Weekly Summary 6: Politics and Bureaucracy

First of all I would like to thank all the people that sent encouraging words after the previous post. Your words are important and appreciated and I thank you for that. This week's post will deal with something most of us don't like at all: bureaucracy and politics. As I mentioned in some of the previous posts, we have encountered a frighteningly amount of red tape in our first weeks, starting with the problems of getting my university ID, entering me to the system and so on. Unfortunately, this has not ended yet. For example, I still haven't received the package with all my social rights and health care. The official "excuse" is that they sent it to another address, which is the hotel in which we had resided in the first two weeks. I doubt that very much, and my guess is that someone simply misplaced the package. My suspicions increased after my visit to the University's Human Resources, where a nice yet a total moron person told me that he will look for the package and let me know. He hasn't done that although almost a week has passed. This has become a major concern for me because now I'm starting to be sick, and I would like to go to a doctor if this condition persists.

Worse still, the same useless HR guy told me that we would not be able to apply for domestic partnership until a period of 6 months has passed since the beginning of D's relationship with me. And for them 6 months are counted from the date of the first document we have, which in our case is our lease on the apartment, dated from September. First of all, this domestic partnership is the only reason I am teaching here, instead of being a regular student. Don't think that I am the only one with incentive to do it; the department is very short in staff. In fact, they have two positions open, after two lecturers left in the previous year. They need me to teach no less than I need their money to support D's studies. If I don't get this domestic partnership approved, and we have to pay for D's tuition, which is circa $20000, I consider it to be a major breach of our contract. I intended to go down and tell the department head that if it is not sorted out, she can forget about me teaching and that we will go back home. D has managed to cool me off, and we intend to try and get this partnership approved using an old affidavit we made to the municipality of Tel Aviv (another bureaucratic superpower). Kelly promised to help as well, and seemed stressed by this new difficulty. In any case, if we don't get it, I guess I will have to have some serious and not so pleasant talk with the department head.

Now to politics. As you know, the presidential elections will be held on the next Tuesday. These are historic elections, and when they are over the United States will have either a first African American president, or a first female vice president. You might have suspected that this situation will raise a special interest in the elections, especially during a major economic crisis. As far as I can see, the students in the university are not so interested about it. Here they can vote ahead of the elections day, even today, and still I haven't seen any strong movement in the voting area. It is assumed that most younger people will vote for Obama, and if this is the case, don't be surprised if Mc'Cain wins the elections. In addition, elections day is not a vacation here; people are supposed to work in that day and then go to vote for their nominee. In light of the lack of interest I see around us, I think the voting percentage will be low, at least in Israeli terms.

By the way, it appears that Sarah Palin is a hit here with the average working class males. In other words, picture election rallies packed with Al Bundys and you'll begin to understand how this can happen. I guess that the fact that the talented and attractive Tina Fey plays her role in Saturday Night Live doesn't hurt, although the writers in SNL are pro-Democrats. Last week Sarah Palin even appeared as a guest in SNL, thus leveraging both the show's rating and Fey's popularity. You should catch a glimpse of this appearance if you haven't already done so.

Something less known is that in the same day people are voting for various offices other than the president. There are of course the U.S. Congress and Senate, but there are also more local offices. Here they vote for judges, district attorneys, state representatives, and even "clerk of courts". I don't really know what that is, but it appears to be someone who is responsible for signing official documents, like a document that title your vehicle in your name. We went to the bureau of motor vehicles (BMV) and titled our Altima in both our names. We also purchased our license plates (here they identify the person or group owning the vehicle, not the vehicle itself). The BMV seemed a more organized and has less bureaucracy than the university. Somehow, my impressions of the federal and state authorities are that they are far more efficient than the university. That's not too hard, I guess.

I read in Ynet that Israel is heading back to elections. Here are some good reasons to elect Benyamin Netanyahu as prime minister:

1. He did a good job as a treasurer and since we face a big economic crisis he can set a good example on how to lead Israel to economic haven.
2. He is against government expenditures. He'll probably be able to deal with Shas and prevent them from getting a billion sheqels out of our pockets.
3. The other options are Ehud Barak and Zipi Livni. It's not that there is someone far better than Bibi to elect.
   
