Day 27 - Wasting time in virtual spaces

I woke up this morning to the lovely sound of Ari knocking on my door at 12:15.  He wanted to get lunch, and kindly granted me 15 minutes in which to get ready.  I showered, got dressed, and grabbed my stuff in only 12.  It was apparently very impressive.

We ran into Clay in the lobby, so waited 2 minutes for him to put away his stuff so he could come with us.  Ari wanted to try the dining places on campus, but all the subsidized ones (Jubilee, San Martin, and Charlie's Place) were closed.  The restaurant at the Visitor's Center was open, however, so we decided to eat there.  We ran into Zvonimir having some coffee, so he ordered another one and hung out with us.  After a bit Ari left a bit early to catch his train to Haifa for the weekend.

When we got back to Clore, I chatted with Carina (!) for the third time in four days, or something ridiculous like that.  It was great!  Carina, if you are reading this, I am waiting for that report...it's due on my desk by MONDAY.

Anyways, Anya came down to the kitchen to find me.  It was time for our shopping date!  We walked along Hertzl Street, stopping in any shop that held the possibility for cute summer dresses, the objects of our quest.  The first place we entered turned out to be the most promising, but since it was fist, we tried on oodles of stuff and then moved on.  We found ourselves empty-handed, until we found some cute and cheap socks at one of the places along Hertzl.  As neither of us had brought enough, we both got three pairs.  We worked our way down all the way to the mall, but by the time we reached it, most things were closing.  The pharmacy was still open, though, so I bought an ace bandage.

We were both glad, after the walk back, to reach air conditioning.  As we parted, the protocol to exchange some sort of contact information was fulfilled in that Anya told me she was now on facebook, and went up to her room and friended me.  Oh the joys of facebook.  

I went down to grab my computer, and ended up joining Zvonimir in the lobby.  Asaf had called me when we were out, asking about my ankle and wanting to exchange some music.  So I called him back and told him we were chilling in the lobby.  I put a bunch of stuff on his thumb drive, and we sampled some Dane Cook, because he had mentioned a love for Mitch Hedberg.  Of course this launched a YouTube visit, because Dane Cook is better when you can see him.  And this one video precipitated an entire afternoon spend watching YouTube videos.  It was amazing.  We were joined on and off by Dan and Jordan, and later permanently by Joel, but our core group of three spent some embarrassing number of hours showing each other clips from comedians, imitators, Christopher Walken reading The Three Little Pigs, and other amazing stuff.

Asaf had a hankering for a hamburger, and since we had seen Nina, Dave, and a bunch of others heading to Hertzl Bar, we decided to go change and join them.  We sat, Asaf and Zvonimir ordering hamburgers, and were joined by Asaf's friend Amir.  I got edamame (steamed soybeans in the pod) for the table, which were a hit!  Somewhere in the middle of the meal Asaf decided we needed to call Nitzan and Yaron, but only had Yaron's number.  I, therefore, called Nitzan, breaking our no-call streak and ruining both our hopes for Beijing.  He said he could come in about an hour, so we finished up our meal and went back to Clore.  Joel broke out some tasty beverages and we chilled for a bit.  Eventually Nitzan showed up, as well as Yaron and Rotem, his fiance.  Iris also hung out with us, which was great because she will be a sophomore at Penn this year, so we have lots we can talk about.

We left Clore, at which point Yaron and Rotem headed home.  Our intention was to head to the Irish pub near Hertzl Bar, but our hopes were dashed when they didn't have a table large enough for the group.  Another place had a 35 shekel minimum per person, not appealing to those of us (*raises hand*) who would not be consuming two beers.  So we returned to the old standby, Hertzl Bar, where we got a large enough table and weren't forced to order a preset amount.  We got more edamame, too.  It was a banner day for soybeans.  

After sitting and chatting for a couple of hours, we all went back to Clore and from there some went their separate ways.  All in all, a good day.

For those of you with picture cravings, 

enjoy one of Anya and I shopping...

Day 26 - TAKE!

I hit the snooze a few times today, and made my morning preparation quick enough to still get in to work around 9.  Again, more image processing, blah blah blah.

I met Tanmay and Tamara in the square for lunch, and on our way to Jubilee we ran into Jordan, who convinced us to accompany him to San Martin.  Now, the thing to know about this place is that it is meat and all you can fit on your plate, which I don't think I ever take full advantage of.  Today, therefore, I got a pita, with the same meat stuff in it, for almost half the price, and I think I will repeat this in the future.

