Dissenting Opinion

I have had my first dissenting opinion emailed to me regarding my posts on the war. (With permission from the writer,) here it is:

"Anyway, I just wanted to put in a penny's worth of opinion too -and not meant as judgement or anything, it is just that you seem to be hanging out with only Jewish people, no Palestinians - is that correct? On one of your entries you said "the other side" is not being flexible. One thing to keep in mind is that the Palestinians were living there before Israel was formed and they have never received any compensation for the land that they lost -even though this was supposedly incorporated into the split. It never happened. I'm not sure how flexible I would be if I've lost my land and am frustrated at every turn to get fair treatment. Now that is not to say that I agree with their methods and their lack of respect for life - theirs or anyone else's, but it is a difficult and complicated problem and I have to have some sympathy for their plight as well."

So here is my response:

"Yep, all of my friends are Jewish- not a Muslim or an Arab in the lot. Although several are Jewish Atheists (a combo that has confused me since I was 19). Sadly, there is a language barrier with the Palestinian ladies down the hall at work whom only speak Arabic and Hebrew. I am totally fascinated by what they would have to tell me if I could speak to them. Maybe after my Hebrew lessons start I can try and chat them up.

I have been trying to be very careful about the language I have been using in my blog posts in that I have been expressing the opinions of my labmates as they tell it to me "David says..." etc. When I said that the Palestinians have never accepted a compromise, I had meant it to be the opinion that was expressed to me by my labmates. Sorry if that was not clear. If there is anything I have figured out with this conflict, is that it is not important what the truth is, it is important what people THINK the truth is.

I have also been careful to always include a flip of the coin expressing a reference to the sucky life the Palestinians have in every post with opinion. No kidding, that National Geographic article was really enlightening. I can only be an information gatherer from one side right now. And I think it is always important to put a human side to war. Regardless of which side.

As for the Palestinians not being compensated for land they owned before the exodus, there is an abandoned house across the street from my apartment building. It clearly belonged to an Arab family from the style and the blue tiles that decorate the exterior. It is decrepit and falling apart. It looks like it has been for sale forever despite the fact it is in one of the nicest neighborhoods in J-town. Signs of the land conflict are everywhere."

I think at this point I need to not have an opinion about anything- well except that this whole part of the world is a complete mess. No-opinion is probably the safest option. I remain an observer only and report back to you folks what is going on here. You can ask me what I really think when I get back to Canada but it will probably take me a couple of months of being out of here for me to form that opinion.

Mystery Fruit Number 6: The Passionfruit

This one looked like a green dinosaur egg and when we cut it open it was filled with bright yellow fish egg goo. “I know what this is!” I said. “This is on the front of the juice carton!”

We each took a half and spooned out the radioactive looking flesh. Miracles of Miracles! There is a mystery fruit James likes! “Yummy!” he exclaimed. Two thumbs up for the passionfruit.

And by the way, I think the passionfruit glasses on The Chicken may be an improvement from his current pair that make him look like Bill Gates.

Ein Farah

On Friday morning, James’ labmate Danny picked us up in front of the Belgian consulate in his rickety old and dusty yellow jeep complete zip-up windows and tape deck. We clamored in the back seat and rested our feet on the heavy chain he uses to lock the beast to a lamppost at night so it won’t get stolen like his last one.

He drove us into the West Bank to Ein Farah National Park: a canyon in the Judean desert. Danny and his buddies were there to do some really impressive and hard-core rock climbing and we tagged along so we could do some hiking.

Up along the canyon wall, not far from the parking lot is a monastery that has been used almost continuously since the fourth century. If you have ever heard about ascetic monks in the desert who lived in caves, these were the dudes. There are square holes in the canyon wall, some of which, amusingly, now have doors. Some of the abandoned ones looked absolutely impossible to get to, even for rock climbers. I guess some of the monks back in the day could fly. A monk still lives there and apparently, you can still visit him on special days at special times. Danny has is phone number if you are interested.

