Day 72 - Last time at Performance Rock...

After a quick coffee, I stopped at the lab before meeting Patro and Talmon at the TEM. This was a bonus session, after the training was technically complete, because the time happened to be free and I needed to look at some samples for Noa, so Patro and I each took turns doing various startup and alignment procedures, loaded the sample, and began taking images. After about two hours Patro had to go to his Matlab class, so Talmon and I started taking and saving images so I could calculate an average tube diameter for Noa.

We ended just in time for me to head to San Martin directly for lunch, where I met and sat with Rachel, Tamara, Stephen, and Asaf and a visitor to the Institute. I was very nervous about meeting with Professor Wagner in the afternoon so didn’t eat too much, but we still had a fun chat about Stephen’s feelings with regards to chemical engineering. We all had to be back at work soonish, so didn’t linger too much after eating. I made some last-minute touches on my presentation back in the office, until 2 pm, my scheduled meeting time with Professor Wagner.

I was expecting to go to his office, so I printed a handout copy of my presentation. This turned out to be an excellent idea, as he actually came to see me and sat down as I went through my slides on the computer. It was good that I could take notes on the printed copy, as we chatted about good points and ideas for adjustments for over a half-hour. As soon as we were done, I e-mailed Greta asking how late I could submit the final copy. She said I could just bring it on my own flash drive tomorrow, which was great and helped me to relax before settling in to make all the changes.

I worked on the slides, and the images for Noa, until almost 6:15, when I luckily finished both to my satisfaction. I left the lab and fell into step with Chen, a woman on my floor, on the stairs. Earlier today, when chatting with Nitzan in the hall, she had waved us into her office and shown us her recent art submission on Threadless. It was getting good feedback so far, and we both really liked it, so this gave us something to talk about as we walked out of Perlman. I wore a Threadless shirt today (“bobshoppers,” for anyone curious), so we moved on to how the shirts fit; as it turns out, the one Chen has ever ordered fit her really weird so she sent it back. I really hope her submission turns into a shirt. I won’t ruin the surprise, in case it does, but I would definitely wear it!

Anyways we walked out the main gate and along Hertzl. I needed to get a snack before climbing, so we went to the small grocery across from Clore and both looked over the yogurt selection. She recommended one with toppings, which I won’t say no to, but it was a bit expensive. After I lent her two shekels to cover hers, I realized I was two short myself. She promised to give the store clerk two shekels tomorrow, and made our way out. We said goodbye right outside Clore, and I went inside and directly downstairs to change for climbing.

I found Asaf waiting in the lobby, ready to go, and soon Tamara and Rachel had joined us. I told Stephen to meet us at the train, and we were off. We walked down Hertzl to the station, meeting Yaron and Nitzan on the way through security, and all bought tickets and got onto the train. Stephen arrived soon and sat with us. After the train ride, Nitzan, Yaron and Asaf were hungry, so stopped for falafel, meeting the rest of us at Performance Rock not much later.

Once there, I helped Stephen and Rachel find matching shoes of the appropriate size, which turned out to be a failure in both cases: Rachel’s were fine but ended up not matching, and Stephen ended up borrowing Nitzan’s spare pair because there weren’t any of his size in the barrel. I gave Stephen an introduction, and he seemed to be doing very well on the intro problems, so I migrated over to Rachel and Tamara for a bit. They had changed all of the routes, as Tamara had reported, which was exciting! Tamara recommended a bunch of things for us to work on together, and we found some things for Rachel to do, most of which she finished rather quickly. Nitzan and Yaron were working on some interesting things, one of which was in the cave and which Tamara and I attempted. Stephen at first seemed to be enjoying just climbing around, but eventually sort of stopped climbing. Dave came a bit afterward, and Tamara and I worked with him on a few problems as well.

We stayed practically until the place closed, then headed back towards the bus station. We didn’t have enough time to really justify running for the train, so got on two sheruts (one with me, Asaf, Yaron and Nitzan, and one with Stephen, Rachel, and Tamara). Theirs left slightly earlier. When ours got back, we headed to Benny’s for ice cream, then Asaf and I returned to Clore. And thus ended my last Monday in Israel, a day which included my last visit to Performance Rock.