4. Governments usually fall within two, maximum two and a half years, in Israel. If Bibi is elected this year, he will be gone by 2011, just in time to correct his mistakes before D and I are back. :-)

To summarize, a story that combine bureaucracy and politics. Yesterday was D's half a day off from her studies, after she returned from a midterm exam (yes, I know, it was Saturday, but hey that's Business School for you). Unfortunately, soon after she got home, the toilet overflowed, and we were afraid that the entire day would be ruined. We called the lousy company that rents our building, and they asked us to try and resolve the situation by ourselves. We thought about calling Joe the Plumber, who is - as you all know - an Ohioan, but finally we decided to buy a plunger and do it ourselves. It worked out, so now I am considering to become a plumber myself. After all, it is a good occupation even in times of economic dire; people will still need someone to plunge their toilets or install a new faucet. I will be better paid than what I make now, that's for sure. Even Joe the plumber makes more than me.

Weekly summary #5: qualms

The topic of today's update is qualms. Be advised that this is not going to be a light and perhaps entertaining update as the previous one intended to be. This is a long and morose look into my current situation.

The fifth week since we arrived in Cincinnati ended, and with it the 4th week of the autumn term is about to end on Tuesday. This means two observations: firstly, there are approximately two months until the term ends, and hopefully we'll fly back home to meet you (the readers), and secondly, that my two classes had their first midterm this week. As you will see in the next paragraphs, both observations are closely related.

The two midterms ended with a rather disappointing (for me) average of ~70, but there is a huge difference in the distribution. The more mature class had a nice bell-curve, which means that the average is representative, the students are relatively working with me, only that they didn't have enough time to finish the test, so I gave them a nice 8 points bonus. In the second, younger class, there were actually two bell-curves. One between 80-100 and the other between 30-60. The class was roughly equally distributed between the two. This fact coincides with the feeling I have in that class that only half of the students are paying attention and making their homework on their own (i.e. not copying from the other half). In this case no bonus is needed, only a harsh motivation talk, something I always hated to do, and have never really understood why people need it.

I guess that I'm not supposed to take it personally if some students prefer not to study, especially if they are young and immature as my younger class is. They are only sophomores (19 years old, second year). Nonetheless, I find teaching frustrating. I think that I don't reach the majority of my students. I will not be their "teacher for life" as some of my undergraduate professors were. I don't know why it is so important to me; perhaps it is because I want to excel in anything I do, which is obviously ridiculous. Another explanation can be that I invest so much time and energy in this teaching that the feedback simply does not replenish my batteries. I feel drained, sapped of energy. And if that is the case, perhaps academic life is not for me: I will always have to teach some class of undergrads if I choose to become a scholar, and they will always be young and immature.

There is another thing that seems a possible problem in academic life. I've never spent time in academia until now. I was either a full-time undergraduate student, too busy to finish my degree, or a part-time external graduate student, scurrying back to work when class is over. I haven't had time to look and see how these professors live and work. What I see now may not be representative, but if it is then the career of a professor is not for me. It is a lonely and insulate life, where it is both acceptable and expected from you to spend your day alone, doing your research but otherwise having no contact with the other world. It is so different than the life I had in my previous work, and I really don't like this change. I didn't imagine it to be like that. I thought that academic research calls for synergy between researchers and departments; there are so many labs that advertise themselves for doing so. I now understand that these are not the representative cases of academic life. Kelly tries to organize such laboratories, perhaps feeling that something is missing too, and possibly something will come out of these endeavors. In the mean time, all of them seem too pompous and audacious, and generally out of reach. I miss interacting with people, idle talks, friendships. I doubt academic life has room for such behavior, and if it doesn't than this life is not for me.

And if academic life is not for me, than one of the main goals of this journey is seriously questioned. The reasons for returning to school and studying for a Ph.D., leaving behind life, family, friends, and a good job, were to seek other alternatives; to open doors. I wanted to see if I can enjoy academic life, and enable new opportunities to work. The former goal will probably not be achieved, and the latter will take too much time to achieve, time that with the current difficulties seems infinite. As I said earlier, I feel sapped of energy. Is it the time to give up and acknowledge my defeat? D says it is not, and that it will get better once I start to study myself. But, frankly, she is the only thing I have here, the rest of my life is back in Tel Aviv, and she is here only because it was MY dream to come here.

D herself is so busy these day that she went out only once this weekend, to buy more stationary at Staples. It was a half-an-hour business-focused relief from her endless studies. Today she hasn't left the house at all. I think she got off her seat only to go to the restrooms or get water. We did go out on Thursday though, meeting a team of soft-ball players after their game, thanks to the invitation of the only student I had met in Cincinnati during my visit in April. We drank beer, if Bud-light can qualify for that, and I know most of you will agree that this pee-colored / flavored sparkling beverage does not. At least we got to meet someone who happens to live in our building. As all Americans, he is nice to chat with, provided that the talk has little substance and even less intentions for the future. Believe it or not, this was the highlight of our week. I also walked today to Hyde Park Square and back just to have my body do something other than sitting.

