Day 52 - These days keep getting better

Today began with coffee at Madaa, as usual, and a quick stop by my lab to grab samples before heading to the TEM to meet Talmon. I decided I needed more data on functionalized tubes, and we tried two samples that before hadn't yielded much data, just in case we had missed something. Turns out we had! Talmon found great areas of both samples and I have tons more data now. Not that I need it or anything, but it's always great to start the day with a really good TEM session. The best part, though, was towards the end, when Talmon goes, "I havea crazy idea..." Turns out that even though I'll be leaving soon and it doesn't make that much sense, he thinks I should tag along with Patro for the TEM course he's giving, just for fun! I know it seems really dorky, but it will be fun, and I walked back to Perlman with a huge grin on my face because of this news. It starts next week. Yay!

Anyways, we ended slightly earlier than 1 pm, so I was able to grab some money and meet almost the entire population of Weizmann summer students for lunch at San Martin. Naming them all would be ridiculous, so suffice it to say it was a good meal.

Back at Perlman, I did a lot of thinking in the afternoon about my project as a whole: have the basic questions changed? Have I found anything out? What can I make of this data? I started making a powerpoint and writing down some of my thoughts, and hopefully I will catch Professor Wagner in the next few days to discuss everything with him.

I worked pretty late, then headed home to change before grabbing a train to Tel Aviv. I got off at the Hashalom stop, which connects to the Azrieli Center, a complex of three buildings which also houses a relatively large mall. I shoppped for a couple of hours, then met Itamar near the food court. We had sushi for dinner, and I gave Itamar a few lessons on how to use chopsticks. With practice, he'll be a pro soon. When we were done eating, we went out to this courtyard on the third floor of the mall to check out the view of the buildings. It's a really cool-looking complex; see photos below for more detail. Finally we walked a bit down the street and caught a bus to take us to the beach area, where our destination was the bi-weekly jam session at a bar called Mike's Place.

We found some seats with an iffy view of the stage, which was at this point empty. Pretty soon, though, a drummer, guitarist, bass player, and keyboard player got up and played a few songs. The lead guitarist is apparently the coordinator of these jam sessions, because after the group played three songs or so, he asked who else in the audience played what instruments, and assempled a completely new "band" on stage to play a few more songs. This process repeated itself, shuffling through the musicians present. Exciting guests included a very hippie-looking soprano sax player, a tenor sax player, and a violinist/fiddler; I saw a trumpet player on deck but he didn't get on stage while we were there. Towards the middle some seats were vacated; we took them and found ourselves with a much better view of stage.

All of the ensembles were great! Some were louder than others, and Itamar and I preferred the slightly softer ones, because then we could hear the wind instruments. Two guys played the harmoica, and were both excellent. Itamar and I sipped Goldstar and just listened.

Slightly after midnight, we decided to wait for the current set to be over, then head out. We had to walk a bit to get back to the stop for the sherut I was planning on taking, so we took off our shoes and walked along the edge of the ocean, past at least 4 groups of kids smoking hookah and playing guitar (or recorder). I guess it's the latest trend. As we approached, my sherut back to the central bus station was filling up, so I said goodbye to Itamar and got on. Once there, the Rehovot sherut was empty when I got on. This disheartened me, but within 5 minutes, seven more people boarded. I was still marveling in the magical ability of sheruts to fill up when you need them when I took a brief and accidental nap, waking up a half hour later to find we hadn't left yet. So much for that theory.

Soon after I woke up, though, we were on the road. Back at Clore I found Stephen and Jonathan's room was the party spot; Daniela and I sat and listened to Jonathan and Stephen attempt to prove to Joel the existence of electrons from basic science and first principles. A few other discussion topics came up before we all about simultaneously decided to call it a night.

Today you get more pictures!

The Azrieli Center...

(from the distance)

Mike's Place...

Itamar looking goofy

Check out this ensemble!

On deck...

Day 30 - How bizarre

Today was an even weirder day at work. I had nothing to do but somehow managed to create tasks for myself. I even made two more TEM samples, in the afternoon, and had an approximately 7-minute-long talk with my professor about my data. He again, as he seems wont to do, suggested another way for me to graph and break down the data, because at this point I have data pouring out of my ears. My EARS. Luckily that's an exaggeration or that would be very bizarre.

