19 September 2008

Not that I have time to be writing...

But I know it's been a few weeks, so I figured I'd pop on with an update.

My first few days at work were great... my trip to the U.S. was as great as any trip wherein I'd have to leave the Holy Land could be... I got to spend time with my family... my sib's wedding was awesome... I got to see my cousin in Connecticut (hi Cuz!)... I got to do a bit of shopping... and now I'm almost back in the swing of things.

I'm a huge fan of melatonin. I know it's not for everyone... it gives me some pretty crazy dreams, for example, but I didn't suffer from jetlag like I usually do when flying between the US and Israel.

I did let myself get a bit dehydrated my last couple of days in Boston, so I had to fight off an airplane bug a few days after I got back. But I'm blessed with a good immune system from those strong peasant genes o'mine, and I won my fight.

I do not get sick. There are people who say "don't say that! You'll jinx yourself!" and to them I reply, "I think positively. I believe in the power of my thoughts and words. I don't think that beyond my positive thinking and my pre-emptive germ fighting techniques of drinking water, eating protein, and getting enough sleep, that I have any influence on whether or not I get sick... but I'm gonna work those for all they're worth, and I'm gonna stay healthy. Period." :)

So I had a scratchy throat, sorta, and a sinus thing, for less than 24 hours last weekend. And then I was all better.

I completed my first full week of work at my new job. I love it. I love the people. I love the situation - hours, money, benefits, experience, etc. I am SO blessed to have had this job basically handed to me, and I'm trying to do all I can to make sure that my higher-ups will believe they made the right decision in hiring me.

So all-in-all, it's been a pretty awesome couple of weeks.

The one downer is what's going on in the political arena here. It appears we're going to have a new prime minister within a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, she will not have been democratically elected, or theocratically elected, and therefore, she should not be given the opportunity to run this country.

'Cause it's really all about one or the other. I'm not such a huge fan of either democracy or theocracy, but they seem to be the best ways of running modern-day countries.

In this case, however, when our extraordinarily corrupt, cowtowing, hypocritical prime minister finally gave in to public pressure and announced his future resignation, he did not say, "Okay, I know you're all angry at me, and most of you aren't happy with me running the country, so let's go to elections..."

Instead, his corrupt political party held a primary, and the corrupt winner of the primary now has two weeks to create a coalition in the government.

So now it's six in one, half dozen in the other... if she creates a coalition, we've got a ridiculous, non-democratically elected, corrupt prime minister. If she's unable to create a coalition, we get to keep our current ridiculous, corrupt prime minister a while longer.

Nice choices.

Not that I know what party I'd vote for if we went to general elections... but it certainly wouldn't be the party in which most of the top players have been investigated for fraud, etc., *and* who want to give away all semblence of a Jewish state in this land, with full Jewish sovereignty.

So I'm going back to my original plan... I'm just gonna keep begging Hashem to send us the redemption we need, even if we don't deserve it. And eventually, things'll work out.

As difficult as it is, I'm sticking to my original plan of not voting in the US elections, so I'm pretty much gonna keep my fingers shut about the sitch in that arena... except to say that on both sides there's some pretty serious mudslinging and allegation-throwing going on, and without actual research into the stories, it's pretty easy to sit back comfortably and believe you're voting for the "right" candidate because the other candidate is the most ridiculous choice on the planet.

So I just offer the opinion that neither candidate is perfect, and neither candidate is as bad as their opponents make them out to be... and a responsible voter will try to find the good points in both candidates as well as the bad points, before making a decision.

Heh... good luck with that. ;)