Day 13 - Feeling very touristy

Stephen and I stayed up rather late last night planning our trip, but it was very worth it. We got up early and met in the kitchen for breakfast at 8:15, then headed out. We stopped at an atm on the way to the mall, which also happens to be the central bus terminal in Rehovot. We caught the 435 bus to Jerusalem.

An hour later we emerged in Jerusalem's central bus terminal. How exciting! We found a way out of that place, which also happened to be a mall, to find ourselves on Yaffo/Jaffa street, which happened to be what we were looking for. Stephen and I each confirmed that we were going the correct direction in different ways. He looked at the numbers, which he knew should be decreasing, whereas I looked at the sun. Oh man.

So we walked. Soon we found ourselves at the Machanei Yehudah, a shook (market) that is relatively famous. We of course went in! There were fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, and all sorts of clothing and kitchen shops and stalls. I bought two buns, for a shekel each (roughly 33 cents), then Stephen and I both bought some dried fruit. He got dried kiwis, which are his favorite fruit and which turned out to be delicious. I got apricots and golden raisins. After some more wandering we found a kitchen store and each bought a set of silverware, because the stuff we share at the Clore kitchen is sort of gross, to be honest.

After a few turns we ended up back on Yaffo, so we continued. I found a camera store which sold a small device to connect my lens cap to my lens, which was very useful, and we browsed in a few other shops which sold everything from Judaica to scarves to housewares. After a bit more walking, we found another familiar spot: Ben Yehuda Street. This is a very touristy street off Yaffo, to which both of us had been on birthright but which we detoured down anyways. We were half expecting to run into a few birthright groups, but sadly did not.

Back on Yaffo, we soon unexpectedly reached the Jaffa gate. For those of you who have never been, Jerusalem is a relatively sprawling city, but the religious or most historic district, known (creatively) as the Old City, is located within the smaller, walled portion, access to which is restricted to several gates, of which Jaffa is one. The Old City is made up of various areas: the Jewish, Arab, Christian, and Armenian Quarters. The Jaffa gate lets you in by the Armenian Quarter, but as we walked further, into a market, we eventually reached the Cardo (literally, the "heart") which led to the Jewish Quarter. Stephen then got a call from someone he had facebooked late last night; an Israeli who lives in Jerusalem and who will be starting at MIT in the fall.

We walked back out of the Old City to meet him, and then went to lunch at a very yummy Italian place. I had goat cheese and eggplant ravioli, which were delicious. We then walked around in the vicinity of Yaffo street some more before heading back to Evgeny's car. He drove us back to the bus station, where we got some cold drinks and then waited for the bus. This last bit turned out to be much less boring than we might have hoped. After trying to hold our own in a sweaty, small mob to get on our bus, we were informed as we were about to board that it was full. We thought it was the last one back to Rehovot, which would have been a crisis as Stephen had planned to be back for shabbat services. Luckily another bus pulled up. Unfortunately since we had finally gotten to the front of the mob, we were relegated to the back of this new mob. But after a few minutes we got on, and both of us promptly fell asleep until we reached Rehovot.

We were both feeling really gross and still groggy as we trekked back to campus, but on the way Ben called (!) and we chatted briefly. After eating dinner and showering, I felt much better. Joel and I made a 2-block excursion in the hopes of renting a movie from the machine-thingies, but upon discovering a) the machines were entirely in hebrew and b) there was nothing we really wanted to see, we returned to the dorms and proceeded to watch the end of Lost in Translation and the entire Vanilla Sky on TV for free (and with no risk of accidentally renting porn, which our other movie-watching method wasn't free of). Now bed. Tomorrow promises to be exciting!

Pictures of today...first, Machanei Yehuda...

...where there were baked goods and other delights.

Stephen and I don't understand the Israeli fascination with Crocs,

but they must be popular for Naot to imitate them...

Me in front of a Medieval map/work of art depicting

"the world" on a wall at the former cite of Jerusalem's municipal center

Outside a coffee/spice shop along Yaffo St.

In the Old City...

...you can buy not only scarves but old brass items!

And Stephen, once again confused

(but this time with regards to organic chemistry graffiti)

Day 12 - What IS math research? No, seriously...

I got to sleep until 8 am today! There was nothing to be at work for before 9 am, so I got there at (gasp) 9:05! It was nice. I used my newly acquired key, because for some reason no one was in yet. The entire morning was spent processing images, mainly the ones I took with Talmon (the TEM expert dude) yesterday. I got most of them done (17 done, one AWESOME one left) and went through the other ones, which XiaoMeng took (something like 25 or so), to see if the ones I haven't used left could be used for other categories. If you are wondering what on earth I am talking about when I say I processed images from the TEM, have no fear. At the end of this entry I'll post some TEM pictures and explain it in layman's terms.

