3 months later

Since my last entry I have rather given up on getting a job. Since my most successful job interview included lines like "do you have a degree?" (yes, it's all in my CV) "An Oxford degree? That nice, but Oriental studies... what are you planning to do with that?" (Unverbalised answer: work for you? That is, surely, why I am here having an interview at 7.30 in the morning?) She then spent about 30 minutes telling me how useless I was, and of how little value were my qualifications, and then offered me 30 shekels an hour (about £5) to be a classroom assistant. Since that was by far the best job I found, and it seemed rubbish, I decided to wait until I could speak Hebrew, so I could apply for a "real" job, or at least something less dependent on an English-speaking market.
In the meantime, I organised a wedding, started taking driving lessons (which were mostly hilarious - nobody here ever indicates, they beep before the traffic light's even turned green, they systematically stop beyond the stop lines, they don't respect car "personal space", the English part of the website to study for the theory test doesn't work and my driving instructor is *convinced* that the Americans faked the moon landings. Absolutely convinced. Just to illustrate the point, one week he asks us "if they really landed on the moon, why are there no photos of Earth from the moon? If I'd landed on the moon, I'd have taken one". Which is a fair question, so we went home, ran a google search and discovered that there are indeed pictures of the Earth taken from the moon. So, the following week we tell him that there are, in fact, pictures of the Earth taken from the moon. Do which he indignantly replies "How can they take a picture when they are on the moon? Cameras don't work there, there's no such thing. It was staged in the Nevada desert!" This would be slightly funnier if one of our fellow students hadn't chipped in "oh yes, we learned all about it at school". Really? At school? How the Americans faked the moon landings? Oh dear.
In any case, I suppose this illustrates the "frayer" mentality here. Nobody wants to be a "frayer" - which is the Israeli word for sucker, only it carries a stronger connotation. One really must not be a frayer. Which means that you must look out for yourself and assume that everyone is out to take advantage of you, and behave accordingly. For example, if you can be overcharged, then you deserve to overpay. If you are waiting politely on the pavement at a zebra crossing and have not yet put your foot on the road, well, you can just keep waiting. If you are standing at the bus stop before anyone else, but don't push your way on, you clearly do not deserve to get a seat. I have almost never seen an Israeli give up their seat for an old or pregnant person. So, to bring this back to the moon landing, I suppose our driving instructor just doesn't want to be the sucker who fell the the moon landing hoax. It belies a deep insecurity, and it breeds insecurity - it is hard, as a new immigrant, to approach everyone suspecting that they are out to profit from you.
Having said that, the lady next to me on the bus today did offer me a bit of her orange, and I suspect the only thing she wanted from me was a bit of conversation - so evidently there are good people out here too, who behave kindly without having (too much of) an ulterior motive.
Well, that's all for now.