Caution: Accountant With Personality

Newfoundland bound

2007-08-27T17:53:00.000-04:00

Ok, I know that I said that Israel was my last stop.
I lied a little.

I got back to Toronto last night and tomorrow morning I'm off to Newfoundland with my friend Peter for a couple of weeks.
We're bringing our bikes.

The plan is to fly into St. John's and fly out of Deer Lake (look on a map).

If all goes well, we'll be back in time for some delicious Rosh Hashana apples and honey.

Work starts Sept 24.

The countdown begins.

Israel - the last stop?

2007-08-19T18:58:00.000-04:00

As planned, I'm back in Israel for a few days before I fly to Toronto. I have very little planned for myself while I'm here so I'll try to use the time to add some missing details and thoughts to this blog.
Shira, a friend of mine asked me questions about the trip like "what was the scariest moment" or "what was your most powerful experience". I've been thinking about these questions and more and hopefully I'll answer them on this the blog.
If you have any questions for me, just post them!

In the mean time, if you'd like to read an account of Rwanda from Adam and Maital's blog, it can be found here

winding down

2007-08-13T10:46:00.000-04:00

It's been a little while since my last post, but I guess that's because I've been so busy.
After an excellent week in Rwanda with Adam and Maital, I'm back to being alone.
I'm in Kampala until I leave on Wednesday back to Israel.

Just trying to do a little bit of last minute shopping now that I don't have to lug around everything that I buy.

I'll write an account of my last few days likely when I get back to Israel.

I'm going to miss Africa.

Goodbye Hillary and Jon :-( Hello Kampala :-)

2007-08-02T06:54:00.002-04:00

Greetings from the National Library of Uganda in Kampala.
It is a very unimpressive building, but I thought that I would take a look inside, and behold, I found free internet!!

I split off from Jon and Hillary a couple of days ago. They left back to Israel today and I'm staying in Africa for another two weeks. Yesterday I arrived in Kampala and was slightly culture shocked.
After spending 2 weeks in a village, Kampala seems huge and uber cosmopolitan.

Last night I decided to venture out to the Cineplex to see a movie.
The theatre is in a very large, very modern and very fancy mall. Definitely the "nicest" place that I've seen on my trip.
It was really really weird.
I totally forgot where I was. It was the first time in about 7 weeks that I didn't stand out as a white person.
It caters to lots of expats, and to wealthy locals. It has a sushi place and cosmic bowling.
Very confusing.

Anyway, I saw Die Hard 4.0 which was a good way to pass some time.

Today I'm just wandering the city, getting lost and then finding my way again.

The plan for now is to spend a couple more days in Kampala and then head off to Rwanda for about a week.

My 40 minute time limit is almost up, so I have to end here.

PS Happy Belated birthday to my sister Naomi and cousin Ira!

Doing Jewish in Uganda

2007-07-27T09:16:00.000-04:00

Greetings from the brand new "Shalom Internet Cafe" in Nabugoye, Uganda.
Shabbat is approaching and with it, the sound of chickens being shechted (slaughterd in accordance with Jewish law) behind me.
This will be the second shabbat that we are with the Abayudaya and the site of Jews in rural Uganda is getting a little less strange.

For the past week, we've been hanging out here, (sleeping in our tent which is set up next to the synagogue)and being helpful in any way that we can.
We've managed to keep pretty busy so far.
The 3 of us taught a Hebrew class in the Haddasah Primary School (which was a little different than Associated Hebrew School where I went).
Since then I've been teaching evening math tutorials for the high school students (many of whom sleep in the classroom). Jon is teaching English at night and Hillary has found a student who she has been privately tutoring in Hebrew.
On Wednesdat we helped out at an HIV-AIDS testing clinic in a neighbouring village.

Most of my time in the past couple of days has been to help with this new internet cafe which will hopefully be open to the public on Sunday. I don't have a lot of technical expertise in this field, but they're pretty desperate for people.
Mostly I've been setting up excel spreadsheets and trying to develop the business plan (2 things that I'm decent at).

The cafe has 6 brand new computers that were donated by an organization in the States. The "cafe" is more of a small room with a concrete floor and lots of dust and flies. I really hope that it will be a successful initiative. I think that as of Sunday, I'll be the technical support guy until I leave.
After that, I don't really know what going to happen.

I still have lots more to say about the Abayudaya community, but I should have more time for that later.
Unfortunately, I have to go now because I promised that I would hold the chickens' feet during the schechting!

Shabbat Shalom

Toyota Prius, who needs it?

2007-07-23T08:40:00.001-04:00

Hello from Uganda!

It's been a very exciting week.
On Sunday afternoon we boarded a bus in Moshi, Tanzania heading Northwest (through Kenya) to Jinja, Uganda.
The 20 + hour wasn't too horrible.
We were already familiar with the Kenya-Tanzania border crossing so that went through with little difficulty (even though it was getting pretty dark).
The ride through kenya was dark, bumpy and cold.
Hillary and I didn't sleep much because we were just too cold. (It's Africa! It shouldn't be cold here!).
Jon, who's sleeping bag was too large to place under the bus slept like a baby. His sleep talking was slightly more embarrasing this time, as it was in front of about 50 very tired African people.

We think that we crossed the equator at around 3AM or so

We arrived at the Kenyan-Ugandan border after the sun had come up. The two immigration posts are further apart than the Kenyan-Tanzanian, but still very walkable.

We narrowly avoided getting sent back to Kenya (and not allowed into Uganda). This was due to very stupid signage on the Ugandan side.
At one point, (I guess as we were walking onto the "Ugandan side" we walked through a large gate with it's door wide open and nobody standing in front of it.
Being the logical people that we are, we started walking through, on the way to the immigration office.
Just as we were crossing, Jon noticed that 2 other tourists were being yelled at by police who were sitting to the side of the gate (not in clear view at all).
The police were threatening to send them back to kenya for not stopping at the very open gate.
Apparently we needed to stop at the gate to show our passports, although there was absolutely no indication that we needed to do so, nor anyone telling this.
So, we showed our passports and proceeded with little problem.

The Ugandan Visa went up in price by $30 on July 1. That was a sucky thing to find out.

Our first stop in Uganda was Jinja, the supposed source of the Nile river.
We spent a day doing some pretty insane white water rafting.
We also visited the site where the Nile starts (they claim).
Its a very weird tourist site.
There is a statue of Ghandi there because some of his ashes were scattered there.

From Jinja, we made our way to Mbale.
Our ride was interesting as we were in a car with a goat and witnessed a pretty serious fist fight along the way.

After a night in Mbale, we headed north to Sipi Falls, which, in my opinion is the most beautiful thing we have seen there.

Our driver to Sipi used a very interesting technique to conserve fuel (which is a BIG thing here - people fill up with about 2-5 litres at a time).
We noticed that our driver would bring the car up to about 70km/h and then put the car into neutral and turn off the ignition until we almost came to a stop, then turned the ignition back on, acclerated again, and then back to neutral etc.
Needless to say, it took a long time to get there, but definitely good for mileage (I guess).

