16 October 2007

Monday was a nationwide awareness day for road safety, an issue that is incredibly important as thousands of citizens are killed in road accidents each year. How did I commemorate this special day? By getting a ticket for jaywalking.
Almost comically, I was waiting for the light to change at a very busy intersection. Two older people crossed against the light and I restrained myself at first, thinking that while the street was completely clear it wasn’t worth risking it; half a second later, I cross the street on a red light. Two seconds later, I catch in the corner of my eye a policeman walking towards me. Not wanting in the least to turn this into a scene, I quickly confessed to crossing on a red light. He took my ID, ran it through his car’s computer, and wrote out a ticket for 100 NIS. As much as I didn’t want to admit he was right, he was…if I want cars to respect the law, then pedestrians have to as well. Even though that cop didn’t bother ticketing the other pedestrians illegally crossing the street at the same time.

I also didn’t want to waste any more time, as I was on my way to my new school for orientation. After a few hours in Tel Aviv with a good friend from college, I ventured out to campus in the middle of rush-hour. Herzliya’s city center is kickin’ at 6pm, resembling an American beach town in the summer than a regular weekday evening.
After signing-in to the orientation, I join the rest of my soon-to-be colleagues in sizing up the competition, making the place already feel like being back at elitist NYU. The open orientation itself was a repetition of the open house several months ago, with some new information here and there, such as potentials for jobs and internships (USA-Israel Chamber of Commerce, Prime Minister’s Office, and *mouth-watering* UN Headquarters). Someone asked about moving from the non-research track to the research track (which I’m in) – the head of the program and soon to be dean of the school (and one of the foremost political scientists in the world, apparently) said that the research track was composed of a select group of students with very high profiles, GPA’s and backgrounds. Later, when we broke into our respective tracks, he repeated that factoid and said to me personally “Jay, I’m very glad you’re in this program.” Stroking my academic ego like he was, I was floating.
Getting home took forever, as I got a ride from another student along with another Jerusalemite to the neighboring town’s bus station where we waited for a full hour for the bus back.
Wednesday I woke up at a reasonable time to get to Tel Aviv for a job interview. I got a call from one of the tour operators for birthright israel to be a coordinator for their winter trips. I get to the place exactly on time, get ushered into a room where only one of the three interviewers introduce themselves, and I start giving my usual professional background story. We then get into the details of the job and five minutes later, it’s all over. The job requires someone to manage the logistics of trips on the ground, which are spread out over the country and thus requires a car. “You do have a driver’s license, right?” “No,” I respond, watching the main interviewer shoot a piercing look at the guy who phoned me about the interview, as if he left out a rather important question over the phone. “Clearly this wouldn’t work,” said the interviewer, understandably, but decided to continue with the meeting. Awkwardly, I was told I would hear from them this coming Sunday. As I left, I realized the job would entail me missing school for a long and extended period of time, something I may have considered back at Hebrew Univ. but not at a school where the soon-to-be-dean had me trying to deflate my head before classes had even begun.

Tomorrow's the first day of school!