Volunteers Wanted

Everyone has heard the familiar Israeli adage:
“Maybe means yes.
 No means maybe.”

I am giving an hour-long department seminar next week. I am mildly terrified to put it lightly after watching many of my co-workers descend into a panic the month before. And I’ve observed one or two of them sitting in front of Powerpoint weeks before crafting elaborate animations illustrating their experimental schemes. Animations so fancy that they can dance, play basketball, and oh you know, pipette and analyze data for you. In other words, robots.

Today I was sitting at my desk with my eyes staring into space, most likely drooling or foaming at the mouth (while mechanically consuming about 600 grams of peanut M&Ms – thanks Dad) when SK stopped by my desk. “You know, it’s so great that you’re so cool about this.” “Cool about what?” “Your seminar next week. I mean you seem really calm.” And I guess it’s true, being in a self-induced coma was a pretty calm thing to do. “I wouldn’t say that I am so cool, I am just … thinking,” I replied.

About an hour later RA breezed by with one of his three major pieces of advice about life: “Ohhhh bayyyy-beeee you don’t know what you’re missing!” (Sex… his second major piece of advice about life is that I should bring my graphing calculator on my next date and nonchalantly pull it from my pocket “because it is very prestigious” and his third piece of advice is that I should eat pork). 

Next it’s ST at my desk. “So I hear you volunteered to give the seminar next week. You go girl!!! When I heard I thought ‘Alissa is so awesome! She’s only been here six months and she volunteered!’” “Volunteered??? Who said I volunteered!?!?” “Oh, LO told me, she told everyone that – that you volunteered. I mean didn’t you?”

“She told me about six weeks ago that I had to present and I said, ‘Really?’ and she said ‘Yes’ so I said okay.” “Oh honey, you totally volunteered, then. You just need to become more Israeli. But don’t feel bad, you’re changing already, you really are. Now let’s practice you saying ‘no’ without laughing a few more times.”

“No. I can’t practice right now. I need to work on my seminar,” I say as I turn back to the computer screen keeping a straight face just long enough for her to slip out the door before returning to my usual self: a goofy American-Israeli consuming an inordinate number of colorful candies in front of a computer screen in a Jerusalem lab on a hot August afternoon. After all, I volunteered for this.