Asaf didn’t climb, but came to observe, due to his recent recovery from tendonitis in his shoulder. While this is regrettable, I am glad he didn’t reinjure himself and even gladder he agreed to be the official photographer of the evening! Here is the best of his work:

Nitzan, as Yaron and Stephen watch

Stephen

Me (I ended up failing at this)

Asaf!

Rachel finishes a problem

Day 61 - Perpetual hunger?

Alissa and I happened to find each other at Cafe Madaa this morning, and had a rare chance to chat, over cappuchino. I had brought my Israel travel guide, to read about possibilities for tomorrow's trip to Haifa. Alissa suggested that she and some others might want to join us, and since we hung out until just after nine, during out breakfast I made my first (and ultimately first failed) call to the Bahai Gardens in order to make a reservation for a tour.

Just after this, we both realized we should probably head to work, so we went up to the counter to get our check. I had had a muffin, which was interesting due to its shape, and which turned out to be much more expensive than I had intended. I actually thought the waiter was joking; he seems to find me really amusing, and of course knows me well due to my being a regular, so it would have made sense. Anyways, we paid and headed out.

At work, I sat down and really devoted myself to image processing. I need to move on to my final presentation, but still have data to gather, so it's beginning to become crunch time. My morning was rather productive; not only did I finish a chunk of images, but I also managed to make a reservation for a Bahai Gardens tour. Around lunch time I called Dan. He suggested heading off campus and called Ari, and when we met outside Perlman I found out our destination was supposedly Hummus Weizmann. This was completely unacceptable, as their hummus is awful, so I lobbied for us to go to a smaller place that is actually closer to the main gate of campus (which was hard for Ari and Dan to believe at first because Hummus Weizmann is literally one block from the main gate), where Noa had taken me once in the past.

This turned out to be an amazing decision. The employees spoke only Hebrew, so Ari and Dan got to practice a bit. We debated about how much food to order, but eventually decided upon two skewers of hen, one of lamb, and some hummus with beans. They brought pickles, pita, and falafel to go with it, so we were mostly full before all the food was gone. It was so good. I don't know what it is, but I am so hungry lately, all the time, and all the food here tastes so delicious, so this is why I write about it in such detail.

After lunch I was able to maintain productivity at work until around 4:30 pm, but from there couldn't bring myself to continue. I was supposed to go climbing relatively early, so I left just after 5 pm and grabbed a snack before changing and grabbing my stuff. This was to be a historic climbing evening; not only was it possibly going to be my last time climbing with Nitzan and Yaron, but it was also my fist time climbing with all my own stuff: shoes, a harness, and my newly arrived chalk bag!

The two of them called me about 5 minutes before 6, when we were supposed to meet, to ask where I was. I rushed the rest of my readying, filled a water bottle, and dashed out of Clore. Yaron was driving this time, and had his fiance Rotem's car. As soon as I got in, I told Yaron how cute it was, which is apparently not really the best thing to tell a dude about his ride. Whatever, though: look how cute! (Click all three; this was the color his was!) Of course this kicked off the discussion as to how American and ridiculous I am, as always. It was a fun ride.

When we got to Kiryat Ono, the gym was relatively empty. Since I wasn't borrowing any equipment, my admission was cheaper than it's ever been, which was nice. We all started off by leading a warm-up route which happens to be my favorite (the orange one). Then we branched out into some stuff that was completely new for all of us (different ones for them and for me, of course). Nitzan warned me, and was right, that now I am going to have to get strong, because the routes which require technique only are too easy for me, and I've finished everything I'm strong enough to do, so the routes at the next level are negative and technique can only go so far. I started a blue route which I got pretty far on, but wasn't able to do the last move of, and got three clips into another orange route, near the yellow one which is my nemesis. It's ok that there's not much more I can do, because I don't want to get too attached to working on stuff this close to leaving, but it was a good workout. We bouldered a bit before leaving at 9, because Yaron and Rotem had a place to be at 10.

Yaron dropped Nitzan and I off by campus, and I headed back to Clore for the evening. Onur and Maciej were chilling in the lobby, so I stashed my stuff, grabbed hummus and pita and my Israel tour book, and came back. Soon Lisa joined us, and I snacked as the two of us planned the next day. We went through various stops we wanted to make and tried to plan a route, which was complicated by the fact that the city of Haifa is located on a large mountain. After we came up with a rough itinerary and looked up train and bus routes and stuff, I was so tired I could barely move. I managed to transport myself downstairs and set an alarm for tomorrow before crashing completely.