In addition the weather turned cooler this weekend. Yesterday the temperatures dropped at night to 1 Celsius, and frost alert was issued. I think that the weather this week was somewhat similar to the weather we have in Tel Aviv in January: around 20 degrees during the day, 10 or below in the night, with alternating days of sun and rain. This is only the beginning of fall, it will get worse.

Summary:

• Frustration.
• Acadmic choice a mistake?
• Mood-o-meter - low 30s, like the temperature in Farenheit.

End of month summary

Comment: this post contains many links. You're advised to follow them.

We are now exactly one month in Cincinnati. In this month we managed to do quite a lot, despite the power outage, the lethargy of service people in Cincinnati, and our own lapses into gloomy mood. First, however, the last week deserves a summary, before we can discuss the whole month.

When it comes to working hard, this week was no different than the other ones. We literally slaved ourselves today, from 9:00 am till now (it was 10:00 pm when I started writing this very line, and now it's 11:00), and there is still work to do today. D is doing her homework, reading material to the coming school week, and preparing herself to a midterm in DB modeling and design. What can I tell you? She's as geek as I am. I checked the 40 papers I had received from one assignment, prepared the two midterm tests I give this week, plus formula sheet, two lessons for tomorrow, and the entire assignment I gave my students due tomorrow. I also solved the test I had prepared, and since it took me half the time they will have, I'll have to delete a few questions.

One reason why we had to work so hard today is that yesterday we went on another shopping spree. If the American economy is still hanging by threads before falling into the abyss of depression, it's only because we single-handedly (or rather, single bank-accountedly) jump start it. Yesterday we bought a suit for D, an all-in-one printer, food at Costco Warehouse, and a car. Since the most interesting thing is the car I'll start with Costco. Costco is an enormous, IKEA-size, warehouse for groceries. Imagine the size of IKEA, with IKEA sized packages (although not necessarily flat), only of food and things for house keeping. And everything is so cheap, relatively to the other grocery shops because of that. For example, you can't get a single pasta box; they sell them in a 7-pack. Or one bar of Dove soap, which are sold by the 10. We also bought about two gallons of liquid hand soap, which will last, according to our rough calculations, between 9 months and a year.

But enough with this Costco thing. We bought a dark green 2000 Nissan Altima, 2.4 liter, with 88000 miles and a sunroof for around $8500 including taxes. It's considered as a compact sedan here. As anything else here, it only took about 4 hours at the dealership, three of which passed after we had told the dealer we wanted the car. Nonetheless, I'm quite excited about it, since it is the first time that I am the owner of my own vehicle. Until now the car I drove was either my parents', an army vehicle, or a company leasing car. Now I know what it's like to pay for car insurance. We'll need to buy license plates (they go with the person, not the vehicle in the US). One good thing about the economy crisis is that the price of a gallon of gas has plunged from 4 dollars to less than 3 in the past month we have been here.

By the way, the Americans need to stop using this stupid American unit system and progress to the SI system as the rest of the world did. Even the British don't measure temperature in Farenheit anymore, or length in miles, feet and yards. The only thing they measure in the old system is, quite understandably and logically, a Pint of beer, which by the way the Americans has reduced by about 20%. In my class I have to use both systems interchangeably, so now I know how much is the gravity acceleration in feet per second squared (32.2) or what the hell is a slug (besides a dude that is being sluggish).

Another set of good news is the fact that yes, after almost a month, the university system finally acknowledges my existence. It hasn't perforated to all the university systems yet, but at least now I have my university ID (usually known as the Bearcat card) card, which also allowed me to purchase a monthly parking pass, and to get my keys. And in keys I mean that finally I don't have to ask people to let me into my own room. On Friday I finally moved to Kelly's old office, which he vacated while moving to a better office, previously owned by a professor that retired (I think). More on systems and the American life in the next paragraphs. Anyway, I still haven't received any paycheck, nor have I been able to use the university's information systems (except for my email) to contact my students. With all the shopping we have been doing here lately we start to feel a great shortage in liquid assets. And, as you know, credit is a profanity nowadays in America.

Weekly short summary:

• Car
• UC ID
• Office
• Parking card
• Work, work, work
• Money shortage
• Mood-o-meter: 70s.

