j.shalvi

This is hilarious

I’m in Jerusalem on an interview for the Internship program I hoped to do after the Ulpan ends in a month.  Sadly, I don’t think it’s quite what I’m looking for, so the likely next step will be back to Chicago for grad school at DePaul.

I want to study Human-Computer Interaction, which means designing software to make it more usable.  After some searching, I found Industrial Design to be another good path to an HCI job.  The Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem has such a program.  It’s more for Artists:

Though going through a pre-University Hebrew program may not really be worth the effort.  And I can buy all the knives I want back home.

I’ve been really sick the last few weeks, and the internet access here is just pathetic, so I’ll slowly catch up on what I’ve been up to.

Last weekend was the Shavuout holiday, which is when we commemorate the receiving of the ten commandments by eating a lot of dairy. Many Jews and genetically predisposed to lactose intolerance, so I’m not sure if the dairy tradition is celebratory or a form of self-infliction. It’s also the “harvest” holiday if you want to get all cynical and pagan about it.

I took a bus to Jerusalem to visit my Aunt who was going to host a big dinner for the whole family, and also to go with her to the airport to pick up my sister who is visiting for a few weeks. Getting to Jerusalem by bus is generally a hassle, since it takes three buses to get there. There’s also a “religious” bus which goes directly from Qiryat Atta (the town next to my Kibbutz) to Jerusalem. It’s generally used by religious people going to and from Jerusalem, but anybody can take it.

The only problems with religious buses are:
1. It’s segregated, men in front women in back.
2. Cleanliness isn’t quite as close to G-dliness as one would think.

The segregation thing isn’t really that bad on inter-city buses, as you can see:

But the city buses in Jerusalem are out of control.

This time, however, I had to take the normal 3 buses to Jerusalem. When I arrived, it was still technically Shabbat (no working, driving, etc.) so the central bus station was closed and all the buses that would normally park inside the station were lined up outside waiting to get in. I walked around to the front to try and get into the station and grab some food, and saw a crowd of people waiting to get into the station.

Plus, all the security guards were just hanging out as well, just waiting for Shabbat to be over. After about 20 minutes, a Rabbi emerged from the building, waved good-bye to the guards, and the station was open for business.

I’ve been living in a bubble the last few weeks. I didn’t know it was St. Patrick’s Day and Easter Sunday until the day of, nor did I realize UMBC had gotten into the NCAA Tourney, while Maryland was back at the NIT. I never thought I’d see the day. I don’t watch a whole lot of television while I’m here, partly because there are so many other things to do, but partly because some guy keeps switching the cable box to Russian and I got sick of switching it back.

Life on the Kibbutz is going well otherwise:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jshalvi/KibbutzLife

The past week was filled with Purim activities and beautiful 100 degree weather (which is actually rare this time of year). We had an Ethiopian dancing class, here are some great pictures care of Judit:

http://picasaweb.google.com/judyerec/SisayPrePurimParty

Back home, Purim is a fairly minor holiday, but here it’s absolutely insane. The celebration of the holiday involves getting dressed up, so in a secular sense it’s analogous to Halloween. I went down to Tel-Aviv to visit my cousin Anat, and check out the Purim scene. She lives off of Ben-Gurion Street, which is a lot like the wide Boulevards in Chicago, but also have a nice walking path between the two lanes. Small sandwich shops pop up every so often, and so we sat outside and ordered a Roast Beef sandwich which was forgotten about, twice.

We headed back to her place to rest up before going out at the reasonable hour of 1am. People go out much later in Israel. At the pub on the Kibbutz, nobody even shows up until 11pm. Anyhow, we took a taxi to the Florentine neighborhood where there was a massive street party. Bars had DJ’s set up outside, as well as mini-bars. Block after block was packed with people, or as is said in the lovely Hebrew slang: the place was “bombed.”

People were dancing in the street, in the trees, on the rooftops. One guy was swinging from the top of his apartment building throwing glitter, somebody else was randomly lighting M-80’s. The place was bombed.
The next morning Anat and I went to a street fair on Ben-Yehuda street:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jshalvi/Purim2008

Later that night the Kibbutz threw a massive party, and it was open-bar. Now that’s a form of Communism I can get behind.

Hi Everyone,

I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, but I’ve finally settled here on the Kibbutz. For the next five (now four and a half) months, I’ll be living on Kibbutz Ramat Yochanan on what’s called a Kibbutz Ulpan program. It’s a combination of Kibbutz volunteer work, and Ulpan, an intensive Hebrew study program.

Kibbutz life is much different from the typical 9 to 5. The Kibbutz operates (ideally) as a self sustaining community, providing room, board, laundry, jobs, and most importantly, a pub. The word I’m trying to avoid is commune, but basically that’s what it is. Originally, the kibbutz supported itself on agriculture, and there’s still a dairy farm and orchards, but much of the Kibbutz is also supported by industries such as a plastic factory, and a spice factory (where I work).