Mutant muffin!

Yaron climbing

Belaying responsibly

Action shot courtesy of Yaron

A very negative route

Nitzan climbing

Day 59 - Rachel's Chavayah

Especially compared to yesterday, today at work was not too exiciting. The one exception to this statement was that it was Noa's birthday (Happy Birthday!!!), so her mom made amazingly delicious brownies for everyone. It was hard, but I managed to eat only one before lunch. I worked pretty diligently all morning, then found myself back at San Martin for lunch, and sat with Dan, Alissa, Ari, and, very notably, Stephen! He basically never joins us for lunch, especially at San Martin (he has been spotted at Charlie's from time to time), so he was a welcomed addition to our party.

After lunch, I ate one more brownie and managed to be as productive as I had been in the morning, which is a major feat. A visit from Asaf also broke up the afternoon. We watched a few YouTube videos of climbers doing ridiculous things, before they got too dangerous and I had to close the window.

After staying as late as I could, I knocked on Rachel's door back at Clore to let her know we had some time before we had to leave for Tel Aviv, and that I was going to have a snack. She said she'd join me, and offered me the contents of what can only be described as the world's largest fruit basket, which her mother had sent her. I tried sabre, dragon fruit, and fig, interspersed with yellow watermelon, pineapple, nectarine, and white melon. We took some pictures with her camera to show her mom of us enjoying the fruit. It was all delicious!

Around 6:30 I went to change and grab my stuff, then Rachel and I walked out the main gate towards the train station. Before we had gotten very far, though, I got a text from Anna (who is back in Israel, and was going to meet us at Performance Rock) saying her boyfriend Peri was driving from Rehovot to Tel Aviv to meet her and would be leaving soon, and could probably give us a ride. After calling him and arranging to meet him right outside the gate at the bus stop in 10 minutes, Rachel and I sat and chilled and discussed that in Israel, things which would elsewhere be risky or dangerous or gross or, well, anything can be considered an "experience," or "chavayah." This came up especially in the context of hitchhiking, in light of a recent, unexpectedly ridiculous ride which she had had from the North back to Jerusalem this past weekend.

Soon Peri called and told me he was close by, so we went back outside the gate to wait. Someone who looked sort of like Peri pulled up, rolled down the window, and sat there in front of us for a few minutes. Rachel and I quietly discussed how embarrasing it would be if this were actually him, but luckily the real Peri pulled up soon and stopped right in front of him. We got in and were off. On the way to Tel Aviv we discussed Anna and climbing, before the conversation shifted to other things, like Peri's army service and current status (student, in mechanical engineering). Then Peri asked us what we though of Israel. Rachel had spent a year here before, but this was my first extended period of time here, so the focus was on me. It felt sort of like the third degree; when I said I liked it, he wanted to really get at the reasons why. Rachel wasn't surprised by this, though, and said Israelis always want reasons as to whether or not people like it here.

We reached Tel Aviv rather quickly; there was little traffic. Parking wasn't hard to come by, and we entered Performance Rock, which turned out to be very crowded. Rachel, who is pretty religious (and therefore not really used to shirtless guys falling off of walls in every direction), took one look through the door into the bouldering area and said, "Oh yeah, this is going to be a chavayah." We paid and entered, and I rummaged a bit to find matching shoes of the correct size for her. I then started her on the Vos, which she had absolutely no problem with, and a few V1s. Peri had never been here before, so he was off exploring the routes, and soon Anna arrived. I showed her what I'd been working on lately, because all of the routes had changed since she had last been.

After a bit, Tamara and Mena also arrived. The crowd was gradually thinning, so we were able to climb everything we wanted. Anna finished everything I showed her, and Rachel finished all the V0s and all but one of the V1s. The trouble this one route gave her I attribute to fatigue combined with her first time climbing, because if she goes there again, she'll definitely get it. Tamara and I worked on a problem partially in the cave, and found a new way to work through the middle of it, but still have a ways to go. She also made a bit of progress on the last move of another problem, but still can't quite get it. I finally completed a V2, the last move of which had been giving me issues. It felt good to finally check it off the list.

