Category: 400 thoughts
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Running Jerusalem.
I’ve taken to running in the evenings with a friend. It’s an activity I’ve always enjoyed but just can’t summon the energy to do alone. Running, jogging, speed walking – it’s a culture here in Jerusalem. I see it a lot more than I saw it back in New York, where I think more people…
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Is spam cultural?
Isn’t it kind of funny that different cultures – aside from having different foods, traditions and rituals – also have different spam? Once in a while I glance over my spam folder and usually about 40% of the subject lines are in Hebrew. The Israeli spam is also different because it seems to cover a…
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Conflict students vs. WordPress geeks.
I’ve been spending today at WordCamp Israel 2007, a conference focused on bloggers, blogging, and of course, bloggers blogging using WordPress. It’s being held in Michlelet Afeka, a small engineering college in Tel Aviv, so part of me feels like I’m in school. I don’t mind, as long as it’s not a university located in…
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Changing and staying the same.
I came across an old article written up for the Jewish Press, for which I was interviewed. It ran 9 months after I made aliyah, and reading it just now freaks me out a bit. Why? I supposed because of the time that has passed, what has happened since that article was published, and also…
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The Rich Little American game.
Sometimes I long to play the Rich Little American game. Basically, it’s a game that plays on the fact that I can pass for a tourist with loads of money to spend and respect to demand. I can go on a weekend holiday somewhere in Israel, give my passport number, pay in dollars and get…
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The truth about milk and honey.
Fear not; I will be the first to admit my last post was utter and total crap. Milk and honey? It sounded nice but I don’t feel it. Here’s the truth: Israel has made me a crappy Jew and an even crappier Zionist. I don’t really have those initial oleh-chadash-feel-good-moments anymore. I don’t even miss…
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The sweetness of milk and honey.
Like a good American, I love cereal. Itty bits of stuff you can pick at in milk and eat with a spoon? Awesome. I bought Honey Nut Cheerios in Israel for the first time, and when I took my first crunch of the stuff this morning, you know what I got a mouthful of? Milk…
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The hi-tech-ization of Israeli me.
If I hadn’t moved to Israel, I wonder if I would have ended up working in an internet company. I get shocked when I think about the fact that the most experience I have now in anything is probably my day job (internet marketing for a healthy-sized website). But let’s face it: I’m a writer.…
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Where we go after we graduate…
It’s incredible (and maybe disturbing) how the older we get, the more we lose control of our memories. There are more memories constantly being made; we don’t realize it until much later on, and by then we’ve lost control over so many more from way before. For dinner, I joined a group of Binghamton alumni…
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The view from my office.
“But ya know what, I can look out my window at work and think how lucky I am to live in Jerusalem and in Israel … and then, with two feet on the ground, get back to work.” Amechad‘s comment got me thinking. Not for too long, not too hard, but I what I was…
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Aliyah realism.
Just met with an old friend who is visiting/studying for the summer. She considers aliyah from time to time. It’s been a while since I’ve sat down for a conversation with a friend from ‘home’. Especially one who considers making aliyah. I listened to myself and realized how realistic I sounded. I don’t mean to…
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Deliberate this.
I’m not a particularly nice person. And certainly not always thoughtful, either. But I guess leaving New York and living in Jerusalem for two years has ingrained in me a greater sense of respect; at least, respect that transfers from words to actions. So that’s why I was stunned when an old guy got on…