Lunch was spent with Sari, Tamara, Clay and Lior, and the highlight was watching the ants near our table heft huge (relative to their size) vegetables, which after a while we started providing because we were fascinated. Also, we gave one of the cats Tamara's salmon skin, and in so doing discovered the territorial boundaries for the cats at Charlie's Place. All in all, an educational hour for us with respect to wildlife.

I stayed at work rather late and decided not to go swimming, because Asaf wasn't going either. Instead I went back to Clore and retrieved my climbing shoes from the roof. A picture of them hanging, as well as some views of campus and Rehovot from said roof, can be found below. Then I fell asleep until dinner time, when I roped Stephen, Oren and Joel into a falafel run. We ran into Alissa and Rachel, a German student here for the year, at the falafel establishment and later Dan showed up and joined us, so we had a yummy meal and fun chat. Eventually we headed back.

The rest of the evening was spent chilling, mostly in Stephen's room (which is apparently the new hang out place), playing some guitar, blogging, and talking. Eventually there was interest in a rooftop party, but I was tired, so I went and found Dave (!) and said a final goodbye to him before his flight, had a chat with Ari (and intermittently, Oren, Jordan and Joel), then went to bed. Oh, and I talked to Mom and Dad on the phone, which was lovely. But they told me they were behind on the blog (Hi parental units! You guys better catch up).

My poor climbing shoes...

View of campus

View of Rehovot

Day 21 - Adventures with shopkeepers

I slept until about 11 am on Saturday, despite a brief awakening at around 8:30 when Ben called me to say hi :). Once I woke up and showered, Debby pulled out some rustic bread, jams, and jaffa oranges, and made coffee. She sliced the oranges and said, "Here. Try this orange juice." They were delicious. We chatted a bit more until her daughter, who was visiting a friend in the same building, called us. We met her at her car, which she had parked in her mother's space (since Debby doesn't have a car), and drove to the restaurant.

The place started out as a coffee shop , and still had that sort of look, but smelled wonderful and had a really exciting menu which made ordering difficult. We got a salad as an appetizer, and I ordered game-hen "meatballs" in a tomato, ginger, and coriander sauce over mashed potatoes and shaved celery stalks. It was delicious! I was tempted by about 17 other things on the menu, but was happy with my choice. Debby's daughter was delightful, and we had a great chat. After lunch, they dropped me off about two blocks from the Old City. I wanted to wander a bit and buy some gifts, so in I went.

The streets were mostly empty, except a few children playing between services, until I reached the shook, where there were some tourists. I think this was a good day to shop, though, because while there were a few other people around, the proprietors of the stalls were relatively desperate for business, and I think I didn't go two steps without an individual salutation to see a specific good in a shop. Eventually, at a stall where the goods were particularly colorful, I let myself be guided in. He got me a chair, offered me some coffee, and began showing me everything he had, asking me what I wanted, how many, etc. At first I said one small one, then went up to one small and one big one. He then said he'd give me the same price for two large ones, which he said was the original asking price of the small one. I whittled that price down by a third or so, then decided to only get one and practically forced him to give it to me for less than half the price he was offering for two. I felt good about that.

At another shop the man behind the counter was young and very polite. He showed me just about every piece of jewelry he had, patiently, and gave me a bottle of cold orange juice to sip as I was served. I ended up buying something other than jewelry, but he gave me his card and told me to return any time I was in the city.

After a few hours, I grabbed a popsicle and sat for a while, then exited the gates and began walking back towards Ben Yehuda Street, past which was the central bus station. I sat to rest once I got to Ben Yehuda Street, and planned to grab some food and wait for it to open once it got dark, but a man around 40 years old sat down and started talking to me. He asked me all sorts of questions, making me relatively uncomfortable. I excused myself from this interaction and started walking back in the direction of the Old City, at which point I called Ben. As we chatted, Jodi, an Australian student who lives in my dorm, walked by and invited me to join her.

We walked back to the Old City to meet Nina and Dave, then turned around and walked back in search of dinner. Night was falling and stores and restaurants were beginning to open up again. As we walked through a side street of bars and restaurants, Dave saw a stand selling hookas and began a discussion with the seller. Jodi moved on to the next table, which contained jewelry, and I followed soon. Both of us rejoined Dave and Nina in a couple of minutes, though, at which point the oddest part of my day ensued.

