Attack of the Killer Fre-Brew

The bus driver this morning forgot to let off a couple of French tourists at the museum and then was trying to give them directions to walk from a much later stop in Hebrew. I decided to be a good Samaritan and help out. What resulted was a shameful display of my current foreign language skills.

"Je parle un peu de français. Je voudrais donner vous le direction" I said. Not bad. A bit awkward and a misplaced object pronoun but the point was clear an the tourists looked thankful.

I hopped off the bus with them since it was only one stop before mine. And the French went downhill from there.

"J'ai étudé français beh Canada. Aval maitenant, j'étude Hébru. J'ai...... J'ai.... J'ai..."

"melange de languages?" the nice man finished for me.

"Oui." I replied and then got down to business. "Zeh ha rue." and pointed down the road. "Vous marchiez cinq minutes, veh le museon est à la droit. Il y a un simon gadol" I said as I made a big box shape with my hands to indicate the big sign. "Beseder?" I asked.

They seemed to understand me, nodded, and happily headed on their way despite my dreadful Franken-language. Good lord, I didn't even realize I was doing it! Is this the horrible state my French as degraded to in only a year an a half? I used to be able to discuss philosophy and world politics in French. How humiliating!

The Chicken said it was completely endearing, but I disagree. It was completely disheartening.

Good to know, good to know.

Think back, waaaaay back to your high school French classes. You may vaguely remember that after finishing a meal you say "J'ai fini" (I have finished) rather than "Je suis fini" (I am finished) since the latter means that you are dead, or almost so. Screwing this up has led to some funny conversations with the waitress at my favorite bacon and eggs diner in Montreal.

Well, Hebrew also has a few of these fun translation problems as The Chicken found out last night when he returned to the lab with a sample from the NMR machine.
"Gamarti eem ha NMR" (I am finished with the NMR) he said to his labmate, Michal, whom was next in line for the machine.

She gave him a funny look, giggled, and said, "James, you must not say this. You must say 'Siyamti eem ha NMR.' (I am done with the NMR) What you say means you had orgasm."

We all know The Chicken loves organic chemistry, just not THAT much.

Second Chances

Well, the paper just went out to the next wish-on-a-star journal. But this time, when it gets rejected, my paper will almost certainly be directly sent to one of the offshoot journals by the same publisher- which are also very good. Wishing on a star and getting a meteorite instead isn't so bad.

I rewarded myself this afternoon by doing lab work- I did a simple distillation of chloroform over P2O5: kickin' it old school. Why did I have to do this? Because I put dry chloroform on the "TO ORDER" list two weeks ago and found out today that it hasn't yet been ordered.

The Chicken too is getting a second chance. He made a call and the Hebrew folks are letting him take another exam next week so he has to study study study.

Double Whammy

My paper bounced. Which means it didn't even go out for peer review. The editor looked at it and said "Nope" and sent it back to us with the classic form email of rejection. I received the email on Friday morning and had an hour long chat with the boss instead of working on job applications. The conversation ended with the instructions that I should have all the introduction rewritten, the formatting changed (including switching from American to British spelling) and have it ready to send out by Monday.

After moping all of Saturday, and then working like a busy bee, I had it ready in the allotted time. But then I found a mistake. Not a type-o but a hmmm-I-had-better-do-that-experiment-again mistake. So paper is on hold. And I continue to have a merely average publication record.

But I am not the only one who got a kick in the pants this week. Over the last few months, The Chicken decided to eschew the collective experiences of one hundred years and thousands of other Hebrew language students and teachers, and "learn his own way." This equates to "I don't do homework." He is now paying for his folly, because we got our marks back and he didn't pass the course. He is too stubborn to take the course over again, so this is the end of the Hebrew Highway for James.

He vows that he will continue to study "in his own way." But after seeing his learning method in action, I have my doubts.

Turkey Curry Hebrew Style

So we all know that the country Turkey also has another meaning. Turkey is that wonderful bird that you roast up with stuffing for Christmas dinner.

The word for that yum-tastic fowl in Hebrew is "Hoh-doo" which also means the name of a country, and that country is.... wait for it...... India.

I swear, nothing comes easy in this language.

James and I are still making our way thorough the remains of my giant bird. We have eaten a lot of turkey sandwiches and the other day we made Turkey Curry, a.k.a. Hoh-doo Hoh-doo. Which, if you say fast enough, makes you sound like a Turkey.

Did you try it? Is the person next to you looking at you strangely?

I need an Electrician

After the living room light got stuck on ON, we decided we needed an electrician but wanted to wait until after James' trip and after we met with the landlord at the end of the month. But a new problem has arisen and we just can't wait or I am going to start an electrical fire. But how do I explain the two problems to a Hebrew speaking electrician?
With childish Hebrew and sick figures of course!

I'll let you see if you can figure out what happened. Don't forget to read from right to left!

