First day of school

I taught my first class of the new semester yesterday, and Ryan is teaching his first class today. It's funny, being a couple and working at the same place - I never had that experience before. We're very low-key when we're at the department, but there have been stolen elevator and hallway kisses, which are fun.

Yesterday was the first day of school for everybody. As Ryan and I were chatting by my office, we noticed a young girl, obviously at a loss, wondering around out of breath and looking at room numbers. When we asked her whether she needed help, she explained that she was looking for her class, and that the class had been already in progress for 20 minutes. She ran from a building at the other side of campus to our building, and couldn't find the right room. She was completely panicking, with tears running down her cheeks - clearly, a first-day freshman girl looking for her first college class. We sat her down in my office and looked at the online system for the correct room number, and then Ryan walked her right up to the door of the classroom, and helped her calm down a little before walking in.
We both felt sympathetic as we could both recall what it felt like, being a teenager, finding yourself lost within a large complicated system, and panicking for a few minutes. This is the kind of experience that adults rarely go through - as adults, we can put everything in perspective (being 20 minutes late to class is not the end of the world), we rarely panic, and we know what to do if we get lost or confused. I can't remember the last time I panicked (and I've been in some very unusual situations while backpacking...), and this girl brought back a childhood experience that I've almost forgotten.

My own first class went well (or at least I think it did) - I was glad to hear that the 4 students in my class who aren't from my program, were referred to the class by someone (either a faculty member or a fellow student) who recommended me as a teacher.
Yay!

Twenty-one

1. Your favorite question in life:
Noga: Why?
Ryan: Do you like it?

2. I am listening to:
Noga: The Dandy Warholes
Ryan: Cocorosie

3. I talk about:
Noga: This with Ryan. He's for it, I'm against it.
Ryan: Communication. Books.

4. I love:
Noga: Traveling
Ryan: Reading

5. I have:
Noga: Tivo
Ryan: Poison Ivy

7. I lost:
Noga: Some of my old friends
Ryan: Everything, at one time or another

8. I hate it when:
Noga: Customer service people over the phone start talking real slow when they hear that I have an accent
Ryan: Lawn mowers wake me up

9. Love is:
Noga: The best feeling
Ryan: Real

10. Marriage:
Noga: I will do it again
Ryan: Sometimes necessary

13. Babies are:
Noga: Loud
Ryan: Beautiful. Necessary.

14. The last time I cried was:
Noga: A few weeks ago while listening to Beethoven's 7th. I always cry when I listen to it.
Ryan: A week ago, when I visited my grandfather

15. My cell phone is:
Noga: Always with me
Ryan: Retarded

16. When I wake up in the morning:
Noga: I jump right out of bed. Yes, I'm one of those people.
Ryan: I look for Nogar

17. Before I go to sleep at night:
Noga: I snuggle
Ryan: I look for Nogar

18. Right now I am thinking about:
Noga: The weather
Ryan: Organizing

19. I really want:
Noga: To feel secure
Ryan: Things to fall into place

20. Today:
Noga: Is the last day of the summer vacation, and Ryan will be busy. I'm planning on being supportive.
Ryan: I want to get a lot done

21. Tomorrow:
Noga: The first day of school, and I'm teaching my first class for the semester!
Ryan: The first day of school, and I want to be ready.

Frigidaire

I just discovered that the fridge in my department is an actual Frigidaire. And it looks old too. (For those of you who are not Israeli, we still refer to a refrigerator in Hebrew as "Frigidaire", though I bet that now, and for the past 20 years, you couldn't find an actual Frigidaire refrigerator anywhere in Israel.)

Iowa State Fair 2007

EVERYBODY said that I have to go to the State Fair, so I took Yossi and we spent a day at the fair.




This is us, at a rare shady spot. You can't tell from the photo, but we were miserably hot and sweaty.

We were the only ones walking around with the fairgrounds map. We had a great time pretending to be Debbie and Gabbie.

This looks like a guy riding a bike on a tightrope, but it isn't. We waited for a while and suffered through all the inferior acts only to see this guy ride the bike, but he sat on it for a second, went back down, and said that the rain had messed up his bike or something. Yossi and I were halfway over to punch him, but were so heat-exhausted that we never made it through.



In case you ever wondered what a pickle dawg is. We didn't dare trying it - the combination of the pickle with the cream cheese sounded like a bit much.



Me. I'm the chicken.

Pigs. The one on the left is pushing its snout into the mud, just like a pig. These pigs won prizes for pig-related things.















The funniest thing was to look at the people who have been living in the cattle barn with their livestock throughout the fair. They have created little homes for themselves and seemed very happy to live in there and care for their animals.