Anyway, enough catching up, it’s in pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jshalvi/KibbutzRamatYohananArrival

Today was my first day on the job. The Kibbutz Ulpan program is very cheap due to the work requirement. We work three days a week, 7am to 3pm, and we study 3 days a week, 8am to 3:30pm. Friday is usually a half day, and Saturday is our day off. Sunday is basically Monday here, it takes a bit of getting used to.

I was supposed to work at Palram, the plastics factory (which, incidentally, has two factories in Pennsylvania). But in true Israeli fashion, I was told there was no need for me when I showed up on the job and was sent home. By then it had been two weeks since I was supposed to start work. Other people (mainly the girls) had already been working in the dining hall, the laundry, and the Ulpan Clubhouse. Most of the guys have jobs in the factory, and only two people have agriculture jobs, one in the cow shed, the other in the horse stables.

The day I got sent home, the house mother made sure I kept busy by making me sweep out the bomb shelter. I gave the ping-pong table a good polishing while I was at it:

So now it’s my job on Fridays to clean up the grounds, and do some basic gardening as I see fit. The other two days I work at the spice factory, today being my first day.

I take big bags of spice, and put them into little bags of 1 kilo each. A bin the size of a recycling bin full of dry cranberry tea is rolled to my side. I scoop out and measure precisely 1.010 kg of tea (we must account for the weight of the bag, shan’t we?), and hand it off my co-worker for her to seal and label. After the bin is empty, I brush down my work area, clean out the bin, and a I’m given a bin full of black pepper, followed by yellow curry, brown sugar, granola, and finally a massive bin of hummus mix.

The job is tedious, but the people I work with are probably the friendliest co-workers of all the jobs given to Ulpanists. They’re happy to teach me a lot of Hebrew, which is rare as most Kibbutzniks couldn’t care less how much Hebrew we learn. One of my co-workers is hilarious, every so often he’d break out into song: “Aseenu Shaaaaaaalom Halekhem!” (We bring peace unto you!) It’s a traditional song which is sung during Shabbat and when an El-Al flight full of new immigrants disembarks:

Yohanan (in hebrew): “Aseenu Shaaaaaalom Halekhem! You know this song Yonatan? You sang it in the airport?”

Me (attempting in hebrew): “I know, yes, song but, ehhhh, but not on plane.”

Yohanan: “They didn’t sing this song when you arrived in the airport?”

Me: “Yes, maybe on the plane, not all the time, no.”

Yohanan: “No no no no, did the religious nuts sing this song when you got off the plane at Ben-Gurion?”

Me: “Oh! Got it. No, only plane with new immigrants. My plane with Israelis so it doesn’t matter.”

Hey, at least I’m trying, you should have heard me try to explain Jesus to him: “Jesus is son of G-d, but not G-d, but kind of like G-d; like the messiah, not The Messiah but like messiah. It doesn’t matter.”

Towards the end of the day, I noticed that when the ventilation system turns off it sounds A LOT like aircraft engines shutting down after landing and I finally got the joke…

“The plane has landed, Yonatan! Aseenu Shaaaaalom Halekhem!!!”

G-d forbid, of course…

We are also happy to announce that since Ulpan 68 the ulpanistim with a laptop can have wireless access to the internet both in the ulpan club,, as well as in the upper ulpan area (near the computer room and bomb shelter entrance A). And as of Ulpan 71, this service is now free of charge.

Read.  This.  Blog.

Had I been less lucky, second number three would have found me on the ground, dead. Even the clap as I lost consciousness would have been lost, as I believe that one is only cognizant of it to the extent that there is a beginning and an end-a leaving and a returning. I would have died and never known it. There would have been no goodbyes, no final thoughts of my loved ones, nothing. Everything that was in my mind, all of my loves and hates and hopes and dreams, everything that makes up who is Me, would have been instantly and completely wiped out.

I promise this will be the only “see how cold it gets here?” post I’ll do this winter. It’s a relative term, so to give you an idea of what we consider “cold” to be, just take a look at our 5-day forecast:

36 degrees: Breezy

16 degrees:  Windy

7 degrees:  Cold

I’m in a frenzy trying to apply to grad school, work, and rent out my apartment.  I have a few people interested in the place, and the next step is to have them meet the current roommates.  But coordinating three people always on the go has proven to be impossible:

“Hey did you get my voicemail about meeting the new roommate?”

“I saw that you called, but didn’t see the voicemail, let me check… oh ok, weird, I guess when there are too many voicemail messages it stops letting me know I got one.”

Great.  Same goes for the other roommate, they’re both numb to voice calls and voicemails. I hate text messaging, but I managed to summon all my will and text’d them and got prompt replies.  Maybe I’m not on their “A-list” and don’t pick up when I call, but what happens when texting isn’t enough?  I predict that in five years, the only reliable way to get a hold of someone will be to PHYSICALLY get a hold of them.

So much for technology.

My latest time-killer:

It’s a Zebra who folds laundry. If you don’t get the letter in time it falls in the puddle.

So far I’m on level 2 with 93% and 15 bunnies.