Day 16 - Floating

All of us in the summer program had to be up early for an 8:30 am safety training session, which not only meant that our staying up rather late together watching the Bourne Identity was not the best idea, but also spelled certain doom for our concurrent desires to shower before leaving the dorm. Now that everyone is moved in, rather than me having a huge bathroom to myself which happens not to be connected to my room, I share it with four other people (!), the most of anyone in the basement that I know of. So that was complicated.

The training turned out to be rather amusing, which made up for its relative lack of content. The chief safety officer chose to tell us cute anecdotes about hood sashes shattering from explosions and his brief period of panic during which he believed his daughter had been murdered in Costa Rica. After about an hour the mathematicians and computer scienctists were allowed to leave (lucky bastards), and the chemists and biologists remained for the most useful, and actually serious part of the lecture: how to dispose of waste. As this always varies from place-to-place, let alone country-to-country, it was necessary, and luckily brief. By 10:00 we were out in the lobby, where we had to purchase our medical insurance for the summer.

I was back at Perlman by 10:30, and met with Professor Wagner about my work so far. I showed him a whole lot of plots which revealed nothing, to which his response seemed optimistic. He told me to plot them in terms of another parameter, which I had already calculated, and then we had a bonding moment when we discovered we're both very anal when it comes to grammar and writing (it turns out we both circle mistakes in any papers we read as we go along), and we both have a secret desire to be writers when we grow up, which is more complicated in his case due to his relative success and experience in his field (aside from his being grown up, already, sort of). I think he was impressed with how much I've gotten done, but we'll see whether that actually turns into anything meaningful.

After the meeting I continued my literature search for TEM images. By the time lunch rolled around, Noa and Sari invited me to Charlie's. I called Stephen, and we met him there. We got there at peak hours, so while in line we did the basic personal history conversations. By the time we sat down, however, things had gotten more serious. A long debate over the history of Islam insued, broken up only intermittently by the cats whose territory the outdoor seating apparently occupied. As lunch wore on, the Torah and religion in general became the primary focus of the conversation. My personal theory is that Sari's presence is the cause of these deeper, probing topics, mostly because last week she began the afternoon's ongoing debacle with the question of whether or not science and religion mix. We stayed long enough for ice cream and/or iced coffees to become necessary, and eventually were joined by Noa's roommate Tali and another friend.

During all this, we unearthed an interesting quirk of Hebrew, of which our Israeli friends had not been aware previously. Stephen's friend at MIT who had studied at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) had been puzzled when, upon his arrival, people kept asking him who his "shutaf" was. This friend spoke some Hebrew but was unaware that this word, which directly translates to "partner," was in this context intended to mean "roommate." What his, and our, Israeli friends didn't know was the implication, in English, that "partner" meant "gay lover." Noa and Sari got a huge kick out of this.

After a while, we exhausted these topics and decided that getting some work done might be advantageous. Stephen and Sari kept talking, hald in Hebrew and half in English, until we had to part ways. Back at work for the afternoon, I replotted my data as recommended. Unfortunately, I still didn't see much going on.

My literature search continued until 5, when XiaoMeng called me from the microscopy building to come join her. I was going to watch her prepare TEM grids (sample holders), and the first step, coating with a polymer film, was very sensitive to vibrations and needed to be performed after most people had left for the day so there would be fewer people walking around. I am always entertained by the sensitivity of new instruments and methods. When acquiring an image on the TEM, talking will make the image blurry! I guess I'm easily amused.

< .science >

XiaoMeng floated a thin film of polymer on the surface of water in a slightly over-full beaker, then placed the grids, rougher side down, on the film. I know I am a huge dork, but I found this amazing to watch. Now we have to wait 2-3 days for the grids to dry before the next coating. My next TEM time with Talmon is next week, so they should be ready in time for me to deposit nanotubes on them for that session.

< / science >

I left work around 6:30, and reached the conclusion on the way home that it really was a gorgeous day outside. Of course my resolution to spend the evening enjoying the weather was promptly destroyed. I always sit in the kitchen to check my mail and such, but people kept joining me, and I guess I'd rather be social than outside (also sometimes outside there are ants! just kidding. except there reall are). So we chilled until around 10, when the first official KKISS rooftop gathering began. People brought beverages and cookies, and we stayed out there chatting and marveling at the bats until the security guard came and told us to shut up. I guess this really does happen every time! So we relocated to the piano/music room in the lobby, and while we didn't modulate our voices, our being indoors helped and we weren't visited again.

Our relocation also helped other residents find us, and soon there were masters and PhD students present as well. Ran and his ex-girlfriend Tali invited Jonathan and I to come walk Tali home. She's a member of the staff, and so lives near the faculty bar; showing us this place was the secondary mission. When we got there it wasn't yet closed, so Tali's roommate bought some fries, and Tali went up to her room brought down a melon (yes, very hip bar food), and we sat outside the place and munched for a bit. Evenually everyone got tired, so Ran, Jonathan and I walked back to campus (a 4-minute odyssey). I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Pictures really didn't occur today. And yesterday I wrote relatively few words. So enjoy: a TEM grid! *insert gasps of awe here*