As 10 pm approached, the manager, who had fitted me for my harness and whom I had told when I came in that something was causing it to be uncomfortable, asked me to try it on again for him. He saw what I was talking about, that the leg loops were sort of digging in to me, and showed me how to adjust the straps connecting them to the back of the waist part to make them more even and aligned with my thighs. Hopefully this will make the harness more comfortable! After this, Tamara, Rachel and I decided to head out. We said goodbye to Anna, and thanked Peri again for the ride, then walked to the bus station where we caught a sherut back to Rehovot. I hung out for a bit, then went to bed.

Day 56 - Proof of my past as a Super Jew

Today I got a chance, for the first time in a while, to sleep in.  Especially after a late night followed by an early start and a very long day, this was a welcome change.  I woke up just before lunch time, and had a relaxed shower and remainder of the morning.  Once I emerged from my room I found Stephen, Dave, their friend Mish from MIT, Jonathan, and Joel sitting in the kitchen, munching on leftovers from the previous night's shabbat dinner.  I was supposed to meet Daniela for lunch, but since I figured it would be difficult to find an open place to eat on Saturday, and there was food 10 feet from my room, I invited Daniela to join us in Clore.  The chicken Stephen (and Dave?) made was delicious, and there was plenty of that as well as pita, hummus, and other stuff.

After the meal we all sang Birkat Hamazon (the grace after the meal), and Joel kept making me laugh by looking at me during the parts where the summer camp version would have us sing silly English phrases instead.  Afterwards, Jonathan told me that he finally believes that I was a relatively observant Jew at home (because I knew all the words, or something).  I guess I have Camp Ramah to thank for that!

After all that hooplah, I walked Daniela partially home, then grabbed some juice at a convenience store before heading to Perlman for the afternoon, to continue the work I had begun on slides for my presentation Monday.  I was surprised to find Noa AND Patro both in the office and lab, but it was nice not to be alone.  While at work, Tamar called me and invited me to go climbing with her tonight at the top roping place.  As I was excited to try my new harness, I happily accepted.

I left work around 7, and snacked on some hummus at Clore before changing and heading out.  Tamar picked me up right outside along Hertzl Street and we drove to Kiryat Ono together, where we met Giora and climbed!  There were lots of new routes up; we finished many, including an orange one, a green one, and a red one which I led.  I finished two routes I had made it to almost the end of before: a blue one which wasn't so bad but I had only tried at the end of last time, and the yellow one which has been my nemesis for almost a month.  I successfully finished both on lead!  That was exciting, but my new harness, while comfortable for belaying, cut slightly into my legs while I was hanging from the wall.  Hopefully I'm just wearing it wrong or something, but we'll see.

When I got back to Clore, I made two very important and pleasant phone calls: my parents, and Ben.  Finally, I chilled with everyone a bit before bed.  All in all, a relaxing day compared to many in the last week.

Day 53 - A harness and a bowling ball

When I got in to work this morning, I found the whole group in a stir helping Sari prepare for her PhD defense presentation. I listened to her rehearse a few times, while helping her with some grammar in her slides, for most of the morning, doing a bit of work on the side. At noon we all gathered in the conference room, and Sari did her official presentation. It went really well! She was able to present smoothly and answer the questions which came up along the way, and afterwards she disappeared, and I later learned she was interviewed slightly more privately by a panel and Professor Wagner.


Meanwhile, it was 12:45, and I was late for a lunch group I had sort of organized at Charlie's; we were rebelling against the daily migration to San Martin, a movement made less effective by the fact that I didn't have a chance to tell everyone I would be late and therefore made them wait for me. I felt really bad, but joined Tamara and Rachel when I got there. I ran into Daniela, Asaf, and Iris in line, and Iris sat with us for a bit before going back to work. I grabbed a sandwich and some delicious iced coffee so I could go through the line slightly faster, and was able to sit with them for most of their meal.


Back at the lab in the afternoon, I worked more to come up with some conclusions from my data processing so far. After much PowerPoint, I decided to call it a day. I went home and changed, then headed to Tel Aviv by train. I met Nitzan, who had been north of the city for the day for his reserve duty, in the train station. We set off walking for Performance Rock, where I hoped to purchase a harness. Somehow we got wrapped in our conversation, and it turned out that Nitzan thought I was leading us there, and I thought he was. We discovered this when we found ourselves nowhere near where we wanted to be after about a half hour, but after surveying the skyline re-aimed ourselves and found our destination relatively soon.


