Of Mice and Paperwork pt. 2

 The date of the mouse course was approaching and I still had no idea where it was being held. I figured it was someplace in Ein Kerem but that's like giving someone directions to your apartment and telling them what apartment complex you live in but not the building or apartment number. Are they supposed to knock on every door in the place in order to drop off your sweater? No, they're going to leave your sweater hanging from one of the bushes in the parking lot. They're not going to look too hard for you.

So I asked the woman I work with if she knew where it was. She had no idea so she tried calling the number given to her by the vets' office in the animal unit, which was for the woman in charge of all the animal courses. No answer. So she gave me the number to try later. I had her email address as well from the form I filled in and emailed to her, so I sent her an email asking her where the course on July 20^th was being held, since I will always choose the method of communication which involves the least amount of actual communication with the person. She responded that because of all the emails she was getting she wasn't sure which course I was talking about. So I sent her another email with additional details to which she never responded. I sent her a slightly more urgent one a few days later, to which she still did not respond. I decided that the situation was dire enough to warrant a phone call, which she did not answer multiple times. I even left messages for this woman, but she was obviously on vacation, either literally or figuratively. (If you're asking how someone can figuratively be on vacation, just take a glance at the postal workers in the post office next time you pass by. If at least 2 of them aren't on their phones, chatting with friends that dropped in to show off their babies, or reading the paper with a cup of coffee in hand, then I want to know where you live so I can go to your post office).

When the day of the course finally rolled around, I still had no idea where it was. My plan was to get there early and wander the halls until I ran into someone that knew something. Not the greatest plan, but the only one I could come up with. I started with the animal unit on the 7^th floor. There was no one else congregated there but since I was 20 minutes or so early, I figured maybe I was just the first one there (as unlikely as that sounded to myself). When I walked into the first office I saw, I found everyone in the middle of a meeting, staring at me. I backed out slowly and decided to go down to the second floor where I work and ask the secretary if maybe she had any idea where the course was usually held. She didn't know but she tried to call a few people who either didn't know or didn't answer the phone. So I thanked her and went back up to the 7^th floor.

It was 2 minutes before the course was supposed to start and all I found was another woman wandering around looking just as lost and confused as me. However, she knew the way to the vets' office through the double doors on the left after the elevator, at the end of the hall, through another short hallway, at the back of the large room where they appear to wash large things, and then in the office to the right. I'm sure I would have found it by myself eventually (like in a month or so). Now that I think about it, maybe it's not that Israelis are bad at giving directions, maybe it's just that it's so complicated to get anywhere that directions are just too confusing to give. You will inevitably forget a hallway or a right turn somewhere. We found some dude standing in the office sipping coffee but he knew where the course was. Turns out it was on the ground floor (floor -2) in the first room before the library. Incidentally, that happens to be a few meters away from the entrance to the building, where I had entered half an hour before.

When we finally got there 15 minutes after it had started, the woman giving the course turned to us and said “you're late.” I spent the rest of the course glaring at her. It was a 2 part course, one a lecture given in broken English (because of all the foreigners working at the labs there) about not losing the mice or smuggling them out of the animal unit in your pockets, etc. The second part was a tour of the animal unit most of us had already been working in “unofficially.” This is where we learned what we were actually supposed to be doing in there. Turns out the process of importing office supplies is more complicated then just giving 'em a shake and wiping them off with your shirt first. It's a sterile unit, meaning entry necessitates the use of lab coats, gloves, booties, and sandwich baggies for phones. Sneezing on mice is frowned upon and pens must be properly irradiated and heated before being allowed in. Obviously, this requires filling out many forms specifying exactly what you need sterilized, and the items are left in a large box at the entrance. You will probably get the stuff you need a week or so later (or not), assuming they can match the right forms to the right items. This is clearly a more efficient system than just having a bunch of pre-sterilized supplies already in there.

At the end of the tour, we were supposed to get palm printed. In order to prevent people without the proper security clearance from making off with all the mice in the dead of night, they give you a personal ethics code plus take your palm print (fingerprints are obviously not secure enough for a department full of mice), which you need in order to enter the unit. Unless someone happens to open the door while you're standing there, but hey, every system has its flaw.

