Read part one, two and three .
Yeah, still here. But never discouraged, not me. I really believe I will find a good job, ultimately. I know it’s a long process, that takes a lot of time and patience (and strong nerves!), and which involves confidence, skills and — a whole lot of luck.
But, you’d figure a person with academic background and work experience from Tel Aviv (and not some deserted town) would find a job easily. Well, no. Work places, naturally, want the best employees available, but afraid that someone too intelligent or ambitious might not want to stay around for too long, being unsatisfied with the mediocre sort of job (“overqualified,” don’t you just hate that word?). What if a person wants to just earn some money by working in a nice place with relatively interesting tasks, alongside the somewhat boring routine administrative ones? Do employers really think that whoever studies literature, philosophy or history, for example, absolutely has to deal with these issues all day long?
It’s even more absurd when you look at the job offers especially for the same students during their studies. Noticed an ad directed to students? Bound to be one of the following: telemarketing, technical support, delivery, or security (this particular field, by the way, embracing a whole spreadsheet since it’s become in the last 5 years or so a crucial need here in Israel).
What’s the salary rate, you’re asking, paid to these intelligent young students? Not too far above the minimum rate. So, true, students may not be the steadiest employees in the long run, and may have other things on their minds during the study year, but isn’t it the same thing with any one else – be it a young person planning their essential post-army grand trip, young mothers and fathers, or any other individual who would think of promoting their career, and not necessarily in the same place? Are there any other excuses for this humiliating treatment?
But, hey, why should I be still complaining so much about this, I’m almost finishing my master’s degree already. Could it be a curse that lays upon us “students”…?
A nice middle-aged woman holds her cell phone in one hand, in the other something that resembles a small mp3-player. That’s what I can discern from where I’m standing, waiting for nearly an hour in the fancy new hospital with my father, who came for some simple medical examinations and needed entertainment. I’m sitting down in the now empty seat next to her, and overhear her conversation, in which she apparently receives directions on how to use the little gadget that is now carefully seated in her lap. 
There are currently 6 open windows on my computer. I write this now using one program, chat a bit with a friend or two on another, hum the tune that’s playing on my Media Player (whose lyrics I meanwhile look up in another window) (and yet another window opens – damned pop-ups!). Nice song, that one. But rather slow. Next! C’mon, c’mon… Gimme sth fast, sth cool, coz it’s a brand new high-speed world we live in. 
Is the cat out of the bag, or is this something most people really knew all along? Only days after U.S. President Bush met with Pakistan’s president (or is it Dictator) Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in New York during the opening session of the U.N. General Assembly, the release of the General’s book, In the Line of Fire, some very revealing details concerning Pakistan’s “real relationship” with the United States. Musharraf, who himself is not lily-white when it comes to how he became the supreme ruler of the world’s only (so far) nuclear armed Islamic country, has now made a virtual confession concerning how he had no alternative other than to ‘change horses’ and give support to the U.S. led War on Terror following the Al Qaeda planned attacks against the U.S. in September, 2001.
News from the Northern Front is not arriving very pleasantly for Israel’s population. With 12 reserve soldiers killed in a Katyusha rocket attack a few days ago, and another 15 killed Wednesday in the worst day of fighting to date, there is no doubt that lights are still on in the offices of the Defense Ministry in the wee hours of the morning – every morning. Battles being fought in Lebanese towns and villages near Israel’s border, including the alleged Hezbollah ‘terror capital’ of Bint a-Jbail, are taking a severe toll of Israel’s ‘citizen solders’ , long considered to be one the country’s most important sources of manpower in a national emergency. And with current on-the-ground realities all too apparent (especially for the country’s northern population), this is indeed a national emergency.
To the intense disappointment of thousands of adoring fans, British soft rock group Depeche Mode, announced Monday night that they had no choice other than to cancel their scheduled Thursday performance in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park. The group, whose Tel Aviv gig was scheduled as the last stop on their summer concert tour, cited the reason as due to their technical support group refusing to come to set up the necessary lighting and equipment needed by the group for their performance. Though local promoters are assuring fans that a full refund will given for tickets purchased, the issue at stake is not a matter a hundred or so Shekels; it’s a matter of giving thousands of young, and not so young people a severe let down in a period when such a concert would have uplifted spirits and helped to create a semblance of normalcy in an atmosphere that is anything but normal – even for more fortunate residents of central Israel.
The conflicts continue, but that doesn’t prevent Israel’s economic success story from abating. The revelation that one of the country’s most successful high tech firms, Mercury Interactive, is being sold to American based Hewlett Packard for the sum of $4.5 billion, even more than the purchase by Intel a few years ago of the DSP company for a ‘paltry’ $3.6 billion, is only the latest of a string of successful ventures that have created quite a stir on both Wall Street and other world security exchanges as well.
With Israel still immersed in its second major war in Lebanon, and a continuing conflict with the Palestinians in both the south and the West Bank, one bright light still shines to give people here encouragement and inspiration. That ‘light’ is the continuing Aliyah of North Americans due to a very successful program known as Nefesh b’Nefesh. Originating a few years ago, following the Second Intifada Palestinian uprising and the September 11 2001 terror attacks in the USA, 
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