11 January 2007

At NYU we were warned about drug-dealers in Washington Square Park, and for women to be careful of their surroundings. What do we have to be careful of at Hebrew U? Packs of wild dogs.

Getting ready for a meeting in the evening, I heard the odd sound of dogs barking on campus. As the campus, like all of Israel, is overrun with feral cats (cats are to here what squirrels are to the States), the sound of barking dogs was very strange. I looked out the window, and sure enough dog after dog was pouring into a walkway between buildings, to the extent it looked like a remake of the scene from "A Christmas Story" where the next-door beighbors have a horde of bloodhounds that terrorize the protagonist's family. Ten dogs were now swarming the campus -- I called campus security, who promptly said "we already know the situation" and "we're taking care of it, someone from the Municipality is coming." The thought of running to my meeting for fear of running into this pack of wild dogs had me laughing to myself, something I definitely needed.
From the last post, not much as changed with work, I'm progressively unhappier there. I didn't get a job offer I was hoping for, but they promised to find work for me in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, the lack of recent posts has to do with the fact that my computer is once again going blank on a regular basis. I've diagnosed it as either a faulty screen, an overheating battery or the fan is not working well enough -- because of the last two, I end up putting the laptop in the fridge to chill, on the top shelf just under the freezer with its beard of ice. It really does work, and back in the States I've seen a "cooling" mat for laptops that I'm intending to buy (I was actually thinking of buying it before moving here, but for some reason I didn't).

Two more finals to go, both in prerequisite classes, so I can hopefully be done with htem and start the process of writing a thesis.