Upon Danny’s suggestion we explored our way up the deep canyon. The river bed was dry but floods every time it rains in Jerusalem. We spent about three glorious hours walking and scrambling up the canyon taking pictures of cool geology, huge wild foxes and endangered birds. We saw caves high up on the canyon walls where the Bedouins keep their goats; who knows how the goats get up there. Maybe the goats can fly too? Many of the caves were inactive but two had the tell-tale sounds of bleating, hooves on rocks and clanging bells coming out of them. When we neared, i.e. passed on the other side of the big valley, our approach was welcomed by the barking of a mean Bedouin dog. “Don’t be afraid to throw stones at them to scare them off, ” Danny had said. I picked up a couple of pebbles when the barking started but thankfully I didn’t have to use them.

We eventually hit a dead end, where we could no further go without climbing equipment or risking broken bones, so we headed back. Five minutes later I hopped over a ledge and almost hurled. I was met by a mummified and neatly decapitated animal head. Giant canine teeth were exposed from desiccated lips and the jaundiced leathery skin only had whiskers and one tuft of bleached fur. It was gross. I found out later that the Bedouins kill coyotes for their pelts and to protect their livestock. I had unfortunately found the remains.

The one thing that was really shocking was the amount of garbage. The place was littered with plastic bottles, tin cans, broken glass and old tires interspersed with refuse jems like red underwear and teapots. Some of it has washed downstream in the frequent floods, but much of it has been tossed over the edge of the canyon. I don’t think the locals believe in responsible waste management.

For the next hour, James took a much deserved nap on a bench under a tree. I hung out with Danny and the other climbers, drank Arabic coffee from a camp stove and generally chilled out until we got kicked out at three by a park ranger with a megaphone. Everyone has to leave for the start of Shabbat an hour before dusk.

What a great day. I went to bed at 6:30.

A case of the thursdays.

Yawn, it is Thursday. I have a case of the Thursdays similar to how I used to get the Fridays. Such is my procrastination from things I should do that I just cleaned the lab food fridge which was seriously funky.

Get this. In our lab, like most research labs, there are lab jobs. Usually this means responsibilities lik chemical ordering, taking care of lab equipment etc. In our group Amit’s lab job is to keep the cupboard stocked with tea, kaffee and sugar; dole out afternoon treats like cookies or crispers; and order the sandwiches for group meeting. I love this place. Life is sweet especially as a post doc, as I am exempt from lab jobs.

Woot Woot for Science!

If a Veinotite were here, I would demand a high five. My project is finally moving in a forward direction and I have something real to show the boss rather than TEMs of ugly samples. It is amazing how one little TEM (Electron microscope) session can change everything. Of course if I told you what I am all hot and bothered about, I'd have to kill you and that is really hard considering I am so far away.

However, all of this excitement does not stem from the High Res TEM session I had the other day. That was a bit of a gong show and a blow to my ego. Man did I feel stupid.
I had "borrowed" a grid from a labmate (i.e. taken off his desk while he is on vacation) to run this sample. There were all of these extra wee tiny particles in my TEM that I hadn't seen in the low res. When we did EDS, things got really strange. There was a big indium peak and an arsenic peak. What the heck? How did that get there?
Turns out, I had "borrowed" a used grid covered in InAs particles. I thought the HR-TEM tech, a rather formidable Russian woman, would be mad at me for wasting her time. Instead of berating me, she just laughed and laughed. Despite the fact that we were able to get the info I needed anyway, I still felt really stupid.
Serves me right for stealing grids.

Even as the ceasefire was being announced, protesters to the occupation of Gaza were out on the busy Rehavia corner on Saturday as we walked past.

We can only hope this lasts. Sadly, I am pessimistic about it all.

What really has been saddening me are the comments made by Canadians on the bottom of cbc.ca stories. I live in a far greyer world then many of those commenters. They must live in a far-off land where the neighboring country doesn't aim rockets at schools, or steals your home and opresses you into financial and social proverty.
Wait. That land is called Canada. Well at least the non-native part. I wonder what the native folks have to say about all of this?

How not to pick up married women

On Thursday night I walked home from the grocery store, laden down with a full back pack and three grocery bags. I was hiking it up the hill to our building when I was stopped by a stranger whom I thought was going to ask me for directions- which is common enough; this is Jerusalem, whose civil engineers don’t own a compass. Alas no, he was stopping me on my sherpa-style summit to mac on me.

