Oil Refineries in Haifa

My dad is in China so I'm out of drawings to post. I have to revert to photos.

This is a photo of my hometown - Haifa, Israel on a very hazy day in April when Khamsin visits it for fifty days. Khamsin is the sandy storms that come from Egypt with very hot and dry temperatures during the Springtime.

But I digress, as I will throughout this post.

Here's a photo of Haifa.

Circled in red are Haifa's Oil Refineries. Or what Saddam Hussein's intelligence mistook for a nuclear reactor.

Why? Because of its shape. Here's a closeup of our "nuclear reactor."

Okay, so I ask you intelligent readers - we have one Jewish state in the world. We have the third largest populated city in this Jewish state - Haifa. This is where all the braniacs go to study at the Technion (The Middle Eastern MIT). Knowing that Israelis value their lives, does it really make sense to any thinking human being that the Jews would place a nuclear reactor smack dab in the middle of one of the most populated Jewish cities in Israel?

Needless to say this was a big joke for all of us when Saddam Hussein shot a Scud Missile attempting to hit this innocent looking oil refinery. He ended up hitting a shopping mall that was in its last construction phases. The mall was promptly renamed Scud Mall and the name stuck to this day. If you visit the mall, there's a photo of the Scud Missile penetrating the roof of the mall and the tip of it sitting at rest at the bottom floor.

Digressing again to a true story about the Technion. For those who have never heard of the Technion, here's a brief description:

As Israel's oldest and premier institute of science and technology, the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology has been an active and leading participant in Israel's establishment and development. With supreme effort and unyielding dedication, deserts have bloomed, swamps have been transformed into fertile agricultural valleys, and sand has given way to silicon. Israel is now recognized as one of the world's most prominent high-tech innovators, and has been called the second Silicon Valley.

The Technion is pretty much the Middle Eastern MIT in many ways. Getting in is extremely difficult and graduating is just as difficult. I was one of those unlucky student thrown out after three semesters because I failed Calculus three semesters in a row (they had a rule you have to pass it on the third semester. The rule was changed a year after I was thrown out. Today you can pass it anytime within your four-five year degree). When I registered for Calculus in the US I was terrified about being thrown out again, only to find out that the level of Calculus they teach at the Technion is what is taught here at the Master's degree level. I passed it here with 100's on all my exams because it was just rehashing material from my high school years.

Due to a very lengthy process of being thrown out from the Technion I ended up studying four semesters there. Four semesters of Civil Engineering.

There was one famous story that went from one year of Civil Engineers to the following. There was a course in a third year of Civil Engineering where the semester project was to measure the height of the oil refineries in Haifa.

The same exact exercise was given every single semester to all students taking this course.

The culture of cheating at the Technion was definitely a well known fact among all students. I don't know if that is still true, but back then you couldn't pass courses without cheating. Cheating was mostly copying class projects and homework from previous year students.

Well, this one semester - all the students did their usual "diligent" work and submitted their measurements to the professor. Needless to say, everyone passed. Well, not everyone. There was ONE student who failed. He was the laughing stock of the semester because everyone else cheated from previous year's measurements whereas this asshole actually did the project the way he was taught in class. This was one of those students that wouldn't take a fail after his hard work, so he contested the grade. The Professor refused to speak to him saying he should realise that if everyone got the same measurement and he was the only one off - he's wrong. The student went to the higher ranking professors in the department and filed an official contest against his grade requesting to prove his paper.

When his case came to the board - he methodically showed everyone his paper and how he reached this measurement. Everyone was floored and an investigation began.

Turned out that a couple of years earlier there was a slight addition in height to the refineries due to complaints from the city of the air pollution caused by it. The student was right.

The professor was no longer allowed to give the same project in following semesters.

While I never did make it to this particular class, I'm still proud of myself for not cheating like everyone else just to pass a course. I just can't see the pride of graduating from anywhere knowing you cheated your way through.