28 August 2007

The other day, I got so fed up with waiting around to find out whether or not I got the academic deferment, I emailed my contact at IDC to say I would go to the recruitment board personally and camp out until I get a reason based at least somewhat on logic. I asked for the name of the person she was working with, perhaps as a way to expedite the process. I got both the name and phone number of the person -- when I explained that not only had I been waiting for some itme for an answer but that I'd shortly be leaving the country for the holidays, that got the ball rolling. Soon they were asking for my acceptance letter to IDC, which had me going once more to my favorite place -- the recruitment board.
The guard at the entrance told me he thought the person in charge was in a meeting. Although it was already 3:30pm I decided to take my chance and entered. The floor looked like they had decided to commemorate the first anniversary of the Second Lebanon War by having soldiers trudge in fresh Lebanese mud. Two yeshiva students were waiting outside the office. After ten minutes of waiting, I decided I would return in the morning.
I'm almost home when the phone rings. It's the army. They want my recruitment letter faxed to them ASAP and my deferment request would be as good as approved. After explaining that I don't own a fax machine nor have any access to one, I ran home and asked my contact at IDC if she had a copy, and if so would be so good as to fax it over to the army. A few minutes go by as the clock on my cell phone flips to a quarter to five. Their office is closing, I nerviously say to myself, do they have a copy or not?! They did, they faxed it, and soon afterwards I got confirmation from the army that they received it.

Nothing is resolved quite yet, but two important lessons from this continuing epic:
-I got more done to advance my case in several hours than what had transpired thus far. I'm not doubting my contact at IDC at all, but it's interesting that I got father ahead after I was told we had bothered the army enough.
-Israelis have a fetish for fax machines. "Could you fax it to me?" was asked by three different people in one day. They're scared of email, but faxing? Fuggetaboudit.

Yesterday I decided to pursue an equally important goal: going to the beach. After a late start of filling my iPod with various radio shows (and getting introduced to This American Life), I headed out for Tel Aviv and its municipal beaches.
Just like in America, there are public places that are a microcosm of the entire society: transportation hubs, areas of entertainment, shopping malls, etc. Although I promised in this blog's intro not to fixate on "Only in Israel"-type moments, here are some from a random day at the beach in late August:
~A pack of arsim trying to bury their friend in the sand, incurring the wrath of the beach-chair rental guy for using his shovel, and the most adamant of the friends, the obese one, using every expletive known in the Semitic language family (including the Arabic and Hebrew versions of "son of a prostitute" in one breath. Very coexistence.)
~The two guys, one shirtless and the other in a polo, trying to sign up American tourists for a new credit card on the beach. Last time, they were spotted handing out cans of Goldstar beer to those who signed up. Ruin your credit score and get a free can of warm Israeli beer!
~French, French, and more French. Notable spotting: Improvising shade on a baby stroller with a monochrome Yves Saint Laurent scarf.

I met a friend from college and his dog for a walk and decided to check out a quasi-rally nearby. The parents of Gilad Shalit, a soldier who was kidnapped a year ago near the Gaza Strip, decided to celebrate his birthday the other day in public with a cake and stickers/magnets/flags calling for his and all MIA soldiers to return home. Drawing news vans and onlookers, the somber music and fake-looking cake combined with passers-by loading up on the free giveaways was not competition for the dog and his playful encoutners with other dogs. An interesting type of rally which hopefully had more participants after we left. A sad and pathetic state of affairs.

Coming home on a sherut, the driver made a detour to an alternate road since the main road was backed up with traffic. We took Route 443, that road, which during the worst of the violence in the past seven years was barred to American diplomats. The road takes a northern approach to Jerusalem, cutting through the "West Bank" and passing by all sorts of notable security-related landmarks. The van was silent, both because of the late hour and with the realizaton of where we were. Silent, except for the three women sitting next to me in the back. Their loudness increased when they answered their cellphones and the one next to me was at the point of hysteria upon retelling the story of how someone named Sharon was 90 minutes late in meeting her (Sharon can be a male or female name here). I was trying my best to not flip out at this irate woman's intense obnoxiousness by blasting my iPod and the broadcast of This American Life, ironically about heartbreak. If I wasn't slightly convinced that this woman would stab me with her eyeliner pencil if I told her to shut up, I would have; instead I sank into the corner and joined in the collective exhale of the other passengers shen the talkative trio got out.