communities

define irony: i just got permanently banned from the southafrica subreddit for commenting that the southafrica subreddit has become an echo chamber just like the rest of reddit. 

apparently saying that violated their community rules 😂 

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getting to ra'anana was straightforward, apparently i got lucky finding parking as easily as i did. i got a little bit lost getting to the synagogue, but i made it time to witness ru55's barmitzvah boy doing his thing. all in all it was a great being able to be there with the gang, especially as it's the first simcha for one of ze germans' kids that i've been able to attend. it was also interesting to run into a couple of my aunt and uncle's friends that i have seen in about 25 years.

the evening was pleasant. i passed out on the couch again, and then struggled to sleep once i eventually moved to the bed... i think? last night's a blur.

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today started off alright for me, but gd's neck was still in a bad way (and it still is). i got to work at a normal time, spent a little while with the exercise again, and finally sent them a message apologizing for the last week being a wash and including the following (translated):

i have to say that up close the code looks pretty clean and tidy, but without a real familiarity with everything it's pretty hard to understand how everything connects and who is responsible for what. i would be happy to sit down with you to get some guidance.

at that point i had some ideas about what needed doing, but i was missing some pretty big pieces of the puzzle. before i clicked send i thought about it, and i figured that either they'd be willing to walk me through what i needed to be able to do the exercise, or they'd reject my application, and either action would give me important information as to what kind of people i was dealing with.

well... a while later, i got the rejection message. i took it politely, but it did sting. it bothers me because on the one hand, i don't think what they set me was a reasonable task and i don't think their code is well organized enough to expect an easy onboarding. on the other hand, i'm plagued with that voice inside my head: "is it me? am i not good enough?"

i really hate interviewing.

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after lunch with my now ex-bosses i received an urgent call from gd to inform me that i needed to take mr smear to his therapist, which was very last-minute. i grabbed my gear and walked home, met him outside and bussed to the therapist. had coffee, had a chat with my insurance broker, picked him up and took him home.

walked past our apartment to a nearby park, dropped him off with his friend (chatting with his friend's mom for a few minutes), and the returned home. followed, shortly after, by the two boys.

the next couple of hours were a mix of messaging recruiters / headhunters, doing dishes and (healthy) snacking, while the kids played nicely. that went on until we had to rush to get to the school for mr smear's two parent-teacher meetings, dropping his friend off at home along the way.

the rush turned out to be for nothing, because both the teachers were behind schedule.

between the two meetings, we learned that, by and large, mr smear is doing relatively well academically and socially. unfortunately, we also learned that he's being totally uncooperative with his hebrew teacher to the point where she doesn't believe he can read 🤦

so that's a fucking thing. he's promised to start playing ball, but we'll see... we'll see...

gd wasn't up for making dinner so i took mr smear for falafel, which was a great experience. we got home quite late, though, and it was a rush to get him ready for bed in time because we wanted to log in to a private Q&A with an ex-mossad agent who was involved in captured eichmann, and was a consultant on the netflix movie operation finale.

he told us some stories that aren't in the movie, as well the fact that the doctor in real life was a man, but apparently the movie's an extremely faithful adaptation and the true story has some elements that are completely nuts, with truth truly being stranger than fiction.

the last couple of hours were spent chatting with my mom, playing a bit of inscryption (act ii), doing random things. it's now 1am and i have an exit interview in the morning and an important double interview at noon. and i'm nervous about going to bed because i haven't been sleeping well.

wish me luck.