Now for a short monthly analysis. The most important thing I can say after this month is that the Americans are so ready for totalitarianism that it's scary (well, at least when I'm at the bottom of the food-chain). First of all, they are so submissive by nature; they tend to receive anything so docilely, whether it is waiting for the power to return for a week, or waiting to take the left-turn at the stop light, or simply waiting for someone to do something. I don't know if this combination of lethargy and malleability is the cause for their obesity, or is it the other way around, but they simply are. In addition, they behave in a herdlike manner, as you can see in their recent stock markets plunges. They also seem to be living under a constant fear of or rules and of change, especially one that might keep them away from their food and entertainment. For example, when I was supposed to receive my keys to Kelly's old office, I simply thought I can take them from him. Little did I know. It appears that the "system" does not allow for shortcuts. I had to wait three more days for my keys because this "system" cannot be changed, modified or bypassed in any way. Moreover, they have been living under the Bush administration for the past 8 years, and there have to be some implications to that. Finally, with this economic crisis and based on all the aforementioned premises about them, you can see why it's not hard to foresee a "strong man" stepping into the Oval Office, and changing the world as we know it. God help us against that, because we, Jews, have a rather bad experience with the kind of those. Speaking of Hitler, please go to this link.

Another interesting observation I can make about Americans is that they are going in an endless spiral of stupidity -> simplicity -> lowered requirements -> numbing stupidity. I'm talking about the vast majority of Americans. It all starts with most of them being, how to say it mildly, slow. As a result of that, and as a result of the constant pursuit of blissful ignorance, they expect - and receive - things simplified to the max. That's why you can see installation kits that require no reading at all, only drawings. Another example is the dreadful operating system for Verizon phones I told you about last week. Americans also don't expect any intelligence from the surrounding ones, and since most of them have never been outside the borders of the contiguous USA and Canada, or even own a passport, they imagine that all the other people are at least as stupid as them. Probably more; Americans think that since they rule the world, the other peoples are at least less intelligent than they are. So they have no expectations from one another or from the world in general. Thus, they don't require much from themselves, leading to another plunge in their general intelligence. It's no wonder that the average graduate student in America is either Indian or Chinese. The empire is rotting. It may take a short violent economic decline with totalitarianism, or it may take a long, painful, decline, while the Chinese and the Indians rise to power. In any case, the sun, my friends, will rise in the East. Go catch the Nitsan Horwitz show in channel 10.

You can't imagine how I envy you for having this wonderful holiday season. It seems that you hardly ever work, while we had no time off at all. We will get you back, and get back to you, in mid December. Save us a spot in the calendar.

Monthly summary:

• Americans are slow.
• Americans might endorse totalitarianism.
• China and India are the rising sun.
  
• It's oh-so-bleak.
• Missing vacations.
• Missing home.
  

Week #3

It is Sunday again, and here is my summary regarding our last week. In general everything improved from last week. I would like to thank everyone for cheering me up. It means so much to me to know that I have so many friends who have faith in me and support me when I’m down. You really helped me get through the rough time.

The main things that changed this week were: I finally had a few good lectures in a row, which improved my self confidence, and, I have a brand new Lenovo laptop. Being the mega-geek that I am (as you well know), a new laptop is a big celebration for me, and I enjoy it very much. It’s a Lenovo T400, with a 14.1 inch display, 3 GB DDR3 memory, 2.26 GHz Intel Core Duo CPU, and the best thing: it runs Windows XP. I don’t know how this happened, because the laptop has a sticker of Windows Vista and the IT guy (see below) promised me he didn’t do anything to downgrade it to Windows XP. So, basically, I got a PC capable of running Windows Vista which runs XP Pro, and it works like a lightning.

Better yet, it didn’t cost me a cent, as it is a perk for a new faculty member, who can select a computer to help him or her with research and teaching. All I had to do was send a System Specification (and that’s something I know well to do) and choose from a list of options that the IT guy in the department sends in reply. The IT guy is a huge enthusiast of Apple and Macs, and a very small fan of Windows (especially Vista, which he described as a pig that eats all system resources and come back for more). So, initially he tried to convince me that all I need is a Mac Book, but he eventually agreed with me that I should use Windows if I want to run applications freely. However, he insisted on getting the Lenovo, which was much more expensive than the other options I suggested, because he likes their service much better than Toshiba’s or Dell’s. The nice thing about this guy is that he really believes in what he preaches. He says that his mother (he is 50-60 years old, so she must be in her 80s) uses a computer running Linux OpenSuse, which he personally installed and tweaked for her. Now, that’s my kind of guy. As you can understand, we had a lot to talk about this stuff in the last week or two.

