Settling in Cincinnati

It's been 10 days since we left Israel for the coming few years and 7 days since we arrived in Cincinnati. It's hard to describe how we feel at the moment. Perhaps the best term will be: overwhelmed. So many things are so different than what we were accustomed to in Israel that we still need to adapt to a lot of things. I'll try to summarize some of the highlights of the week in this email although life, of course, is much more complex.

The first thing we did when we arrived was to check in with the International Students Services Office. Basically it means that the US government can verify that we have arrived according to the visas they had given us, and that we haven't gone missing, which might render us a potential threat to the Greatest Democracy. Unfortunately, they were all booked up for the day, so they suggested to take our passports and return them on Monday after the next check-in. We had better things to do with the passports so we decided we wanted to keep them with us for the weekend. This was a good idea as we got the chance to sign up for a cellular phone (#513-444-7800 in case you missed my previous advertisements) and a bank account. However, we should have understood that this is an omen, that things will not go as quickly and smoothly as we are used to in Israel.

On Sunday came the remnants of Hurricane Ike, which passed by for a couple of hours and left the city and the entire area quite devastated, and without power. Trees fell on the power lines and approximately 1.3 million customers were without power. We got the power back at the hotel we're staying at 52 hours after it went out. Some customers are still without power, but the Duke Energy company says that they will restore power to everyone by the end of tomorrow (that's more than a week since the original breakdown). As I said, people are quite calm about things here, and it seemed perfectly alright for them to be left without power for several days. I wonder what would Israelis do if Hevrat Hahashmal left them without power for an entire week.

Since the power was out, schools were closed, and many people did not show up to work on Monday. We, on the other hand, went to the university, which by chance (or purpose; we have a suspicion that Duke Energy prioritized UC because it is the largest employer in the city) had power. We couldn't do much at the university, but at least we were able to enjoy electricity and wireless connectivity. That was much more than we had back at the hotel, so we hung at the university doing practically nothing. This was where frustration took place. We had so many things to do before the start of the year (next Wednesday) like renting an apartment, registering for classes, orientations, and so on. On Monday nothing progressed. On Tuesday we managed a small fraction of the things we had intended for Monday. By Wednesday we got to do the things we intended to do on Monday. This was also the first day that Kelly (my patron here) decided to show up at the university. Try to imagine how you would feel if your only familiar face at the new job is not showing up for almost your entire first week.

The rest of the week was basically dedicated to working hard in order to make up for the missing time. We finally signed a lease on an apartment on Friday morning. I have my first lecture ready for the next week, and I know on what days and what hours I'm supposed to teach. I'm teaching 6 hours a week, two lectures in each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Preparing a lecture takes a lot of time, and luckily I have the lectures of the previous instructor (Kelly) in one of the courses. I don't know if I'll have time to study any course during this term. Perhaps after we settle a bit more it will be easier for me. For example, we have NO furniture at the place we rented and we'll have to buy the basics in the coming week.

Dana has been working very hard as well. She had an orientation meeting everyday of the last week, with a course today (Saturday!). She also has her birthday today, which makes her pretty sad for missing her family and friends, who called while she was in class. We went to a nice Indian restaurant and to the Oktoberfest downtown. The latter seems to be the largest Oktoberfest outside of Germany, and is the contribution of the large German community here. We didn't stop to ask them what their grandparents had done 60-70 years ago.

Summary:
2 days lost due to power outage,
5 days of hard work,
1 apartment (not occupied yet),
4 days to start of school (and teaching),
1 lecture done, 20+ to go,
2 beers at the Oktoberfest,
only a quarter of the things needed to be done are already done.
Mood-o-meter: 55% (passing but MUST get better soon).
Homesickness: strong (Dana), mild (Elad).