Ok, I really promise that I'm going to stop just linking to silly things that you could all just go read yourselves without having to journey all the way to my blog, but I just couldn't resist this one. Because it's not so silly as it is freakin' awesome. Kiyoshi Amemiya is my new hero. Especially when, halfway through the article, he says this: "I have no business with the military," (oh, just go and read the article, it'll all make sense.) Anyway, more slapstick and hilarious Israeli stories to come...as soon as they actually happen. To me.

If anyone is wondering why Nigeria is the toughest place in the entire world, have a look here. It doesn't get any tougher than pet hyenas.

Pictures of kids sledding in Israel are viewable here. (for a limited time...but come back and visit my photos anytime.)

I blog this not because I think it's sad that this lady seemed to think that eating a durian made her deserving of some sort of medal, but beacuse she actually paid $34 US dollars for one. wow.

Just had a look at a very interesting photo essay of american soldiers that were wounded in Iraq over at Mother Jones. And I came across this quote from 21 year-old Sam Ross from Dunbar Township, Pennsylvania: "It was the best experience of my life. Twenty-one years old and I've seen a couple of countries. I've been pretty much everywhere and done everything...I got to interact with people of another culture, people who live their lives 100 percent different than the way we live here. That's something that one in a million people will ever get to see in their lifetime—another culture." (the rest of the essay is here.) And it really made me stop and think. I've been lucky to travel a bunch and meet a whole lot of people from a bunch of different cultures. And overall I guess my feeling is the exact opposite from his. I feel like I've been almost nowhere, and done almost nothing, and I've interacted with people from different cultures and found them to be pretty much the same as me. It's a funny feeling I guess. The more I travel, the less I know. And while I feel closer and closer to people from all corners of the earth, I start to feel more and more distant from people back home. Interesting.

Beautiful day today. Blue sky and sun and warm and birds singing and lizards scampering and Israelis all out for a stroll and a shop. I had to go down to the shops to pick up a few things and on the way there I went through a little pedestrian tunnel under the busy street. And there, under the busy street, was a little man playing a little accordion. A jaunty little tune made all the more jaunty by the wonderful acoustics of the tunnel. Very nice.
I made a point of going back the same way I had come just so I could listen again to the little man's jaunty accordion tune and when I rounded the corner and entered the tunnel, there next to the jaunty little accordion man who was still busting out the jaunty little accordion tunes was a small, broadly smiling woman, shopping in hand, dancing away.
My day made, my spirit lifted, I continued on, back into the sun and up the hill, shopping in hand, dancing away.

Ok. Sick update (for those of you who are overly concerned): It seems I am no longer sick. Or pregnant. Both of which are a relief to both me and my father. So, that's that.
Other than being not-sick, I spent my weekend shooting some video for a Dr. Martin who, by all reports, is so mind-numbingly rich that he wants for nothing. When asked how it was that he was able to open a brand new research department at Oxford University he replied simply: "I paid for it." Ha ha.
And so, while filming for the wealthy doctor in Akka, a town across the bay from Haifa, we came across a bunch of kids "sledding" down a dirt hill on large pieces of cardboard (or not, as the large pieces of cardboard tended to stay at the top of the hill, even as the kids continued to the bottom while the hard packed dirt ripped through their pants and took the skin right off the palms of their hands. weeeeee.)
Now, having spent my formative years in Canadia, mystical land of many hills and much snow, I feel I am somewhat of an authority on sledding. In fact, the hill behind my house when I was in elementary school was generally considered one of the best around, attracting some of the best sledding talents of my generation and then nearly killing them. (I still shiver uncontrollably while recalling that ill-fated trip into the ravine involving six people, a giant inner tube, and me; from top to bottom, in that order.)
And I must say that those kids in Akka really inspired me. It was great to be reminded that kids the world over will continue to carry on the fine tradition of finding ever-new and more ridiculously stupid ways of injuring themselves and their friends, snow or not. (pictures to follow).