Nitzan sat and watched as I was fitted for a harness. I decided to go for the one without adjustable leg loops, because there's less to get caught and it's more comfortable (and I won't be doing too much rappelling or winter mountaineering, probably). My purchase made, we crossed the street and got some sushi for dinner. It's really fun how popular sushi is in this country; whether at a place in a mall food court or a corner restaurant in an industrial part of town (like where Performance Rock is located), it's actually pretty good! So we ate our sushi and discussed the meaning of our lives...sort of. The evening in general was full of interesting conversation topics, including but not limited to serving your country, relationship philosophies (and kittens...), Wilco, and other such varied subjects. After a walk back to the station, we got on the same train south. I got off at Rehovot, leaving Nitzan to go a bit further to get home to Yavne.


When I got back to Clore, I found Ari, Dan, Jordan, the other Dan, Jonathan, Clay, Daniela, Tanmay, and Zvonimir ready to go bowling. After getting some socks, I joined them and we left. We walked past the train station almost to the science park, and got into the elevator to go up to the bowling alley. The alley was strangely clean and pleasant-looking. It was decorated to look like an outdoor park, with benches, lamp posts and stucco pillars. We paid for shoes and a game, and got lanes next to each other. Daniela, who had only played a few times before in her life, somehow managed to break 100 and led our lane by a long shot. The other lane, including Tanmay, Clay, and Zvonimir, was much more serious and competitive. After the game, we headed home. The walk seemed incredibly long; I crashed pretty much as soon as we got there.


Here's the one picture I took today. Enjoy an interesting sight in Tel Aviv, on the long roundabout walk to Performance Rock:

Day 51 - ...and very little work was done

Today was an amazing and positive change compared to yesterday's slight lack of excitingness. Coffee at Madaa happened as usual, but when I got to work, I discovered that Sari would be giving her presentation for her PhD defense to our group as practice. We were supposed to ask her challenging questions. So of course I texted Stephen to tell him when and where it was. And he actually came! We had to wait a bit for her to start, because Professor Wagner was tied up, but once he arrived we began. She did a good job, and all of us asked at least one question at the end.

< .science >

Her project involves space-environment simulations for testing of polymer composites, including hypervelocity (up to 3 kilometers per second!) impact. The test apparatus was so cool! She used a high-powered laser to create plasma at the surface of aluminum foil, which generates a "flyer," simulating a micrometeor impacting her samples. Some of her samples were also irradiated before testing (another aspect which simulates space), and Stephen asked what the actual chemical mechanisms are for radiation damage to the samples. Sari answered well and later I found out that Wagner asked Sari to include a slide answering it, because she knew it!

< / science >

Afterward, Sari disappeared to be grilled by Professor Wagner. I did some work before lunch, which was an exciting time. Dan and I decided to try something new, so we walked to the Science Park (a new-ish area with restaurants, clubs, and lots of science start-up companies, just past the train station). Our goal was Mexican food, and we had seen a place when we were out last week. We found it again: it was called "Rapper" and had burritos, which was really all we were asking for.

Dan and I both ordered chicken and pineapple burritos, and some chips to start with. The chips were more like pita, but the guacamole was pretty good, and there was bean dip and salsa as well. The burritos were also not bad, actually. As Dan put it, the ingredients were all good, but the proportions were slightly off (i.e. we could have used more rice and less lettuce), and of course they had no idea how to approach proper wrapping technique. But it was a fun place, and Dan and I had some great bonding time.

After lunch, I had a bit of a chance to work before setting off to the tour of the accelerator. I was a bit late because I had to go back to my building to get my SD card (I had originally left with my camera but no card), but I found the group outside the accelerator. We went inside and saw a scale model/cutaway of the building and learned the basics of what an accelerator does. Then we walked past part of the bottom of the accelerator pipes before going up to the top of the structure. There, besides getting great views of Rehovot and beyond, we discussed the rise of physics, and science and technology in general, in Israel. We also learned a bit about particle physics, and that the accelerator is no longer used for it but instead has been applied to dating of archaeological finds and irradiation of cancerous tumors.

After the tour, I returned to work and was able to get a little bit done, again, before distractions set in. Noa, XiaoMeng, Patro and I explored pictures online, that Noa's boyfriend had taken, mostly, but also some I had taken. Noa joked that her boyfriend collects pictures when they travel, and she collects stories. But it's true; her boyfriend had taken dozens of pictures, but Noa was able to tell us stores about each one, including one that took at least 10 minutes to summarize but clearly was richer than she was able to tell briefly.

