The Quran and Me

Car radios are now built in (which is a good thing), but are much more complicated than they used to be (not necessarily a good thing). After getting my new car, my husband set for me the radio stations I use to listen to on my way to/from work. But the stations did no stay put. Every few minutes a TP Search was initiated and the Quran station popped in. After fighting it for a couple of days, I decided to listen to some CDs. Same happened and something even weirder, the Quran station would start at an increased volume.

Told hubby exasperatedly what was going on. "Maybe you should convert to Islam and enjoy it", came the intended-to-be-funny reply. The leasing company rep said there is a setting somewhere in the menus to disable this annoying feature. The way he dealt with my previous questions was reading the manual in front of me and then explaining to me what he read - perhaps suitable for an illiterate customer, but I can read by myself, thank you very much. So by now, we knew there is a setting and it took my husband some more time to set all the stations again in two different configurations and disable the TP Search.

So long Quran station, hope not to meet/hear again.

Mobile Help Needed

"It's difficult to get used to a new phone after a certain age", "You can't afford not having a smartphone, you work in hi-tech for God's sake, it ruins your image", "Stop using gadgets from the 70s, they make you look old" are just a few comments shot at me since I told people I need a new mobile phone.

I am a proud owner of a Nokia 6310. For 9 years. In mobile technology years, that means an eon. It has a monochrome display, but synchronizes with Outlook, where I keep my contacts and calendar. I would have used it for longer, but its sync application doesn't run on Windows 7, the operating system of my new PC at work. Plus, I'm getting a new leased car and I don't think it's worthwhile installing the old hands-free in it. On the other hand, the phone doesn't have Bluetooth to communicate with a headset. Since I can't synchronize the phone or use it in the car, and it's 9 years old, I decided it's time to replace it.

But with what? The possibilities seem endless. Some swear by Apple's iPhone, some by Android-based smartphones. But do I need a smartphone at all? I made a list of useful features, but haven't found any unbiased site or person to tell me what phone I need based on that list. Here goes: large screen and buttons (no qwerty keyboard), thin, updated design, sync by cable (for contacts and calendar), Bluetooth with headset and hands-free, decent camera, WiFi, GPS with local maps.

To complicate things even further, in September-October, my employer will sign a new agreement with one of the mobile operators that will possibly include some good models and plans for employees. And the iPhone 5 will be released, should I decide to go in that direction, and the iPhone 4 will get cheaper. So maybe I should buy a cheap model now and go for a more serious one in a couple of months?

I'm drowning in options. Help!

The Real Paris

I am a big fan of Woody Allen. So is S, my former New Yorker friend. Natural progression: last week we went to the cinema to watch 'Midnight in Paris'. The reviews described the movie pretty accurately. It is a very aesthetically pleasing concoction of romance, comedy and fantasy with an underlying message.

Watching the movie urges your soul to board the first plane to Paris to experience all this beauty in person. And then comes the mind and asks whether you will see the same beauty as in the movie or rather this?

 

Upbringing vs.Personal Responsibility

A new singer candidate for my choir: "I regret stopping piano, but my parents didn't make me practice". Hey, that's my line, but I don't buy it anymore. It's so much easier to blame someone else or find excuses than acting upon something we consider important.

I hear adults in their 50 and 60s blaming or praising their parents/teachers/siblings for the way their lives turned out and I can't stop wondering where is that elusive boundary between upbringing and the choices we make. Unlike canned food, upbringing doesn't come with an expiry date. Its impact diminishes with time, making room for personal responsibility. Or does it?

Over-engineering

For some time now, I was looking to replace my 30-years old Kenwood Chef. It was a great mixer (still is) but it got old and noisy and there was no food processor matching this old model. I looked into the separate mixer (like KitchenAid) and food processor configuration, but since I keep the mixer on the counter-top, the all-in-one idea makes a lot more sense to me. So naturally, when I saw the new Kenwood Chef models in the importer's glitzy showroom, they felt familiar and reliable, just like my battle-proven model and I decided to buy one. Got a good price and took a unit from the importer (same place I bought the previous one 30 years ago) the same day.

