Hi again:

Some people have told me that my last mail came across as if I am really depressed. Perhaps it is because of the hour it was written - I started writing it something like 2;00 AM. Or maybe it is because I had spent a day in Tel Aviv? The nihilism there may be a bit much for introspective Anat.

I honestly did not feel depressed. Tense? sure. Frustrated? sure.  I did want to share some thoughts and emotions with you. As I am writing this it is also 12:30 or actually 00:30 AM now ... so if this one comes out depressed as well, we may have room to presume causality; Late mails produce depressing messages? Now here's a hypothesis.  But as Dorit said - these late hours seem to be when we free up for e-mail. That is certainly true for me. Though we have to admit it is quite odd that we have nothing to do all day long.

Could also be, of course, that the situation is depressing. And I do not notice the extent to which it got to me. There may be a lesson there. Emotional contagion? Or just reality?

My insight of the day is on how life continues in spite of this war we are living through. When I was a grad student someone recommended to me and I read a book called "Earth Abides" by George Stewart. The premise of the book is that for some reason people disappear from the world, all except the author. The book describes what would continue to occur even though people are gone. A lovely book if you are looking for some good reading.

I sort of feel in this same situation. My world is pretty much stalled for the past week. But I continue to get e-mails from people in all sorts of odd places who want to deposit millions of dollars into my bank account. (They only need access to my own bank account). I continue to receive notices about this and that professional meeting somewhere in the world. I continue to get notices from various distribution lists to which I belong, like one that discusses exactly what ANOVA one should run given this or that research design. I continue to get papers to review from editors of US journals, stating very firm deadlines of two weeks away. And I continue to get messages from people in Israel but south of Haifa asking me various professional things. Mails I would receive any other day. As if everything is going on normally. But nothing in my own local life feels quite normal.

One abnormal but good thing is that my garden is flourishing. It maybe because I have all this time (in between sirens) to attend to it. I can happily report to you that there are no weeds left anywhere in it! want to drop by for coffee?

We had something like 10 sirens today ... a friend suggested to me to call this the Nasralla Exercise Program as we run up and down stairs with each siren. Today we added a new ritual to our siren routine: In addition to locating everyone in the house, taking the cellular phone, running to the shelter, calling Sheizaf's father and SMS'ing our oldest son, we now also play a continuous game of cards that we started in the first siren and we continue every time we go down.

Perhaps ironic - the game we play is called Yaniv - which was also the name of our friend who was killed on the first day of the war. In fact this is why we started playing it - in his memory. But I have been told the name came from another Yaniv who presumably invented the game, while he was traveling in South America, for long distance travels. Traveling in South America is supposed to be the ultimate freedom. Quite distant from what we currently feel.

I keep thinking about where this war will lead. whether and how it will end. Until yesterday these thoughts were framed in terms of other Israel wars. Which lead to the presumption that give or take a week or two there will e a ceasefire and things will be back to normal. Today there are some internet notices that Syrian planes and troops are ready to get involved. For me this introduced a new frame - one that I used to think about quite a bit in the past - of how did people feel before WWII erupted. Did they know this is what the world was getting into? I don't want to create panic in anyone - and do not know enough about global politics to fathom whether there are evil thought brought about by the situation. Anyone have any words of wisdom on that?

I also keep thinking about a notice in some earlier mail from Dorit, which mentioned her dog barking at a fire that a landing missle had created underneath her house. I read in some paper a request from the Israel Vets association to be kind to dogs and recognize that they sense their masters' feelings, and can feel the local tension. I am happy to report to you that Georgette - our princess of a dog who you may recall, seems to be coping OK so far. In a way this war has been good to her - she loves having us around the house as we have been for the past week. She also went into the war with a slipped disk, and was told by our vet to take complete rest. So she has been exempt from work this past week. In normal times her most difficult chore is barking at dogs passing by on the street, but no one is marching outside at these times so she has been relieved of this important chore.

I will end here. Tomorrow Technion and Haifa U formally open their doors again, but mostly to faculty and administration. Students are still formally on leave, and exams are stalled until further notice. I want to believe that this is because the heads of these academic institutions want to infuse some sanity into an otherwise ill environment. Maybe the endless talking in Academic circles will help inspire talking instead of shelling outside the academic circle?

I am not sure if I will be at Technion, however. It is exactly a week (7 days) since the funeral of our friend killed when the war started (can you believe it is only 7 days? feels like a year to me). We have a ceremony at the cemetery in the morning, and I am not sure how we will all feel or what we will do after that.

I do hope you can all get back into some work routines ... shall I be like those e-mails sent to me and remind you that you have papers and take home exams to hand in?

Anat