Eventually I had to leave work, to grab my stuff and get onto a train to Tel Aviv. I met Tamara and her friends from MIT, including Jesse and Mena but also some new people, at Performance Rock. It was very un-crowded, so we were able to climb whatever, whenever, and gave each other lots of tips. Tamara's boyfriend Colin was among the new people, so I got a chance to meet him. Tamara and I both finished a V3, which was super exciting, but she also finished this red problem I can't quite do yet, and gave me a tip which allowed us both to finish a purple one we had both been able to do all of except the last move.

After we had climbed our fill, done some push-ups and pull-ups and such, we walked back to the bus station. Tamara and I got a sherut back to Rehovot, and I found a bunch of people playing Catan in the piano room upon our return to Clore. I split a beer with Ari and watched Zvonimir lose again to Clay. This was a key result, as it was the first game we had seen Clay play without being the banker. His win gives us a control in the experiment exploring his perfect win-loss record. Once the game was done, though, we all decided we were tired and headed off to bed.

And now, please observe photographic evidence of our accelerator tour!

From the ground (I know, you've never seen this before...)

A cutaway model

The top!
View of Jubilee from above
Sitting to talk about physics!
One floor below the top

Day 40 - ...which made up for almost everything

Another newsflash/shoutout: congrats, Dad, on your first comment! Voila, you get a tag too!

Work today was actually strangely productive. I plotted things and am beginning to actually be able to make SigmaPlot do what I want, which is a plus. I plotted and did regressions and sent some of them to Professor Wagner, and was very busy all morning. Lunch was spent with everyone at San Martin, and was made particularly interesting when Jordan started a movement to grab the leftover ice creams from a cooler behind some barriers in the lunchroom to set aside that part for a summer program to eat in. Clay and I, being the big ice cream fans we are, followed suit, but we all discovered rather soon why these were left over: they were basically cola popsicles, and were inedible. Clay and I therefore resolved to make up for it tonight with some real ice cream.

The afternoon was spent contemplating my data further and checking out various hilarious links and e-mails with Noa as she waited for her sample to cure in the oven. She left when this was over, at about which time I remembered that it was Perlman cookie/snack time (4:30 on Thursdays). I went up to the 6th floor to grab Dan, and we chilled for a few minutes before walking down. The food was actually not so great, but we hung out and were soon joined by the other Dan (who also works on the 6th floor...and who no longer can really be "Dan with the hair" because he just got a haircut that makes him almost look like a normal person!). We chatted for a half hour, then returned to work.

For some reason I thought this would be a good time to try to plot my data in 3D (!). I'm sure this will be a great way to look at the data, once I figure it out, but for now there is something going seriously awry with the mesh plot and there are these odd peaks I can't seem to trace, so I struggled with this until around 6:15 before realizing I was meeting Clay in 15 minutes! I therefore headed out and changed into shorts before finding Clay in the lobby. Dan would meet us there, so we headed out.

Our destination: the four-flavor falafel place. Now, you may ask, what flavors of falafel could you possibly want or need, besides original? Well, I don't know how to explicitly answer this because I am not really sure what the four flavors are, except that I'm sure original is one of them, and that one other one was spicy, and another was sort of greenish in color. What I can say is that I got a mixture of all of them, as did Clay and Daniel once he arrived, and that all were scrumptious. After we were done eating we backtracked a bit to Benny's, Clay's favorite ice cream place (which he talks about all the time), for frozen treats. I was pleasantly surprised; I got cookies and cream and a milk/white/dark chocolate mixture and both were excellent.

After sitting for a bit we headed home so I could change for climbing. I headed to the main gate, where I met and sat with Tamar and Michal to wait for Nitzan. We went to the top-roping place, and Tamar and I belayed each other on some top-roping routes. After a bit Nitzan gave me a refresher on lead belaying and supervised me as another friend climbed. I also tried the yellow lead route again, and managed to not only reach but hold on to the last hold for about three seconds. There was not chance I could clip in, though, so I came down. I then belayed Nitzan on lead for what he referred to as a "stupidly hard" route, which was a success (in that he is still alive), and we all rested and ate some pretzels before heading over to the bouldering area.