When chefs use food processors on cooking shows, it seems so easy and convenient. You place the food in the bowl, close the lid and rotate a dial to turn on the machine and set its operating speed. It looked as even a person with two left hands like me can use a food processor with no difficulty. Although  I'm a novice user of the new machine, I assumed that all Kenwood products are easy to use like my old mixer, so I made a brave move and planned the Shavuoth meal for 8 (invited some friends over) around the new food processor attachment. This decision is actually in line with my risk-taking cooking policy of using my friends as guinea pigs for new dishes I prepare.

So I over-chopped some onions (common beginners' mistake), as I don't yet have the right correlation between processing time and food granularity. I also used the food processor for mixing and learned it would have been better to just chop the onions and use the K-beater for mixing. But these are minor issues. Apart from being too small, the major problem of this attachment is that it can be mounted on the mixer body only in a certain hard-to-achieve position. Also, it is over-engineered for safety: the lid cannot be open while the attachment is installed on the mixer, even when the power is off and there is no risk it'll chop your fingers. If you need to taste what's inside and add ingredients accordingly, you have to remove and install the attachment for each tasting. Obviously, the Kenwood engineers haven't heard of usability tests.

Timisoara Reunion 2011

  

When I lived in Oradea (sometimes I wonder if I ever did),  youngsters from Transylvania studied either in Cluj, or in Timisoara, as only these nearby cities had universities (a few studied in Bucharest or Iasi). Timisoara also had a rabbi: Dr. Ernest Neumann. Being a larger city and having affiliate citizens (as they now call these past students), Jews from Timisoara are a large, organized  group, thanks to Getta, the late rabbi's daughter, who maintains a site and publishes a monthly newsletter, featuring Jewish cultural events and related  activities.

She was one of the main organizers of the Timisoara reunion, held last week in Haifa. My husband studied in Timisoara, so we decided to participate, although I knew I wouldn't meet many acquaintances there. Since I had a plan to organize a reunion of Oradean Jews (but on a much larger scale), I decided to make this a learning experience.

The organizers invested a lot of time and effort in this meeting, but they lack practical experience in logistics, or so it seemed from the many organizational glitches. With more than 200 attendees, the site was in a busy Haifa location with no parking facilities. After a sweaty 15-minute walk, we arrived, got our name tags, a booklet and CD (was not clear what is being given out and where), and found ourselves in this crowded restaurant garden, with no mingling area and appetizers. There were no seating arrangements, so it took a very long time and some nerve-wrecking moments until everybody was seated. The speeches went on for too long, while the crowd was already impatient and hungry. The food was buffet-style, a difficult arrangement for the older participants (there were plenty in their 80s). Finding it unpleasant to stand in line for food, I never made it to the buffet. My husband brought me a plate with some salad, meat and petrous rice. Getta made a very nice movie for the occasion, but the screen was small and not visible from all tables.

Seeing old friends beats technicalities, so people really seemed to enjoy the reunion. I met some fellow Oradeans, Daniel Klein, Getta's son, and the reps of two Romanian organizations in Israel I didn't know about: former Labour minister Micha Harish of AMIR and Dan Krizbai of ICR, and even the rep of Radio Romania in Tel Aviv, Dragos Ciocirlan.

The cost per participant was a mere NIS 170 and the remaining budget (!) was donated to the Jewish cemetery in Timisoara. The well-meaning organizers are maybe not the best logistics experts, but for sure they are financial wizards.

Social Skills

There were two interesting ideas in the Friday newspaper. Columnist Yair Lapid righfully said we (Israelis) are much better in making others listen to our ideas than listening to others. Columnist Dana Spector said if we don't learn from our mistakes the first time, we should at least realize there is a pattern when the same situation happens again, and use the opportunity for soul searching on why we act the way we do.

How is this related to me?
Recurring pattern 1: too much information

I suppose I'm not a great listener myself, but with a twist. Instead of being judgmental and pushing my own agenda, I am first to admit that different things are not necessarily good or bad, they are simply different, but I feel an urge to offer advice or help. It's hard for me to get the idea of people telling me their problems or difficulties just to vent and get my empathy, I always jump in with some [uncalled for] advice. Even with the best of my intentions, people are not interested to hear my advice.

Recurring pattern 2: barriers

I know I am also distant, don't open up easily to new people in my life, unless I trust they will stay and our relationship will become meaningful with time. But how can it become more meaningful if I can't overcome my barriers and give them a chance?

To put it succinctly, I am simply unable of saying the right thing at the right time. I wonder when did I lose my social skills or is this a sign of aging? Do I need professional help?