shabbat shalom 10.08.07

Hi everyone,

I'm back to my normal disgustingly healthy self now, thank God and a few brain cells. The illness which plagued me for about six weeks was apparantly iron (or maybe sulfate)poisoning from the iron supplement tablets prescribed by my hemotologist. When I changed myself from 100 mg ferrous sulfate to 30 mg ferrous gluconate, my symptoms of arthritic pain, stomach pain, dizziness, chills and fever, and all the rest went way completely. All those free radicals were apparantly playing hell on my systems. I saw my family doctor on Sunday and reviewed all this with him, and he confirmed my diagnosis. The hemotologist is a good one but he didn't warn me of side effects and it seems I'm more sensitive than most to ferrous sulfate, although there are lots of complaints about it in the literature. My family doctor also allayed my concerns about stomach cancer, which is quite rare with autoimmune gastritis, but needs preventative checks, hence my upcoming gastroscopy (ugh).

Only good thing I can say about this episode is that I'm no longer anemic and also I had a good taste of what it is like to be chronically ill. I've seldom known illness and that was quite a lesson. I felt like folding up camp and staying in bed for the rest of my life. How people cope with constantly feeling sick for years, I have no idea....scrambles the brains, for one thing. Depression and anxiety for another.

By Sunday I was fairly chipper, a good thing since the week was heavy. On Monday I had a visit from the system analyst who is working on our organizations "masterplan". He is an older man with a quick mind. I'm a data analyst myself, with similar skills, so we ping-ponged back about structure and function with respect to data management, like a couple of tennis players. My boss and the head of computer services couldn't keep up, just watched and listened, and the system analyst and I had a high old time and laughed a lot. I don't often get to match wits with someone like that, and I hope it was as much fun on his side as on mine. Sent him three of my relevant publications, at his request, too.

Wednesday, another triumph. After 11 years, 3 months of work on making our biological data publicly available worldwide, I'm done. Our georeferenced database is now available through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (gbif) located in Copenhagen. Putting the finishing touches on that was my basic reason to visit Copenhagen, and the new dataset was finally indexed and online from Wednesday. You can see it by visiting www.gbif.org and looking for Israel data. We are the INPA (Israel Nature and Parks Authority) data provider.

Whew, what a job that was. Two European Union grants (BioCISE and BioCASE) and a lot of pure dogged determination. In the early stages I got a lot of flak from my organization because few people understood what I was trying to do. Even big grants didn't really help raise the high management's opinion. After the grants finished, I did the rest on my own, including paying for the trip to Denmark out of my pocket. Now that it is online, our organization and the Ministry of Environment, and the universities all think it is just ducky. I think they are a little embarassed, although it is very hard to shame Israelis. As for me, I'm not seeking or expecting thanks (good, since I won't hear it). I did the task for the sake of the task itself, something that has to be done and I'm in the spot to do it. So I did it, and I am satisfied with my own work.

It takes about ten years in our organization to do a significant task start to finish, and one does not get encouragement. So most projects falter somewhere along the line and are not completed. But nothing really stops a person from doing the job except his own discouragement. Get stubborn, and it gets done. This is the biggest job I've done since I came to our organization and I have maybe one more like this before I retire. But at least I can put my finger on one or two things I have done that will stand after I leave. And, with people's grudging acknowledgement, I am the current master of biological data in Israel, as well as one of the few top data analysts.

That last bit brought me a professor from Bar Ilan University, down by Tel Aviv, to learn a few tricks with analysis o multivariate data. I was glad to teach him, especially when certain people were going past my door while the greyhaired prof was pegging away on his laptop under my supervision. Duly noted and recorded.

So you see, I needed my health this week. That was an easy fix. The harder one was establishing the reputation for integrity and generosity to help, which made the rest of it possible. That took decades, but I managed it despite a stumble with alchoholism. Today I have the respect of the scientific community as a scientist with both knowledge and professional integrity, which is something more precious than a high salary, company car, and all the rest one gets by "playing the game". The game players got what they wanted, I guess, but I got what I wanted and it is more precious than gold.

Final touch, and I treasure it as well. I'm communications office for the Society for Conservation Biology's Asia Section (www.conbio.org/asia) but after serving two terms, I have to step down from the Board of Directors. However, we have a global meeting coming up in Beijing in 2009, and communications will be critical in the coming year to prepare for it. I was asked, and agreed, to stay on as communications officer until after the Beijing meeting at least, and until someone else will be able to fill my task. (It hopefully means a free trip to Bangkok for a board meeting this winter.....) At least in SCB my contributions have been clearly and thankfully acknowledged, which is one reason why I give up a lot of tiime and effort to help them. Building up our society in Asia is another task I want to move forward before I retire, and we should really take a "Great Leap Forward" from what happens in Beijing. (Okay, Maoists will know where that one came from.)

Other news: beautiful cool weather for August, and I am enjoying being outdoors, I've appreciated our summer this year. Must be adapting to the heat, had only a few bad days. My congregation is planning a trip to the Negev, and I am involved in that. Haven't been down to the deep Negev for a couple years, which is a pity since I lived there for ten years and like the Negev Highlands very much. Desert life clears my head and reduces stress. Maybe I'll retire down there when my INPA days are done. Me and my 13 cats.

shabbat shalom,
Linda