I shouldn't be up at this late hour during finals. I promise to go to sleep right after I write this!

Israel has been an irritating place the last few days (well, even more than usual), because of the two national tragedies that happened on Thursday - the terrorist attack in Jerusalem and the swap with Hizbullah. The swap is a tragedy not just because the three soldiers were confirmed dead - they were declared dead in 2001 already, about a year after they were abducted, and also, our soldiers die almost every day, and that's tragic, but not more than usual. The tragedy is the fact that this was a deal that I think will endanger all Israelis. I'm sick of Sharon. He hasn't made any real moves with the Palestinians and he has all kinds of criminal charges that might be brought against him, so he made this terrible deal to get the spotlight off of his wrongdoings. The saddest thing is that there's nobody that would really be much better than him, not on the left and not on the right. There are two people, though, that I'm sure would be even worse than Sharon - Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.

I have a feeling Tenenabaum told Hizbullah all the secrets he knows. Otherwise, he wouldn't look so good. The guy looks better fed than before he was captured! I'm sure Hizbullah tortured him at first, then he squealed, and then they figured they had all the info he knows and decided to look humane, so by the time he was released he recovered from the tortures and even became a bit chubby.

I got very frustrated today when I was with my nephew and I'm angry at my brother-in-law. A few weeks ago he decided to stop my nephew's gluten-free diet without even asking my sister. My sister believes the diet helps, since some scientists say gluten is like poison for autistic children, so the diet helps them recover. My nephew has been on the diet for about 9 months, and it takes a while for it to take effect - and indeed in the last couple of months he was absolutely adorable with a minimum of autistic behavior. We weren't sure whether it was the special kindergarten he goes to or the diet.

So a few weeks ago my brother-in-law started giving him regular food (with gluten). My sister still gives him gluten-free food, because she thinks that at least that way the damage will be less than if he stops the diet altogether (the best option of convincing my brother-in-law to start my nephew's diet again seems impossible now).

My nephew had been great even after the diet ended. But today he had autistic ticks and wanted to do nothing but change CDs all the time and do repetitive things. I haven't had such a hard time with him in months. I'm afraid the gluten kicked in (unfortunately, it took a few months for the gluten to wear off, but it took just a few weeks to kick back in). I hope I'm wrong and he just had a stressful day today and will be back to normal, so we'll have to wait and see the next few days.

I'm furious with my brother-in-law. He didn't consult my sister, he just told her he was doing it and didn't want to argue about it. He's a real jackass sometimes. In this case, while he said the diet was interfering with my nephew's life without any proof that it helps (and I don't think it really bothers my nephew at all), I think it actually bothered him that he had to be careful about what he ate around his son. That really pisses me off.

On a lighter, more optimistic note, John Kerry won in New Hampshire! Yippie! I looked into registering with Democrats Abroad to get information about elections, but then I came to the conclusion I might get more mail than I'm interested in.

By the way, Blogger just added a new RSS feed feature, so I now have an RSS version of my blog. Since I don't use any newsreaders, I wouldn't know if it works or not until someone actully tells me. It might be stupid to rely on readers when I don't know if I have any (last week was the first time a reader commented about my posts - but a one-time thing like that doesn't mean I actually have regular readers who check out the blog from time to time).

Finals are here again. I had my first test yesterday and it didn't go too great, but neither was it awful. I have a feeling it is possible I got anywhere between 60 to 85, hopefully closer to the latter. My next test is on Sunday - but even though I have a whole week without tests, I have 3 tests next week, so I have to study for all 3 this week and finish a paper for one of my classes.

The deal with Hizbullah is horrible. We're giving them more than 400 Palestinian prisoners and a few Arab prisoners from other nationalities, and we're getting one Israeli citizen who was captured by Hizbullah while he was trading in something that was probably illegal, like arms or drugs, and the bodies of three soldiers abducted more that 3 years ago. We're giving Hassan Nassrallah too much. We're making him the Arab world's most successful leader at a time when Hizbullah is losing its power (and we're giving it back to them). We should not have even negotiated with this terrorist organization - we should have negotiated with Lebanon or Syria.

Yesterday I noticed I have a weird lump on the back of my wrist. I don't know what it is, but I'm not too worried. I assume it is only a cyst - I've already had a cyst removed from my scalp about a year ago. I won't wait too long with it though. I have a lot to do (final exams are coming up) so I'll go to the doctor the first chance I get, probably next week.

