shabbat shalom 18.05.07

Hi everyone,

It was raining hard again yesterday afternoon (Wednesday), which cancelled Jerusalem Day celebrations. Nothing strange about the downpour except that here in Israel we are in the extreme Mediterranean, barely getting a drop of water between April and November, while these merry droplets are more typical of a temperate climate. Maybe the monsoon is creeping north? (We sit on the edge of monsoon country.) Global climatic change? It seems weird to have warm rain, thunder and lightening, for all the world like the American Midwest. At least now that it is raining, the pains I felt in my body during the buildup to it have vanished. Thanks to arthritis, I've become a regular barometer.

The one horse shay seemed to be falling apart this week. I have an acupuncture treatment this afternoon for the arthritis, I had a visit with a hematologist yesterday (anemia, he prescribed iron, apparently I don't absorb the stuff like I did before), and I continue with physiotherapy on my dueling scar to enable me to sip coffee without a straw. What a mess. At least now I know what made my butt drag all winter. Anemia and hypothyroidism have many of the same symptoms and I just assumed it was my thyroid disorder.

The anemia problem is related, but not exactly. Maybe after a week or two on iron tablets I won't feel like crawling into bed at six in the evening, which would be a nice change from the last half year. All the chronic ailments I've accumulated seem to make me feel old--hypothyroidism, arthritis, anemia. All seem to be autoimmune disorders of some sort. It makes me wonder whether aging is not just some kind of autoimmune syndrome and people really could live healthy lives for centuries. Hmmm.

Speaking of aging, today I took the train to Haifa to visit my old friend and mentor Prof. Zev Naveh. He's now 82 and just pubished his umpteenth, perhaps last, book--a compiiation of a lifetime's work in landscape ecology, with commentary on his early work as seen from his older, more experienced perspective now. He asked me to review it for an Israel ecology journal. He also said I'm one of only two people in the country who could follow it well enough to review it. Nicest compliment I've gotten in a long time.

We had lunch, talked about our various ailments and about landscape ecology, and he gave me a copy of the book which runs to about 200 pages.....I'll have work to do this summer. This isn't like reading a novel; Zev is an old German Jewish theoretical scientist and it shows; his stuff is probably easier to read in German (still the language in which he thinks for science). Oh Lord, the nouns he comes up with. Noosphere and holosphere are the easy parts.....

I look forward to a nice weekend. A trip to the spa, and later Hercules the 15 lb diabetic cat is being brought to me from Galilee for adoption. At the moment, also a nice nouveau-Palestinian fancy lunch in Sheikh Jarra (eggplant and tahina pizza, anyone?) A diverse and interesting weekend.

May be that the stress at work will sort as well. The rat in computer services has asked for a fresh start, which means maybe he is beginning to understand he sure got started on the wrong foot. Let's talk cooperation rather than hostile takeover, now that you know I have teeth, habibi.

After checking with my boss, I also slipped the rat a copy of my latest publication on conservation informatics, a chapter in a book pubished in 2006, signing it compliments of the authors. First, it really does cover relevant ground on how to manage data for conservation biology in really big database systems. Second, it has a golden cast with me as senior author and folks in the field all the way from Denmark to China as junior authors. Just wanted to let the rat know I'm not exactly a secretary, which is kinda what he seems to think.

I'm not one to tootle my horn about my expertise, but I AM one of the top people in the country on bioinformatics, of necessity in my work, and from international projects. It's just a fact. Sometimes it is important to put that fact on the table just to get work done right......I mean, heck, ASEAN put this article in a booklet they circulate to conservation managers in SE Asia, and folks in my own office don't know what the hell I do. This is silly, but hard to rectify when familiarity breeds contempt.

The big difference seems to be that when I go overseas, I'm "Dr. W--" and in my own place even the cleaning lady calls me "Linda". I don't mind informality, but the coziness does tend to obscure our skills.....also, with academics a dime per dozen in Israel, the locals tend to have more respect for money and power than skill and brains. One reason I like my periodic trips to Europe or Asia, where things are seen a little differently and knowledge is valued a little bit more.

shabbat shalom,
Linda