They asked someone to volunteer to go first and since no one else moved, I volunteered. When they didn't find me in the system, I just sighed in resignation. They told me that I obviously hadn't been entered into the system yet and didn't have a temporary ethics number but that they'd hurry the process along so I could get printed as soon as possible.

            A few days later, the woman who is in charge of both the temporary ethics numbers and all the animal courses (whom I'd sent the filled out form to and whom I'd been stalking for a week to find out where the course was being given), and who is obviously very good at her job, got back to me about the matter. Apparently the form requesting a temporary ethics number had not been adequately filled out and she was obviously too busy to get back to me about at at any point in the month between when I filled it out and the day of the course. She was probably too busy mumbling to herself and bumping into things while roaming the halls where she “works.” The confusion seemed to lie in the section where you mark off your status at the university. Since I am both a student and a lab worker, I had to choose one of these options. I chose the wrong one. I was thus doomed to live my life as a leper and an outcast from the system.

Once that minor matter was cleared up (a month and a half after having checked the wrong box), I got a temporary ethics number and was finally able to get my palm printed. I found my way back to the vets' office (back through the double doors on the left after the elevator, at the end of the hall, through another short hallway, at the back of the large room where they appear to wash large things, and then in the office to the right) by some beacon of desperation. Of course there was no one in the office when I got there. Just 3 empty desks. I think it should be allowed to loot office supplies when people are inexplicably not at their desks (especially if there are more than 2 people who are supposed to be working in the office). Just like it should be allowed for the light rail drivers to run over anyone not smart enough to get off the tracks when the train honks at them. That right there should be an entrance exam into the gene pool.

Luckily there was someone in the office next door. I went to her and asked if there was anyone at all around who could take my prints. She confirmed that I had taken the animal unit course and then looked me up in the computer. She couldn't find me in the system (surprise!) so she made a phone call to yell at the person who was supposed to have entered me into the excel spreadsheet 2 weeks ago. She took me to this person's office where she rifled through the papers on the desk until she found the appropriate handwritten list. Then we went back to the vets' office where the computer went down for a few minutes, and finally printed me when it came back online.

She assured me that I should be able to get into the animal unit from that moment on and I immediately went to test it (excuse me for being skeptical at this point). I was in! I cried a bit out of happiness and relief and then went to throw myself a celebratory party at the bar down the street with the mice (after smuggling them out in my pockets).

Of Mice and Paperwork

 Seeing as I'm getting close to the end of my degree, I decided that I would need to get a real “adult” job (i.e. not serving gullible tourists overpriced steak) this summer that I could continue to do next semester, since I only have 9 credits to make up, or the equivalent of 3 classes.

So I got a job at a lab at the Hebrew University Campus in Ein Kerem. This was sort of a friend of a friend type networking and they must have been pretty desperate because I was hired immediately at the interview and started the next day. The job involves genotyping mice, and my previous experience with animals was obviously a plus here since the doctoral student who interviewed me and with whom I'd be working is afraid of mice. She's ok with them as long as they're not moving (in other words dead) and I prefer them alive and with all their organs intact so we complement each other perfectly. I did a lot of nodding and tried not to say anything too stupid but I think it was the fact that I can look at animals without having a nervous breakdown that decided her.

The next day I was given the “grand” tour and taken to the secretaries' office, where I was told that I couldn't technically start working there until the woman who deals with the paperwork came back the next week and could process me. This surprised me not at all because I have run up against HU's bureaucracy more than once and the bureaucracy always wins. So I took the stack of forms (yes, I said stack) to fill out later and unofficially worked until the next week when the one person who could process me came back from maternity leave (which begs the question, what did they do for 4 months without the only person who could process new employees?).

In addition, I had to receive temporary permission to work in the animal unit with the mice until attending the proper courses. Permission to work in the animal unit with the doctoral student present at all times was attained by the veterinarian in the elevator on the way up, the form officially requesting a temporary ethics number until the animal unit course a month later was filled out and sent in, as was registration for the course itself. I received no actual confirmation about the form, besides an email response saying, “got it, thanks” or any information whatsoever about the course (including details about where it would be held).

