First, a big one: I'm thankful to be alive. I don't just say that as a reminder to ease the worries of my gentle grandfolk. Nor do I say it in a chirpy poetical sense -- no, I really mean it: I'm glad to be alive. Because tonight I was washing up after dinner with flatmate M and mid-conversation she yelps "No no no no! Not that one!" and snatches the cloth I'd been using to wipe down spoons from out of my fingers. "That cloth is the one I use for economica! You know, what is the English word for economica... detergent?" And she pulls out from under the sink a tub of industrial strength cleaner; I take a whiff and -- oh yes -- pure bleach.
That's right folks, for 13 days now I've been using extremely minimal amounts of water (because it's a precious resource in Israel. I was only doing my part for conservation of course, to say nothing of expediency...) and the offending bleach-soaked cloth to wipe down the plates and spoons and teacups of three adults. M and I laughed about it, but deep down I think we also died a little.
Okay. Moving on to lighter things:
-- I really enjoy the dates here. Calm yourself, you romance-eager nosy-nosers, and allow me to finish -- I mean dates as in the fruits, not the nuts. No wait, I didn't mean it that way! I meant nuts as in crazies. You know, the random dudes who materialize ex nihilo and ask me to have a drink with them. (On a side note: one day, perhaps soon, I'll be courageous enough to say "yes"to one of these people. And then proceed to order the most expensive single-malt whiskey on the shelf. This is, in case you were wondering/judging me, one of the very small ways in which I extract recompense from the universe for the palpable existence of gender bias against women in academia. It is, therefore, entirely legitimate for me so to act.)
-- There is a cultural center and communal courtyard (holy alliteration, batgirl!) just behind our building. On Fridays there is a small open-air market there, where people hock jewelry, grind coffee, display stitch-work, and sell vegetables, goat cheeses, challah for the sabbath and marvelous plump fruits. If we're lucky they set up load speakers and blast the cats out of the courtyard with good ole American jams from either the 1960s or 1980s (yes, only those two decades).
On other nights when I get home from the university, I will hear the tune of a waltz or big band brass coming from the wide-open windows of the center. If I crouch on the balcony just right, I can watch through the trees as a roomful of my neighbors twirl and glide in each others' arms. It makes me deeply happy. And of course on Sabbath there is lovely sad singing in that very room.
-- Cat-watching on the lawn outside my office is swiftly becoming my favorite recreational sport. There is no end to the strangeness, and hilarity, of scattered handfuls of flinching, dodging felines as they prowl the grass for bits of wayward falafel.
-- Speaking of my office, I am thankful for it, and here 'tis:
Lovely, no? Though at present it has what Jennie B would call "an embarrassment of book space". Shortly to be solved, however: much of Gerald Holton's academic library will soon be shelved there. (At which point, I ain't gonna lie, I'll sit in my leather chair across from those erstwhile-empty shelves now teeming with excellent history and philosophy and physics literature and fan my fingers together whilst croning "Welcome, my prettieeeeees". Incidentally, this is the same manner in which I plan to greet PhD students who wander into my office. I mean "our" office. Yes.)
And for the nerds out there, if you direct your attention to the left of the picture you see a microfilm machine (my own! my preciousssss) sitting atop the cabinets which contain Hebrew University's oh-so-microfilmy set of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics (or "AHQP", for those who wish to impress at cocktail parties). I can't wait to play with it all. Yes, yes, I have digital access to the AHQP already... but I can't resist getting my little grubby fingers on the physical stuff of it (ah, strike that-- clean fingers. Recall that nontrivial volumes of bleach have been handled by yours truly in recent days...). Mircofilm. It's hardcore vintage library geekery, and all you hipsters can shuffle on off to Buffalo. It's like owning your dad's 8-track player and accompanying 8-track cassette of The Doors. In short, excellent good fun.
The window in my office faces just such an angle that if the wind is coming down from the hills in just such a way, you can hear the über-talented kids over at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance practicing their respective arts. Well, I haven't exactly heard the dancers. But plenty of opera and piano and the occasional tenor saxophone strain reaches the airwaves proximate to my window. Youths who love classical music! It's enough to turn my heart all akimbo.
Here are a few other pictures of the Givat Ram campus, for your partakin':
Main entrance to the campus (also below)
Two tomcats roaming my office building, up to no darn good.
Oh, and what's this I see directly across the hall from my office?
Mmm. Soak up the genius. Oh, and mom-- I finally asked today where the actual, coffee-stained, ink-blotted tear-soaked sweat-dampened Einstein papers and letters were. And they're in a super-secret temperature-controlled, idiot-proof room adjacent to the archive. They only take The Originals out for special exhibits or visiting foreign dignitaries. So come on over, famous folks, and I'll get you and me both a special tour. I'm looking at you, Huda bint Abdullah Al Shaikh, wife of the late Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud -- I know that you both read this blog and deeply desire to see Einstein's original papers.
The Levi Building (where I work), through the trees.
Also on campus is the National Library, which extends over the hillside (see below)
I suppose that's a pretty good list of thanksgiving for today. Here's to discovering still more tomorrow...
Aha!! The Einstein papers right across the hall! No doubt the aura of pure genius will waft over you all year, making you even smarter!! (Or your hair stick out even more!)
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