Views from the University

These walls just boggle my mind. Can you imagine having to put a wall between Indiana and Ohio?

Hebrew University Plants

I am told this is called Brugmansia. It's in the Solanum family, same as the horse nettle we had in Indiana, which was small and ugly. Other Solanum get 15 feet high. A "family" in the plant world is a pretty broad family.


Al took this picture in November.


And I took this one in January, after the rose bushes had been pruned. Nobody prunes cactus, as far as I know.


This is a cyclamen, also called a rock plant, because they love to grow amid rocks. They bloom in white and in shades of pink and red.

Mandel

At the University is also the Mandel Institute:



If you want to know what they do there you can look on the internet. But the internet won't tell you about this nice hanging sculpture with beautiful greenish glass rocks--the photo doesn't show how translucent they really were. Ok, I know some people think I have rocks in my head, but I think's it's pretty neat.

I suppose there's no right way to take a picture of stairs. Maybe not take one at all? Why take a picture of stairs? Because they're there?

This mosaic has on it the words, "I am Joseph; doth my father yet live?" and "God did send me before you to preserve life."

Hebrew University

Here is where Al goes to school.
And here is what he studies:



Just kidding. Even if he took Legos 101, or 909, I don't think he would come up with this:


Here is an amazing sight--clean walks. The University is probably the cleanest place in all of Israel.


Rothberg likes the pomegranate symbol, for some reason:



The pomegranate is said buy some to symbolize righteousness because it contains 613 seeds, and there are, in the Jewish religion, according to some, 613 commandments. This shows a misunderstanding of pomegranates and of the law. It depends on where you buy your pomegranates. The ones in South America are smaller, and other countries have various sizes. (There is a guy that actually counts seeds in pomegranates, and he says the average is 613, but obviously he doesn't count too many from Venezuela, or that would skew the figures.) And as for the law of God, how can it be limited to a certain number--"Thy commandment is exceeding broad." The best explanation of the law I read in a book by John Bunyan. If I had a copy of that book, I would post that chapter.

Lambs and Bougainvillea

Since most of our lambs were white, a black lamb seemed really special. But you can imagine that if most sheep were black, a white lamb would be really special.
It's the same with bougainvillea. Since it is usually red, pink, or magenta, a white or peach one really gets my attention.



And sometimes the morning glories join in. These aren't quite like U.S. morning glories, though. They're bigger and purpler than Heavenly Blue, and not quite as pretty, but they bloom most of the day instead of closing by 10 a.m.

February

Four weeks since I posted. That doesn't mean nothing is happening. Three weeks of that were "vacation." Which only means that there were no classes--Al had to work as much as ever. Do you know what it's like to be married to a work-a-holic? But in spite of that, we managed to do lots of good things--pictures to come.
Today is sunny and I must get out of the house. The last two weeks have been full of complicated thoughts. There's nothing like warm sunshine to soothe them all away.

Grocery shopping can be colorful.

Another street cat--wild, of course. There are hundreds of them. I have petted one tame cat since I've been here. I also saw a tame cat in a little restaurant, a pure white one. He sat indifferently on the floor and didn't beg or jump on the counter. Even so, it seems odd to see a cat in a restaurant. Nice, in a way, that people aren't so obsessed with "health."

I started to write a story about a Booh and a Rabbit. It was plain enough what kind of character Booh was going to be, but I wasn't sure about Rabbit, and since he got kidnapped the very first page, I didn't have to think about it, but I'll have to get back to him. In many books I have read, you can tell which character the author most identifies with. I identify with Booh, so Rabbit will have to be styled after someone else, or maybe a different side of myself. Ah, I think I've got it--Booh is the present and Rabbit is the past. Rabbit finds an olivine--do you know what an olivine is?
But I have more important things to do. Like think complicated thoughts. I'd rather not, actually, but sometimes life gets complicated. Then I have to remember, "Consider the lilies---they toil not, neither do they spin." And they don't make long lists and complicated charts and schedules, either. One reason for doing that is to get a feeling that things are somehow in control, and that I am somehow making progress. Which means that 99% of the time I feel that everything is out of control and I am making no progress.
Well, Booh and Rabbit and thinking and making lists and feeling accomplished will have to stay in the bacground. My task right now is to learn some Psalms in Hebrew. No small task.
Correction--learn ONE Psalm in Hebrew. That's enough for today, or maybe a week. Read it, look up all the words, figure out the grammar, listen to it read.