mid-October
It has been an interesting few days. Wednesday was a bit like Christmas, not because of the weather, which is getting cooler, but because of all of the great things that came in the mail, and all the good stuff I got in Beer Sheva. First, the mail. I got a care package from ArmyGirl. It was full of essentials: a huge pile of bubblegum - I might have to start bubble-blowing competitions around here - a CD of very creepy noises for Halloween, some glow-in-the-dark plastic scorpions (much better than the real thing in your shoe!), highly prized ziplock bags, and a great jack-o-lantern pair of boxers. I won't guess how she knew that I needed a pair of those, but they are much appreciated.
I also got my absentee ballot for the US presidential election. I was getting a bit nervous about whether it would arrive in time for me to get it back by election day, but it seems to have come pretty quickly. I immediately filled it out and put it in the mail the next day. Wisconsin's ballot is nice and easy - no possibility of chads, hanging or not, just complete the arrow pointing to the candidate you're voting for. I didn't notice whether it said 'electors for' or just the actual presidential candidates. I've been reading up on the electoral college system in the US. Quite interesting really. It makes a lot more sense (I think) after figuring out the rationale behind it. Basically, the idea is to make sure that the president gets elected both by enough people, and by a geographically distributed group of people. It also has some interesting checks, like the electors can't vote for both a president and a vice president from their own state, but must vote for at least one person from another state. Quite interesting. I'm a bit less against it after reading more about it. I feel at least a little relief at getting my ballot in the mail. Interestingly, there was a group of people here who watched the final debate live (our student club has a satellite TV connection), but none of the people who did were from the US.
On Wednesday, I also made it to Beer Sheva to run a bunch of errands. I sent off my visa application for staying here more than 3 months. I even had a visit to the bank where there were no hassles, and no language related issues of communication. On the way back, I got to stop at the shouk, and found a guy selling fresh dates. I love dates, and have finally found a place to get them. Apparently, this is the middle of date season right now. So I bought a huge bag of them and have been munching ever since. The shouk is a great place for produce.
I also managed to get a toaster oven finally. It's possible to get one from the student union here, for a small deposit. I got really lucky, too, because the one I ended up with is practically brand new. The previous owner didn't have it long, and was mostly gone, so never used it. the toaster ovens here are a bit bigger than what I'm used to - big enough that it is possible to really use them as an oven, which is nice because I don't have an oven, just a hot plate. I immediately made toast, and followed it up with some dates.
I also managed to get some work done on Wednesday and ran experiments on two bats. That went pretty smoothly. When we run the bat experiments, we have to do it during the bats' activity period, so we can't start until dark (about 18:00 right now), so don't finish until about 23:00. After the experiments, I packed up my new toaster and headed home. Along the way, I ran into a fox (not sure what kind - will have to get back to you on that), and some friends watching it. Lina and her mother, who is visiting from Colombia, saw me with my toaster under one arm and my laptop under the other, took pity on me and invited me in for dinner, which, being Colombians, they had just finished themselves, even though it was 11:00 pm. So we ate and chatted in a mix of spanish and english (mostly spanish from them, mostly english from me). I have a feeling that I'm going to learn a lot more spanish while in Israel that I will learn hebrew. While we were talking we had a steady parade of animals roam through. The fox walked past again, followed by 2 cats and a dog which each decided to take up residence in Lina's living room. At least they were friendly, though apparently the dog only speaks russian. Somewhere between the dog's first entrance and the second cat, we decided we need to go to Sinai (once the fallout from the bomg attacks calm down a bit), and I need to visit them in Colombia. Not sure when on either of those, but they could both be interesting trips.
I also got my absentee ballot for the US presidential election. I was getting a bit nervous about whether it would arrive in time for me to get it back by election day, but it seems to have come pretty quickly. I immediately filled it out and put it in the mail the next day. Wisconsin's ballot is nice and easy - no possibility of chads, hanging or not, just complete the arrow pointing to the candidate you're voting for. I didn't notice whether it said 'electors for' or just the actual presidential candidates. I've been reading up on the electoral college system in the US. Quite interesting really. It makes a lot more sense (I think) after figuring out the rationale behind it. Basically, the idea is to make sure that the president gets elected both by enough people, and by a geographically distributed group of people. It also has some interesting checks, like the electors can't vote for both a president and a vice president from their own state, but must vote for at least one person from another state. Quite interesting. I'm a bit less against it after reading more about it. I feel at least a little relief at getting my ballot in the mail. Interestingly, there was a group of people here who watched the final debate live (our student club has a satellite TV connection), but none of the people who did were from the US.
On Wednesday, I also made it to Beer Sheva to run a bunch of errands. I sent off my visa application for staying here more than 3 months. I even had a visit to the bank where there were no hassles, and no language related issues of communication. On the way back, I got to stop at the shouk, and found a guy selling fresh dates. I love dates, and have finally found a place to get them. Apparently, this is the middle of date season right now. So I bought a huge bag of them and have been munching ever since. The shouk is a great place for produce.
I also managed to get a toaster oven finally. It's possible to get one from the student union here, for a small deposit. I got really lucky, too, because the one I ended up with is practically brand new. The previous owner didn't have it long, and was mostly gone, so never used it. the toaster ovens here are a bit bigger than what I'm used to - big enough that it is possible to really use them as an oven, which is nice because I don't have an oven, just a hot plate. I immediately made toast, and followed it up with some dates.
I also managed to get some work done on Wednesday and ran experiments on two bats. That went pretty smoothly. When we run the bat experiments, we have to do it during the bats' activity period, so we can't start until dark (about 18:00 right now), so don't finish until about 23:00. After the experiments, I packed up my new toaster and headed home. Along the way, I ran into a fox (not sure what kind - will have to get back to you on that), and some friends watching it. Lina and her mother, who is visiting from Colombia, saw me with my toaster under one arm and my laptop under the other, took pity on me and invited me in for dinner, which, being Colombians, they had just finished themselves, even though it was 11:00 pm. So we ate and chatted in a mix of spanish and english (mostly spanish from them, mostly english from me). I have a feeling that I'm going to learn a lot more spanish while in Israel that I will learn hebrew. While we were talking we had a steady parade of animals roam through. The fox walked past again, followed by 2 cats and a dog which each decided to take up residence in Lina's living room. At least they were friendly, though apparently the dog only speaks russian. Somewhere between the dog's first entrance and the second cat, we decided we need to go to Sinai (once the fallout from the bomg attacks calm down a bit), and I need to visit them in Colombia. Not sure when on either of those, but they could both be interesting trips.
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