First he asked me if I spoke English and if I lived nearby. OK- so far so good, sounds like a directions question coming up. But then he straightened his jacket, puffed up his shoulders and suggested that maybe I would like to “show him around town.” The line was so lame I was tempted to ask, “has that ever worked for you?” This one was almost as good as the time I got told I “looked spiritual” by some dude by the newspaper shop in Rehavia.

What the heck? I NEVER get hit on and yet here it seems like a common occurrence. Did that overnight flight do wonders for my complexion and turn me into a raving beauty? Perhaps the sheen of sweat on my forehead and the three hundred pounds of groceries screamed out “I am looking for a good time” like a tube-top and a miniskirt. Do you think I am easy because I am not Jewish? Because that is ridiculously offensive. (And this time, this dude gets no breaks for being from another culture; his perfect English accent was either Montreal or New Jersey.) And this guy was a full-on kippah wearer. As a Christian, I am not the kind of girl these guys dream about taking home to their mothers. I don’t get it.

The nice thing is, when I have been hit on, there have been no catcalls or anything truly rude said. And at least they are not persistent. Perhaps they do know that their weak pick up lines are completely lame. They do know how to take no for an answer. But really. Who falls for this crap?

Mystery Fruit Number 5 and other Culinary Adventures

This fruit looks like a cross between a tomato and an orange and tastes like a cross between a mango and a carrot. I thought it was yummy and convenient- no pit and the orange flesh can be scooped out of the skin with a spoon. This is the kind of fruit that ends up in exotic juice mixes. The Chicken, of course didn’t like it, but then again, the party-pooper hasn’t liked a mystery fruit yet. I think what he really wants is a strawberry (a truly A-grade fruit for him) and because they aren’t strawberries, he doesn't give the poor fruits a chance and immeadiately poo-poos them. So don't listen to The Chicken, this fruit was yummy.

I should tell you that there is a guy at the market with a table full of strange mushrooms. When we run out of mystery fruit, we can move on to trying mystery mushrooms which may prove even more interesting.

We have been on some other culinary adventures. Last night I invented KFC: Kickin’ Flippin' Chicken, as The Chicken calls it. I tossed in a roasting bag: two pieces of chicken, two diced tomatoes, two potatoes, some Jerusalem artichoke, onion, lots of fresh rosemary, salt and pepper and garlic powder and roasted it all for forty minutes. Delish. To top it off, we had my famous cucumber, orange, yoghurt and fresh dill salad. These ingredients may seen a little exotic for your fridge, but being market patrons where fresh spices are 50 cents for a huge bunch, we are cooking like Jamie Oliver.

(FYI, Rosemary is totally worth buying fresh: Our bunch still looks perfect after two weeks in the fridge and we have added it to lots of things especially soups, potatoes, chicken, J-artichoke etc.)

The night before, we cooked up the ground lamb I accidentally bought thinking it was beef (Yes, this was the second time I made that mistake). We made some killer tomato sauce from scratch and served it on long noodles. This dish we have called “Lamb-burg-gini.”

Nanotour

Today I was “invited” to be at the TEM for three hours while the international advisory committee for the Nanocentre toured the facilities and met students and postdocs who just happened to be working on the instruments.

I got to meet Mark Ratter from Northwestern again, who happens to be one of the friendliest scientists out there. I don’t think he remembered me from when he came to Alberta (he gave me five bucks for being the first grad student to ask a question in his talk), but that is OK.

I showed my little nanoparticles, described my project, waxed poetic about how great it was to have a TEM at my finger tips, ect. All in all, park ranger skills came in handy again.

Just as I was finishing up my TEM session, I heard some weird noises outside. Costi, my labmate, came in and said with enthusiasm “Did you hear the air raid sirens?”
“Is that what they were?” I asked.
“Don’t worry it is over now,” he replied. “I haven’t hear that sound in Jerusalem in years” he added nonchalantly.
I paused for a second and then I put my head in my hand, shook my head, and muttered a blasphemy. This country in nuts sometimes. But rest easy everyone, turns out it was a malfunction in the sirens.

Three hours at the TEM has its payoffs. I analyzed the images of my particles this afternoon and I am about 70 percent sure of awesomeness. I need to do more experiments, OF COURSE.

