Tales from the Holy Land: 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