Heatwave

Check out my office, with my new cordless phone! Before I bought this phone, I had to sit in that chair when on the phone with the States. Now, I am able to roam around the apartment with the phone! It's a beautiful thing to be mobile people, a really beautiful thing. So, you might ask, what made me buy the new phone? Well, when I got back from Jerusalem on Sunday, I discovered the green light on my VOIP box blinking. Now, that's not a good sign as the green light needs to be steady. When I picked up the phone, I was greeted by a fast busy signal. Also, not a good sign. Fortuitously, Mom called on my Israeli cellphone and I told her the problem. I then gave her the number of my VOIP company and asked her to call them and tell them what was wrong. Within MINUTES, Mom was back on the phone with an answer. Turns out, my phone wasn't hanging up properly, and hence the need for the new phone. And with the new phone, everything works great!

Folks, I have never had experienced such great customer service and on a SUNDAY no less! If you're planning on moving to Israel, and want VOIP, I urge you to use US Voicelink. Besides the great system (blei ayin harah!) do it for the customer service alone. Just knowing that you can contact anyone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, no matter what time or what time zone, is such a god send! And, they know their stuff people! And you want to be with a company that knows what they're doing - especially from 6,000 miles away in Israel.

Anyway, the heatwave is coming and it is going to be a scorcher! I am really happy that the student strike is on tomorrow, because I need to do my laundry before the heat comes in. At first, Weather Underground called for Thursday's highs at 104 degrees F. Now, that number absolutely freaked me out and I called Buggy and told him that I'm moving if that's a realistic number. But then, today, the website dropped the number down to the mid 90's. Still hot, but not a scary number. I can feel the heat coming, it's giving me a big headache, and I'm really happy that I have plenty of Mei Eden water in my apartment. I'm gonna drink like I'm a camel!

Today, I did something that I really not too proud of. I crossed picket lines and went to class. I felt terrible, and kept thinking about the men in front of the big rat who strike in the City. I was pretty scared going to school today, half expecting students with clipboards and bullhorns and bright red shirts and buttons to be patrolling the campus. Then Josh in my class freaked me out by saying that the Union was patrolling the school to make sure classes weren't in session. When someone accidentally opened the door to the class, my heart skipped a beat. Fortunately, it wasn't a Union member.

Today was my turn on the hot seat as the class critiqued my story. I was nervous about the piece, I wasn't really confident when I sent it out to the class, but the feedback was pretty helpful and mostly positive. I'm actually looking forward to the rewrite, but that is going to have to wait as I have my second story due in 3 weeks! Yikes! My mind is a big ol' blank and I need to find some good materials.

Michal Govrin, an Israeli award winning author, came to our class this afternoon and talked about her work. She read from her award winning novel called The Name and answered a multitude of questions in the class. What resonated with me, when she responded to a question about material, was that stories attach themselves to her like a dybbuk. And, unless she is all consumed by the story, she cannot sit down and write. I actually really get what she's saying. There are some mornings when I wake up and just have to sit down at my computer and write. Those mornings are great because the material just flows. Otherwise, I sit down and force myself to write and then I end up spewing out pages and pages of junk that's really useless. Oh well, art is hard work. Ya just have to keep at it!

I'm a bit jealous of Buggy. He has a great package with HOT cable and gets an MTV channel that plays the music I love. Whenever I'm at his apartment, I basically ignore him and watch MTV, for the new music of course! Anyway, I managed to find a lot of great stuff online and am working on yet another mix for the Bugster. If you haven't heard, Arctic Monkeys, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Kaiser Chiefs AND Kings of Leon all have new CD's out there. Plus, The White Stripes are back with a vengence! Songs I highly recommend include:

Icky Thump - The White Stripes
Fluorescent Adolescent - Arctic Monkeys
Weapon of Choice - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
On Call - Kings of Leon
Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs
Time Won't Let me Go - The Bravery

When I'm done with the mix, I'm going to upload it to iTunes and post that link here so you can buy the music if you're interested!

OK, it's late and I'm off to bed. I have mounds of laundry to do tomorrow, and tons of papers to read before I get started on the rewrite.

Good night!