Making the best of a not-so-perfect situation
So, my internship officially began on Monday, but really today was my first day "on my own". Just to clarify, when I last posted I thought I was going to be starting work this coming Sunday, but some slight pressure on our supervisor and he agreed to let us began a little early (or on-time, depending on who's side you are on). So, I really am on my own here at Machon Lev, which is relatively different from many of my friends and their internships. I am allowed to come and go as I please, I have a small workspace and my own key. While most people don't directly interact with their supervisors non-stop, I don't even see mine every day. He told me we'd meet probably twice a week and of course I can e-mail him with any questions.
The project I am taking on is redesigning a few websites for the department at Machon Lev. The websites currently are atleast 10 years old, and while the content doesn't need to be updated per say, they could use some technological improvements. At first, I thought I was designing the sites again from scratch but then I found the old site, and realized that if I could learn something new, I could simplify the site, and learn something new that would be extremely beneficial for me. My new goal for this summer, and the way I plan to make the best of the so far boring internship is to teach myself PHP and mySQL, two integral parts of dynamic websites in our days. The librarian is trying to help me either get a real copy of books on them or an e-book, and that is just one of the signs that the people at Machon Lev are a) very nice in general and b) very helpful to us non-paid intern/volunteers spending our days here.
Today for lunch I went to the Machon Lev kiosk. Yes, that's a word in Hebrew. Its basically a little shop, and I had a burger for 10 shekel. That's like $2.25. It wasn't the greatest burger, but with a little bit of dressing and salad, it was good enough for what I paid. I am hoping that Machon Lev will be able to work something out to pay for our lunches in the future but until atleast next week, I have to cover my own.
On Monday night, we had our weekly dinner together with Yavneh, the only dinner they pay for all week (with the exception of YU buying us pizza on Sunday because of a little mixup with the dinner that we could buy...). Dinner was at the beautiful Jerusalem Botanical Gardens, outside no less, during the beautiful sunset. At dinner, new olim from various professions were seated amongst us at the beginning for 4 sessions, 7 minutes each, where we were given the opportunity to grill them on various questions about aliyah, the army, and the professional world. Our table had it down to a routine and asked very good questions, many about salary and cost of living, which got us many different answers, but no concrete numbers. After those sessions it was time for dinner. I jumped on the opportunity to grab one of the olim who had been assigned to our table during the session and asked him to sit with us for dinner because he was the businessman and I thought it related most to me. He gladly obliged and we conversed throughout dinner on various topics, and he gave me some really great advice.
On Tuesday, in preparation for hopefully cooking dinner (pasta, don't get too excited, I'm not a master chef now...) I visited the local Makolet one street up and bought the necessary supplies. Earlier in the day, YU had given us pots to use for the summer. They also gave kids who wanted fans, which unfortunately my roommate and I had already bought last Thursday. Hopefully we'll be able to sell ours at the end of the summer. So, I bought dish soap and a sponge-like thing at the Makolet as well as milk & cheese. (Did you know that milk in a container is more expensive than milk in a bag??? I decided it was worth the extra expense...) Then since the only strainer they had in the makolet was very expensive and not very big, I headed up to the hardware store one more street up to see if they had an alternative. Sure enough they did, 20 shekels cheaper and much bigger. By the way, I also learned you can buy American adapters in Israel, where I previously thought you had to buy them in America.
After my outing I prepared to cook. I washed the pot and was all ready to go. Our stove is a little weird, it looks like a plata or hot plate, but is connected to gas. I tried to turn it on and was unsuccessful. Then I realized it was connected to gas so I tried to turn that on and see if it would get hot, and it didn't. Then I smelled gas, so I quickly turned it off. After all that, I realized there was a cover on the stove. So I lifted the cover and saw that underneath there were regular burners, except you need to light it yourself!!! Not only did I not have any matches or a lighter, but I was also terrified of doing this myself. After searching for matches and someone that would light it for me, I had pita & my american chummus (peanut butter) for dinner, and I hope that tomorrow I will be able to make pasta.