Nitzan and I constructed a pretty fun problem, and Tamar somehow came across a tee shirt which she gave to me which has both Hebrew and climbing on it! Soon after we all decided we were tired, and so headed out, but the trip home was a much happier one than Tuesday. I don't know that I will be so anxious to return to Performance Rock, despite my loyalty to bouldering. But we'll see.

When I returned to Clore, I found Ari, Dan, Zvonimir, Rachel, and Asaf in the lobby getting ready to watch a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother. I put in a load of laundry and went across the street with Ari to buy some snacks, and then we watched the pilot and second episode, which were very amusing! I definitely want to see some more. By this time it was very late, so I switched my clothing to the dryer, chatted with Asaf, retrieved and folded it, and went to bed.

Since you've been photo-starved, here are a few random shots from the past week:

Yovav and his beautifully-decorated cast (/etc)

Views from the foot of the accelerator:

Day 38 - meh

These weekdays are beginning to blend together. Today I worked, and ate lunch with Dan, Tamara, Jordan, and Clay at Charlie's, and then worked some more. Somewhere in there I met with Professor Wagner, and the rest you can probably guess at.

Afterwards we took the sherut (because the trains to Tel Aviv aren't running due to track maintenance this week) to Performance Rock to boulder. It was a very large group, as it turned out (Zvonimir, Elisha, Nina, Yaron, Nitzan, Tamara, Mena and Jesse), but the place was very busy. They had also changed every one of the problems, which meant I couldn't continue work on the ones I'd been mentally practicing. Some of the new ones were fine, but there seemed to be nothing at around the level I need to be working.

We hung out and climbed until around 9:30, when we all grabbed a sherut back to Rehovot. I ended up watching a really cute movie called "The Baker" on TV with Amir and Zvonimir before heading to bed. Very very very exciting day.

Day 34 - Independence Day

After 11 hours of sleep, I woke up to meet Ari for breakfast before he went to Jerusalem to meet friends and then his family. We both went back to Clore, he left, and I grabbed my stuff and went to work for a bit. I stayed, processing images a bit to catch up for yesterday, until a bit after noon. On my way back to Clore I called Asaf, and we met in the lobby so I could give him a CD i had made him. Then I changed and went to go meet the guys to go climbing (Nitzan, Yaron, and Ran) at 1 pm.

We went to the top roping/leading place, which was nice because it was relatively un-crowded and they had finally gotten new leading ropes. I tried the yellow route twice but got really stressed, so I took a long rest. Ran and I belayed each other on some top-roping routes, then I led one I had done before and one new problem. I was overly tired considering what I had done, though, so further lead-belaying lessons from Nitzan will have to wait until next time. We then bouldered for a while, and the guys each had a beer and we sat and chilled until leaving.

I returned to Clore at around 6, and showered in time to be clean and ready for the Shabbaton Stephen, Tamara, and Rachel had planned. Stephen had printed a Friday night service, in Hebrew and transliterated into English, for everyone, and he led the service and gave a brief interactive sermon about the portion. It was a great dialogue and a fun service, and there were about 12 people (but only 9 Jews, so no minyan). Afterwards, we acquired many more people as we headed down to the basement for Shabbat dinner.

Rachel had been the driving force behind the cooking, and Tamara and Stephen had done the grocery shopping. They had pushed all of the dinner tables together and set it with tablecloths and plasticware, but there weren't enough chairs, so we all grabbed some from our rooms before sitting down and filling our wine glasses. We said Kaddish and hamotzi, and began the meal with challah, pita, hummus and other spreads. Then there were two salads, rice, couscous, and chicken. We had juices and soda to drink, and cakes for dessert. Everything was delicious! We lingered for a while, talking and laughing, then cleaned up a bit before going our separate ways.

Stephen, Oren, Dan, Ari (who had gotten back in the middle of the meal), and I sat around a bit longer, having a hilarious conversation. Pretty soon, Ari, Ivonne, Dan, Joel, and I headed out to Hertzl Bar, where we met Ran, Nitzan, and a friend of Nitzan's from the army. The outing was ostensibly in honor of the United States' independence day, which was made amusing by the fact that Ari was wearing a tee shirt with a huge union jack on it (which he hadn't realized would be ironic when he put it on). We got a rather small table, but squished further around it to allow Zvonimir, Tess and Jonathan to join us. Everyone got various exciting drinks; I got a mango, pineapple, and banana smoothie which was delicious. We talked about a bunch of mostly unconnected things, occasionally jokes which are hilarious in Hebrew but just don't really translate, until a bit too late, then finally all headed home.