We spent a day and a night at Sipi.
Lots of beautiful hiking.

Now we're back in Mbale after in the middle of a visit with the Abayudaya.

The Abayudaya will have to wait for another post.

Last post from Tanzania

2007-07-13T10:46:00.000-04:00

Shabbat Shalom from Moshi, Tanzania - The foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro (sort of).

Next stop: Uganda!

My cousins are cooler than your cousins

2007-07-12T15:51:00.000-04:00

Jambo!

I'm writing from my cousins' house in Arusha, Tanzania.
Our visit with them has been excellent.

We arrive after travelling for almost 24 hours from zanzibar (overnight ferry and a 9 hour bus ride).
right now they live in "the city", but they purchased land on the base of mt. meru and have begun construction on a new home.

"Construction' here looks a lot different than home.
Most notably, there were no machines.

Just lots of people with shovels, wheelbarrows and no shoes.

After hanging with the fam for a couple of days, we headed to a 2 day safari in Lake Manyara national park and the ngorogoro crater. Both were pretty amazing.
Today we saw a pride of lions eating a wildebeast (don't worry, it deserved it).

Tomorrow we'll head a little east to Moshi for shabbat before we make our way back through kenya on route to Uganda.

Everyone in the house is sleeping and the keyboard makes lots of noise, so I think that I"ll sign off here.

Kwa Heri

Mzungus hit the beach

2007-07-06T07:28:00.001-04:00

We are now back in Stone town after a few days on the East Coast of Zanzibar in a town called Jambiani.
I use the term "town" VERY loosely.
There is really nothing there other than a beach, some guest houses, a school and some houses.
We spent most of yesterday looking for a fruit stand (which didn't really exist).
Luckily, at some point in our search, we found a nice Canadian couple who are running an NGO in Jambiani.
We chatted with them for almost 2 hours and then they told us where to find some fruit.

I ended my last post with some negative sentiments about the beach (which I still hold).
I'm happy to report that I survived my time in Jambiani (I even enjoyed it).
My camera, unfortunately, did not fair as well.
I kinda jumped in the pool with the camera in my pocket.
Now it doesn't turn on.
I hope it just needs time to dry off (its been 2 days already...)

Thankfully, the memory card still works and Hillary has a camera so all is not lost.
Hopefully it will magically start to work. If not, maybe I can get it fixed (that will probably have to wait until I get home...)

I've been looking for an excuse to buy a new SLR.
This might just be the ticket.

At this point, I'd like to thank my parents for buying me the camera (that is now very sick).
Its had a good run and hopefully it will recover.
refuah shleima camera ben chaim.

Anyway, besides the camera incident jambiani was fun.
we snorkeled, which was pretty cool and we got to go sailing on a dhow (look it up).
Our accomodation was also pretty fun.

Now we're in stonetown for shabbat (kind of like the old city) and then we head back to the mainland on our way to visit my cousins in Arusha.

Love from Africa
Shabbat Shalom

Zanzibar (a place with lots of other white tourists)

2007-07-02T13:40:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the quick last post.
I have a whole 22 minutes for this one so it should be a little bit longer.

Right now we're in Zanzibar, which is an island off the mainland of Tanzania.
But, before I describe the scene here I'll backtrack a little bit to give more details about the end of our experience in Kenya.

The last major thing that Hillary and I did in Kenya was a 3 day safari in Maasai Mara national park (probably the most famous park in Kenya).
We were booked to go with a company called Planet Safari (and, in fact, we were booked to go with someone named "Avi"), but when we arrived in the morning, the nice people at Planet told there there is "a problem".
Avi and his friend did not show up, and Planet certainly was not going take only the 2 of us, so they decided to book us with a different company (that we hadn't heard of).
We weren't so pleased with the prospect, but we went along with it (what choice did we have?)

We were scurried off to a gas station about 20 minutes out of Nairobi where a van of 5 people who were on a safari with "Jocky Tours" awaited our arrival.

Safari is difficult to describe. It basically looks like all those pictures that you see (except this time, you're in the pictures).

We saw a ton of wildlife (duh). I think that my favourite were the lions and elephants.
Seeing lions in Africa was a little bit different than seeing them at African Lion Safari near Niagara Falls. (As a note, I really liked Africa Lion Safari when I went when I was around 7. The coolest part was when the monkeys jumped on our van and ripped off the weather stripping).

Anyway, I took about 500 pictures and it will take me forever to sort through them.
perhaps a project for when I get home.

As I think I already wrote, after Nairobi we took a VERY long bus ride to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania.

The border was funny.

When we got there, the "conductor" of the bus just yelled "BORDER!" and everybody filed off.
No instructions were given and it was somewhat of a zoo.
We had to first find the Kenya immigration office and get stamped to leave and then walk about a half kilometre to the Tanzania office (neither of which were particularly well marked).
We asked the nice lady at the Tanzania office where we could exchange money (we weren't fond of the idea of exchanging with all the people on the street who were offering) and she said "back on the Kenyan side".
So I ran back to kenya, found an exchange office and ran back to Tanzania in time to catch the bus.

We spent a night in Dar (with Jon!) and then headed about an hour and a half away for our third shabbat which we spent in Pugu Hills.
We decided to camp again, which was a huge success.
We are now 3 for 3.
Pugu was an amazing place (getting there was insane, but I'll have to describe that later).

Sunday was dedicated to getting to Zanzibar. We took the "slow" ferry which was 3 hours (of nausea).
It wasn't too bad.
I followed the locals and laid down on the floor to try and sleep a little.

This is now our second night on Zanzibar.
We're staying in stone town which is the main town here.
Its old and amazing.
Lots of dark alleys.
I really really like it here.

Today we took a spice tour.
I learned the cinamon comes from the bark of a tree (who knew? - If you knew, then don't think that I'm stupid).

We're planning to head to the beaches tomorrow.
Apparently they're beautiful here.

I personally can't really stand sitting on a beach.
In fact, its one of my least favourite activities. I'll have to figure out something to keep my occupied (something that doesn't involved baking in the hot sun).

There is also the International Zanzibar Film festival going on now.
We saw a couple of cool movies and heard some pretty good live music.

I want to come back next year.

More stories later

This REALLY isn't Algonquin

2007-06-29T02:03:00.000-04:00

We're back from Safari which was, of course, incredible.
Now I have 2 minutes left here at this cafe.

Yesterday we spent 16 hours on bus from Nairobi to Dar Es Salaam.
It wasn't too bad.
The best part is that we found JON!

He's alive and well.

More later (probably from Zanzibar)

From Tanzania

This isn't Algonquin

2007-06-25T01:29:00.001-04:00

As planned, we spent shabbat camping on the grounds of the fancy "Tea Hotel" in Kericho. (We overheard one British student comment "This place is more British than Britain").

It did rain on Friday night but our trusty new tarp kept us relatively dryish.

On Saturday afternoon, we ecountered a new problem that we had not yet dealt with...monkeys (who are not afraid of people).