This shabbat I am going to our "family friends" Erez & Tali Winner in Beit Horon, and probably/hopefully bringing Ian along. When I went to their house last time, it was one of the most beautiful places I had even been in Israel, so I am very excited to go back. Look forward to a full report on Sunday! And, now since I've spent almost a half hour on this blog, its almost time to call it a day (officialy I am done at 3, even though today I started work late, we are all entitled to a sleep in once in 2 weeks, right...?)
The project I am taking on is redesigning a few websites for the department at Machon Lev. The websites currently are atleast 10 years old, and while the content doesn't need to be updated per say, they could use some technological improvements. At first, I thought I was designing the sites again from scratch but then I found the old site, and realized that if I could learn something new, I could simplify the site, and learn something new that would be extremely beneficial for me. My new goal for this summer, and the way I plan to make the best of the so far boring internship is to teach myself PHP and mySQL, two integral parts of dynamic websites in our days. The librarian is trying to help me either get a real copy of books on them or an e-book, and that is just one of the signs that the people at Machon Lev are a) very nice in general and b) very helpful to us non-paid intern/volunteers spending our days here.
Today for lunch I went to the Machon Lev kiosk. Yes, that's a word in Hebrew. Its basically a little shop, and I had a burger for 10 shekel. That's like $2.25. It wasn't the greatest burger, but with a little bit of dressing and salad, it was good enough for what I paid. I am hoping that Machon Lev will be able to work something out to pay for our lunches in the future but until atleast next week, I have to cover my own.
On Monday night, we had our weekly dinner together with Yavneh, the only dinner they pay for all week (with the exception of YU buying us pizza on Sunday because of a little mixup with the dinner that we could buy...). Dinner was at the beautiful Jerusalem Botanical Gardens, outside no less, during the beautiful sunset. At dinner, new olim from various professions were seated amongst us at the beginning for 4 sessions, 7 minutes each, where we were given the opportunity to grill them on various questions about aliyah, the army, and the professional world. Our table had it down to a routine and asked very good questions, many about salary and cost of living, which got us many different answers, but no concrete numbers. After those sessions it was time for dinner. I jumped on the opportunity to grab one of the olim who had been assigned to our table during the session and asked him to sit with us for dinner because he was the businessman and I thought it related most to me. He gladly obliged and we conversed throughout dinner on various topics, and he gave me some really great advice.
On Tuesday, in preparation for hopefully cooking dinner (pasta, don't get too excited, I'm not a master chef now...) I visited the local Makolet one street up and bought the necessary supplies. Earlier in the day, YU had given us pots to use for the summer. They also gave kids who wanted fans, which unfortunately my roommate and I had already bought last Thursday. Hopefully we'll be able to sell ours at the end of the summer. So, I bought dish soap and a sponge-like thing at the Makolet as well as milk & cheese. (Did you know that milk in a container is more expensive than milk in a bag??? I decided it was worth the extra expense...) Then since the only strainer they had in the makolet was very expensive and not very big, I headed up to the hardware store one more street up to see if they had an alternative. Sure enough they did, 20 shekels cheaper and much bigger. By the way, I also learned you can buy American adapters in Israel, where I previously thought you had to buy them in America.
After my outing I prepared to cook. I washed the pot and was all ready to go. Our stove is a little weird, it looks like a plata or hot plate, but is connected to gas. I tried to turn it on and was unsuccessful. Then I realized it was connected to gas so I tried to turn that on and see if it would get hot, and it didn't. Then I smelled gas, so I quickly turned it off. After all that, I realized there was a cover on the stove. So I lifted the cover and saw that underneath there were regular burners, except you need to light it yourself!!! Not only did I not have any matches or a lighter, but I was also terrified of doing this myself. After searching for matches and someone that would light it for me, I had pita & my american chummus (peanut butter) for dinner, and I hope that tomorrow I will be able to make pasta.
This shabbat I am going to our "family friends" Erez & Tali Winner in Beit Horon, and probably/hopefully bringing Ian along. When I went to their house last time, it was one of the most beautiful places I had even been in Israel, so I am very excited to go back. Look forward to a full report on Sunday! And, now since I've spent almost a half hour on this blog, its almost time to call it a day (officialy I am done at 3, even though today I started work late, we are all entitled to a sleep in once in 2 weeks, right...?)
posted by Ari @ 7:43 AM
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