After lunch I returned to the lab and continued my processing.  Around 5 I found out that climbing was happening, and called Jonathan to tell him.  Soon after, when I left, I ran into Jonathan and Ari walking home, but had to let them go when Nitzan asked me to talk to his friend, who's starting a post doc at Penn in the fall, about apartment hunting in Philadelphia.   Ben called me towards the end  of this conversation, so I left and walked to an ATM as I talked to him.  I got some moolah and walked back, and finished off my conversation before going looking for Alissa.  I couldn't find her, but found Yoni and called Asaf (as Nitzan requested). This was all rather stressful for me, as the plan had changed a few times, but it all ended up ok, even though I'm sad we never located Alissa.  I knew Nitzan would be disappointed as well, as bringing some sort of "hot girl" was the condition for me being allowed to ride IN the car (as opposed to riding a skateboard off the back.  Oh that Nitzan, what a joker).   Anyway, we met Nitzan around 7:30 at the gate, and were off.

We went to the big climbing gym.  I led (and finished!) the green route that had been giving me trouble towards the end of last time, and started two new lead routes (an orange one and a yellow one).  The orange one was slightly too challenging and I couldn't get past the first 5 moves, but the yellow one was really interesting and not too bad, and I made it to the third to last move on the first try.  The second to last hold, though, gave me troubles.  I tried it about a dozen times and then decided to save it for next time.  Asaf got a brief belaying course, and he and Jonathan tried various top-roping routes.  I somehow dislodged a contact, and was advised not to put it back in my eye, so I was half-blind for the remainder of the evening, during which Nitzan obviously attempted to show me how to lead belay.  It was educational, but I want to try it much more when I can actually see and have depth perception.  

Eventually we moved over to bouldering.  This place doesn't have routes marked, so you just try stuff, or point with a big broom handle to the next hold to challenge your climbing buddies.  Nitzan kept giving me routes that were....well, challenging would be a major understatement.  It was almost torture, and I kept failing.  This combined with my earlier troubles on the yellow climb made me really frustrated.  We took a break for ice cream, then continued, and I came off the wall and sort of twisted my ankle.  This seemed to be a sign that we were finished, so we packed up and left.

When we got back, I hung out with Ari and Stephen, and tried to play guitar a bit.  Verdict: guitar experimentation is not the best idea after an exhausting night of climbing (and therefore finger exercise).  Thought you all needed to know this.

Anyway, enjoy some pictures of various signs.  The first three are from Jerusalem, the last two from Rehovot.

This is an electrical box...

A shop on Ben Yehuda Street (a very touristy area)

Sbarro in Israel

This is for Joe Coyne.  I hope he's reading this.

If you took out that dot, this could say LOL.

This is for Marje, who I also hope is reading this.

It says "Puzzland;" it's a puzzle shop.

Day 25 - Radially symmetric invertebrates

Work today was spent mostly processing images, adding the data to my growing excel file, and adjusting the plots to include the new points. The trends I'm seeing aren't changing shape, but the standard deviations are becoming smaller, which is nice. Yay for large sample sizes!

Exciting things today included lunch with XiaoMeng, her friend, and Asaf at San Martin and the math department cookie break, which I crashed because my eyes were starting to water from all the image examination. I went to Ran's cubicle at 3:25, then headed over to the lounge with him at 3:30. Apparently there was no hot water for the coffee or tea, but Jonathan had gone up a floor to get hot water for his tea, so he slurped it extremely loudly for the entire half hour I was there in an effort to inspire jealousy in the other warm drink seekers. I went back to my building to get my camera, then came back to Ran's cubicle room to record the contrasting images displayed below. Before leaving, he gave me a gift: a small porcelain figure of a fighter in purple robes wielding a yellow bat. His explanation was that he used to have twelve, 6 on either side, but someone took one from the other side so I was helping him re-achieve symmetry. I said I'd borrow it for the summer, for my unadorned desk.

After work, I went back to Clore to grab a bathing suit and towel, then met everyone in the San Martin parking lot. We all got on a bus for our first official KKISS trip, to the beach at Ashdod, also a huge port city. I sat next to Erin on the way there, which made for some interesting, and rather politically charged, conversation. We got there in about a half hour, and after helping deposit all the food in a central location, most of us headed to the nearby beach and took a dip. The water was warm and there were waves, but there was trash in the water, and many of us received minor jellyfish stings (except Claudia, whose sting was slightly worse than minor). I swam with Lisa and learned the basics of her life story, and helped prevent her from exiting the water with makeup dripping down her face. We got out and everyone photographed the group and the sunset. I met and chatted with Maria, a relatively new member of our program, after we examined a huge jellyfish which had washed up on shore. Finally, we headed back to the food, where Greta was finishing the grilling.