Growing up at Camp Ramah, I was always taught to hang my food from a tree branch while camping to keep it well away from bears.

Question: When bears are not the risk, but monkeys are (who can clearly climb tries and and across ropes) what do you do?

Answer: From what we figured out, not a whole lot.

We didn't know if the campsite had monkeys. We certainly didn't see any when we arrived.

To stay safe, we kept all food out of the tent.
That was, at least a good idea.

However, at around 3PM when Hilllary and I were reading outside of the tent, we were swarmed.
The monkeys stole our bananas (typical) and tried to get more.

We eventually chased them away (there must have been about 20) as the hotel staff laughed at us.

Good times.

Now we're back in Nairobi getting ready to leave on a 3 day safari.

We had drinks / used the bathroom at the Hilton last night.
It was nice and I didn't want to leave.
Then we returned the the office / dorm of our safari company where we slept in a small room with 4 other people and no running water.

Until next time.

My mom is great

2007-06-22T06:48:00.000-04:00

Although I'm pretty sure that my mom is one of the only readers of this blog, I still figured it would be appropriate to give her a birthday shout out.

Happy Birthday Ima!

Today my mother turns somewhere between 30 and 70. I'm not exactly sure.

Shabbat the second

2007-06-22T06:35:00.000-04:00

We finally had our first somewhat comfortable road journey (from Homa Bay to Kerich0).
Kericho is a tea town. There are plantations everywhere and it pretty much rains everyday like clockwork at 3PM (about an hour and 20 minutes from now).

We decided to try our hand again at Shabbat camping. We again managed to find a fancy hotel that also offers camping. The same type set up as last shabbat (which worked out very well).

This time we have a tarp (well, sort of).
We spent a good 3 hours yesterday searching for some sort of rain protection for our tent.
we bought a plastic sheet of sorts of the side of the road (its very dirty).
All we really needed was to put a few metal rivets in so that we could tie rope through.

Of course, the 6 hardware stores that we visited did not have what we needed (although they were sure that the next place would. (The next place didn't).

Shabbat Shalom!

buses, pick-up trucks, matatus and boda bodas

2007-06-21T04:14:00.001-04:00

we've been moving around a lot in the last few days.

Sunday morning we visited an orphanage in Nyaharuru for children with HIV AIDS. Our visit, although short, was a powerful experience. The kids seemed really excited to have visitors.
We made up games and just tried to give some personal attention to each child.
There are clearly way too many orphanages like this one in this region.
Its a sad state of affairs, but it was good to see that the staff there really cared about the children and there are many organizations here trying to make a change.

From Nyaharuru, we went back to Nakuru to catch a matatu to Kisumu on the west of africa (the coast of Lake victoria). The ride was somewhat hellish. There wasn't too much to do in Kisumu.
we walked down to the shore and watched lots of people fry fish in huge vats.
We also found an excellent 100% veggie restaurant.

From Kisumu, we headed north to the town of Kakamega, on the outskirts of The Kakamega Forest - which was our next stop.

Getting the forest was an interesting experience. It involved riding in the back of a converted pick up truck (with a small child plopped in my lap). The truck, of course, stalled a few times on the way.
Then from the truck, we had to get on the back of bicycles (called Boda Bodas) for the remaining 5 km.

The forest was pretty excellent.
Lots of birds, monkeys and butterflies.

From Kakamega, we headed south to Homa Bay (where we are now).

The ride was one of the worst yet.
My little day bag got snatched, but i managed to get it back.

We were on a bus that was crammed with people.
It is illegal in Kenya to overfill busses and there are police all over the roads who stop the busses t0 check.
So, when we got close the police, everyone in the aisle would just duck and hide.
the police clearly know that they are there.
Its all a game.

At one point, an officer kicked a whole bunch of people off.
The bus then drove about 1 km down the road and waited for the people to arrive by foot or boda boda (in view still of the officer).

Somewhat ridiculous.

THats it for now.

Hope all is well.
Chaim

Shabbat camping with no fly

2007-06-17T13:56:00.001-04:00

First, thanks to everyone who responded to the mass e-mail. The connection at this place is pretty slow so I apologize for being unable to respond individually (yet).

Anyway, I believe that I left my last entry at Nakuru on Thursday.

Our time on Friday morning was used to get some money from the bank (a little bit tricky) and trying to figure out a way to get cell service here (a little more more tricky)...

Hillary brought here cell phone here from Israel (just to have at the airport when she returned back to Israel).
When we arrived at the airport in Nairobi, we saw ads for a cell company "cellnet" that had service throughout East Africa. We figured that we would try to buy a SIM card and put it into Hillary's phone.
But, when we tested it at the airport, we discovered that Hillary's phone was "locked" (thank you very much "Israel Phones") and it wouldn't accept another SIM card.
So, we figured that we would continue our trip with no cell phone (as was the plan in the first place).
Anyway, a nice man in our Matatu from Nairobi to Nakuru mentioned that we could buy a new phone and SIM card for about 2000 Kenyan Shillings ($30 USD!). So, that's what we decided to do on Friday morning.
We found a shop that had signs for cell phones and we went in.
It was a children's clothing shop that had a lady at the back who had a cell phone stand.

We explained to the owner of the shop what we needed, and mentioned in passing that we have this cell phone that we can't get unlocked.
He immediately sprung into action, took Hillary's phone and said "Do you trust me? I'm going to go and get your phone unlocked". Without waiting for an answer, he was out the door with Hillary's phone, leaving us in his children's clothing shop.
20 anxious minutes passed by until he finally returned, unlocked cell phone in hand.
He then sold us a SIM card and a charger that would work here.
Total cost: 800 Kenyan Shillings ($12).
We realized that we may have been overcharged, but at that point we didn't really care. We went next door to the one of the many many many cellnet shops around and bought credits for the phone.
Easy right?

After our morning errands, we grabbed a matatu to Nyaharuru where we planned to spend shabbat. Our Lonely Planet guide listed a few options of accomodation in and aroud Nyaharuru, but one of them particularly caught our attention - "Thompson's Fall Lodge".
Thompson's Falls is one of Africa's highest (I think) and the Lodge, which is right next to the falls is the fanciest place in town (and certainly out of our price range).
The catch is that in addition to their suites, they also offer a campsite for pretty cheap.
So, we decided that it would be nice to camp there, in the vacinity of fancier people.

We arrived to a beautiful grounds and really lovely staff.
We negotiated an even cheaper rate then what was posted and began to set up our tent (we were the only ones camping).
As we were unrolling the tent (provided by Hillary), Hillary mentioned that it did not have a fly (waterproof roof / protection). That shouldn't be a big deal right? It's Africa and its the supposed dry season so it shouldn't rain right?

Wrong.

Just a couple of hours after we made camp, the rain began.
At first we moved the tent under a hut that was storing coal. We figured that we could leave it there until the rain stopped and then move it back (which is what we did).

We cooked and ate shabbat dinner (rice flavoured with Osem "indian mix", scrammbled eggs and osem ptitim). It was the shortest shabbat meal in history. We finished in about 6 minutes.

