erev yom kippur

Here it is, Erev Yom Kippur (Yom Kippur eve) and also a Friday. So no extra holiday for workers this time. Yom Kippur is the only day of the year when I can count on my neighbors NOT having rowdy guests for dinner on their balconies, since the whole country's supposed to be fasting. Whether they really do or not is irrelevant. Probably 50% actually do, and that includes the otherwise completely secular. I make no pretense of fasting, but do try to keep cooking smells to a minimum just to be considerate of those who are.

YK also means no car use, so people are pretty much confined to their neighborhoods, and many take long walks when they're not napping (or going to synagogue).

My father-in-law had prostate surgery earlier this week and is leaving the hospital today, so we'll be taking a trip into Tel Aviv to get him home before coming back and settling in for our "confinement". Traffic pretty much disappears by 4pm and we'll have the highway to ourselves.

Around the same time, the Israeli tv and radio channels go off the air until the end of Yom Kippur (probably 27 hours or so), so the non-religious always descend on the video stores to keep themselves entertained. Last night we went to the local Blockbuster (there's only one in our town, plus a small branch of another chain) and found it mobbed; the shelves had already been emptied of everything but a few straight-to-video titles I'd never heard of. And that's a well-stocked store.

I was delighted yesterday to get a call for a job interview. This was from a company where I'd submitted my CV twice in the past month, so enthusiastic was I at reading the job description which sounded like a perfect fit:

Responsibilities: research, organization of knowledge, and construction of custom solutions and tools. For native English speakers only!
Requirements: Native English · B.A · Strong organizational and methodological skills · Experience working with MS Office tools Advantage: · Background in language related fields (Linguistics, Technical writing Journalism etc'). · Excellent Internet research skills; experience in search engines and information retrieval. · Experience in taxonomy planning and building. · Strong communication and collaboration skills to work with people from a variety of technical backgrounds. · Knowledge and experience with SQL and Access

Ok, so I know nothing about SQL and nearly nothing about Access, but that's what the Internet is for! I've already downloaded a beginner's course. The first time I applied for the job, it had already been filled, but then they advertised it again, so I sent an even more emphatic email, and this time they called. I'll be going in on Sunday for the first part of their screening process.