Problem 1:

On Saturday....


On Monday...


Problem 2:



So Graeme, do you think The Spectator will give me a job as a cartoonist if this chemistry thing doesn't work out?

Transgendered love in Jerusalem: An analysis

A while ago, this graffiti showed up on the fence around the building next door. (Which, incidentally, is a grand old mansion that is being renovated) We didn't think much of it. It seemed like a simple confession of love for Yossi ('Brew for Josef) and a plaintive hope that it is requited.

But hold on a minute here folks. Verbs (love) and subject pronouns (you) are not gender neutral in Hebrew. After further analysis, this graffiti gets a little more titillating.



In the sentence on the right, the verb is in a male form, implying the speaker is a dude. Therefore, Dude is confessing his love for Yossi, another dude. Openly, in spray paint, for all of us to see and analyze.

But wait, it gets better! In the the second sentence, the question, the gender of the words again makes things even more spicy. The subject pronoun "you" is female in "Yossi, do you love me?" Therefore Yossi is a chick!



Ahhh, transgendered love in Jerusalem.

Another Unfortunate English Translation

Not only do these guys take care of domestic gas lines, there are gas stations all over town named this.

Little Devil

Back in my undergrad, when things got really rough, people did what ever they could to bring a little levity to the situation. The ten 30-hour Physical chem lab reports were by far the worst experience of our education and a couple of my classmates out of extreme stress made a bet about who could get the word "buttocks" into a lab report, within context. Indeed it was achieved, and the story is now the stuff of legend.

The other day, I had a similar experience. Sometimes proofreading starts to grate on my nerves, especially when they didn't even spellcheck first. I was asked to read the two page English abstract of a labmate's master's thesis which was otherwise in Hebrew. The subject of the thesis: nanorods. After reading in the opening paragraph about how in nano "size matters" and further dull sciencey commentary on how to change the dimensions, I was struck by the pitchfork of a little devil sitting on my shoulder.

I was so tempted to edit in ambiguous nouns and adjectives that could make a sentence or two of his thesis abstract read like a real bodice-ripper. There was so much room for creativity! Increasing length of the rod, and ample girth of the rod, applied greasy ligands to the rod, the seed of the rod....it sure would make science a little more readable! Why say diameter when you can say girth?!

You will be relieved to know that I gave the little devil on my shoulder a quick flick away and I did no such cruel thing to an unsuspecting Hebrew speaker. I am as pure as snow.

Fetal Cow Fiasco

Never have I been so relieved to be wrong about something. Turns out I misread the letter dalet for the letter resh and the word I thought meant "fetus" actually means "processed." We did not eat "roast calf from fetus" but rather "roast calf processed." Guess I had better stick with those Hebrew lessons.

All the same, the roast was so under par, the fact that we even considered it was fetus goes to show just how bad beef is here. What I wouldn't do for a Triple A Alberta T-bone, medium, on the BBQ.

Speed-Brew

I really don't know why I do this to myself. After finally escaping after nine years of post secondary education, I masochistically and enthusiastically sign up for classes.

This evening was the final exam for level Aleph-plus in our Hebrew Ulpan. We have made it though 500 pages of Hebrew From Scratch and have progressed from learning the alphabet, or rather the aleph-bet, to page long texts on the life of Ben Gurion.

I must admit, Hebrew classes are really rewarding. I feel like if I can learn The 'Brew, I can learn anything. I am understanding more of what is going on on the street and can explain to the supermarket cashier that Benzi the butcher said our chicken was half price.

With a little thought I can even put together sentences like:

בבקשה כותבת את השם שלי בסמס כי 'ש לנו רק פלפונ אחד נין גמס ואותי

"Please write my name in the SMS because we have only one cellphone between James and me. "

I impressed myself with that one.

Our first course we called Survivor-Brew because of the twenty five of us that stared, about eight wrote the exam. Every class it seemed, someone voted themselves off the Ulpan Island.

But this course was different. Our classmates were hardcores and we maybe only lost two ore three to the abyss. Our collective tenacity was even commented on by our teacher extrodinaire, Rivki. But this course was fast. The summer term is less than half the usual length but we covered just as much. Every class there was about 20 new words to learn and two major grammar points. It was all I could do to keep my head above water. Consequently, in our home Aleph-plus has been nicknamed Speed-brew.

I writes good Engleesh, yes?

Over the last month or so, I have been helping Gabi with his BIG PAPER of which I am an author. Being the cruel, teach-a-man-to-fish kinda person that I am, I made him write everything and then I came along with the Blue Pen of Doom.

But then the paper got sent to different authors and colleagues for proof reading and funny things started happening.

In one draft, suddenly every time the word "gold" came up, it was capitalized. I can see how the rules for capitals would be confusing if you are used to having only have one case. (James claims, "Hebrew is all capitals; it's all yelling.")