John Kerry won the Iowa caucuses yesterday. I'm very happy about that for two reasons. For one thing, I think Kerry is the best candidate and has the best chances of beating Bush. Also, Howard Dean seems like an asshole to me and I'm glad he got only to 3rd place. I thought of registering to vote absentee (I have dual Israeli-US citizenship) mainly to vote for Kerry in the primaries, but then decided not to do that. Since I haven't lived in the States since my age was just one digit, I shouldn't vote in the elections (even though the president of the USA has a crucuial impact on Israel and the middle east situation).

For some reason, the last few days I've tried to publicize my blog on several sites, including Yahoo! and various blog directories. I even considered starting a new blog in Hebrew - but two blogs for one person is just too much.

The more places that link to this blog, the greater the risk of it being discovered by someone who knows me. But hey, if I get a kick out of the risk, why not? But no, it isn't that. I want people to read this. I want to get comments from readers. I just don't want them to be those who might recognize me.

Anyway, gotta read a book. Tests are coming up and I have to study for six of them and write two papers.

As a follow-up to my previous posts, and after reading an article about Israeli blogs in Haaretz, I've come to the conclusion that part of the fun of writing an anonymous blog is the risk of being discovered by those who know me. Yes, I have absolutely no readers (so I assume, since nobody ever added any comments about my posts) and the fact that I'm writing a blog in English here at Blogger.com rather than a blog in Herbew at IsraBlog.co.il, both minimize the chances of being identified. But there's still some risk in it. Maybe that's why I write in my on-line blog more often than I ever did in a regular diary - it's somewhat more exciting. That's also the reason I didn't turn this into a private blog.

I figured this out just now. All this has been subconcious until now.

Correction - he'd identify Dana, since he was present at something I mentioned a few posts back (I could say exactly where, but then I'd save you the job of scrolling/looking at the archive, wouldn't I...).

It's late and I don't feel like going to sleep. My last post about the fact that I have enough details here to be identified made me wonder if there's a chance that could happen. So I decided to look for blogs written by people from my university and see if I can identify who it is.

I found one blog that attempts to remain anonymous, but even though I don't know him that well I know for certain who he is. He's one of the new memebers of the student council and studies with me in my department. I'm not so sure he really tries that hard to remain anonymous since he has tons of information that people like me, who aren't even his friends, can identify (among other things he writes a blog in English under his real name that includes some of the things he mentions in his Hebrew blog).

So I read quite a bit of his blog, and now I feel guilty. It's the first time I've read a blog written by someone I know who supposedly doesn't want to be identified. I feel as if I've invaded his privacy. I almost feel like sending him my own blog, not telling him who I am, but at the risk of being identified by him. However, I don't think he knows me well enough to understand who I am from what I wrote here (if I'd mention another thing we have in common he might understand who I am - though I'm not that sure he'd understand which people I talk about throughout the blog - Dana, Naomi, Anat etc).

I've been trying to figure out lately whether or not I have a chance with the friend I wrote about in two previous entries. I guess I better name her now, since I have a feeling I might talk about her quite a bit - let's call her Dana. Anyway, I really like her - she's smart, funny and she looks absolutely stunning. We don't see each other much, but when we do we talk a lot, though almost never just the two of us, and not about personal stuff, we just joke around or talk about general stuff or about things we're studying. I'm definitely interested in her, but I don't know if I have a chance. But I've decided I wouldn't have ANY chance if I wouldn't at least try - but I'm going to be subtle about it. Just talk to her casually and see how it goes.

I won a pizza on the Internet. It was a very silly competition but I won't say anymore to avoid being identified (though I'm pretty sure this blog has zero hits as it is).

I just looked at some of my previous entries and I think that someone who knows me will probably figure out that it's me and more or less who the people I'm talking about are, so it's a bit silly not to say how I won the pizza (but I still won't say).

2004 is here! Happy New Year!

On Wednesday I spoke to one of those heading the new student association, and it seems it's rapidly going towards an early demise. It seems the university authorities are doing everything to kill it - they don't let us sign people up anymore on campus or even at the gate. They even threatened to bring any student who comes to the new association's meetings on campus before the discipline committee (I'm not sure if that's how it's called in English). A lot of this seems to be against the laws of the State of Israel. As far as I know, these kinds of rules are only imposed in my university and not in any other in Israel. Now I guess the only recourse is legal action by the new association against the current association and the university.

Anyway, as I've said before - I hope the new council will bring positive change as soon as possible, even before any legal action comes to fruition.