I watched as the jewelry seller talked to the other people at the table, who were pointing at Jodi and me. He yelled over, "Did you look at the rings? Did you take a ring?" Jodi said no, as did I. He came over and brought me to the table, showing me an empty hole in the ring display case, and asked me again, loudly, if I had taken a ring. He then reached into my skirt pocket and removed a ring! This is when the real yelling began, about how I needed to pay double (200 shekels) or he'd call the police. I wanted to shout back that I didn't take his stupid ring and that he could try calling the police, but what I did was beg him to stop and tell him I didn't have enough cash on me to pay him. Jodi came over when she heard this hullaballo, and I reassured him before the two of us returned to the hookah table.

Dave was settling on a hookah and price, and the seller was allowing him to test a comparable model, so we had a few more minutes to kill before the purchase would be complete. Of course, during this time, the jewelry seller came over a few times to yell about me stealing his ring. The hookah dude asked me if I was ok, and told me the jewelry guy was sort of crazy. This made me feel a little bit better, as I was quite shaken. I felt not only scared but guilty, and as we left, Nina reassured me and commented that I had had quite a sketchy afternoon.

On the advice of Jodi's friend who lives in Jerusalem, we decided to eat at a cafe which doubled as a bookstore, which was hidden up some stairs at the end of a small alleyway nearby. The three of them all ordered shakshouka, a sort of Israeli breakfast dish consisting of tomato and eggs and sometimes a vegetable, like eggplant. I had never had it, but tried all of theirs as I ate my eggplant/egg/feta cheese puff pastry and salad. Then Nina and I split a brownie with some ice cream on top (her idea, not mine, but I like the way she thinks) before heading out.

We walked down Ben Yehudah Street, now buzzing with activity, and were forced to weave our way around bands of street performers, tourist groups, and random sculptures. Jodi left us to go see her friend, and we relocated Yaffo Street and eventually made it to the central bus station. The buses going straight to Rehovot had already left, so we took one which went through Ramla and then Rehovot before reaching its final destination. In line we ran into Tess, who had stayed the weekend in Jerusalem with some friends she had met as exchange students at Brown, her undergrad.

When the bus came, Tess got swallowed by the mob because she had to put her large bag underneath the bus, so it was a lucky thing when she got on the bus (and a long, tense wait until that finally happened). I had saved her a seat, though, which she eventually worked her way back to, and we chatted for about half the ride until my parents called. Toward the end of the ride I said goodbye to them, though. I went to the front of the bus to ask the driver to stop at the Weizmann Institute for the four of us. He did, and he waited for Tess to grab her large bag, both of which were lucky.

We got in to the building and parted ways. Ari and Oren's door was open, so I sat and chatted with them about their weekends a bit before going to bed. The following would be in Ari's blog, if he had one:

"So my brother was visiting for the weekend, and we were driving with our uncle. He's kind of old, and he's very Israeli in his driving. We're on the highway, and we miss the exit. No, we don't back up. He TURNS AROUND and starts driving, against traffic, on the highway. Luckily the oncoming traffic slowed down a bit. We then went up the ramp where traffic would come onto the highway from the exit we're trying to get to. It was really lucky that no one was coming in the opposite direction. I was in shock. I didn't realize fully what had happened until later."

Keep in mind that Ari was the one who was very near sick due to our dear friend Nick's driving on the way to and from our hike in the north. I can only imagine his facial expression during all of this.

Anyway, more photographs! Enjoy Jerusalem's architecture.

The building on the right houses Debby's apartment

You know you're nearby when...

View from just outside the walls

A deserted alleyway

Very old street signs

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 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 4 - Chips and...

Today I had to get up sort of early to get in to work by 9 so we could be on the TEM by 9:30. XiaoMeng operated it, and Petro came along again, but the samples were ones XiaoMeng and I made yesterday. OH! I forgot to mention that in my post yesterday about my morning. Oops.

< .science >

So we examined single-walled, double-walled, and multi-walled carbon nanotubes. Turns out the single-walled ones clumped together too much for us to be able to see much of anything, the double-walled ones were really triple-walled or more, and the multi-walled ones were beautiful. XiaoMeng is also really good, so we got some great images for me to process. Yay!

< / science >

I had thought I would be able to take a class to learn to use the TEM, but it turns out it doens't start till too late, so I will be consulting with the TEM expert/person who teaches the class and is the TEM god as he operates it and takes images for me. That was slightly disappointing, but it does cost like millions of dollars so I understand the rules.