The things I really wanted to see were the mullet competition (which I missed because of the rain) and the demonstration of chicken washing and blow-drying (!!!), which was put in the program for today by mistake and actually took place yesterday. I just can't imagine giving a blow-dry to a chicken.
Maybe next year.

Why am I a terrible NYC tourist:

• I naturally gravitate toward eat/drink places that I know and miss, and am suspicious of new places that may end up being a disappointment. I never had this experience in Tel-Aviv, since Tel-Aviv changes so rapidly.
• I can't stand standing in line, especially when I feel that the line could have been avoided (why stand in line for a bar, a restaurant or a club? I will never understand)
• I always know best
• Everybody's apartments feel small and cramped

Feel free to add more.

Post-NYC

The New York City visit was a lot of fun. I didn't get to see some people who I wanted to see, but I did get to see others, and Jen and Ryan were the perfect travelmates. My picture page has NYC pics and pics from the BBQ (© traveling dinner party inc.) at Ryan's back yard on the night before our departure.

Arava, Jen and Ryan on the subway:

We had an unusual luck with Shakespeare in the Park. We overslept and only got to Astor Place at 1:30 PM on the day of the show (the ticket booth opens at 1; people stand in line since 8 AM). The line was completely gone, so we were naturally sure that all the tickets were already distributed, but since we were there, we went in to ask. Not only they had extra tickets, but they even had 6 consecutive tickets for us!

The show was great. I've always liked Midsummer Night's Dream, and the production in the park was really enjoyable.

Iowa City is buggy and wet. Ryan went to visit his grandparents for the weekend, which works well for me since I just got the data files for a big freelance job I'm doing for the NYC BOE. We're really happy together (me and Ryan, not me and the data files). I'm going to miss him this weekend, even though we just spent every day of the last 3 months together.

Taking off

We're leaving the house soon for the airport. I'm excited about visiting NYC, and especially excited about Ryan meeting my good New York friends. Why am I looking forward so much to him meeting them? Maybe I think that he will know me better if he met my friends. Or do I think that it will make me seem better in his eyes? Or am I actually looking forward for them to meet him, and not the other way around?

We'll be back on Wednesday the 15th.

My petting zoo

I almost forgot: We saw an opossum in our back yard on Friday night.
So far, my back yard count includes:
a raccoon
a rabbit
chipmunks
squirrels
an opossum



Ha.

Management plan

"...Ms. Admon has agreed to remove herself from participating in any and all decisions that may reward or penalize Mr. O'Connor. Both Ms. Admon and Mr. O'Connor agree to adhere to the above outlined understandings as a "management plan" regarding their relationship.
Mr. O'Connor, however, was assigned a graduate assistantship in the EPLS computer research lab for the 2007-08 academic year. Ms. Admon has assigned duties as supervisor of the graduate assistants in the lab. Thus, a potential conflict of positions was eminent with the coming of the next school year.
It has been determined that Mr. O'Connor will be removed as a graduate assistant in the lab and reassigned by the DEO to a nonconflicting assistantship. (...)"

(from the document "Part II Chapter 5 - Consensual relationships involving students - operations manual", written by the chair of our department, addressed to the Dean)

Sofa season

I've added a link to Alan's photo page. Look under "Iris's 1st Bday" and "pre '97 IMS 10yr Reunion" for pictures of Ryan and me.

Alan is a friend of ours and a relative of Seth's. He's also the only one around with a nice SLR camera (Keren, you are so far away...), and he brings it with him when he comes over.

A picture he took of us, a month ago (before I decided that I can cut my own hair):

Other news: Iowa City is very much in motion this time of year - the rental cycle corresponds with the academic calendar, so almost all of the rented properties in town change hands during the first week of August. The streets are full of discarded furniture, pick-up trucks with furniture, college kids carrying furniture - sofas seem to sprout everywhere.

If sofas were a flower, I would say that it's sofa season.

Family

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about family, especially my family, especially the fact that they are in Israel and I am here. I think that I miss my family more and more as I mature, and I find myself saddened over the infrequency of our meetings and the fact that by moving to the US I have, in essence, given up on a close relationship with my family. Not that we're not close; but a feeling of closeness cannot make up for the fact that if I start a family here, my parents and siblings will not be able to be a part of that experience, no matter how close we feel to each other.

During my last visit, my parents suggested that I started taking advantage of the ultra-convenient academic calendar, and came to visit for the entire summer each year. The caveat, of course, is that Israel in the summer months is an impossibly humid sauna-like hell, and so far I have been doing my best to avoid going to Israel during the summertime. That still leaves me with May and June though, and I think I might try to do it this year. Ryan, of course, will have to come with.

In the meantime, my mom and brother will be here next month for a week or so. I'm looking forward to it.