When the secretary finally came back the next week, I handed her my forms, my ID to photocopy, and a passport photo to be used for my work ID, which she assured me would arrive in a few days (by that she clearly meant a month later, which is when it actually came). In the meantime she asked me how many hours I was planning on working a week so I could get paid. I told her I really didn't know yet and she informed me that if I told her more hours than I would actually be working I would get paid for the numbers of hours I actually worked but if I underestimated the number of hours a week and ended up working more, I could only get paid for the estimated number of hours. This is possibly one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard uttered. Why in G-d's name must this be complicated?! You know how it works in every other place on earth? You tell them how many hours you worked and then they pay you. End of story, no guessing or estimation necessary. This is when I realized that there must be a whole bunch of devious, sadistic bureaucrats wringing their hands and cackling to themselves while a Persian cat sits on their lap wandering the halls of HU. There is no other explanation for this system of salary payment.

The professor I was working for (whom I'd never actually met since he was on sabbatical at Harvard until August, and can only assume is a real person) sent me an email requesting that I fill out an additional form for the “summer program” which he explained was a program that encouraged researchers to hire first degree students in their labs by paying the students' salary for 2 months. It essentially makes absolutely no difference to me because I get paid by someone regardless (assuming I don't underestimate the number of hours I'll be working that month). Obviously he was interested in saving the money from his own budget though, so he sent me to the secretary to fill out this form. She sent me to the dean's secretary, where they handed me another stack of forms to fill out (to my dismay). Ten minutes and halfway through the forms later, she decided to look up my records on the computer and informed me that I don't even qualify for the program since my average isn't high enough. It would have been nice had she informed me of this before I started filling out a billion forms with questions I couldn't answer (like my army ID number- who remembers their army ID number 5 years later?! I'm lucky I can remember my current phone number). She was very sorry about the whole thing and I had to comfort her by telling her that it wasn't my idea to sign up for the program anyway and I hadn't even known about it 2 days before. Apparently only good students are worthy of work experience and jobs after their degree. The rest of us are thrown under the number 68 bus (after our tuition is fully paid of course). I don't even bother looking at all the “opportunities” the school publishes since I know they don't apply to my moron self anyway.

I was a little bit afraid that they would fire me and hire someone with a higher average just so they wouldn't have to dig into their own budget, but when I informed the professor, he just responded, “oh well, that's how it goes.” So I continued to follow the doctoral student around, learning to hole punch mouse ears (turns out I have a hidden talent for this), and run DNA through PCR and gel electrophoresis to determine whether they carry the gene for a specific brain protein they're investigating. 95% percent of people will have no idea what I just wrote, which is why you should never ask a scientist what he does. Another reason is the following conversation which took place between my dad and me. He learned this lesson the hard way.

My dad: so what did you do at work today?

Me: we chopped up mouse brains and put them in a test tube.

*He turns green*

Me: yeah, you should probably not ask me about work anymore.

One Semester Left 'Til the Finish Line...

Freedom at last! I've finally finished the semester (including all tests and make up tests) and have enough time to do... whatever it is that I do. Actually I have no idea what to do with myself. I technically have a job but it's a very part time job and very unsteady work. This past semester was an extremely full semester, with little time to do things that required leaving the library (sometimes I can't remember what the outside world is like, though it must be a wonderful place). So now that I have nothing to do... well... I have nothing to do.

I had 6 courses this past semester, 4 of them with regular homework to hand in, one of them a chemistry lab with all the requisite lab reports, and my seminarion- the final project and culmination of one's 3 year degree. Not in my case obviously, seeing as I still have another semester left and have technically done 3 and a half years so far. Regardless, I worked really hard those two weeks before it was due (the last Tuesday of the semester), and presented it in front of real live people even though public speaking is my biggest fear. That's actually the only normal phobia I have. Snakes are cool, flying's fine (I have no idea what Samuel L. Jackson's issue was with all those snakes on that plane), I work with mice and regularly liberate insects from our human domains, I roam the streets freely with no fear of being mugged, but show me a puppet or a mime and my fight-or-flight instinct will immediately be triggered. Usually fleeing is the better option since I don't think anyone's ever won a fight with a puppet.

I honestly tried to work on my project before the last minute crept up, but between all the homework and lab reports, I was left with the option of sleeping or reading scientific publications. Since both of those options would have lead very quickly to sleeping anyway, I did not bother with the pretense of advancing my knowledge of non-coding RNAs. Unlike my mother, who regularly falls asleep with newspapers on her face Friday night because she's going to “read the news,” even though we all know that means reading one headline before slipping into a deep slumber. If the cat's lucky, the newspaper will land on her and not on him. He does not appreciate being covered in newspapers as he does not read nor does he concern himself with our trivial human affairs.