I had to go for an ultrasound last week.
A super-ultrasound.
In celebration of "Ryan gets a super-ultrasound Day".
It was the latest tactic prescribed by my doctor in the on-going search for evil dictators who are living somewhere in my body. Who dictate that I must be sick.
The directions for my super-ultrasound were as follows:
1) Drink a lot of water.
2) If you think you've drunken enough water, you are stupid. Drink more.
3) Waddle up to the hospital while being sure not to spill any of the precious water that is now filling your bladder.
4) Wander around the hospital that seems (for once) to be filled with bathrooms. Everywhere you look there are bathrooms. There are not, however, any super-ultrasound rooms unless you think to look behind the door that says: Cat-scans. This is where they keep the super-ultrasound machine.
5) Sit in the waiting-room until your bladder is "really full". If you think your bladder is already "really full" you are stupid. Wait some more.
6) Go into the little room with the nice lady who keeps "forgetting" that she speaks english and after asking you nicely to open your pants, walks behind you and snaps her rubber gloves while giving you directions in russian. Do not panic. Super-ultrasound machines can smell fear. Besides, you may pee your pants.
7) Lie down on a table and let the nice lady cover your stomach with what you swear is mayonnaise that she just, one second ago, took out of the fridge. Try not to pee your pants.
8) Continue trying not to pee your pants as the nice lady uses the Super-ultrasound wand to prod your bladder. At this point you should not, under any circumstances, think about water balloons.
9) To take your mind off of the impending "accident" that you're about to have, trying having a little fun. Ask the nice lady if it's a boy or a girl. She won't get the joke, and you'll feel silly, but not as silly as if you had just peed your pants.
10) Get up, wipe off the mayonnaise, go pee.
11) Continue peeing.
12) (see number 11)
13) Go back to see the nice lady who will then scan your kidneys and send you home.

Doesn't that sound like fun? And as a bonus I now have pictures of my bladder and kidneys. fun. The camera just loves my right kidney. You can all see them as soon as I can find a scanner.
And the best part of the whole experience? According to my results:
"The kidneys are of normal dimensions and location. The relationship between
the cortex and the parenchyma are preserved.  There is no evidence of
hydronephrosis nor of pathological calcification.  The urinary bladder was
well viewed and its boundaries are normal.  The prostate is of normal
position and echogeneity."

So it looks like my cortex and my parenchyma won't be breaking up after all! Isn't medical science-love beautiful?

So.
Well, I was sick for a while. And then I was better. And then I was sick again. And now I'm better.
Anyone out there seeing a pattern here? Anyone guess what I'm going to be in a few days? Points for the people in the back that said "not your tip-toppingist".
And just because I'm insured here in Israel (and who says my non-paying job has no perks?) I went to the doctor. After explaining my gross symptoms that I will not be sharing at the moment, out of respect for people and their lunches, the doctor took my temperature, checked my vitals and had me pee in a cup. Then he sent me on to another doctor who also took my temperature, checked my vitals and asked me to pee in a cup (both the first and second doctors spoke delightful english. I was glad). The second doctor also ordered me a round of additional temperature and cup-peeing tests at the clinic up the road. So I wandered on down the street, trying desperately to fill my bladder so I could pee some more.
When I got to the not-so-english-speaking clinic the nice not-so-english-speaking lady at the desk handed me a little sterile cup and said: "You. Pee-pee. Here." Along with my little cup, they handed me a little sterile towelette ("for clean." clean what I wasn't entirely sure, but I made good use of it.) and a little bag with the word BIOHAZARD written across the front in GIANT yellow letters. Trust me, it's not easy to make friends in an Israeli medical clinic when you're carrying around a bag that screams out BIOHAZARD to passers-by. People got out of my way. fast.
So I took my sterile little cup and my sterile little towelette and my (presumably) sterile BIOHAZARD baggie into the horribly filthy bathroom that not only contained a jillion normal bathroom germs, but no doubt contained all sorts of freaky health clinic germs like the bubonic plague. And the last known case of smallpox.

And here's a side note about Israeli bathrooms: See, in North America, if someone built a bathroom and upon finishing the bathroom they noticed that the door didn't actually open all the way because the toilet was in the way, they would tear it all apart and rebuild it. In Israel (and most other places I've been for that matter) they would simply cut a giant hole in the door. Problem solved.

And so, I took my little pee-filled cup in my little BIOHAZARD baggie back to the nice not-so-english-speaking lady at the desk and headed for home. It was a big day. But really nothing compared to the next day, which was: super-ultrasound day (coming soon).

So, the Baha'i fast has started. So no more eating whole boxes of Tim Tams in the middle of the afternoon. Now I have to wait until after the sun goes down...
But it's nice to get up before sunrise and have a nice breakfast with the Ugandan room mate and then walk up to the office nice and early. This morning, aside from the disease ridden cats and shuffley-footed elderly Israeli ladies walking their shuffley-footed sidewalk-soiling dogs, were, in the middle of a brilliant blue morning sky, three little clouds that looked just like this: l i l

I had a few inquiries about Tim Tams. They're the best. I just wish they came in smaller packs so I wouldn't have to eat them all at once and make myself sick...

Was sick.
Am better.
In celebration of both me being better and the impedning Baha'i fast, I am enjoying a box of TimTams in my office in the middle of the afternoon. You should all do the same.