One month on...

This week will mark one month of my being in Israel. On the one hand this could easily be deemed as the longest months of my life. At no point do I think that I have ever faced so much stress, anger or sorrow. In a lot of ways I feel like I have mourned for the life that I once had. At the same time, I look back at my time here and I realise just how little I’ve done, seen, achieved.

My time here in Israel is short and I know that I have never seen this place as somewhere I would live – no, perhaps live is too strong – exist for a while, whether that be as a stepping stone to something else or not. In some of my more liberal-minded thinking moments I see my time here loosely as a gap year. Somewhere to explore a little, somewhere to meet people but never to lay my hat. Perhaps this explains why I still feel like I have not unpacked yet, a feeling very different to homesickness. After all, the nicest hotel in the world ultimately still feels like a hotel, somewhere to lay one’s head but not call home.

In a way, almost everything I do here feels like a double-edged sword. So far I’ve thrown myself to working and generally keeping busy to such an extent that I do little more than eat a simple meal, sleep and leave in the apartment. This has had the advantage that whilst a mind is busy it is difficult to dwell. Of course the disadvantage to such things is that with a busy mind and a busy life, no time is allowed for much joy.

After a month of being here I have reached a level where I am either proficient enough, confident enough or simply do not give a sh!t enough to just go out and speak to locals. Last week I even attempted the various delicatessen counters at the local supermarket. Granted I made a slight tit of myself for reasons that I now understand¹ but I was willing to make the effort. Perhaps I just really needed cheese, perhaps a life of isolation is terrible the world over.

The sad thing is that just as I reach a point where I’m about ready to make my first tentative steps into exploring the big bad world by myself and getting lost in the markets of Tel Aviv before heading further afield I find myself still restricted. As it turns out, a doctorate from the UK is one of the most elaborate processes in the world. The research is done, the thesis is written (mine is to the tune of 300 pages), the thesis is read and defended in front of a panel of experts. This panel ultimately decides the pass or fail and seemingly in most countries around the world that would be the end of it. However, good ol’Blightly decides that the expert panel can decide to impose corrections or even additional experimentation as it sees fit. Officially, I received a pass with corrections of an academic nature – essentially what everyone receives, the bulk of the thesis is fine aside from typos and a few other things. My panel wished to see a few experiments expanded upon, a couple of figures redrawn to show different things, a couple of discussion points to be expanded. At the time I nodded along and mentally noted that what was being discussed would take about a focussed working week to sort out. I managed to put in two days before I left, wanting to have as little as possible hanging over me whilst starting a new job.

Since then I have put in every weekend I’ve been out here into it. This takes my actual time on corrections at around the 11 days mark. I suspect I shall require another 2 weekends on it, taking me close to 14 days spent on corrections. Assuming of course that when I submit the corrections that they are accepted as of a sufficient quality and cover all that was requested.

This crazy work load, on top of my already full time job means that from leaving the office on Thursday night (remember the Jewish working week) if I was not asleep I was working on the thesis and didn’t leave the apartment or see another soul until this morning back at work. It’s enough to make a man go crazy.

Mostly it’s frustrating. I’m now in an exotic land and mentally sound enough to say to hell with it all. With a phrase book, a good pair of boots and a credit card there isn’t much I couldn’t get myself out of. Instead, I’m shackled to a small desk, the glow of a computer screen and the smell of burnt coffee with a feeling that I’ll never escape the confides of that university in the East.

I know that things will improve. Eventually these corrections will be done. I shall have some time again for myself which is not snatched between subsisting and sleep.

I also know that I kid myself. I’ve never allowed too much time for myself, for the little things in life. There’s always something bigger or better to be getting on with. Sitting around, whilst sorely needed, is wasted time. The duality of my brain. Prepared to slave myself to death in the delusion that when I do I’ll deserve the time off.

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