My chemistry lab was basically a black hole of time. An entire week went in and I never saw that week again. It wasn't just lab reports either. We had to prepare an entire pre-lab report, then we had a quiz at the beginning of every lab, and then a “colloquium” after the quiz (I kid you not, that's the exact word they used) where they asked us more questions and talked a lot and made sure we knew what we were supposed to be doing with all those chemicals they were reluctantly handing us (a successful Thursday was one in which I did not blow up the chem lab. An awesome Thursday would have been one in which someone else blew up the chem lab, but unfortunately this did not occur at any point during the semester, to my disappointment). We only started the actual lab an hour or so later, by which time I was just about ready to drink acid (no, not that kind of acid) to make the talking stop. After the lab, we had a week to do the lab report and prepare the next pre-lab report. The worst part of the lab was realizing that 2 of the lab teachers were students I'd started my degree with 4 years ago, who had started masters degrees, and were now grading my lab reports. Awwwwwkwaaaard. One of the guys remembered me and asked, “weren't we in class together?” I was like, “hey look, something green is bubbling onto the floor over there!”

Thankfully the lab was over two weeks before the end of the semester, so I was able to work on my seminarion then. Otherwise I'd have had to blow up the chemistry lab to gain some time. I didn't mind the research and the subject was interesting (to me anyway- those who made the mistake of asking what my project was about very quickly regretted it). It was presenting in front of the entire class, the supervisor of the class, and my project supervisor that was the problem. 90% of the other presenters in the class memorized their entire lecture while simultaneously giving a power point presentation. I do not have the mental capacity to a) remember b) think using my brain, while standing in front of more than a few people. My memory is notoriously short, and I've been known to start laughing maniacally and uncontrollably in the middle of a presentation. I decided instead, to write down my presentation and just read it out loud. I even signaled to myself when to move on to the next slide because my brain can't even handle that much. I tried to comfort myself with the knowledge that no one would be listening or paying attention anyway since my presentation was in English and happened to be the second to last presentation of the semester. The only one listening would be my supervisor and I was hoping he'd feel guilty enough for not being in the country most of the semester to give me extra points for that.

The presentation was supposed to be 25 to 30 minutes with 5 minutes or so for questions afterwards. I wanted to practice my presentation before I had to do it in front of everyone, so I volunteered my parents to be my captive audience (yes, I actually locked them in a room with barred windows so they couldn't make a break for it). The cat joined of her own free will and a friend of my mother happened to be staying over so she got volunteered as well. This was a mistake. Actually, the mistake was in not duct taping everyone's mouth shut before I started talking. My purpose in going through a practice run was to time the presentation and to read over the material at least once while explaining the graphs and tables on my PowerPoint slide. The point was NOT in having them critique the material because I knew they had no idea what the hell I was talking about anyway. I knew this because the first question asked was, “What is DNA exactly?” All I wanted was for them to sit there and pretend to listen. They could've taken a nap for all I care as long as their bodies were still in a vertical position on the couch so that I could pretend that I had a real audience.

I asked them to hold their questions until the end since I didn't really care if they understood or not but my mother and her friend proceeded to ignore my request and bombard me with questions anyway like, “wait, what does that stuff do again?” and “Are you sure people are going to understand what you're talking about?” while my father yelled at them to let me speak. My mother's friend is a professor, and I'm sure she's a wonderful professor, but they all get an F as students. At one point my mother was in the bathroom, my dad was petting the cat, and my mom's friend was off to the side doing lunges. It took me an hour and a half to finish the presentation and I was left with no real idea how long it would take to present in front of a group of students who'd be either indiscreetly playing Candy Crush on their phones or slumped over their desks, drooling.

In the end it took 45 minutes (15 minutes over schedule). I'm pretty sure 3 people left to seek medical treatment afterwards because they never returned. I sure hope they're ok. I'd hate to be the presenter that lectured 3 students into irreversible comas.

