A Day in My Life

by Mel Rosenberg - מל רוזנברג

After fruitful careers as a scientist and inventor I've gone back to what I love most - writing children's books Read More

Joined Oct 2013
Published Books 1485

Today is March 11th, 2014. When I was a young boy, I wondered whether I would be alive in the year 2000. I thought that if I were indeed alive, I would be very old by then (49 years old). It’s now 2014 and I still feel young. I like to get up early. That helps me stay young. That, and having a day job, or two.

I leave the house at 7:15, and pick up Ran and his girlfriend, Anna, at 7:20. Today I was a few minutes late. The Canadian inside me says “Shame on you for being late”, but the Israeli inside me says “No big deal”.

Ran and his girlfriend, Anna, a sweet pair

They are a sweet pair. Anna gets off at the north train station, on her way to do her master’s thesis in chemistry at Tel Aviv University. I once studied chemistry and blew up a lab. I don’t do that any more.

After we let Anna off, Ran and I can talk about man things. I offer him a chewing gum, telling him it’s an act of friendship, nothing to do with his breath (which is fine anyway).

Ran and I arrive in Holon before 8 a.m., avoiding heavy southbound traffic. We also find great parking, near the Holon Institute of Technology, where I have worked for over two years. My new job is “Head of the Center for Innovation”. It sounds like an important job, but it’s not important enough for me to get a parking space inside campus.

I have a small office, but prefer to sit with Ran in the “big office”. The big office is the cafeteria in building five. We like to sit there. My students come and go and say hello.

It’s early, and the cafeteria is empty. Time to order coffee. We get great service early in the morning. The coffee is okay too.

After coffee, I get antsy, so I do a morning tour of the campus. I go to my real office in building three. It is a small office with a lot of junk. I have to clean it someday, but not today.

In the middle of my office, skinny Jeff Pulver is waiting to say hello. He has been in my office since the BirdBrain Un-conference last week. He is always smiling, always happy to see me.

Jeff lost a lot of weight and is very skinny. But this Jeff is very, very skinny, being a cut-out of Jeff. But a full size one. We don’t skimp when it comes to Jeff.

Jeff and I take a selfie. It’s comforting to know that I have him around on a day-to-day basis.

Across from the big office at HIT, there is a huge black wall for magnetic graffiti. I tell people that it’s the biggest wall in the world for magnetic graffiti, and so far no one has argued with me. Nofar Barkow comes once a week to make a really cool design, and then people come and ruin it. And make their own.

During the day I get to meet inspirational people. One of them is Dr. Michal Sela. She is in charge of so many things that I am lucky to meet with her. She once was a dentist and decided that she didn’t like it. I was never a dentist and never liked it. But I like her. Sometimes she smiles at me. Yesterday she scolded me for doing something wrong. I apologized. She forgave me and smiled at me. I spent the rest of the day apologizing to people.

I apologized to Yifat and she smiled at me. She didn’t get off the phone, though.

I asked Amos whether I could accompany him on his course to Barcelona in September. He said nothing, so I apologized. He smiled. I guess I’m not going.

I told Limor that I would accompany her next week on the piano when she sings at the Woman’s Day celebration. I asked her whether I would be allowed in. She smiled.

The design faculty of our college had an exhibition called “Ugly”. The design students tried to make ugly things. I am sure they tried, but most of them ended up making beautiful exhibits. It’s hard to do ugly things when you’re a design student.