We ate pita, salad, cold cuts and grilled hot dogs as we dried off. Greta had told us this would be a "light meal," but most of us were stuffed by the time she brought out the fruit and marshmallows. Someone had assembled a pile of dry wood on the other side of the beach before we arrived, which was then lit as soon as darkness fell. Many of us headed over to the bonfire to dry off and attempt to roast the marshmallows. The latter task proved challenging, but eventually we rigged a system by which we insterted our small wooden skewers into the tip of a much longer piece of scrap wood, so that the marshmallow could reach the fire without the person wielding it having to get too close to the fire.

Eventually we headed back, grabbed the leftover food and dry goods, and packed up the bus. I sat with Lisa on the way back. When we got back to campus and unpacked the bus, I noticed that the driver had a bed and clothesline underneath the bus. Innnnteresting.

We walked back to Clore and as everyone wanted to shower, there was quite a backup. I hung out with Stephen and Jonathan as they got ready to go out; I was still undecided as to whether I'd join. Alissa and I watched the remainder of the Germany/Turkey game, and she decided to go to bed. I showered and was on my way out of Clore when I ran into Stephen on his way back. We decided to get an ice cream, and at the convenience store struck up what ended up being an hour-long conversation, in Hebrew, with another patron. The best part, though, was that I think I understood a good portion of it! Eventually, I reached the point where I was tired enough that I had to leave. As soon as I got back to my room I went to bed.

The whiteboard in the cubicle next to Ran's:

observe the math content

Ran's whiteboard:

observe the pirate ship, mountains, desert island, and pokemon

Left to right:

Tamara, Ivonne, Lisa, Anya, Andre, Claudia, and Maria Magdalena

Jonathan, before the application of the idea to use a longer stick

Ari and Zvonomir

Tamara, Joel, Lisa and Alissa

Erin with the spare meat some random dude gave us

And when my mind wanders...

Something awesome that occupied me for a bit longer than it should have at work this week:


I made this using wordle with the text from a project description my supervisor sent me my first day. I have to thank Mara for the tip, which I found in her blog (about her summer research in Japan). Endless, pretty entertainment, espeicially for those of you at desk jobs this summer...

Day 24 - And the winner is...

Woke up early again today (but not as early as yesterday) to get to the lab and grab my samples before meeting Talmon for a TEM session at 9 am. We worked until 1 pm and I got some great data, but we only looked at 3 samples! Not only did we get a lot of images which are perfect for my processing, but we found some really cool-looking nanotubes, one of which can be found at the end of this post.

Anyways, I had missed lunch again, but Anna had texted me during my TEM session about grabbing some food, so I called her on my way back to the lab. She said she'd grab a cab to the front gate, so I dropped my stuff off and went to meet her. She was literally stepping out of the cab as I got there, which was great timing. We walked about two blocks down so I could get some delicious falafel, and since Anna had been sort of snacking all morning, she just grabbed some sorbet. We chatted about a whole range of things, including how when people (/boyfriends) reliably go the extra mile, it's hard not to get frustrated (although it's totally unfounded) when they fail you that one time (in this case, not putting a lactaid pill in Anna's wallet for her because she always forgets), roommates and messiness, and other random topics.

We re-entered campus through Clore house, and as we approached my building ran into Doron wearing a sort of cowboy hat. We chatted for a few minutes, but it was too hot for more, so I went to work, Doron continued towards the cafeteria for his late lunch, and Anna went in search of internet so she could practice chess openings on her laptop. Hopefully we'll get together again before she leaves on Tuesday!

I began processing the new TEM images in the afternoon, and left around 5:30. I changed into climbing stuff and blogged/etc in the Clore lobby until it was almost time to go climbing. I had organized a train trip to the bouldering place in Tel Aviv, and ended up accompanied by Tanmay, Tamara, Michael, another guy from soccer, Jordan, and Jordan's friend. We left at 7 but missed the 7:16 train by about 30 seconds, so we hung out to wait for the 7:38 one. From the Tel Aviv Hahagana stop, we walked the 10-15 minutes and arrived at Performance Rock. It's not a huge place, and Dave, Nina, and her two friends from Germany were there waiting for us, so Weizmann people might possibly have outnumbered all others.

I showed everyone the beginner routes and gave some tips to those new to climbing, and eventually started working on some new stuff with Tamara, which was really fun. Towards the end of the night we made up a really interesting traverse route, the last move of which neither of us could manage. It was a successful trip. We left a bit late to catch the 10:12 train, and the next one was at 11, so we went straight to the central bus station and practically filled a shuttle back to Rehovot. Some interesting religious discussions occurred during the ride back, which will be discussed another time, and I tried to listen to both simultaneously.