Omlette de James

We have discovered that The Chicken, if he is going to cook, has to be in the kitchen alone. I have to leave and do something else while he “experiments”. I will admit, the turkey soup he made was pretty yummy, but there have been some cooking mishaps. The key problem is the “experimenting”. Experimenting is good if you already know the basics. Unfortunately, The Chicken does not.

Experiment 1 : Omelette de James

Introduction: It is lunch time and an omelet sounds tasty. An omelet in it’s simplest manifestation is a hybrid structure of eggs and milk.

Hypothesis: A four egg omelet needs one cup of milk

Experimental: Omlette du James was prepared by vigorously stirring four eggs, and one cup of milk to yield a yellow cloudy mixture. Diced onion, red pepper, salt and pepper were introduced. The heterogeneous mixture was heated neat in a wide and shallow reaction-pan under ambient conditions for 10 minutes. Steam was observed as the mixture became pooffy and gelatinous. A phase separation occurred where a clear liquid separated from the yellow gel. Attempts to flip the omelet were met with failure and only chunks resulted. The heat was removed and the mixture served to the wife.

Results and discussion: The desired omelet structure was not obtained. Although the product was edible, the wife was observed to be adding large quantities of ketchup to her meal. It is likely the milk was in excess and caused side reactions which prevented the synthesis of the desired omelet structure.

Conclusion: One cup of milk is too much.

Dear Aunt Sandy,

Hello Aunt Sandy. I hear that you have been calling Judy in a big stew about us and the war in Gaza. Sleep well. Don’t worry about us until we get worried. We are not worried.

First of all, the action is confined to Gaza and a 40 km strip around it. We live much farther away in Jerusalem. We have heard that some people who know some people in the reserves have been called back. As I walked past a busy intersection on Friday, I saw about 50 Jewish Israelis with signs and whistles protesting the war. Other than that, life is exactly the same as it was in November.

Besides the fact that we are nowhere near Gaza, you should know we are under the protection of Allah. This may seem flip, but it is true. We live about a mile from the third most holy site in Islam, the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Muhammad came here and prayed and as a result, a very large and beautiful Mosque rests on the site (which, incidentally, is on top of the most holy site in Judaism, the site of The Temple, and about 200 yards from the most holy site in Christianity, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.) And we rest our weary heads every night only a mile or so away.

No Muslim, even on a holy war, would rocket into this part of Jerusalem and risk hitting the mosque. Allah would not be happy and there would be a serious amount of smoting from the heavens. So what it comes down to is we are under the protection of Allah.

Don’t worry about us until we are worried. We are not worried.

Love,
Hen and Chicken

P.S. And if you are still worried about suicide bombers, we can’t afford to take the bus anyway. We walk everywhere.

P.P.S. Aunt Sandra of the Macdonald clan, as you might have figured out, this letter was not directed at you but I am sure you will appreciate the reassurance anyway. Plus, from what I hear, you did even crazier things in your youth.

BEWARE THE EVIL MUD MONSTER!

This weekend we laughed in the face of poverty and went to the Dead Sea for the day on a bus tour.

At 9:30 in the morning, the bus tumbled though East Jerusalem and went thought a tunnel under Mount Scopus emerging seconds later in the West Bank. The relative lushness of Jerusalem was immediately left behind for desert mountains, sand, Bedouin shacks, flocks of sheep and goats and the odd stray camel or two. After about 40 minutes of going down, down, down and past several dilapidated checkpoints at old border crossings we arrived four hundred meters below sea level.

The first stop was Massada, Herod’s 2000 year old fortress on top of an impossibly steep big hill beside the Dead Sea. This place is proof alone that the guy was a complete nut job and super paranoid that people were after him. Massada is where some Jewish Zealots moved in after it had been abandoned for a few decades and famously committed mass suicide rather than be captured by the Romans when they wanted it back. They probably had good reason to fear the worst if they had been captured. Months prior, The Temple had been destroyed in Jerusalem. Furthermore, from their perch they could see that the giant dirt ramp that being built up to their fortress by the Romans was being brought rock by rock by Jewish slaves. Amazing stuff.

