So much to yap about, and so little time...

I've been thinking that I need to write here for about a week, but because of the holiday I just hadn't gotten to it yet. Now I've got too much to say, so I'm going to have to squeeze it in. At least you'll get the Reader's Digest version of everything, instead of the full encyclopedia.

The holiday:

Sukkot, we figured out, might be known to non-Jews as "The Festival of Booths." I was discussing it with a friend last week who had been trying to explain it to her non-Jewish relative in the States.

Basically, G-d told us that every year we have to go live in temporary shelters. There are a lot of specifications in order to make them kosher according to Jewish law, but the basics are that they have to have at least three walls and a roof through which there is more shade than sun, but it's still possible to see the stars. One is a "sukkah," and more than one are "sukkot," hence the name of the holiday.

Now there are a lot of ways of building a sukkah, and a lot of rules about who needs to do what in the sukkah and when. For example, it's a commandment to eat and sleep in the sukkah, but only Jewish males are bound by that commitment. That means that women get to sleep inside on comfortable mattresses, without the extra noise and mosquitos, while observant men are technically supposed to sleep in the sukkah.

Among the ultra-religious (although I hate that term, because it makes it sound like they're more religious, but they're just actually keeping stringencies...), pretty much every single family finds a way to build a sukkah.

So in Jerusalem, especially in the ultra-religious neighborhoods I walk through daily, it's pretty amazing to see all of the sukkot. They are not just in yards and on balconies. They're in parking lots, parking spots on the street, roofs, and even literally hanging off the edges of buildings. There are special support bars that people can put up so that if they don't have a balcony, they create one temporarily for the week.

(My digital camera was stolen in the break-in in May, so I can't put up pictures, unfortunately.)

And because Sukkot is a festival, it's also a time of lots of celebrating... so on my way home at night, I pass places with lots of singing and dancing and smiling... and I can't help but smile myself... Way Cool.

Work:

It looks like I'm getting a new boss. The short version is that my boss got a promotion and can't do what we need him to do for our department anymore. But there weren't a lot of options for replacing him, and the best option was apparently to give us to the head of our complementary department -- the Human Resources department. (In our company, Recruitment and HR are separate. We do a lot of work for each other, but we focus on our own stuff. That means we also argue a lot.)

She's actually new to being the head of HR, and she's really got her hands full with that department... so we're not sure how well it's going to work with her also being our boss. Not that we have much choice in the matter, of course.

And after 15 months of dealing with my current boss, it's sort of amazing that I will actually miss having him as a boss in several ways. Part of it is that we've learned how to work with each other... but part of it, I'm sure, is a version of the Stockholm Syndrome. (That's when kidnapped people start identifying with their captors.) So it's possible that as we get to know the new boss, and the old boss slides out of power, I'll realize that, in fact, this was even worse than I've thought it was.

Career:

I've started taking a technical writing course. That means at the end of the course, I could very well be the one writing your user manual for that camera you bought... and yes, I will take it personally if I find out you didn't actually read it.

It's about a five-month course. I'm learning how to write in particular styles specifically for tech writing. I'm also learning how to use different software that's used in the industry.

And so it means that in order to fit in the gym, work, and my course, my Mondays and Wednesdays begin by getting up around 5:45 (for those of you who know me, you realize this SUCKS) in order to make sure I can get at least 1/2 an hour in the gym before work. Then I work from 9:15ish to 5:30ish. I walk up the hill to my course, which goes from 6:00-9:30. Then I walk home, and get home around 10ish... and try to be in bed by 10:30 or 11. Oy.

I'm on a break now because of the holiday, but I have homework I need to do (though I'm really not supposed to do it on the holiday... in fact, I am not really supposed to be writing this, either, but oh well...). At least my schedule's a tiny bit more flexible. It sure was nice not getting up at 5:45 yesterday morning.

The news:

You didn't think that with all the crazy crud going on, I'd skip this, did you?

Except I could, theoretically, sum up my feelings about what's going on with two words: Oy Vey. Or three words -- What The Hell?

Rockets are still being fired from Gaza into Israel on a daily basis. Israel has declared Gaza to be an enemy territory. Makes sense, right? If Windsor was firing rockets into Detroit, Americans would be pretty ticked off.

Yet still, Israel is getting criticized for the decision. How could we even think about limiting the amount of electricity we supply to just enough to run the hospitals for a one-hour per rocket fired ratio? Because, after all, we should supply them with enough electricity to run their rocket-making lathes? Huh?

Meanwhile, Israel is releasing a bunch of "security prisoners." Around 90 or so, in fact. Gilad Schalit is still being held in Gaza somewhere, and Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are still missing after having been kidnapped by Hezbollah, but apparently that is meaningless when it comes to playing the international political game. Because once again, Israel makes concessions, and no one else is expected to do anything.

And next month we're going to yet MORE "talks?" This time in Maryland, apparently. So Israel will sit down with the PA representatives -- who, by the way, were NOT the democratically-elected officials... remember, that was Hamas? -- and be expected to concede more and more and more and get abso-freakin'-lutely nothing in return. Oh right, we're supposed to get some sort of peace out of the deal... and that's worked so well in the past.

One of the best determining factors of future behavior is past behavior. So why on earth does ANYONE think things are going to change? It's ridiculous.

But there's one political party in Israel that seems to be making some sort of sense -- Israel Beiteinu (Israel's Between Us, for lack of a better translation). Israel Beiteinu has a platform that pretty much goes like this:

Okay, let's do territorial concessions. Let's look at the facts on the ground... we have lots of Israeli Arabs in land blocks close to the West Bank. We have lots of Jews in land blocks close to what's considered acceptable Israel. So let's do some trading. The Israeli Arabs can be part of the Palestinian State, and we'll change the maps to include the Jewish blocks as part of Israel. That helps solve some of the demographic problems.

But of course the world starts screaming that the Israeli Arabs are, in fact, Israeli, and we should keep them. Why? They don't like us. They're discriminated against, whether we admit it or not. They don't do national service of any kind, even for their own people. Oh yeah, because the get treated better by Israel than they would by a Palestinian State... and this is my problem exactly why?

Israel Beiteinu is also apparently setting up some guidelines for the summit next month. One of them is that no, no, no way in hell are we going to build a road that connects Gaza and the West Bank, since Gaza is controlled by their democratically-elected chosen officials, Hamas, and that's a terrorist group.

If we had elections right now, I'm pretty sure I'd know who I was voting for.