When we got back, those of us who hadn't eaten yet grabbed some pizza and then returned to Clore. There was a group of people chatting in the lobby, which was fun but which eventually turned into a smaller, summer-student version of the gathering relocated in the kitchen. Stephen, Joel, Ari, Jordan, and even Jonathan brought their laptops out, and we had an amusing time. Highlights included showing Jonathan his first ever complete episode of The Office ("Diversity Day," for those interested), and a major overhaul of my blog tagging system to correct the many omissions of Joel tags, one of Jonathan's, and the revision to organize the "Labels" sidebar by label frequency (not in alphabetical order), to facilitate competition among my friends here for "most tagged." It was very dramatic but now that it's easier to see who's winning, I feel sure people will hang out with me more just to be mentioned here and then consequently labeled.

Work pictures today...an unusual coil-shaped nanotube!
"DANGER: Laser Radiation" (edit)

Day 23 - Butterfly, bionanointeraction, bar chords

Somehow I got roped in to waking up at a little before 7 am so that I could meet Asaf in the Clore lobby at 7:05. We left together on the long-ish walk to the recreation center on campus, during which I came to the realization that I had forgotten underwear in my room and goggles in the United States. When we got there, I followed Asaf in, and luckily wasn't questioned as to my membership (because I don't have one). He showed me the pools (indoor and outdoor) and we chilled for a few minutes until XiaoMeng showed up. Asaf also asked if there were goggles I could borrow, and was given a pair from the lost and found. They were actually pretty nice!

We let XiaoMeng choose which pool, so she chose the outdoor one. We walked down the hill to the poolside, put on some sunscreen, and got ready to get in. The lifeguard gave me a hard time about the fact that I had no swim cap, but there was nothing I could do about it so he let me swim "just this one time" without one. Our arrival drove the really slow old ladies into the deep end (no, really), and we began with some breast stroke. Asaf eventually moved to freestyle and I began alternating, and after a little while I demonstrated some butterfly. We swam laps for about an hour, and then went to another part of the pool and practiced flip turns for a bit.

Asaf and XiaoMeng went to the locker rooms to shower and change, but my lack of underwear motivated me to walk home for a shower. Upon returning to my room, I unpacked my bag and discovered that I HAD brought underwear. Of course.

I made it in to work around 9:40, and did some number crunching until 11 am, when I joined Noa and XiaoMeng for a talk on bionanointeraction. Our joke is that the three buzz words which get any grant are nano, bio, and cancer, so 2 out of 3 were in play. I think it was interesting, but I forgot to take my Provigil so I missed most of it. We got back to the office around 12:45, after the normal summer student lunch assembly time. Instead I accompanied Noa to a hummus place across Hertzl Street from the gate, where her roommate Tali and her friend met us. It was very yummy, and I had so much left over (I got hummus with lamb) that I stopped by Clore House to stash it in the fridge before returning to work for the afternoon. I decided to go to the library instead, so I wouldn't monopolize an office computer for my data processing. But I was so sleepy that around 5 I went home for a brief nap.

When I woke up, I found Ari in the kitchen and we tried to share my hummus leftovers, but after a few bites realized that the few hours since its preparation had made it disgusting. He then left for his soccer game. I did some catching up on my blog and such and hung out in the kitchen. Jordan wanted some dinner and I wanted ice cream, so we went out and both got some. When we got back, Ari had returned after a second consecutive week without a soccer game and convinced me to do some laundry. We put in a load and joined Jonathan, Jordan, and Zvonimir in an alcohol run. The liquor store was closed, but we found a convenience store, and got some drinks and snacks.

When we got back, it was time for the party! There were people in the piano room chilling, chatting, and, later, passing around Jonathan's guitar and showing off their skills. After an hour or two I snuck up to the roof to join Dave, Nina, her two friends from Germany, and a few others others in the christening of Dave's new hookah. There were tea candles everywhere, casting a small amount of light on the gathering, and bats flying in and out of the trees. It was really surreal, sitting, inhaling apple-flavored smoke, listening to Dave and Nina talk (quietly because the group was small) about their weekend trip to the West Bank, Jericho, and Bethlehem as we passed the hose around.

I eventually rejoined the downstairs group for some more guitar-playing. Odelia, the girl we had met on the train back from Tel Aviv when we went bouldering last week, had come to the gathering, so it was nice to chat with her a bit more. Tanmay and Zvonimir were looking up guitar tabs on his iPod touch and playing new songs, and as the party wore down and things got quieter, it was nice to actually hear people sing as they played.

We cleaned up briefly then went back downstairs. Ari and I had a great chat, which Jonathan eventually joined, before we all got tired at around the same time and decided to call it a night.