How I Spent the Summer Banging My Head Against a Brick Wall of Bureaucratic Futility, pt. 4

My favorite time of the year is not Autumn or Springtime or holiday season. No, it's the time of year when I venture forth to get my new yearly student bus pass. This adventure is always fraught with uncertainty, danger, & mental anguish. Egged has the unique talent of turning even the simplest task into a distressing ordeal. They could make a walk to the corner store for milk into a perilous undertaking, fraught with dragons and falling meteorites.

All I want to do is take a bus. Is that so much to ask for? I'm a simple girl, with simple needs. One of those being the ability to get home at night.

This year Egged decided to set up stations in various places around the city during various times where you could drop your card in an envelope in the morning and they'd return it fully loaded by 16:00. All you had to do was go to their website, fill out the online form, and give them your credit card information. Then you could leave them your card and return later to pick it up.

I decided to take care of this on Monday, as my card was due to expire on Wednesday. Sunday night I got home from work at about midnight. Even though I was about to collapse on my keyboard from sheer exhaustion, I WAS GOING TO FILL OUT THE FORM. They had most of my information from the previous year, so all I had to do was choose my area, click the option for yearly as opposed to per semester, and type in my credit card information. Unfortunately my credit card was DENIED. Perhaps I'd gone over my limit, so I changed the payment option from 2 monthly payments to 3. I clicked on send and got a loading page for a few minutes. I tried to click on send again but was no more successful the second time. I went back and refreshed the page, but this time I didn't have the option for the Jerusalem area, leading me to believe that I had already been signed up for it (according to their FAQs you can't sign up twice for the same area, so if your area doesn't appear, you're already signed up).

I didn't know what else I could do but hope the payment went through and bring my card into the bar that had been appropriated by Egged the next day. I went about my daily business, picked up the card at 17:00 before work, and went my very merry way. I had no confirmation of any kind whether it had worked or not since nothing had been removed from or added to the envelope, and there were no notes written anywhere. But I was hopeful.

I rode around the city in a blissful state of freedom for the next few days, enjoying the ease with which I could get on the buses and trains, congratulating Egged on the simplicity of the whole affair. And it only took them 4 years to get to this relative state of efficiency!

Until Tuesday night. I got on the train, no problem but when I swiped my card on the bus, the red light came up. I tried again with the same result.

“It's empty,” said the apathetic bus driver without even glancing at me.

“But I have a yearly pass! I JUST got it on Monday.”

The bus driver just shrugged and motioned me past. I looked at my watch and realized it was 12:05 am of the day my bus pass had been supposed to expire. It seemed that the payment had not in fact gone through and no one had cared to let me know that they'd returned my card without actually doing anything to it. I spent the next 20 minutes of my ride home, cursing and invoking upon them and all their family plague and pestilence.

Egged was going to be returning to the pub on Sunday and Monday of the next week with their stack of empty envelopes. It was the same deal- leave your rav-kav in an envelope between the hours of 8:00 and 10:00, and pick it up between 16:00 and 18:00. This time I paid with my mother's credit card and got confirmation of payment. I left the house at 9:00 in the morning, waited for a bus that didn't come, just missed a train, and ran through the door of the bar at 9:57. I did the entire process again and prayed for the best. I had been asked to come in to work at 16:00 but had warned my boss that I would need to pick up my rav-kav first so I'd be about 15 minutes late. He said fine, no problem, so I arrived back at the bar at 15:45. So I waited until 16:00. And then I waited some more. 16:30 came and went and the Egged staff member in charge of bringing the envelopes back was apparently still sitting in traffic a few blocks away. Of all the people in the entire country, you would think that an Egged worker would have planned for traffic. Apparently he'd forgotten that Jerusalem is a large, and very diverse parking lot.

He finally showed up at 16:40. I had my envelope in hand 5 minutes later (after the very Israeli initial mass convergence on the box of envelopes). It had a halfway illegible note written on the outside saying that my card had been put on the black list and that I'd have to go get a new one.

The girl in charge of this whole rav-kav-bar project wasn't exactly sure what having one's card blacklisted meant and the Egged guy had disappeared about 8 seconds after he'd arrived. She just looked at my face and said, “I am so sorry.”

I felt even worse than the guy who hadn't realized that he was supposed to leave his rav-kav in the envelope. By the time I got to work, my eye was twitching and people kept backing away from me in alarm.

I was not excited to go to the Egged office at the central bus station. In fact, I was the opposite of excited, whatever that may be. There was a line of students about 12 meters long (I'm not even exaggerating) waiting to get their yearly student bus pass. They seemed to be working out of 2 offices- one just for students, and one for the regular rav-kav issues. Every once in a while someone would be “chosen” from the student line to be admitted (ahead of the line) to the regular office. There did not seem to be any pattern to the choosing, but I was pulled out of the student line (after I'd finally gotten to the front) to be admitted to the regular office where I waited longer than if I'd just stayed in the other line. Figures. However, I finally got the answer to the burning question: why had my card been blacklisted? As far as I knew, it had no communist ties and was not even a member of any political party, let alone a far-left party.

The answer was... a post-it note. Apparently, the post-it note I'd stuck on it with a list of bus times had caused irreparable damage to the card and it was limping along on its last leg. This should have struck me as more absurd than it did, but the truth is, the entire process had been so unbelievably ridiculous that I just accepted this as another fact of life along with sunrise and winter snowfall.

I'm in the process now of writing a very angry letter to Egged and sending it to them with all the bus and train tickets I was forced to buy during the period I had already paid for bus pass privileges, requesting my money back. I am not overly optimistic about the chances of a refund, but I must stand up for my rights as a citizen of the free world!

How I Spent the Summer Banging My Head Against a Brick Wall of Bureaucratic Futility, pt. 3

Every year, I empty out my bank account in order to pay the down payment on my tuition (some 4,000 shekels). Then I apply to minhal hastudentim (the illustrious “student authority” for new immigrants) for a refund on my money, invariably messing up my paperwork since they've changed the system without informing me. One year, I had to bring in all of my documents in person (along with all the other immigrant students in the city of Jerusalem, creating a line that even the post office would be proud of). The next year they fired all the staff and created an email account for all the aforementioned students to scan and send all their documents to, creating an electronic backlog that took the one guy still working there months to get through.

This year, they decided to make the system more efficient and created an online form to be filled out, with all necessary documents to be uploaded. After having sent all my documents via the former method (the email address), I received an email with a link to this new form. A non-functional link to the form, I may add. The link consisted of a picture of the log in screen, but nothing happened when I clicked it. I tried again with another browser but no dice.

I waited until the next day and tried again. This time the link opened up to a box requesting my ID number. The “continue” button on the bottom led to a screen requesting my ID number, email address, and date of birth. When I filled in my details, a window popped up saying that my details were incorrect. This was perplexing to me since I'm quite certain about such details as my ID number, email address, and date of birth. There's not a lot of room for uncertainty there.

I sent an email imparting my woes and disclosing my imminent bankruptcy were this matter not to be taken care of immediately, and my money refunded to me. I got a response inquiring whether I had perhaps clicked on the link for new students as opposed to continuing students. I relayed my assurances that I had definitely not clicked on the wrong link and was quite sure that I had typed in the correct details. I received a reply a week later saying that they would check it out.

Meanwhile, I had received an email from another department of the student authority (most likely a woman sitting in the office next door to the one guy who checks the emails) that I had to do 120 hours of community service over the next year in order to receive funding for my studies, and fill out and return the attached forms in order to be placed with an organization. Which was also quite perplexing seeing as I did my community service hours last semester and as far as I understood, they would only foot the bill for 3 years. Considering that the second semester of the upcoming year will actually be my seventh semester, I had assumed that I was on my own for that one. I replied to the email, outlining my concerns and politely inquiring what in G-d's name they wanted from my life, and upon not receiving any reply whatsoever, sent another few emails along the same vein over the next few weeks before finally deciding that I had more pressing matters to deal with (the bank and class registration). It took another month or so before the coordinator actually called me on the phone to question me about my situation. She asked me if the government was financing my last semester and I told her I had no idea, since no one had kept me informed of such matters and why the hell was she asking me, anyway? She's the government bureaucrat, not me. She rang off, saying she still didn't understand whether I was supposed to be reimbursed for the last semester or not, but that she'd look into it. I'm sure she either promptly forgot or is at the bottom of a canyon in Peru, seeing as I haven't heard from her since. I did finally fill out the form and email it back to them with another inquiry about how many hours I was supposed to do if any, and whether or not the last semester will be paid for, just in case. As usual, I'm not too optimistic about the chances of anyone having any idea what's going on and getting back to me on the issue, but such is life (or at least such is government offices).

A week or so ago, I tried again to get into the link to minhal hastudentim's new and improved online form on a whim and was suddenly granted access to the mystical and somewhat capricious form. I was quite excited that I'd finally be able to fill it out and get reimbursed for the down payment to Hebrew U, until I got to the part where I needed to upload a certificate of study confirming that I'm a current student. Which I wasn't going to be able to get until signing up for classes.

That, right there, is the point where I started banging my head against the wall.

How I Spent the Summer Banging My Head Against a Brick Wall of Bureaucratic Futility, pt. 2

It's time to start mentally preparing for the beginning of the school year, which starts (as does everything in Israel) after the holidays. Need to sell your house? After the “chagim.” Need to buy a new couch, take out a second mortgage, write your autobiography, invent a new way of harnessing solar energy? Yeahhhh, you'll get around to it after the chagim. Probably.

If I don't start thinking about school now, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Sukkot are going to keep me so occupied that school is just going to sneak up on me suddenly and I'll find myself panicking the night before because I have no school supplies, haven't signed up for classes, or even paid tuition.

To be fair, I have been trying (fairly ineffectually) to sign up for classes. For over two weeks. But I have been having slight bureaucratic and technological issues. This, I'm sure, will surprise no one on this planet. Except perhaps geologists, who literally spend their lives under rocks. And yes, I just made a science pun. Deal with it.

The week before registration for classes opened up, I went in to speak to my adviser to make sure I wasn't missing any essential courses that may have fallen through the cracks when I switched majors. She noted that my major was listed incorrectly in the system, and instructed me to manually fix it upon signing up for courses on the course website.

Well, registration opened that Sunday for everyone except Natania. And the other few people who were bombarding the registration hotline, making it impossible to get through. I couldn't even sign in because my details were incorrect. According to the website, if I called the hotline, they'd be able to change my major in the system. I was told otherwise on Monday, however, when I did finally get through to a human being. They sent me to the secretary of my department, whom it turns out is only available between 10:00 and 14:00, and not at 14:30 which is when I got there. I arrived during the allotted time on Wednesday, whereupon the secretary of my department promptly sent me to the secretary of the undergraduate department. The secretary of the undergraduate department played around a bit with the computer and “fixed” the issue. The system has a lag time of 24 hours in which to update itself, so I wasn't able to check if it had worked until the next day.

The next day, I had two majors listed, neither of which would allow me into the system. This is a fairly unhelpful thing to have. I went back the following Monday to have her actually fix it this time. She typed some things into the computer, called up a bunch of people who didn't answer, and declared the issue resolved, with the added disclaimer that the entire system was closed down until the next Sunday so I wouldn't be able to sign up for classes anyway.

I was not overly optimistic that I'd be able to get into the system on Sunday. Some may call me a pessimist, but I say I'm just a realist since I was right. A few hours later, I was back in the secretary's office (which is starting to feel like home). She opened up my file on her computer and informed me that because I was missing 4 mandatory courses from previous years, I would have to repeat the second year. I just stared at her in disbelief. It would seem to me that the two times that I had done the second year would have been enough, and that doing it 3 times would be overkill.

Luckily, we cleared up the matter. Statistics I had done with the chemists as opposed to the biologists, which is acceptable though it doesn't show up in the system, and Biology of Organisms I had done without the lab part of the course as per procedure for the combined biology and chemistry major that I had started with. I had already gotten permission from my adviser to not have to repeat the entire course.

That left only 2 classes that I still need to do, which thankfully does not require repeating the second year. All I needed now was written permission from my adviser that I do not need to take the other 2 courses and the secretary would be able to force open the registration. That evening I sent an email to my adviser requesting written permission, the next day the email with written permission was forwarded, and the day after I received confirmation from the secretary that she'd unlocked the system and that after the aforementioned 24 hour lag time, I'd be able to finally register for classes.

The next day, the impossible happened! No, my mother did not eat my dad's Rosh Hashanah sweet and sour cabbage, and the Afghanis have not yet landed on the moon. I was finally allowed into the course registration site! Unfortunately, I need to take so many classes this year in order to graduate (at least 14) that there is physically not enough time in the week to take them all (unless HU has been hiding a time machine in the physics department). Not only that, but I can't confirm registration because of the two classes that I already did but which are still not listed as having been completed.

So I've decided to give up on science and instead apply to beauty school.

How I Spent the Summer Banging My Head Against a Brick Wall of Bureaucratic Futility, pt. 1

A few month ago I noticed that my credit card was about to expire in August. I was pretty sure that the bank sends you a new credit card automatically, but I called customer service just to confirm and was told that they would send it to my house by the end of August.

It was nearing the end of August and I was getting a bit anxious. I didn't want to be in the position where I was stuck without a credit card for a few days. Who can predict when you'll suddenly need to buy a plane ticket to the Cayman Islands or withdraw a suitcaseful of cash? Certainly not me. I mentioned the fact that I still hadn't received my credit card to my father and he informed me that he and my mother had received theirs a few weeks before (we'd opened our bank accounts at the same time). Well that did not bode well for my chances of receiving it.

I decided to go to the bank and talk to one of the bankers since reaching a human being through the customer service number is a painful ordeal, no matter what company (internet, phone, satellite company- doesn't matter) you're trying to get to serve you. After 20 minutes and the sum total of 3 people (out of at least 10) progressing through the line, I decided that recorded messages telling me to press a succession of numbers were not as bad as previously considered.

According to the customer service representative, my credit card had been mailed to me on July 25^th. She made this statement as if that solved all of my problems. Ah, well, if it was sent out 3 weeks ago with my parents' cards which were received 2 weeks ago, then I'm sure it's on the way. Because the post office's track record is so stellar that I shouldn't even consider the fact that it fell out of the truck 5 minutes after being loaded into the truck and is probably even now floating out across the Dead Sea or being snacked on by Bedouin camels. Thank you so much for your help!

According to her, I had to wait 20 calendar days (of which I had waited 18) and that I should call back in a few days if I hadn't received it by then. I was like, great! Looking forward to speaking to you again in 2 days!

Obviously the post office didn't magically reappear my mail Harry Potter style, so I called customer service again in 2 days and the representative informed me that he'd have to cancel my credit card and send a new one to the bank, which I'd be able to pick up in 3 business days. I raised my eyes to the heavens and let out a dramatic sigh.

“Well, if I've got no other choice, I guess you'd better do that.” Three business days fell out on a Friday (not part of the official Israeli work week), my bank branch was closed on Sunday, and Mondays I leave the house early in the morning for work, the gym, then more work. I was finally able to go back to the bank almost a full week after having my credit card canceled (luckily no spur of the moment business deals or flight from law enforcement officials had arisen). This required taking a number, and waiting for an hour watching the arbitrary letter/number system slowly tick by. My number was G104 which was called after F896, which was called after H67 which was called after G103. Most of the hour was spent listening to people try to haggle with the bankers over mortgage terms and attempting to figure out their number system (with little success). Finally, I was able to ransom my credit card from the hands of the bank, in exchange for a signature and my soul. I asked the banker if the card was a different number than the canceled card and she insisted that it was the same number as my old credit card. I informed her that that wasn't possible, since they had canceled my credit card in order to prevent credit theft. She maintained that it was the same number and asked if I knew my PIN or if she should order a new one, to be picked up at the bank in another 3 days. At this point I probably would have signed over my first born as well in order not to have to go back to that metaphorical pit of darkness so I let her know that I was all set.

At home I confirmed that the credit card number was definitely a new number, seeing as I had to change all of my online credit card information and one of my credit card payments had been denied. Over the next few days I made sure that my credit card was in working order and was quite relieved to find that I could make credit card payments.

Payday came around (yes, I'm working again, but that's a story for another day) and I was quite excited to deposit my check, having paid the 4,100 shekel down payment for school. My account was bordering on empty and in order to renew my gym membership and yearly bus pass, I was going to need funds. Well wasn't I surprised when I inserted my card into the check depositing machine outside the bank and my PIN was REJECTED. Turns out I require a new PIN after all.

I had to order a new PIN to be sent to my bank branch since sending it to my place of residence wasn't an option. This means that 5 work days later, I will be forced to return to the bank and wait for another hour, listening to people trying to haggle over their loan payments (this never works) with one of the 2 bankers present (for a population of 40,000) and attempting unsuccessfully to decrypt their number/letter cipher (which was clearly set up by the Soviets).