Run like the wind

When I was a teenager I hated sports. I sucked in it too. Every sport class we had I tried to do my absolute worst.  Most of all I hated running. It seemed like the ultimate torture.  Luckily I was a skinny teenager no weight issues at all (but of course I hated the way I looked, we women are mental in this sense). Even in the army when you have no choice but to run, I really hated performing this sort of duty for my country.  In University I started to like swimming. Swimming was nice especially in a hot place like Israel because you don't sweat when you swim. During those years I hated running I had no problem walking and hiking. That was fine, hiking was always a great pleasure for me and in my teens and early twenties I walked everywhere. 

The way I feel when I run

When I got pregnant with my first child I gained a lot of weight. Over 21kg! I was so enormous, people called me "a whale" to my face. But surprisingly enough all the weight was gone with no special effort some months after I gave birth. This is a serious advantage having babies when you're young.  During my second pregnancy gaining a lot of weight was hazardous because I developed symptom of diabetes.  I needed to do sports. I started walking again and it was no trivial matter walking in the horrible weather of tropical Singapore. But it worked. I didn't get too gigantic and more important didn't get diabetes.  Then I learned that doing sports does have a direct effect on your health. I was mildly surprised.

When my second child was 4 months old we came back home and here I was back in Israel with two kids and a post-natal over weight. I subscribed to the local gym. That was a onetime experience. I spent a fortune on all sorts of classes that I disliked. Just like high-school all over again. I spent so much money on activities like spinning. What is the sense in cycling with 30 other very sweaty people and not reaching anywhere? I felt ridiculous doing that. I don't get all the machinery involved in weight lifting. These rooms full of metallic equipment seem to me like some middle ages torture basement.  I had to find some sport that is cheap, useful and doesn't require special gear. Walking was the sensible option but it wasn't challenging anymore.  So I decided I'll start running. At first I almost fainted after only 200 meters. But I hated the fact that I'm letting myself of the hook so easily. I challenged my character and own lazy tendencies. So the running distance grew. 200 meters became a kilometer. One Km became 2 and 3 and suddenly I could run 5km! I run 2-3 times a week. I am in shape. I got thinner although not as skinny as I'd liked to be. I was amazed, sports works. And you even don't have to pay for it. Just lace up those trainers and run. Nothing is simpler. I jog for several years now with some breaks during pregnancy and breast feeding.  I've run the Nike Night Run for 10km each year for the past 4 years and although it wasn't easy it was fun. And I'm proud of myself for facing the challenge.

As an aspiring runner I was delighted to read Haruki Murakami's book "what I talk about when I talk about running". Murakami is one of my favorite authors, and I learned he is also an amateur runner, but in a much higher level than I am, the guy does 2 full Marathons a year. In this book which is a personal memoir he tries to give the reader a glimpse on to what motivates him to run and to write. He writes about the first Marathon he ran that was in Greece from Athens to Marathon (the original Marathon was the other way around), he writes about running an ultra Marathon of 100 (!!!)km but not from the professional aspect of how to train and what to eat but rather what were his thoughts and how he felt during those very long runs. Most of the time you don't really understand why he runs but I think that is because he himself doesn't have a specific reason. He states in the book that he begun to run for no special reason, one day suddenly he started running and he didn't stop. I don't think I am made from the stuff people like Murakami are made of, he's diligent, hard working and committed to whatever he chooses to do either running or writing. I'm so lazy that every time I accomplish a task I feel like I finished an ultra-marathon myself. The book is very charming Murakami is a very talented writer. Now when I run I keep in my mind one of the best sentences I read: "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional". Amen.

Murakami running to Marathon

I told you I'll be back after the holidays

Hello, I'm back. Trying to find my way back to the ever growing blogosphere with my tiny blog about my tiny life. I hope my 3 readers are happy to read me.
As you can see I changed the site quite a bit. It took a while to come up with a new title but "Microscopes and diapers" is not so relevant any more. My youngest son will soon be potty trained although it will cost me a mini nervous breakdown with him marking his territory all over the house. I'm also taking a break from microscopes and going to rethink my career paths and opportunities. But I always hope and wish for rain living in this arid corner of the world. The last  summer was one of the hottest ever measured in the country and I felt like a wilting pot. I am a wintry person who likes clouds, wind, rain and snow. I adore scenery of mountains and forests. I hate the sea and detest bathing suits. So it is obvious I was born in the wrong place (Alaska would suit me so much more) but I'm trying to do the best with I have. Usually it means sleeping with the air-con on.
So, we're in the beginning of October the temp is supposed to drop and I had quit a job that made me very unhappy. The future stretches before me to fill it with words. 
Word telling stories from life, about books that I read, about blogs that I visit, about music and nature and whatever comes to my mind. Yes, lots of blah, blah and maybe an occasional gluten free recipe. The weather report talks about chances of local rain on Friday. I really hope it will rain.

