean it in the broadest possible meaning; it's about 500 Km from here.

The stress, long hours, work, and studies have a great toll on D. She has been feeling unwell for the entire quarter so far, with two waves of the flu, and a stomach bug. I think that the basic problem is that she doesn't have enough time to rest and relax and so get stronger. Naturally, the continuous deteriorated health, accompanied by the stress of studies and work, and the short light hours of a northern latitude, have all combined to bring down her mood, and mine as well (though I am not ill). The previous Friday was a breaking moment for both of us, as both of us feel that we don't get a benefit equal to our efforts here (specifically the mental). This was the first time we talked about it, and I think that both of us agree that Cincinnati is not meeting our needs at the moment. The question is: what now? D's studies are short relative to mine, and her internship in the summer may prove to be a change in the entire atmosphere (certainly, less stress). We decided to wait for the fall before making further decisions. In any case, I will not abandon my position here before the summer. D's studies will end a quarter after the internship, so if we decide in the fall to leave here, we will be here until the spring, which probably makes it next summer (i.e. a year and a half from now). This is how the train will continue rolling, and, anyway, we still don't know what to do next. Shall we return to Israel? Shall we try our luck somewhere else? And if so, where? Seattle? Boston? The Bay Area?

My studies feel a bit strange to me at the moment. I can't attend the lessons themselves, because I teach at the same time. I am left to study from the posted lectures and the book. So far, my grades have been good, but I fear that they might drop sharply from now on, as there are some concepts that I don't quite understand, or rather: don't have a feeling for. This means that I can't crosscheck my work using "common sense". Next quarter I will not take any classes, as I can't find something that really interests me and coincides with my time. Instead, I will concentrate on research (while still teaching the same two courses I teach this quarter). It should be a much easier time, with less stress for me (and still a lot of work and stress for D). Will my studies really get me anywhere? I have a suspicion that if I choose to transfer to another university in the States, it will probably not accept a course done in the University of Cincinnati.

The heavy toll on our life starts to burden our bodies as well. Both of us have been gaining weight due to the lack of exercise and bad nutrition. The latter is also a result of trying to eat fast and comfort food. This, too, contributes to the bad feeling in various ways: lower self-esteem, less stamina and poorer concentration due to less oxygen entering the brain. We should get back in shape ASAP, but when is P exactly? Next year?

On a happier note: I can listen to "Fitter Happier" with only a negligible amount of clouding in my eyes. Yay. A few months ago it used to shatter me to pieces.