So around 1 pm, I went to San Martin, a meat cafeteria on campus, to eat. I was alone, but I ran into Ran (the guy who took us salsa dancing) and a friend of his, so I sat with them. As we were leaving, we ran into Doron and Jonathan, and together they all convinced me to come to the math building at 3:30 for their daily cookie/coffee break.

I worked on the images for another hour-ish, then headed over. Joel was also there, as well as Anna, a Russian girl, and someone else whose name I don't remember, both of whom are also in our program and who I think got here relatively recently. We chatted and munched for about a half hour, then I returned to work.

After a few more images, I started compiling and plotting my data. So far it is telling me close to, but a bit more than, nothing. I hope to meet with my professor next week to discuss it, brief him on my method, and see if he wishes me to continue this way. Towards 5, I got bored and did two chapters in the hebrew book I ordered from Amazon (I am borrowing Stephen's copy until mine gets here, because I wanted to get started). I left at quarter of six.

On the way home I called Nina, who I had met climbing, about a supposed pick-up soccer game. She said there was indeed one scheduled for 6, but that she wouldn't be there; Germany was playing in the UEFA Euro championships at 7. She said that to get there, we just needed to walk along the main road on campus, past the accelerator, and eventually we'd see people.

As I was leaving, I ran into Ari, also hoping to play soccer, and Jordan, who was heading there for the ultimate frisbee game. It was a bit of a hike down the main campus road, but we weren't late. The soccer people were mostly very late, so we all warmed up by playing ultimate frisbee with the frisbee people. Eventually someone arrived with a ball. We retrieved the goals from the bushes, assembled them, recruited one person from the frisbee-ers to make the teams even, then played a bit of 4 v 4 for about an hour and a half. As the frisbee people left, some came to play with us. As night fell and we were finishing up, we were up to 6 v 6. Once it was too dark to play, we put away the goals and began the walk back.

Ari and I, being brilliant, had not brought water. We walked past the dorm and off campus to grab liquids (water for me, this awesome mango stuff for him) from the convenience store across the street, then decided to grab some food. After trekking to a schwarma place only to find that it was closed (by this time it was around 9), we backtracked and got some pizza. They also had gelato, but we went next door, where the gelato looked yummier. Ari got lemon; I tried this caramel stuff and HAD to have it, and got triple chocolate as well. It was ok, but the caramel was to DIE for.

Upon our return, I discovered the night's bruises and showered. Then there was a chilling/computer-using party in the kitchen; Stephen, Jordan, Tamara and I checked e-mail and played each other musical selections. Guess whose music wasn't very popular? Well, me and Jordan, actually (not just me, those of you reading this who think my music is weird - I'm looking at you, Ben). Anyways, we made some weekend plans and then I went to bed.

So below, the first picture is double-walled carbon nanotubes, and the second is a multi-walled nanotube. What I do is measure the wall thicknesses, and also the inner radius of the tubes. I have developed ways of automating the process, because as you can imagine from the second image, as the number of walls increases (some of my images are up to 24 walls), the task becomes overwhelming. Both of these images come from the website of our nanotube supplier, NanoLab.

Day 11 - "Oooo Trendy"

This morning was another early one. When my alarm went off I felt very fuzzy, even after my shower and a bowl of cereal. I got into the lab before 8:30, which was not really necessary as it turns out because I was the first one there and I don't have a key yet. I waited for other people to open doors for me, packed up my freshlly dry TEM samples, and headed over to the microscopy building.

I arrived at 3 minutes past 9 to meet Talmon, the TEM expert who I will be watching as he acquires images from my samples. We worked our way through my 5 samples, three of which I had made yesterday, over the 4-hour period. Sitting in the dark was really not good for my continued sleepiness, but luckily (or by pharmaceutical design) I did not drift off. It was a close thing, though.

At 1 pm we stopped, I thanked him and left. I went back to my dorm to grab a flash drive, stopped for a quick bite, and returned to work. I processed more images from last week until around 2:30, when I returned to Talmon's office to retrieve the files from today. I won't have to do this again once I have a folder on the server, but that won't happen for a day or two.