Then to the dead sea for a swim. Or rather a float, because it is impossible to actually get your feet below water and kick. The water was really slimy to the touch but after partially drying off for half a minute my skin became gritty with salt crystals. The “beach” was not sand, but a four inch thick layer of hard salt. Sodium chloride, being of a sharp cubic nature, means walking on the “beach” really hurt the feet. After my float, I found the giant box of dead sea mud and of course HAD to give myself a full body mud treatment with lots of giggling and a bit of mud flinging. I tried to give the Chicken a hug but he declined my affections. (This all despite the fact that there was another couple having a rather sensual “moment” next to us. GROSS!)

I saw this little birdie wall climbing on the way to work this morning. That's it. Nothing more to say on the wee birdie other than I like the pic.

Le Dumpster-Diving

On our way out of campus last night, we came across a dumpster with a large pile of books spilling out of it. In the twilight, we could see the shadow of a student picking though the treasure like a campus cat. We decided to join in dumpster diving. Unlike the cats, we did not bare our claws with this stranger over what most consider trash, but we did share some laughs. All of the books were in French. Translations of Dostoevsky, histories, biographies of former world leaders and other high quality reading material including a decade old copy of Reader’s Digest and a biography on Tom Cruise.

As some of you might know, my French is merely mediocre, and in an effort to not loose what I have worked so hard for in the last couple of years, I have been trying to read in French. Unfortunately my reading skills are really poor. So as I was perusing the landslide of francophone books, I picked up a few that I was likely to be able to read: translations of Danielle Steel novels. That’s right, I will be getting my fill of 1980’s upper-class, glamour filled, rhinestone-encrusted, shoulder-padded love stories. In French. SCORE!

Grave Robbing

This morning, The Chicken took me to the secret inorganic chemistry graveyard: the room where ancient chemicals go to die or gather dust. Like the somewhat-ordered, somewhat-jumbled organization of a real cemetery, families of chemicals can be found resting in peace together under a layer of ubiquitous brown Jerusalem dust. With cardboard box and latex gloves, we went grave robbing. I pilfered greedily like a kid in a candy store up and down the rows of metal salts and reagents as well as some handy organicy stuff (I left most of that to The Chicken). There seemed to be an endless supply of chemistry treasure. If you want a five kilo bottle of potassium dichromate or a lifetime supply of Vitamin C, this is the place. Not to mention some pharmaceutically controlled substances which I won’t mention by name. I was looking for one of my metal reagents that costs about 150 bucks a gram, and I found seven bottles of it. SEVEN.

The only thing the place was missing was a dude with a paper lizard on his shoulder.

I came back downstairs and was waxing poetic to my labmates about the awesomeness of the place and I got accused of being a geek. I am sorry, but after nine years of post secondary education I am allowed unabashedly to be a geek. And really, who are we kidding here? Was there any point in my life where I wasn’t a geek?

I am a geek and proud of it.

Cabbages

I start today’s post with a quote from World of Wonders by that burly old uncle of a story teller, Robertson Davies:

“An infant is a seed. Is it an oak seed or a cabbage seed? Who knows? All mothers think their children are oaks, but the world never lacks for cabbages.”

There is someone at work I have correspondingly named “Mr. Cabbage” and who thinks he is Mr. Oak. Although I have met quite a few great Oaks here, my boss being one of them (he doesn’t know about this blog so I am not sucking up here), no university is complete with out a few cabbages with PhDs.

In an effort to maintain some level of professionalism, I learned a new trick the other day. When utterly frustrated, I can blast off in French to James on my walk home and no one in the lab is the wiser….so handy. And since I really don’t know too many insults in French, that means I can’t say anything really horrible.

Example no. one:

Pendant il expliqait le problem, j’ai pensé "Le condenser aperture que tu touche est un objective aperture, douche bag. Tabernac."

Ringing in the new year

The Chicken and I celebrated the new year in style. We drank wine out of tea cups and made cookies. As you know, there was a little mix-up when buying flour, so I haven’t baked since I got here. It took me a while to find the key ingredients, especially since everything comes in mini-packs: 1kg bags of flour, 50 mL bottles of vanilla, individual packets of baking powder, etc. (See pic) I wanted to make my mom’s killer ginger snaps, but Israeli molasses is still eluding my clutches. I am not sure they know what it is. When I translate the word, I get the Hebrew word for honey. Despite the fact that I semi-made up the recipie, the cookies turned out pretty yummy.