Pictures today: Asaf in front of the pool at the rec center

No steaming hamburgers allowed!

Day 22 - Climbing makes me so happy!

Sunday wasn't the most exciting day at work. I ate lunch with Tanmay, Clay, Tamara, Lior, and Jordan at Jubilee, and got to hear other stories about weekends in Jerusalem. In the afternoon, I made 5 samples for the TEM, including single-walled, double-walled, and multi-walled nanotubes, and left them to dry for the night. Once I was finished, I sat with Noa and chatted as she did tensile tests on her epoxy/nanotube composite samples.

As we talked about various things and examined her samples, Nitzan called me to let me know we'd be climbing tonight. I asked if there would be a space for a friend in the car, and he said no. So about 10 minutes later he called back to tell me there was a space, and I told him I'd call a friend and call him back to let him know. About 30 seconds later, before I had even had a chance to decide who to call, Nitzan called me again to inform me that the spare spot was only in one direction. Of course. I laughed and told him I didn't have any friends who wanted to come climb and then stay there FOREVER, and he said we'd be back, it wasn't a big deal, they'd only wait about a week. So before hanging up I asked if my spot in the car was both ways. "Nope, only 1/4 of the way," he replied. "We'll drop you off halfway there." Har har.

After a few more of Noa's samples, I called it a day and headed home. I caught up on some blogging and changed, then went to wait for Nitzan. Yaron and Dave joined me sitting just inside the gate, but of course Nitzan was waiting with the car just ouside the gate. After a few minutes he texted me: "?" Very pithy. So we found him and got in.

Yaron drove there with Yael, who is relatively new to climbing. We met her once we all arrived there, and I gave her a refresher course on belaying. We all rotated and belayed each other. I gave her some tips as she climbed, and she belayed me on a route I had never done before which was challenging but really interesting and which I think was very technical. Nitzan belayed me on my first two lead climbs ever (!), which were very exciting because I wasn't clipped in to the top rope as a backup. The first one I did was a relatively easy climb that I had done before, and it was totally fine except for a momentary panic halfway through when I forgot about the leading and wondered for one brief, shining moment where the heck my rope was. Luckily I suppressed this emotion and had a good climb. It felt pretty good!

After a few more climbs and belaying, Nitzan had me try a slightly harder climb on lead. It was new as well, so I had never tried it. I think I led well, but I really liked the route. I got to yell "take" for the first time ever, which felt peculiarly natural. I took a brief rest at that point, and when I reached the top and clipped in, Nitzan had me take a fall so I knew what it felt like on lead. It was...frightening, and he told me after I had reached the bottom that it was a bit longer a fall than he had intended. Oh wonderful :)

Throughout the evening I also watched Yaron finish this problem which had been torturing him for a while. He almost finished it twice before his third, successful attempt. It is a ridiculous overhang, and the clips are oddly placed and make foot placement hard, but he did it! Nitzan also finished some crazy routes, then had me try to lead one last climb. I made it halfway up and took a spectacular and unplanned fall. It didn't scare me that much, but the next, short one did, mostly because it was caused by a foothold rotating in the wall and had me near the adjacent wall. After that I came down.

We bouldered a bit, which was nicer than usual at this place because they had rearranged and replaced a bunch of the holds, so there were some clean and nice ones. The place was closing, though, so we had to leave. I gave back my harness and noticed the ice cream chest was gone. The dude behind the counter said I could go to the back and choose a popsicle, which is what I wanted, because I had exact change. I chose one that was pink-and-white diagonally striped, which turned out to be bubble gum flavored. As we walked toward the car, I was informed that the plastic stick was filled with bubble gum! This was an exciting discovery, and in the car on the way home I did my best to blow an epic bubble but mostly just got gum all over my face.


We dropped off Yaron and our other passenger, then Nitzan, Dave and I decided to go get some late dinner near the "science park." The place we ended up, called "Tuk Tuk," served sushi. I got sweet potato/vegetable sushi and a special containing cucumber, shrimp tempura, Swedish cheese and salmon. It was delicious. Nitzan shared a story about the worst thing he's ever consumed, which I won't recount because it still scares me. But it was an entertaining meal.


When I returned, I noticed that Jonathan and Stephen's light was on, so I knocked and entered. Both roommates were awake and relieved to see me alive. They hadn't seen me in a while, and said that when they checked my blog and saw that it was three days out of date, they were almost seriously worried. Jonathan had even written on my wall! He said if I hadn't responded in a week, he would have actually texted me. What a good friend. Anyways we chatted a bit and then I went to bed.


Here are some more pictures from the weekend, mostly from the shook in the Old City: