Impressions and Expressions of Ijon

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P.S. I'd love this entry to appear in English as well. Does anyone volunteer to translate it?

In my desperate efforts not to study for my next exam (Minoan archaeology), I idly reviewed the supporter list of the Israeli IDF refuseniks (i.e. people who support the sort of refusal I have refused), and was amazed to see how many people of my acquaintance, far and near in place in time, are there.

An old math teacher (from IASA), two fellow students (from IASA), a couple of old schoolmates from my home town, a couple of professors, a friend's mother, a librarian who's donated a book to the Ben-Yehuda Project, a couple of Ben-Yehuda volunteers, a couple of colleagues at work, a couple of webmasters of sites I know or frequent, a couple of fellow students at TAU, a couple of literary translators, a professor at the TAU Classics dept., and a Perl hacker.

And many many celebrities of various denominations, whom I don't know, but know of, including an MK's daughter, two well-known illustrators, a veteran satirist, etc.

Yes, a small world, a smaller country, but it's interesting nonetheless, to get this very definite indication about the opinions of people with whom you've had no contact since childhood (in some cases) or with whom you're working for five years but never discussed such matters.

Enough. Minoan pottery awaits.

Today the Internet postman delivered another one of those where-did-that-come-from messages. It read (in Hebrew): "Hello. If you send me a metaphysical poem by John Donne by the end of the day, I shall use it for a poetry analysis final paper in a HUJI course. Shabbat shalom. [signed]"

I don't know the sender, nor was any explanation offered to mailing me for a John Donne poem, or why it would interest me to take part in this guy's homework. It was not sent to my benyehuda.org address, either. Go figure.

Not wanting to let even a stranger down, I sent him Holy Sonnet XIV (Batter my heart). Wise arnulf, on hearing of this, laughed and said: "See? No wonder you get that kind of e-mail."

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Current mood is due to studying for an archaeology exam. I knew what I was doing when I did not choose to study archaeology; unfortunately, I was foolish enough to take a side course in archaeology (well, it was Minoan archaeology!), and now I must pay.

Those of you who've ever heard me speak about naming babies must have heard my perennial suggestion: Tiglath Pileser (the baby's friends could call him/her Tiggy!). Today I've discovered that not only am I in the Bible, but that I'm mentioned right next to Tiggy! ( Collapse )