Day 39 - GT (Girl Talk)

To start off with, congrats to my mom for her first ever comment on my blog (see Day 36)! Instead of a gold star, she will receive a tag. Way to go, mom! Ok, moving along.

Today turned out to be a much better one than the last. Work was more satisfying, for the following reason: while this is definitely a temporary state, I am now officially done processing every image I have taken (i.e. watched someone else take for me). This is monumental. Applause, please.

Once this was done it was time to graph, graph, graph. I added the final data to the file in my new favorite program, SigmaPlot, and while things aren't being proven conclusively, at least they now look attractive and professional. Who says I don't have goals?

I ate lunch at lunchtime (a good time for it, usually) with Sari and Noa at the Stone cafeteria, which is a dairly place at which I've never eaten a meal. It was actually rather good, and our ongoing conversation with Sari was entertaining as always.

After lunch I continued working on plots and organizing my data, and just before 4 pm I headed with Xiaomeng to the TEM to look at some tungsten disulfide "nanotubes" we recently acquired, for free. This freeness turns out to be key, because after what we saw, they can't really be called nanotubes (hence the quotation marks). For one thing, most of them are more like rods. For another, the ones that do have hollow middles have a whole bunch of crap in them that is very interesting but not really identifiable. Anyways, it was a fun session, because XiaoMeng kept finding new areas which had such completely odd-looking things in them that we couldn't help but be equally surprised at each one.

After about an hour, though, I had to go grab my stuff from Perlman and head to Cafe Madaa (literally, "science cafe"), a restaurant on campus very near to our dorm, for a summer program meeting. Greta talked briefly and then introduced us to our "scientific advisor." We learned a bit about how our final presentations will go, and looked over abstracts from last summer, while munching on fruits and pastries and sipping coffee and tea. Since we all are getting to know almost everyone in the summer program better now, it was great to see everyone all at once, and a nice break from work.

As we left for the 100-meter walk back to Clore, Zvonimir asked me to come with him to a small music shop down the street for him to purchase a cheap guitar. He wants to have one for the summer so he can practice, and he said I would be welcome to borrow it for the same purpose, so I said of course! Rachel, Dan, Jonathan, and Daniela decided to join in on this plan, so after Jonathan gave her a quick tour of Clore House (she lives with a friend off campus) we were off.

The shop turned out to be a small room and an even smaller recording studio-type room on the second floor of a building just past the police station on Hertzl road, about three blocks from the main campus gate. We barely fit inside the place once we had all grabbed guitars and started playing them. Jonathan showed off a bit on a regular guitar but he and I both had a great time with a 12-string guitar (which was a tuning test I fortunately passed). Zvonimir asked the owner to hook up an electric guitar for him to try in the small studio room, and I tried this one as well. It sounded good but even better with a pick. Maybe that's motivation for me to start using one? In any case, despite the lack of a whammie bar the distortion on the amp was very entertaining.

As this was going on, Jonathan was receiving mandolin lessons from the owner, and Zvonimir purchased a relatively inexpensive (blue, due to my request) guitar and case. Dan and I decided not to try the saxophone or clarinet on display (they both read "japanese technology" on the bottom and sat, alone, in a corner), but the owner showed me some Vandoren 5's he had in stock. The best part about them was not the dustiness of their box, nor the fact that they were actually dark brown, but the bright purple color of the plastic reed-cases themselves. He only wanted 13 shekels each for them (around $4), so I am considering returning to get one, just because.

We finally all tore ourselves away from whatever fascinating thing we'd found (Rachel had been playing an electronic keyboard, for instance) and exited the shop. The boys headed back to Clore, but Rachel and Daniela decided to accompany me on my Israeli linen capri quest. The first shop we entered had some for 29 shekels, in a lovely mauve-ish (ISH - Zvonimir's new favorite thing to say) color. They were sort of funky in the fit, in a manner I can't explain with words but will show you sometime, but I decided to go for it. The other girls browsed briefly, then we continued. We walked on Hertzl almost to the mall, our next goal a bag for Daniela. The problem with her quest was that she had a specific, and, as it turns out, nonexistent bag in mind, so we were unsuccessful.

As we walked back, we approached a Kosher pizza place and stopped for some slices. We waited for a fresh cheese pizza to emerge from the oven, then each bought a piece and sat and chatted for what turned out to be a couple of hours. At some point Iris walked by and joined us, and we had a number of great conversations, including one about the most evil biochemistry professor in Austria, climbing, pigeons and other bird incidends, keeping Kosher, falling down, getting married in Israel, trampolines, and other fun stuff. Jonathan called at some point, apparently on Zvonimir's orders, and told us about the plans for the rest of the evening. Ari walked by as well, accompanied by his friend Talia from Princeton who is also spending the summer in Israel (and was visiting him for the evening). Eventually we headed back to Clore, and Daniela went to her place to change.

Back in my room, I put on the weird pants, which I think I like, and we played a bit with Jonathan's guitar before gathering in the lobby to head to the Kukula (the bar on the Hebrew University's Rehovot campus, just down the street) for 10 shekel beer night. As we entered the campus Daniela texted me, so I told the others to go on and backtracked to meet her. The Kukula is tucked in the back corner of the campus, so it's best to have someone to show you the way your first time. We found it and the rest is history. All in all, a very satisfying day.