And then someone else got a terrible disease called comma-itis. My guess is that dependent and independent clauses are more difficult to find for Hebrew speakers since Hebrew has sentences without verbs. No kidding. It seems unnatural.
It odd. It funny. I amused. (See what I mean?)

And then after the paper went to a native Russian speaker, a bunch of "the"s went missing.

The Boss gets ten points for either having a spectacular vocabulary or using a thesaurus for correctly inserting the word "concomitantly" which, I admit, I had to look up myself. James of course knew what it meant and said "did he mean 'contemporaneously'?" Show off.

But not to worry, I ate some humble pie too. One colleague commented on a part that I had written and said that it sounded like Hebrew translated into English. Ouch. I guess just because I can speak English doesn't mean my writing is any good. However that doesn't stop me from getting daily random phone calls with questions like "Is it 'I shoot down the spectrometer' or 'I shot down the spectrometer'?" or "What is 'Yikes'?"

But the real insult to my writing skills came a couple of months ago. Back in December, I had written some user instructions for the TEM as a goodwill gesture to the nanocentre and as a useful tool for my colleagues, and they were soon handing out my hard work out to every new user of the instrument. A couple of months ago, I was told that all distributed documents in this particular institution get sent out for proofreading to an external contractor. So yes my friends, my writing got sent out for proof reading of my English to INDIA.

Bad English Choice

I was reluctant to buy this laundry detergent but The Chicken insisted.

Uch. I can't believe you guys are still reading this.

Looking back over the last few posts, I have come to realize just how boring my life has gotten. Chemistry is driving me nuts, eating away my motivation and my will to live. I have basically done the same reaction 40 (literally, 40) times in the last three weeks with nothing else going on.

Our final exam for Hebrew is tomorrow night, so it has been study, study, study at home. And James has been working on a review article for the last while so our weekends have been adventure less.

Hopefully this doesn't last much longer. I am itching for adventure again and a wee change of pace. Hopefully for you folks, I wont be blogging about flowers again.

On the up swing of the noodle

After a short conversation with a labmate this morning I said a common Hebrew good-bye as he was heading out the door.
"Le-hi-tri-ot!" I exclaimed.
My lab mate stopped, backed up, looked at me oddly and asked "did you say 'le-hi-tri-ot'? Are you sure you don't you mean 'le -he-tra-ot'?"
"Uh," I answered "sure! What's the difference?"
Turns out that my version of good-bye actually means "To Noodles!"
Good to know. Good to know.
(This IS embarrassing but not nearly as bad as the time I made an X-rated blunder and made a French professor blush to her toes.)

Things are starting to turn around. Due to some serious studying on the weekend, Hebrew was only mildly painful tonight after the complete whooping I got last week. With some more crazy studying in the next week and a half, I might actually pass the course.

Most importantly, after nearly 3 and a half months of frustration, I figured out why my reaction would not reproduce. For the last while, I have been questioning everything and seriously in the dumps every day. Did I change regent bottles? Are my flasks clean enough? Are my flasks too clean? Is there some wired new impurity in the air of the glove box ruining things? Am I not cleaning up my starting material enough? Which gauge of needles did I use when it worked? Which size stir bar? Was my fume hood light on or off when it worked? I was grasping at straws.

Today I figured it out. Turns out I am too anal retentive of a chemist for my own good. In order for this thing to work, one of chemicals I toss in the flask needs an itsy bitsy teeny weeny amount of an impurity that I had been dutifully and completely cleaning out before the reaction. SON OF A HOO HAW! GRRRRR.

Anyhoo, I am just glad I got it figured out. Now I can sleep well with out nanoparticles dancing over my head and mocking me with their screeching nano-voices. After a busy day in the lab and three hours of Hebrew lessons, I need to catch a few Zees.

To Noodles!

My life feels out of control

My chemistry is sinking like the titanic.

Hebrew is impossibly hard with a huge list of vocab to memorize (what do you mean I have to know how to spell the words? I can't spell in English let alone Hebrew!) and a final exam coming up.

My chemistry is tanking.

I am not sleeping well partly because it is so freaking hot on the fourth floor.

My chemistry is playing hard to get.

I keep having to spend money on stupid things.

My chemistry hates me.

The only thing going up in my life is the size of my butt yet I can't seem to stop eating the whole PB and J Pita at lunch.

Chemistry is not working and it hasn't been for a while.

I am going to bed now to enjoy the inevitable teeth falling out dreams.

Here's Hoping!

With a serious amount of trepidation, I just wired a bunch of buckaroos to my account in Canada- well at least I hope it makes it there. The lady at the bank spoke "Lo Anglit" and could barely read neatly printed latin letters. It was a very exhausting thirty minutes for both of us. All day I will be madly checking my TD account hoping to see my money come through.

All of this is in preparation for Thursday's flight home to Ontario. We are going to spend two busy weeks saying goodbye to Grandma, visiting family, going to a wedding, and buying clothes that actually fit The Chicken, much to his annoyance. The man has lost I would guess 15 pounds since we last went shopping, and every morning with a great heave he cinches his belt to the smallest hole to avoid pants-around-the-ankles syndrome.

The weirdest part of this trip will be opening the cottage for the summer. Right before I left, I helped drain the water line, store the linens and put up the shutters for the cottages' winter sleep. To the cottage, it is as if I never moved to Israel and nothing has changed. Odd.

In good news: I found fifty shekels on the street this morning. James wants to spend it on a bus pass. Booo! Veto! I want to spend it on chocolate bars and ice cream.

התלמידה בולפנ

James and I have started our Ulpan, which is a Hebrew language school. Since many people who learn Hebrew are new immigrants, most Ulpanim are seriously intense: 3-4 hours per day, five days a week. Israelis are serious about getting immigrants to learn Hebrew. We have opted for the only Ulpan in J-town that is less intense and has evening classes. We only have 6 hours per week and I am pretty sure I can still get this transferred as a university credit.

So far, it is pretty fun and not too hard, but I know that will change soon. Our class is comprised of students from France, Finland, Germany, America (Alaska!), Russia, Cameroon, India, Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica and “Palestine” which I think in this case means the West Bank. All of our classmates are friendly although a few have a tendency to blurt out answers and ruin it for everyone else. I secretly hope those folks drop out.

James is enthralled by the classes but I don’t think it is the excitement of learning a new language. Last night as we were leaving, he was humming the Van Halen tune Hot for Teacher. Our instructor is very nice girl named Hendat who somehow gets her point across with only speaking perhaps half a dozen English words in a three hour class.

I think the hardest part right now is reading. There are the print letters, which I am pretty good at, but the script case looks completely different. With no vowels and having to think about the sound of every letter and then remembering the meaning of the word…well, it is hard work. Only practice will make me better.

Ministry of the Interior Mild Adventure

Sunday was my first experience with Israeli bureaucracy. I had to get my student Visa. About a month ago, I made about 40 telephone calls (literally) tying to get though to the Ministry of the Interior for an appointment. Today was the big day. I caught a cab down to the ministry, whose tiny, nearly unmarked door was crammed between a clothing shop and a mom-and-pop convenience closet (I would hardly call many of the businesses here stores. Overflowing closet with a guy with a cash register inside is more correct). I will admit the Ministry of the Interior was a little haphazard looking and missing the crisp government-style functional décor we Canadians know and love, but I got my visa there all the same. And it only took me an hour or so. I was expecting to be there all day.
The best part was filling out the application form. I had to write everything in Hebrew and English. I got my own name figured out a while ago, but how exactly would you spell Doris, Craig, Dwight, Edmonton, etc. in the Hebrew alphabet?
These were by best guesses:
דוריס Doris
קרג Craig
Dwight דוואיט
אדמונטון Edmonton

Others were applying for all sorts of visas and residencies. I overheard one American kid talk about his “proof of Judaism.” I imagine he was applying for Aliyah. Frankly, his keepah and the prayer shawl poking out from under his plaid shirt was proof enough for me. Now I am officially here on an A2 with multiple entries, and my wallet is 300 shekels lighter. Ouch. James tells me he only paid 30 bucks for his in T.O. but then again, he had to go four times to the consulate before they issued it to him.

לו, גנת לו פוה

After one and a half weeks of straight reading and one and a half hours of talking to my boss, I have a project! The boss picked my brain on everything that I read, heard my idea, picked it apart, okayed it and then asked for copies of all of the papers I downloaded and read. I just counted and there are 96 of them. And those are just the ones I kept. My brain hurts.

On Saturday, I was working on my Hebrew and memorizing the subject pronouns (I, you, he, she, them or je, te, il, elle…) I read that She is He (היא) and He is Who (הוא) and promptly started swearing. In the last few days I have resigned myself to the confusing linguistic fate, especially now that I have learned a great new phrase.
Say it with me now: Loh, who loh poh.
It means: No, he’s not here.
This fun to say phrase is useful because most of my interactions in Hebrew involve the phone. Tomorrows’ phrase for the day will be “call back later.”

By the way, can you find my name in the title? Hint: the letter that looks like lamda is called gimmel.

Today, Israelis vote in their new mayors. In Jerusalem, it comes down to the incumbent religious (as in Orthodox) mayor whose posters sport a cartoon of himself waving and looking friendly with his white beard and happy smile. The guy with the blue posters in the one all of the non-religious folks seem to be rooting for. And finally, there is the guy with the yellow posters who, according to my labmate, is very rich and is wanted for arms dealing in France. He sounds like and A-1 candidate to me.

I hope everyone sported a poppy today.