Continuing on the tech notes, as of today, we have internet connection through Roadrunner broadband connection. The theoretical download speed is 15 Mb/sec, and when connected directly to the modem it even gets these results. When connected through a wireless LAN the results are a bit less, but still impressive: 10 Mbps download and around 700 Kbps upload. Now we can use Hulu web based television, which unfortunately do not work in Israel, in order to see some of our favorite programs: Heroes, Saturday Night Live, and so on. The only problem is that we don’t have too much time to watch TV. Oh, and I found a link that allows to watch Israeli TV. Not that I miss the Israeli reality shows, but I still would like to catch a (real) football match from time to time on channel 10, and channel 10 itself bans IP addresses from out of Israel during the matches. I just finished watching Maccabi Natanya beat Maccabi Tel Aviv.

After all this techie geekiness, I can start describing our lives here, which are, really, quite boring. We have been working very hard since we arrived here. D has some work left from last weekend because of our shopping spree and I am teaching 2 classes three times a week each. As you know, last week I was disappointed about my lecturing skills so I decided that I will work harder on preparing myself. I would even say that now I actually rehearse before each lecture, in an attempt to avoid situations where my lectures get stuck on missing words or terminology. This method has been proving itself, and lack of preparation proves to be problematic, as I realized only in my last controls lecture, so eventually it gets me to work harder than ever. Yes, even harder than the times I was working at Ness. This week there were 3 days of 12 or more hours a day. We also work during the weekend (both Saturday and Sunday) in order to make up for the lost time. By the way, all this work is still voluntary, as I still haven’t got into “the system”. When I was in the army, my (stupid) commander in the IAF flight academy said that “the system” does not exist, and it is the sum of all the doings of people working in the IAF. However, as any person who works (or worked) for an IT company knows, “the system” is what runs our lives. So, I am not yet in the university’s system. This means that I communicate with my students over emails and not the Blackboard application, which is the preferred way, and that I can’t login to anything but my mail (to which I login as a student and not a faculty member). Most importantly, I don’t get paid for the work I’ve been doing in the last two weeks. The department head seems concerned about this issue, and promised to do something about it, but I guess that nothing can move the “system” from its course or speed. That’s what Newton called “inertia”. By the way, the university is so bureaucratic, that it even beat the great American bureaucracy and now I have a Social Security Number before I am officially a worker at the university. My trip to the organization that issues these numbers was actually a relatively nice experience, albeit it being in a security-tight federal building. Of course, there are only two things certain in life: death and taxes.

In an unrelated issue: we saw a Bambi (actually two moving together) yesterday. No, not the movie, the animal, which is by the way the state animal of Ohio. The strangest thing is that we didn’t see the animal in some wildlife expedition; rather, it was in Victoria avenue on the half a mile drive from our home to the mall. They just browsed the yards, as if it was their home and they were the pets of some extravagant owner. Squirrels are abundant here, but these two were a nice surprise. We did what any other good tourist do: stop the car and take a picture. Unfortunately, the only cameras we had with us were the cellular phones, which are equipped by a bizarre operating system Verizon makes the manufacturers install in the name of a unified user experience and branded look & feel, so we didn’t get the cameras to save the photos. We suspect that it is a Comverse product. If you find a way to hack it and remove this awful thing it will be highly appreciated.

Finally, I heard that Daylight Saving Time is over in Israel as part of the annual Shana Tova. So, first of all Shana Tova and Zom Kal to everyone. Here the DST is still on, the sun shines around 7:30 AM, but summer is officially over. After a first week which was blessed with great weather, with highs in the 80s (25-28 Celsius) and lows in the 50s (10-15), last week became much cooler. The coolest night was even in the mid 40s, which is just 5-6 Celsius and it even rained one night. The locals say that they “desperately” need rain, because it’s not getting to the usual average of 80-100 mm of rain each month. Ohio teams also desperately seek a win in the NFL; the only win Cleveland has is over Cincinnati, and the Bengals are probably the worst in the league. At least the Bearcats (university team) are doing well. You can’t imagine how everything in the university revolves around the athletic teams.

Short summary:

• Mood-o-meter in the high 70s.
• New laptop
• 15 Mbps
• Football on internet
• The university is run by bureaucrats
• 2 Bambi not on camera
• Getting cold

Have the best week and keep sending replies,

Elad