Once I returned to work, things were tough. It was really warm in our office, and no one else was at their desks. I was having an incredibly hard time staying awake. Since I got in at 8:30 and stayed late yesterday, I felt it wasn't so bad to leave at 4:30. By some miracle I made it back to my room and collapsed, also somehow managing to set an alarm so I wouldn't sleep until night and wake up at 4 am.

After my alarm woke me I made some pasta for dinner. I made a brief stop at the grocery store for yogurt and laundry detergent, just in case I ever locate the person from whom I need to buy laundry tokens, then came back to the dorms. I decided to chill out tonight instead of going salsa dancing; I was still very tired. Stephen, Joel, Ari and I talked and eventually watched a few episodes of The Office ("Product Recall" and "Safety Training," for anyone interested). Then I finished this entry and maybe I'll study some Hebrew before bed.

Oh and before I forget. The best thing anyone has ever said to me about carbon nanotubes, or materials science, or science in general, occurred last Friday as we were eating at the hummus-only establishment in Tel Aviv. We were introducing ourselves still, and talking about what we were working on this summer. I said I was in materials science and working with carbon nanotubes, and Stephen, who is in organic chemistry, goes, "Ooooh. Trendy." I don't know if the hilarity comes across in text, but I seriously love a group where CNTs can be considered "cool."

Enjoy some random pictures from last Friday in Tel Aviv, since today was very photographically uninteresting. The last one is the tallest building in Israel!

Day 10 - My Dream Home

Yesterday was very busy! Got into work around 8:40 because we had a group meeting at 9. Everyone went around the room, briefly stated their project, and talked about recent successes or problems, and their progress in general. It was a great way to review names, because Professor Wagner said each person's before they spoke. Then Patro, who is almost as new as me, gave a brief talk. He got here almost a month ago to work on his post-doc, so he presented for about 20 minutes on his PhD, which he did at IIT (the Indian Institute of Technology) in Bombay.

< .science >

I was actually able to follow along! His PhD explored and compared the stiffness and electrical conductivity of silicate clay nanocomposites, which was really cool because the papers he referenced for his background (these awesome people at Toyota) were the same ones I used to write a paper on this subject for my polymers class last year.

Basically silicates are layered structures with layers which allow proton exchange, which is promising for conductivity applications. He explored different clays and polymers, and the effect of processing temperature on each combination in terms of modulus. He also cleared up for me something I had been wondering for a long while (but which Professor Wagner asked before I got a chance): the definition of intercalated silicate layers. Nanoclay clumps aren't useful; complete exfoliation occurs when clay layers are separated by multiple polymer chains and no longer really retain periodicity. Intercalation, however, happens somewhere in the middle and has always seemed to me like a fuzzy definition. But according to Patro, it is a periodic structure with at least 5 layers where the period is larger than that in the original clay. I learned something! Which was good because by the end of the talk I was in way over my head.

< / science >

So that was the morning, mostly. I also got on the computer and processed all of the single-wall and half of the double-wall nanotube TEM images, then went for a quick lunch with XiaoMeng. We ran into Joel at the cafeteria, but refused to move and made him come to us :)

After lunch, I prepared some more TEM samples, then at 3:30 went to Charlie's (a dairy cafeteria on campus) for a meeting with Greta and the other kids in the program. It was great to meet everyone! I knew about half of the people from chilling in the basement, but some I had seen but not introduced myself to. We are fruit and pastry thingies and chatted until we all realized we should probably go back to work. I returned around 5 and worked for a solid hour and a half before leaving.

When I got back, I burned a CD of music for Nitzan, then went to wait for him to pick us up at 7:20 to go climbing. Us was Nitzan, me, Ran, the Australian dude Dave, and a German girl named Nina (who is new to rock climbing). This week we went to the bouldering place in Tel Aviv.

It. Was. Gorgeous. The holds were wonderful; rough, not sticky, clean. The routes ranged in difficulty from V0 to V6, and the map which showed them gave the rating and color, most of which I could read! There was a cave in the corner. I knocked off all the V0s and a few V1s while giving Nina a few tips. She was really good, and I think she wants to come climbing again.

We climbed until just before 10, when the place closes. I didn't want to leave, which Dave said meant I didn't climb hard enough. I didn't. I could have climbed for another 2 hours. I love this place! Nitzan was like, "I mean, bouldering is fun, but it's not climbing." And I was like, "But it's my favorite! It's like candy!" And he goes, "Exactly. It's like candy. But it's not food." Looks like they're still gonna teach me to lead next time we go back to the other place, which should be a lot of fun.

Got back to Rehovot then grabbed a burger with Dave, because neither of us had eaten in a while. We watched a soccer game which was going on and discussed his love of extreme sports (adventure racing, kayak water polo, etc), then returned to the dorm.