Sunset in Akziv beach at the last week of August

I say goodbye

This will be my last post in this format. I need to think thoroughly what i want to focus my writing upon and to decide on some sort of message to deliver. the recent format of just telling small stories about my life seems very boring, at least in the way i currently write it. i know that i am my worst critic but if i don't like something that i do, i have to stop doing it. I'll try to figure out what i do want to write about and how. this is time consuming and requires a creative energy that for now i need to invest in my work and family. I'm not happy with the design of my blog as well so i will play with it for a while to see what suits me best.
so thanks my devoted readers and supporting followers. i hope to come back, maybe somewhere in October after the Jewish holidays.
Farewell and Bye-Bye

Happy Earth Day Everybody.

We celebrated Earth Day in Israel mostly in the dark, but I'll begin in the beginning. As a family we're trying to make our little efforts in help keeping this planet a pretty and hospitable place to us humans. Are efforts in green living are completely non-heroic and not dramatic I'm afraid, but we think that these are reasonable things that we can do. We recycle our plastics containers, glass bottles and paper. We changed many lamps in our house to fluorescent lights that are more economical, we planted trees in our back yard and on all our porches, and we try to sustain our back yard with the minimum possible amount of water and without chemicals. I'm afraid that I still use regular detergents when I wash the kids clothes, the environmental friendly washing powder is no match to the stains children under the age of 12 inflict on their clothes.
On the last week of April it was announced that Israel will celebrate Earth Hour, and some 15 cities will ask their citizens to turn off the lights for an hour, between 8 to 9PM, in order to reduce the amount of fossil fuel based energy consumed. We decided that we will make a nice family event of the occasion. At 8 PM of that evening, we turned off all the electricity in the house, including all the appliances that are usually in Stand-By mode. We lighted candles and the kids ate dinner by candle light.

When they finished eating, we sat on the sofa in the living room, with a head flash-light and read stories. It was very funny. The ambiance actually was very peaceful and quiet, as if turning off the power reduced the background noise, although we left the fridge turned on and humming the whole Earth hour. In our neighbourhood there were several other houses who turned off the lights but the majority of the people couldn't care less.

Of course we know that the effect of cutting our power for only an hour is ridiculous. We still use huge amounts of fossil fuel based energy every day. But it was fun to spend an hour with the kids in the magical light of candles and show them that once people lived like that, with no electricity. To me this hour demonstrated how very dependant we are in technology. After an hour and a half by candle light and a LED flash-light, I was happy to turn on the lights and computer.

Shutting mouths in the internet age?

Here is a link to a site that reveals all about the "National Security Threat" , hope the censorship won't block my site. Here in the media and papers they are not allowed to publish any word about it. this is infuriating. Does the military censorship thinks this is really a matter of national security? After it was published all over the world? Someone is there is power drunk.
read the link and judge:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07israel.html 

Back to blogging: My little organic garden

suprisingly i got busy. once i got back home from the course in Vienna, suddenly work begun piling up and there i was once again working, being a mom and going to sleep at 22:00 every night. so not much time was left for blogging. this left all my thousands of fans in tears, but now I'm back with this little post. i have much to say about the Jewish holiday of Passover (Pesach) and the Seder night that is a fertile ground for family drama or comedy (depends on your view of life). But since i have so much to say its totally incoherent, so i gave it up for now.
i want to write about my little project. My vegetable garden. this was part of our holiday activities since during the Pesach holidays we don't get out of the house. during this holiday every piece of national park, sea side or shopping mall in Israel is packed with families on vacation. since standing in lines and sitting in traffic jams with 3 impatient kids is not my cup of tea, Pesach is time for the indoors or rather for the backyard. this holiday we recruited the kids to work in the backyard and recover the lawn from the winter damages. The kids helped us to uproot weeds, scatter compost and plant  flowers beds. we have a very small backyard but we try to keep it nurtured. in our attempt to turn our home to an autarkic farm in the future we grow vines, olives and pomegranates. we try to make it our haven with lots of hammocks and rocking chairs and little places to hide and be surrounded by vegetation.