After the TEM work we went to lunch, at another cafeteria on campus. They had schnitzel, which was delicious. And there were plum trees outside, from which we plucked (with great effort and lots of help from Asof, our tallest friend) tasty yet cherry-sized plums. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading again; I didn't even finish!

Upon leaving work, I decided to go on a postcard quest, but was unsuccessful and got a number of quizzical looks from shopkeepers. I got home and began cooking. I made chicken with soy sauce and peanut butter (Rebecca, it totally worked and was delicious!) and cooked rice, in a pressure cooker. Has anyone ever used one of those? It was scary, but I made rice successfully for the first time in my life.

Anyways, I ate and drank pomegranate juice and then changed, and we went salsa dancing! Our new friend Ran drove us to the place; Baila Salsa. The first half hour was warm-up, then there was an hour of lessons. I was in the beginner group with the two other summer students who came with us, but Ran was off with the moderate/advanced people. After that it was mostly free dancing but there were a few line dances, which were more fun. I wasn't bad; of the two friends who came as well, one was the same and the other was from Columbia. She was very popular :) After a few hours we finally pulled her away and came back here.

Pictures today: enjoy some views of my dorm! This includes, in order, the lobby, my room (which is one floor below, in the basement), the communal kitchen, and the refrigerator room (a technical term, of course). I have a picture of the aforementioned plums, which you will see tomorrow maybe. Also notice that although my room seems spacious, the photo was taken from the hall, and to enter my room I have to open the door completely or take small steps, as the door path passes very close to my dresser (not pictured).

Day 2 - So Much Soup

Hi again!

Much has happened since we last spoke. Yesterday I went to work for the first time in the Perlman Chemical Sciences Building, on the fourth floor: Materials and Interfaces. I met the other researchers in my group, including PhD and post-doc students. The PhDs gave me a tour of the labs, then took me out for lunch.

After lunch I met my professor, David Wagner. He asked me to review my resume for him, then told me what he wants me to do: make a huge catalogue of TEM images of carbon nanotubes, of various diameters and numbers of walls, and attempt to determine the thickness of graphene sheets in the nanotubes. I also am aiming to determine whether this thickness has any dependence on the radius or number of sheets in the nanotube. In the future, if I discuss this in any depth, I will warn you all so if you are non-sciencey, you can tune out. I will of course also let you know when to tune back in.

Anyways, after that I spent the rest of the afternoon printing and reading papers. Around 4, Noa, one of the PhD students, took me to the ESEM (Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope) and I watched her look at her electrospun epoxy samples. After a bit I left.

I was so tired when I got back that I napped until after dinner time. I woke up and arrived in the kitchen as Jonathan, one of the other summer students, finished a huge pot of soup. He forced me to help him eat it. The rest of the night was spent talking and chilling on the roof. Topics ranged from furniture porn to how to meet people here (one answer: sit in the lobby and eat salad all the time). There were a bunch of summer students as well as other building residents, including masters and PhD students from pretty much everywhere. Eventually a security guard showed up and told us to keep it quiet.

Today will come later. For now, enjoy pictures of campus buildings! In order, top to bottom: the coolest particle accelerator building ever, the Chemical Sciences Building (where I work), and my dorm (where I live).

Arrival

I am here!

My flight left an hour late, but we took off at 10 pm EST and landed at 3:30 pm in Tel Aviv. I got my bags and grabbed a taxi (Mom, brilliant idea about giving me some shekels ahead of time!). I got to the Weizmann Institute gate at around 4:30, at which point I was supposed to call Greta for information as to getting in. After a few minutes, during which the cab driver got kind of pissed and I told him to leave, we located a packet with a key in it, and one of the gate people helped me get my bags to my room.

After changing I went on what turned out to be a very long walk through Rehovot. I found a supermarket, a bunch of shops, and eventually the mall, where I got toilet paper, soap, some paper to write on, and an adapter for the outlet. I decided to take an alternate route back to Weizmann, which resulted in a lovely but longer than expected tour of the residential part of town.

After the miracle that was me reaching the gate once again, I returned to my room and plopped down my stuff, then went to the kitchen, where a bunch of other kids were. They were all American, and all but one was in the same program as me. One even goes to Penn, and just finished her sophomore year!

The rest of the night was spent in chatting, setting up my internet and making this lovely blog post. I will put more pictures on flickr if the above does not satisfy you. Hope you enjoyed reading this!