I chilled in the kitchen, blogging and beginning to work on my hebrew! I am borrowing Stephen's copy of a workbook thingie until mine arrives. It should be good.

The bouldering gym is pictured below; the guy in the cave is Ran. I am off to work. Enjoy!

Day 9 (June 9) - I guess they have stalkers here, too

So I am about a day behind. Let's review. Yesterday was rather uneventful. I woke up sort of late (around 11), got mobilized, and caught a bus/taxi/shuttle thingie to Tel Aviv. Since the buses and trains don't run on Shabbat or holidays, it's the only way to travel cheaply on these days, and you can get one at any bus stop in Rehovot. Also, I didn't really plan this journey ahead of time, so when it let me off at the central bus terminal in Tel Aviv, I didn't really know how to get where I wanted to go. After walking for a bit through the sketchy but slightly populated part of town, I reached a sort of abandoned industrial area. Luckily another shuttle thingie came by and I acquired the information that it was beach-bound.

I got off at the coast and wandered a bit, taking pictures, chilling, and doing a bit of shopping. Unfortunately, most of the stores were also closed for the holiday, so it was rather unexciting. When I sat down to take a break from the busy day of wandering, I called mom and dad and we had a lovely and well-timed chat until the restaurant I was unwittingly sitting in asked me to order or leave. I left.

The most interesting story of the afternoon begins when I was taking a picture of a cool, multi-colored building. A dude was walking by and thought I was photographing him. He came over and we started chatting, which was nice and fine because I like making friends. We sat down at a cafe but soon got up in favor of a convenience store, where he got a coke and I got water. After some time, I realized he was getting sort of the wrong idea, so I started mentioning Ben a lot. When this didn't work, I told him it was nice to meet him and shook him off. My very own Israeli stalker! But not really. He didn't follow me. But I guess this stuff happens.

So I bought some postcards, took the shuttle back to the Tel Aviv bus station, and grabbed a shuttle back to Rehovot. I had a great shower and then caught the end of "My Super Ex-girlfriend" with some people in the TV room. I made some chicken (using my new and untested pomegranate syrup) before returning to watch "The Devil Wears Prada." People kept joining in, so afterward we had an awesome chat which included such topics as how every building at Brandeis is called Shapiro, and other fun stories.

Below, some pictures of umbrellas at the Tel Aviv beach, and the building which started it all:

Day 8 - Holiday

Woke up early for work. It's a half day because Shavuot starts at sundown, so I wanted to get some stuff done. Worked a little on writing a script in Origin to do what I want, then gave up and began doing it sort of by hand.

Around 1, when everyone was gone, I decided it might me ok for me to leave as well. Noa was just leaving too, and she invited me to her grandmother's for dinner with her family! She warned that it would be tight, but said I was welcome. She came with me to help pick out a bottle of wine so I had something to bring, then we set up a time to meet so I could grab a ride with her parents and her.

Until then, I chilled out in the dorm, where there weren't any people so I got bored out of my mind. At one point I went and bought an ice cream, and sat outside and enjoyed it as I watched people go by. I came back after the bugs started to annoy me to wait out the rest of the time.

Noa wanted me to be at her place just before 6:30, but I had no idea how long the walk might be, so I left at 6, which turned out to be plenty of time. I got there early and came up to wait. I met her roommate and got to see her apartment, which is huge! Soon we went back down and got in the car. I met her parents and sister, then we drove to her's grandparents' apartment.

I met the rest of her family as they arrived. Her grandparents, uncle, great uncle, cousin and his two kids, and another few cousins. Dinner was dairy, and therefore delicious. I can't even describe to you the dishes we had, mostly because I don't know what they are called or what was in them, but I will say I was stuffed before the second half of the food started coming out, let alone the three courses of dessert. Everything was staggered so as to let you digest, but all it did to me was reveal my poor consumption planning.

After dinner we chilled in the living room for a bit, and people gradually trickled out. We left around 10:45, and Noa's parents dropped me off right outside my dorm (Noa lives just down the street, and not far, as I discovered earlier).

I changed into jeans once I got back to my room and then went in search of people. I found Joel and Jonathan at the third bar in the row of bars a block away from Beit Clore. The music was very loud but was an interesting mix of Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Rage Against the Machine, Ludacris, Kanye, and others. After a bit it turned into a (smoky) dance party. All in all, a good way to end the night.

There weren't many picture-taking options today, so enjoy pictures of the cat that haunts the dorms!