our house has also a huge porch that is connected to our bedroom. i know, it sounds great, and we had great plans for the place but somehow they always dissolved to neglect. the only thing that survived a year of not opening the door to the porch were our pear trees.

but i decided that this holiday we'll turn this unused plot to my own organic (no pesticides or herbicides) vegetable garden. working with mud and soil is great fun, (my two year old adores it) and i found that physical work in uprooting weeds and grooming trees is more relaxing then Yoga. the establishing of the "bedroom porch organic vegetable garden" was lots of fun to kids as well, we planted in 4 planters tomatoes, pumpkin, coriander, and eggplant.

 i think it's good to show the kids that food grows and comes from soil and mud and not from sterile supermarkets. the inspiration to my little project came from a book i recommend: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Now I'll need to be dedicated and hope that in a few months I'll eat my own grown tomatoes in the sandwich I'm taking to work. 

Fishing in Vienna (part I)

Well, it has been a while since I posted anything and my 2 whole followers are probably anxious to read about my new adventures. I went to Vienna for a lab workshop on fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) techniques in microbial ecology. The workshop was held in the University of Vienna and began early Monday morning, which meant that  i had to fly in the day before. i tried to minimize my stay because I didn't want to leave my kids for too long. So very early morning, on the last Sunday in February, i got on a plane to take me to Austria and my new adventures. The flight turned out to be quite interesting, I sat next to a real life model. She asked me to hold her hand during take-off because she's afraid of flights. she was really beautiful and skinny and wore no make-up which made it quite apparent that the perfect polished look we see in magazines is the result of heavy use of technology. Anyway, since i got to Vienna early Sunday morning  the hotel room wasn't ready yet, and i went to explore the city.

I actually got lost a bit although i had a map. i was a bit sleepy, as the flight was early morning. but i discovered the imperial part of Vienna with all the old palaces and museums.

Here is the Museum of Natural History. i will come back to it later.

And here is the entrance to the Hofburg Palace complex with the main square with all the statues.

The day i landed in Vienna the sun came out after a week of snow and all was covered with white, it was very pretty. The image of a winter in Europe i had in my mind. Coming from a hot and sweaty place like Israel the change in the weather was a blessed one. So i wondered around the city admiring the scenery and couldn't quite decide what i want to do. First i just wanted to have a look around and walk a while in the great sunny but frosty weather. Since it was Sunday, shops were closed but the cafes and restaurants were open. I'm embarrassed to admit that i went to eat a toast and coffee in Starbucks but i was a bit flight shocked and wanted to be on familiar grounds with access to free Internet.

This is the the part of the palace close to Starbucks.

During my haphazard walking i stumbled upon the site that impressed me the most: the archaeological remains of ancient Vienna, from as early as the  Roman period. This is a hole in the middle of the city, that shows what lies beneath modern day Vienna. How many layers the city has. Even though i come from Jerusalem, a city that has a history of 3000 years and an archaeological site in every corner, this hole in the ground that is a window to ancient times, was very impressive.

After my gourmet lunch i continued in the direction of the Albertina. on the way i encountered a bizarre site: camels in the centre of the city!

It turned out there was a filming crew in the place. There were cameras and lights and policemen that stopped traffic, quite cool actually, too bad it wasn't a film with any actor i know....

This is the palm house or green house of the Hofburg gardens, they now serve beer. I finally decided that i wanted to see the imperial quarters and the Sissi Museum. I've always liked lovely princesses stories and nice palaces. I took some pictures of the huge china collection the Royal family had. God, no wonder they built such grand palaces, they needed somewhere to store all this china...

After the royal tour, i went to see if my hotel room was ready. i went by foot and discovered very nice sites on the way back, like the city hall "Ratthouse" just a 5 minutes walk from the hotel.

The hotel room wasn't very big, but its was clean and warm and i had plenty of hot water in the shower.

I ended my first day in Vienna in a restaurant recommended by the hotel receptionist: "Selena". it was a 2 minutes walk from the hotel, which suited me very well because i was tired and all alone in a foreign city. it was quite an expensive restaurant but the food was great and i didn't feel mortified sitting and dining there by myself.

The chocolate cake i had for desert with a real edible gold leaf on top.

The rest of my adventures in my next post: Fishing in Vienna - the sequel.