We went to bed pretty soon after dinner and prayed that the lighting and thunder that we were hearing wouldn't reach us.

It didn't

Until about 10 PM

Then we started to get wet.

We quickly came up with a plan:
Bring all of our things into the nearby bathroom for shelter, leave the tent where it was, and head into the hotel bar / lounge for refuge.
We hung out inside the bar next to the fireplace until we were kicked out at around 11:30.

Back to the tent.

The rain had stopped but by this point, small puddles had collected inside.

Back to the lounge, this time, sleeping bags in hand.

Although the bar area had been closed, there was still a small group of people sitting in the room next door (with more lounge chairs and another fireplace).
We quietely sat next to the fireplace hoping not to be noticed.
About 5 seconds later, a man approached us and asked if "we had been attended to". We politely responded that we just wanted a warm place to sit for a while and explained our small predicament.
He offered us some whiskey to warm us up. we declined.
He then asked where we were from and we both responded "Canada" (Hillary is American, but decided before that trip that everyone likes Canadians more).

We were right.

Turns out this man (Robert) was a graduate of the Landscape Engineer program from the University of Guelph. (I don't know how he made it from Nairobi to Guelph, but I didn't ask). He spent 7 and a half wonderful years in Canada and he said that he owes all of his success to Canada. He also said that he "had a share" in the lodge and that it would be no problem for us to spend the night inside the lounge.
We thanked him and placed ourselves and our sleeping bags by the fire and tried to sleep.
Robert and his cronies kept us up until about 3 AM.
They were having some kind of crazy political argument in both English and what we think was Swahili.
It sounded like they were planning a coup. Who knows?

Anyway, we got a couple of hours of sleep until a guard from the Lodge came inside in a panic and woke us up.
We didn't really understand what he was saying but the words "gone" and "missing" seem to be repeated.
He had us follow him to the camping area where we expected the worst (keep in mind, all of our things were in the bathroom and our tent was left unattended). Yes, it may sounds stupid now, but we really didn't think that anyone was going to take our stuff, which thankfully, nobody did.

We eventually figured out that the guard came to get us because his night shift was ending and he would no longer be able to watch our things for us. He wanted to make sure that they were well attended to so he came to get us.
Talk about service.

The rest of shabbat passed pretty uneventfully (we hiked down to the bottom of the falls and then walked into town to see the festivities for African Children's Day).

At around 7ish we realized that it was going to rain again that night, but at least this time we were prepared with a better plan: Before we go to bed, leave our stuff in the bathroom (as we now deemed it safe) and if it rained, we would move the tent under the coal shed and book it into the lounge for another night by the fire.

We sat inside until the end of shabbat, chatting with a very interesting man from holland working at a mission in Nyaharuru (subject for another post).
We mentioned to him that we were trying to camp in a non water proof tent. He told us that we could, of course, stay inside if it rained (we knew that already), but he called over the manager of the hotel to see if he could provide us with a tarp.
The manager said "I'll see what I can do".

He returned about an hour later and told us "we have no tarp, but go to the reception and they will give you a room".
So, we did just that.

The receptionist showed us the way to a very decent room in the lodge.
They took serious pity on us.
I kinda freaked out by how nice they were. (really, I did, ask Hillary)
It was over the top.

Ok, this place is closing for the night so I must sign off.

Sorry for the long post.

We're now in the west of Kenya in Kisumu on the shores of Lake victoria.
We nixed the Mt. Kenya idea because we decided that we didn't have appropriate gear (for example, a fly).

Be well

Chaim and Hillary (and Jon) do East Africa

2007-06-14T10:12:00.001-04:00

Greetings from Nakuru, Kenya!

This is where I plan to post updates (and maybe pictures) from my trip to Africa.
You can also check out Hillary's blog at
journals.worldnomads.com/hnmenk

We decided to do them seperately for a few reasons, but mainly because we figured that it would take too long to agree on how to word our posts. (We both want them to be clever).

Anyway, you can read both and decide which is better (and funnier).

I've also added the first e-mail that I sent out.

Hope to be in touch!

Kwa heri (goodbye)

Dear Family and friends,

I again have to apologize for sending out a mass e-mail.

Yesterday I began a 2 month trip to East Africa (Keyna, Tanzania, Uganda and maybe Rwanda). I wanted to send a quick e-mail to tell everyone that so far the trip is going great.

This will hopefully be the last mass e-mail as I plan to start up my blog again with updates from the trip.
I'm travelling now with my friend Hillary and we will be meeting another friend, Jon, in Tanzania in 2 weeks (if all goes to plan of course...).

Hillary and I flew yesterday from Tel-Aviv to Nairobi via Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Airlines.
The plane couldn't land at first in Addis so we were diverted to Djibouti. The pilot did not provide very much information and basically said "it's cloudy in Addis so we are going to Djibouti instead".

Anyway, we basically landed there to refuel and then return to better weather at Addis .No information was provided at all when we were sitting on the tarmac in Djibouti. A man sitting next to us said "welcome to Africa"
Luckily we were able to make our connection to Nairobi.

Nairobi is nicknamed in some guidebooks as "Nairobbery" so we tried to be extra vigilant with our stuff on the street. (it is no surprise that we stand out everywhere we go)
We decided to stay at a place on the outskirts of town to avoid trouble. The night went by uneventfully.

There were Israelis staying at our hostel. Big surprise.
They didn't seem to care that we spoke Hebrew. Another Big surprise

Today we made our way to Nakuru which is North West of Nairobi.
The first half of the 3 hour ride was very pleasant.
Then we hit the end of the paved road.
The rest of the ride was less pleasant.
It reminded me of the time that I went luging in lake placid. There the ride was very bumpy and my head got rattled around a lot (same principal on this ride).
The only difference is that at lake placid the ride lasted 60 seconds. Here, it was an hour and a half.
But, I should point out that the lake placid ride cost me (well, cost my father) $30 whereas this ride was $4.50

I left my camera on the bus (well, its more of a minibus called a matatu) and with the help of G-d we were able to find the driver, get back into the bus and retrieve my camera.

After we found a place to stay, we made our way to the top of the Menengai Crater which overlooks a beautiful area of kenya.

The view was amazing (in fact, so was the drive) . At the top, there were a few local merchants selling souvenirs.

I traded my hat (to be fair, it's really my brother's hat - sorry adam -) for a little dolphin.
I really loved that hat ("Tibetian Tea, lose weight the natural way) but I think it was a fair trade (especially because Adam got the hat for free from a drug store in Israel).

Now I'm sitting in a pretty decent internet cafe in town in Nakuru.

Tomorrow we're planning on heading to Nyahururu for shabbat.
We've heard good things and hope to be able to hike to a waterfall there.

After that, we're planning on trekking Mt. Kenya and then return to Nairobi for a 3 day safari.

Of course, plans can change quickly and its not always possible to count on transport / weather.

Hope everyone is doing well.
Stay in touch.
I'll do my best to update the blog as often as possible.

There is so much more to tell and so many things on my mind but that will have to wait for later posts or until I get home. Coffee anyone?

All the best,
Chaim

A long day - A good day

2006-09-11T15:26:00.000-04:00

Today I spent 15 hours at Pardes (from 7 AM to 10 PM). I plan to continue this ritual every Monday.
On "regular days" classes run from 8:30 to 5, but I try to come to shacharit which starts between 7 and 7:30 (so far, I have a perfect attendance record!*) .
So normally, I'm there for around 10 hours - which is already plenty long.

Today was the first day of "night seder", which is when you can choose to stay late and learn a topic of your choice with your chevruta (study partner).

Night seder runs from 7:30 to 9:45ish, so most people who are going to come take a break between 5:00 and 7:30.

Being the eager learner that I am (at least for now), I decided to fill that "free" time slot with an optional class on Jewish ethics that Pardes offers from 5:45 to 7:30...

Needless to say, it was a very intense day.
Amazingly, however, I left Pardes at night with much more energy than when I had entered the building 15 hours earlier.

In fact, I was somewhat sad to leave the beit midrash.

I was very excited by what I learned today.

Although I can't promise that I'll keep up this pace, I'm really looking forward to spending the next 9 months studying at Pardes.
I think that I made a good choice to come to Israel for a year instead of starting work right away at my accounting firm.

On a lighter note, I made a bit of an ass of myself today in one of my classes.

The class was full, so I ended up sitting in the back corner.
At one point, my mind began to wander and I started doodling in my notebook.
That is the setting for the following story:

We were learning about Rosh Hashana, and the teacher wanted to point out that it can be understood as not just a holiday for the Jewish people, but rather one for all the nations of the world.
To back up this theory, she tried to explain that we celebrate it on the day that the world was created and not on the first day of "Jewish peoplehood".

At the moment where I made an ass of myself, the above point had become clear to everyone although it had not yet been spelled out explicitly.

So, just to firm things up, the teacher said "On Rosh Hashana, we celebrate the birthday of the world, and not the birthday of..."
Instead of piping in "the Jewish people", or "Judaism" (or even not saying anything at all), somehow the word "Jesus" slipped out of my mouth - and it came out much louder than I had intended (I said it as a joke, but it was intended for my neighbour and not the whole class -and especially not the teacher).
It was pretty embarrassed, but at least it got a laugh (partially laughing with me and partially laughing at me).

(I have no idea if this story makes sense in writing, and even if it does, you probably don't think its funny. I'll pre-empt your criticism and say "I guess you had to be there").

*This is less impressive than it sounds, because school has only been running for a week

I have a home!

2006-09-07T17:28:00.000-04:00

As you may have already heard, my prayers for a new home were recently answered.
After searching for a month and a half and coming up empty handed, I finally ran into some luck.

About a week ago, I was eating dinner with some third cousins of mine who live in Israel (I only met these cousins a couple of years ago - we are certainly not very close). The topic of my imminent homelessness quickly came up (because it was pretty much the only thing on my mind at the time). After a brief discussion, one cousin mentioned that her roommate might be moving out so she might have a room available in her place - she told me that she would have to get back to me.
I immediately jumped on the opportunity and asked when I could move in (at that point I wasn't really sure if she was serious in her offer or if she was just trying to be nice and didn't expect me to be interested, but I didn't really care. If an offer was made, I was going to take it).

The next day she called and told me that it was a go.
Thank the good Lord.

The apartment is beautiful and is in a great location. I am happy.

Looking back at the apartment hunt, there were certain things that were either hilarious, terribly frustrating or both. I'll list a couple here.

1. Through mutual friends, I found a potential roommate who happened to be a girl. We looked at a lot of places together. On several occasions when we thought that we were close to signing a lease, the landlord looked at us and said "actually, I don't rent to co-ed roommates". Normally it was because the landlord was religious and just didn't feel comfortable with the idea.
In one instance, the landlord was not so religious, but she knew that most of the tenants in the building were and she was worried that they would be upset.
She told us that she would consider renting the apartment to us so long as we agreed to pretend that we were cousins.
(Another man told us that he asked his rabbi, and was told that he could rent his place to us so long as only one of our names was on the lease. "I don't want to know what's happening in the apartment. If your girlfriend moves in, don't tell me").

2. I don't know if it's slang, or proper Hebrew, but when I was told by Israelis that their apartment was no longer available they would say "zeh lo actuali".
I quickly began to hate those words as I heard them over and over and over again.

3. Because there were so few apartments and so many people looking, I would run into the same people all the time at "open houses". At first nobody was really nice to each other, but eventually we bonded over our mutual frustration and began to share info.
It was actually nice.

4. Israelis have a knack for advertising apartments in "creative" manners.
For example, "partially furnished" sometimes means "there is absolutely no furniture, nor a stove nor an oven, but there is a broken bookshelf in the hallway that we are too lazy to throw out".
Or "studio apartment with kitchenette and private entrance" means "a small hole in the wall under our apartment which has enough space for a bed. The kitchenette is actually a sink. The private entrance is actually a rickety wooden ladder which is accessed through a very sketchy field".

Anyway, I'm glad that the ordeal is over.

I would say that my new place is perfect, but that would be a lie.
At the moment, there is a small drawback.
Being the month of Elul, Jews are obligated to hear the sound of the shofar every morning (to get us to start thinking of repentance etc).

My apartment happens to be next to a shul.

The shul happens to blow shofar at 5:30 in the morning (and it seems to me that they blow shofar every 5 minutes for an hour).
I must admit that my first thought when being woken up by this awful noise is not "I must repent for my sins" but rather "I'd like to take that shofar and ram it..." (yes, pun intended).

Oh well. Its a small price to pay.

I almost forgot, I promised to explain the photos from my previous post.

A couple of weeks ago I attended 3 weddings in 3 nights.

1 was a modern orthodox ceremony (I went to McGill with the bride).
1 was a HUGE Chassidic wedding (Son of the Machnifca Rebbe marrying the daughter of the Biala Rebbe). Some other cousins of mine (not related to the one that I'm living with) invited me to come with them.
It was crazy.
1 was a fully egalitarian ceremony. (I went on an Israel advocacy trip with the bride a few years ago).

Your job is to match the wedding descriptions with the pictures.

The last 2 pictures are from a tiyul (a small trip) that I went on with a visiting friend of mine and her Israeli friend.
Her friend suggested that we hike to a great ma'ayan (a spring).
The idea sounded nice, especially given the heat.

After a very long journey to the beginning of the trail (which required some serious fence climbing skills), and after getting lost for a little while, we finally reached the ma'ayan. The only problem is that the ma'ayan was actually a large concrete silo which was filled with smelly dirty water. During the winter the silo is presumably fed by a spring SOMEWHERE ELSE through a rubber tube.

Now, I understand that there are many natural springs that are turned into "man made" swimming areas.
This one was just hysterical.

Israelis are so desperate for water they'll take it in any form.

Here is a quick comparison of natural springs turned into man made swimming areas.

Example 1

Hot Springs outside of Jasper, AB (country road trip - May 2006)

Example 2

"Ma'ayan" outside of Jerusalem, Israel (August, 2006).

As you can see, they're basically the same.

Ok, it's late.

I should go to bed.

Oh, I started Pardes on Monday.
Classes have been good so far.

I am slowly going crazy

2006-08-23T14:43:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time to blog recently. Many apologies.
The past couple of weeks have been mighty crazy.

I am too tired right now to elaborate, but I will soon.

Right now I am desperately searching for an apartment to move into on September 1. This date has become so engrained in my head as "moving day" / "doomsday" / "the clock is ticking and I don't have a place to live so what the hell am I going to do day ", that someone had to remind me that it is also happens to be my 22nd birthday.

It will be a very very happy birthday if I don't have to sleep in a refrigerator box that night.

I'll leave you with some pictures from my activities of late. (With the exception of the apartment hunt, I've been having a great time).

Explanations to follow in the next post.
Good night.

A memorable Shabbat

2006-08-01T07:50:00.000-04:00

My third Shabbat in Jerusalem was very special.
It began with Kabbalat Shabbat in the apartment of a friend of mine. The plan was to hold an intimate egalitarian service. I think he expected just over 10 people to show up, yet somehow, through word of mouth, almost 30 people came. The services were lively and joyful. A real sense of community was forged amongst the worshippers as we joined together to welcome the Sabbath Bride. I've known it for a while, but I definitely prefer smaller "shuls" over larger ones.

After shul on Saturday morning I found out that Rachel and Avi, two friends of mine from McGill who are now both in Israel for the summer, got engaged two days earlier. (Mazel Tov!) I was invited over to "Rav Cohn's" house later in the afternoon for a l'chaim. What was waiting for me there was far more than I could have expected (more on that later).

I had a pot luck picnic lunch with some friends in the park. It was pretty cool because there were lots of other people there also enjoying the sunny Shabbat afternoon. Somebody joined our picnic who made aliyah about 8 years ago from the U.S. He's now 26 (I think) and is just finishing up a degree from Hebrew University. He said that he was grateful to be with us because he had expected that he would be called up for Miluim (army reserve duty) before Shabbat. He told us that he had a ticket to go and visit the States for a few months and that he was planning on leaving on Tuesday (this was booked months before Hezbollah started firing rockets at the North) . But, he told us that if he were called, he would certainly serve. He explained that if he chose to, it would not be too difficult to get out of his army service, especially with his planned trip to North America.
I was already humbled by his commitment to Israel and to the IDF, but then as the conversation continued I was blown away. It became very clear that this person is left leaning and would probably hate every minute of his service. Yet, even with an excellent excuse to get out, he wouldn't consider the option.
I've been thinking a lot about him since Shabbat. I've been asking around, and I don't think that he's been called yet. I have great respect for him.

Ok, back to the L'chaim for Rachel and Avi...
Rav Cohn is a rabbi who served for a year as a shaliach (literally, a messenger) to Montreal from Israel in 2002. I guess that is where Rachel and Avi met him.
He now lives in Jerusalem in an apartment with his wife and two small children. When I arrived at the house, I thought that I had come to wrong place. I opened the door, and I was greeted by 2 mothers with tattoos and skimpy tank-tops holding small children. Not exactly the "religious stereotype" that I was expecting. As I peered in further, I saw what appeared to be 3 more people from the same family (a brother to the young mothers, who was wearing a very tight shirt and had a pony tail, and their parents).
Finally, a man with a beard and a kippah emerged from the kitchen and introduced himself as Rabbi Cohn. He invited me in.

I thought that perhaps this other family were relatives of the Cohn's who just weren't religious.

After further investigation, I found out that I was very wrong.

It turns out that this family and the Cohn's did not even know each other, but that the Cohn's had been hosting them for a week. They are from Kiryat Shmona in Northern Israel and had to leave because of the constant barrage of rockets falling on their city.

The Cohn's opened up their home to complete strangers; people who from the outside are very different from them.

In the past couple of weeks I've heard that families in "safe cities" have been putting up families from the North. I just hadn't seen it for myself yet. It was a powerful site that almost brought me to tears.

In times of crisis, the lines that tend to divide Jews in Israel seem to weaken. Religious vs. Secular, Left vs. right etc.

Rav Cohn's home beautifully demonstrated the famous adage kol yisrael areivim zeh lazeh - All of Israel is responsible for one another.

This is a Shabbat that I will not soon forget.

Jerusalem - Week 2

2006-07-24T15:40:00.000-04:00

I'm continuing to settle in at my new home. I've had the pleasure of hosting some friends for a few nights at my apartment. It's certainly not luxurious hospitality, but it's cozy.

Some highlights from the past week...
1) I received a phone call from a religious cousin of mine who lives in Jerusalem. I think he's my age or maybe a little younger. He told me that he had good news, but he made me guess what it was.
I knew that he had been dating for a few weeks so I assumed that this was "an engagement" phone call, but I wasn't positive, so I didn't want to guess. For some reason, he simply wouldn't tell me (I don't really know why this was) so I sheepishly asked "are you getting married"?Luckily I was correct, and he invited me to an engagement party for that night.
(Besides the guessing game, the phone call was a bit difficult for me because the ring woke me up at 8 in the morning).
The party was pretty far away in a newish area of Jerusalem. Not the easiest place to find. A fun time was had by all (well, I can actually only vouch for the men, because I couldn't see the women, but it sounded like they were having fun...).

My cousin is the one to the right of the guy standing up.

2) I donated blood.
I've given blood many times in Canada but this was a very different experience. First of all, not suprisingly, the information form was in Hebrew. Luckily, they had a translation page to go along with it (I didn't need it for the most part, but I had trouble understanding "Yellow Jaundice" in Hebrew). Also, they definitely didn't have private booths where you are asked questions about your medical and sexual history. Everyone sort of sits in a row at one long desk and people shout questions at you. I must say, the lack of privacy was made up for in excellent efficiency. It was much quicker than what I was used to back home (it's especially bad in Quebec).
The most obvious difference between giving blood in Israel and in Canada was the motivation that I had to give. In Canada, I know that my blood will be put to good use but I don't really think about who I might be helping.
Here, things are a little bit different. With Katyushas raining down on the North people are being encouraged to give blood to help the victims.
As I gave, I could see the news on TV. 2 new direct hits on Haifa. Many injuries.
I was happy when the nurse told me that they take more blood in Israel than in North America.

3) There was a fire outside of my ulpan.
Yesterday morning, we were sitting in our class and started to smell smoke.
Nobody really thought much about it until the teacher said "I think I hear fire".
Somebody went outside to see what was going on and found that the field outside of our ulpan was on fire. They ran back inside and everyone ran out pretty quickly.
It was somewhat crazy.
The field had very high dry grass and somehow it caught fire and spread quickly. Some trees also went up in flames.
I've definitely never seen anything like it. Luckily, the fire department (along with a heroic gardener) were able to contain the fire pretty quickly (I'd guess within an hour).
As we waited across the street, somebody told me that they had seen a little fire in the field a half hour earlier and had called the fire dept. but was told not to worry about it.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt and no buildings were damaged.
In typical Israeli fashion, classes resumed while the fire was still being put out.
The building was smoky, but Hebrew classes must go on!

That's all I've got for now.

Danny, a guest at the apartment.

The matzav (situation) in the North continues...
May we find peace soon.

Rockets

2006-07-16T05:55:00.000-04:00

I don't intend to often use this space to comment on Israeli politics or security. However, given that I told people to check up on me via my blog, I wanted to give an update on my status.
I am still in Jerusalem, and I feel safe here. I'm keeping very up to date on the situation, but I'm trying to continue on with daily life.
Rebecca wrote a little bit more and I agree with her sentiments.

We are all praying for peace.

On a happier note, I took my ulpan placement test today (the test that decides which level I'll be in for my Hebrew course).

Part of it was an interview in Hebrew. They told me that my Hebrew was very good (thanks mom and dad for the Jewish education). After the interview, they asked if I wanted to be put in an "intensivi" class and after some hesitation, I said "yes".

I used to hate Hebrew class in school. Now I'm voluntarily subjecting myself to it for 4 hours per day.
I'm pretty excited (seriously).

Jerusalem of Gold

2006-07-12T18:18:00.000-04:00

My blog will now have somewhat of a different focus.

I just arrived in Jerusalem to begin a year of Judaic studies here. I am on a break from accounting so this space will no longer be a forum for angry accounting rants. (I did, however, bring my "accountant with personality" t-shirt (see Nov 14 post) just to ensure that I don't stray too far from my roots.

I'll try to post on the blog as often as possible with updates, stories and thoughts from Israel.
It's a pretty amazing place so I'm sure I'll have no trouble finding material.

Also, now that I have a digital camera, I can start adding some pictures to the blog too.

Here's just a couple so far...

1 of the many booths at the Israel Museum Wine Festival. 50 shekels gets you unlimited wine tasting... Needless to say, it was a fun night.

A man sleeping inside his cart at the Jaffa Gate. I had to be discreet when taking the photo because I didn't want his friends to yell at me.

Ami in the shuk. We had some good Indian food. (the white spot in his beard is yogourt).

That's it for now.
Layla Tov

Rules are meant to be broken

2006-01-09T01:59:00.000-05:00

Since starting my blog, I've tried to learn a few "cardinal rules of blogging".
One rule that has been repeated to me a few times is "post often, or people will quickly lose interest".

I broke the rule.

From checking on my site stats, it seems that my readership has in fact declined *dramitcally.

Sorry about that. Thanks for sticking with me. I'll try to reward you with a wonderful array of super entertainment.

Two other rules that I have been told are:
"Don't post just for the sake of posting"
and
"Don't write about your own blog"

Unfortunately, it seems that by posting this, I have trasgressed twice more.

I promise to be on my best behaviour this month.

Can you forgive me?

*Reader's note: I should admit that the word "dramatically" might be slighly misleading. It is true that average visits / day has dropped by 60% since the end of December. Unfortunately, that only amounts to an absolute decline of 6 visits / day. (ie if you are reading this blog, you should consider yourself unique, because you're one of very few who is doing so).

In case you're interested (which you're probably not)

2005-12-18T21:10:00.000-05:00

I just realized that the editors of my auditing textbook do, in fact, provide an explanation for the picture on the cover (see last post).
The problem is, it's pretty stupid.

Quoted from the back cover (which I read for the first time yesterday):

"Reflecting the real World
Created to be suitable for both accounting majors and general business audiences (future auditors and future auditees), Auditing & Assurance Services: A Systematic Approach is the only text that reflects what is happending in the real world..."

So, they are making reference to the reflection.

Very clever.

Auditing in the Rockies

2005-12-15T20:26:00.000-05:00

Normally, the covers to textbooks relate to the material found within them.
This is the cover to my auditing textbook.
I am trying to figure out why the editors chose it and what message they were trying to send.

A couple of possibilities:

Perhaps just as the mountains reflect off of the still water, we as future auditors must begin to reflect on our education and decide how we can positively contribute to the accounting world?

Or maybe the editors were trying to allude to the transparency of the water? Could they be telling us that through our auditing we must strive to achieve transparency in financial reporting?

In fact, I believe that editors had both of these messages in mind when they chose the picture for the cover. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that there could be no possible graphical representation of auditing...(unless they really wanted to put a picture a calculator, a laptop, and a really unhappy accountant).

Accounting Textbook With Personality

2005-12-09T11:30:00.000-05:00

I was studying in the library for my advanced financial accounting exam when I came across the following paragraph in my textbook: (the last sentence is the most important. I added the italics)

"In this chapter, we deal only with wholly owned subsidiaries. Subsequent chapters will relax that simplifying assumption, thereby introducing further complexities...Now, sit back, pay attention, and enjoy the ride!"

I just found this to be extremely ridiculous.

A friend of mine, making a reference to the name of my blog, told me that it was trying to be "an accounting textbook with personality".

For some reason, I feel embarrassed.

2 Questions

2005-11-28T05:15:00.000-05:00

#1 - It's 5:15 in the morning. Why am I still working on this ridiculous Petro-Canada paper?
#2 - Given that I have to finish this paper, why am I writing in my blog?

Red Tapes Blues...The Conclusion?

2005-11-25T00:39:00.000-05:00

Over the past couple of weeks, I have continued my struggle to transfer 3 credits from Ryerson University to McGill (to get a background, read this post).
After more meetings with my advisor and many more unanswered e-mails, it seems that I have finally succeeded.
Just yesterday the advisor told me that my McGill transcript would show 3 credits from Ryerson. Surprising, today my transcript online actually showed those 3 credits!

I did it. All it took was 8 months of nagging, screaming and crying.

Thanks McGill, you're great!

What do you study?

2005-11-16T01:42:00.000-05:00

This question is inevitably asked when two university students meet for the first time. (It tends to follow “what school do you go to?” and “where are you from”?)

The question is simple enough, but I don’t like answering it. That is why I hesitate before I finally respond “I’m majoring in accounting”.

I know that there is nothing wrong with studying accounting in university, but I sometimes worry that people will immediately draw conclusions about me based on my major.

Here are some possible conclusions:

1) this guy is boring
2) he loves money
3) he is nerdy
4) he is uncultured
5) he will likely commit corporate fraud one day and steal my money

Note: I realize that it is unfair of me to assume that people make judgments like these. In fact, I’m sure that most do not. However, I know that if I were studying something else, and somebody told me that they were majoring in accounting I would probably draw many of the above conclusions. That is why I worry.

I am not posting to argue that the above 5 statements do not accurately reflect my personality. (In fact, by virtue of having a blog about essentially nothing, #3 is probably pretty accurate…). I will, however, use this space to answer some questions that I am commonly asked after I tell someone about my accounting major.

Q: Umm…so you want to be an accountant?
A: Yes. Within the next few years I plan to pursue a C.A. (Chartered Accountant) designation in Ontario.

Q: Wait, so you want to be an accountant for the rest of your life?
A: Likely not, unless I really love it. I think that I eventually want to take the business skills that I learn and work for a non-for-profit organization.

Q: So you can do my taxes, right?
A: No

Q: Why did you choose accounting?
A: Good question. It just sort of happened. Once I started business school, I thought that I would do something more creative, like marketing.

Unfortunately, I hated marketing at McGill.

Surprisingly, I found accounting to be somewhat interesting. It also helped that I was good at it, and it involved playing with numbers which is something that I like (refer to #3 on conclusions list above).

Q: Besides taxes, what do accountants do?
A: Lots of things. In fact, a lot of accountants don’t do taxes. A specific field of accounting that interests me is called “forensic accounting”. Forensic accountants are hired to detect and prevent corporate fraud. They’re the good guys who catch the bad guys in the business world.

Q: Do you like what you’re studying?
A: The subject matter can be dry at times, but for the most part, its intellectually stimulating.

Q: Are you interested in other things?
A: Yes. Just ask me.

Q: So you’re going to be rich right?
A: Not any time soon. Although I am very happy to have a job coming out of university, accounting is one of the lower paying entry level “business school jobs” (versus finance, consulting etc.) I am definitely happy with my salary, but if I were looking for quick cash, I would have applied for a job in investment banking.

To sum up:

1) Yes, I major in accounting.
2) No, it doesn’t define who I am
3) Yes, I realize that nobody actually makes assumptions about me based on my major
4) Yes I am a bit paranoid
5) Yes, I think I made the right choice for me
6) No, I won’t do your taxes.

The t-shirt

2005-11-14T02:01:00.000-05:00

Some people have asked me about the origin of my blog's name.

Although it's certainly not so clever, I should still admit that I didn't come up with it on my own.

Over the summer, I interned at an accounting firm.
As a gift, they gave me this t-shirt.
For some reason, I think that it's hilarious

Red Tape Blues

2005-11-10T16:48:00.000-05:00

That's it. I simply don't think that I can deal with McGill's administration anymore.

Let me explain...

Over the summer, I took two courses:
1) Business Law offered by correspondence from the University of Windsor.
2) Finance II offered at Ryerson University in Toronto.

I need both of these courses in order to become an accountant in Ontario one day.

Anyway, in March (ie well before I took these courses), I asked the nice people at the Bachelor of Commerce office here at McGill if I would be able to transfer the credits from my summer classes to my McGill transcript. If they said "yes", then I would be able to take 4 courses per semester in my last year (as opposed to the regular 5).

Well, the B.Com office was certainly less than helpful. Every person that I spoke to told me that I needed to speak to someone else. I got thrown around in circles for at least 3 weeks.
Every single day I would walk into the office and demand to speak to someone who could help me and everyday I was told that I would have to make appointment or send an e-mail.

First I tried to send e-mails but I would either get no response or very unhelpful and often rude ones.
Then I asked how I could make appointments and I was told that I had to do it through e-mail! (Which clearly was not going to work).

Finally one day in April when I was making a bit of a scene in the office (which had become normal at this point) an advisor came out of his office and asked me what he could help me with.
I explained my situation and he told me to come back the next day.

My first meeting with this advisor did not go very well.
He told me that there is no way that I would be able to transfer credits from either class.
His explanation for the correspondence class was that McGill does not recognize correspondence classes as "real courses". Although I was disappointed, I figured that it was not worth arguing over.

So then I asked him what was wrong with the Ryerson course.
He told me that there were two problems with it.
#1 The course was offered both by correspondence and in standard lecture format, and he would have no way of knowing which way I took the course (even though that was a crap excuse because I showed him my online registration).
#2 This one is even worse...He told me that McGill does not recognize Ryerson University as a valid academic institution.
What the hell?!?!
Ok, I'll admit that Ryerson isn't regarded as Canada's top school, but give me a break. McGill accepts credits from all sorts of schools. The last time that McGill reviewed Ryerson as an institution was more than 10 years ago when it was still Ryerson Polytechnic Institute.

Well, after the meeting I decided that this was still a cause worth fighting for.
I was not going to let McGill push me around like this (especially because the advisor also mentioned that "it's a revenue issue for McGill" ie, if they don't transfer the credits then I have to take more classes at McGill and thus give McGill more money).

Reader's note: I was really not trying to screw with the system. I looked into taking the Finance course at U. of T. (a school that McGill does recognize), but I couldn't get into it. That is why I had to take it at Ryerson.

Skip ahead 2-3 weeks.

After my continual arguing, bothering and kvetching I finally got a hint of good news:
McGill would transfer the credits from my Ryerson course but only under 2 conditions:
#1 I had to get into the course without the help of McGill (normally they write "letters of permission" which makes the registration process much easier).
#2 I had to get a letter from the registrar at Ryerson stating clearly that I did not take my course by correspondence.

With this good news, I thanked the advisor for all of his "help" (keep in mind, I had already been dealing with this for well over a month).

Skip ahead 4 months.

I've finished both my summer courses and have done well in both of them (although the Business Law course ended in near disaster...Perhaps a story for a later post).

I know that McGill will not transfer credits from the Bus. Law course so I don't' even bother asking again.
I also know, however, that they will transfer my credits from Ryerson.

So, in early September I present my Ryerson transcript along with a letter from the registrar (which cost me $15) to the B.Com office.

I breath a sigh of relief because I think that my ordeal is over.

Skip ahead 2 months.

Its now the middle of November and the credits still have not transferred.
The advisor seems to have forgotten our little agreement. He now tells me that I may not be able to transfer the credits (using the same excuses as before)
I've had to write more letters and continue with my daily e-mails.

How is this possible?
How do these people function?
Why are they trying to screw me over?

I realize that this post is long but I wanted everyone to get a small sense of the ridiculousness that I have gone through. I, of course, left out a lot of frustrating details in order to conserve space.
The truly unfortunate thing is that so many McGill students have similar stories to mine.
McGill is infamous for the insane bureaucracy and its really starting to piss me off.
I'll keep you posted on this saga as it continues to unfold...

Now onto happier news...

Yesterday as I was checking out Jewlicious, I read a post about the winner of the Israeli version of the reality series "The Bachelor".
Turns out, the girl who won is somebody who I went to highschool with.
Its pretty funny.
You can read an article about it the Jerusalem Post, or watch the a video from the final episode on the show's website.

In the beginning...

2005-11-10T00:08:00.000-05:00

So, I've finally joined the dark side.
In recent weeks, I have been spending my procrastination time reading my friends' blogs. I had no idea that so many people had them.

For a while now I've been toying with the idea of starting my own blog. I never really had the desire to because I didn't think that I had anything interesting to say. In fact, now that I have started a blog, I still don't think that I have anything interesting to say... but I guess my readers can decide that for themselves (if I can find any).

So, come and visit some time, especially if you are procrastinating.