Pictures today are a continuation from yesterday. Behold: Ein Gedi! And Ari's outfit.

So typical of an oasis...

A hyrax

The caves in the cliffs

The first pool (Jonathan took this one)

A series of waterfalls

The second pool

The third pool

Jonathan holding a tadpole (with legs!)

A dragonfly

And finally, Ari's ironic tee shirt

(notice Dan is wearing a red, white and blue shirt like a good American)

Day 31 - Data, Data Everywhere

Ok guys, an official announcement. My blog "Day #" and the date will no longer line up. This is incredibly sad. I expect you to mourn.

Now that that's done, today was also weird. This is pretty much shaping up to be a weird week. Although this afternoon I discovered that part of it, namely the fact that I've been dizzy, in a sort of daze, tired, and a bit nauseous/headache-y might be due to the fact that I haven't been drinking much water at all for a bit. So I started again. Hopefully this is dehydration and it will go away.

So this morning I was on the TEM with Talmon from 9 am to 12:30 pm. The images (of which there are almost billions) are quite promising, which is great! Also, some professors/researchers have begun e-mailing me back with images from their published papers, so now the data is just a river and I am trying to keep my head up. This is what I mean when I say that at this job, sometimes I'm bored and sometimes I'm very, very, very busy.

After working on the TEM I dropped off my stuff in the lab and headed to San Martin for lunch, where I joined a relatively large group including Ari, Tamara, Rachel, Zvonimir, and Lisa. We were soon joined by Tanmay as well. Afterwards I returned to the lab for a bit, began work on the images, and then headed out again for a 3:00 pm talk about stem cells given by a researcher at Harvard who spent a summer in the KKISS program himself, nine years ago. It was actually a very good talk! It was at about the right level for me (I have a bit of biochem), but I feel like it was also accessible to math and computer science people, and not so far below the biology people that they felt like two-year-olds. A lot of people asked questions, too, so I think it was a success.

From this point until 6 pm, I continued to work on images. XiaoMeng and I had talked a bit about my data so far yesterday, and she showed me a new paper she had read that models the same thing I'm measuring. It's in a journal called "small." That makes me really happy already, but I'll get back to you after I read it.

After work I got ready for climbing and met Alissa in the lobby at 7. We grabbed a train to Tel Aviv and walked to Performance Rock, where we met Tamara, Mena and Jesse for some bouldering awesomeness. The place was jam-packed when we got there, which I found out later from Tamara and some super-sleuthing skills was probably due to an open house from 7-9 with this climbing trainer/coach from England. The place cleared out a bit around 9, and we stayed until 9:30; we wanted to catch the 10:12 train and I wanted to grab a falafel on the way. Luckily the falafel place was about to close and the woman had pre-made a pita (seemingly just for me), because even with this quickness of food acquisition we got onto the platform just as the train was pulling into the station. I ate happily on the ride home. Tamara and Alissa were still with me, while Mena and Jesse had taken another form of transport back to their destination. I convinced them that we needed ice cream bars before returning to Clore, so we grabbed some at the convenience store and sat in the lobby to enjoy them.

After a bit the two of them went to bed. I sat with Zvonimir and Stephen a while longer, chatting about languages and writing systems and other interesting topics for a bit (the most important tidbit I learned being the tendency of ancient languages to be "inflected," while modern ones are usually more "analyic"), then we all joined a larger group also hanging out in the lobby. I was so tired that I soon went downstairs. After a brief chat with Ari, the main topic being that I was bestowing upon him 1.07 gigs of music, I crashed.

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 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 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:

Day 18 - Start at the very beginning

Today marks the second consecutive day I've arrived at work after 9 am. It is glorious thing. I think from now on, I will only mention notable things about work, as I find myself using the same words every day.

Ok, now that that's settled, something notable happened! At 11 am Dikla came in and told us a talk was about to begin and there weren't enough people there. XiaoMeng and I were the only ones sitting in the office, but she had a meeting elsewhere, so I decided to go alone. The speaker was someone from Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and he talked about a whole bunch of stuff, from solid state fuel cells to sensors, all in the context of microelectronics. To be quite honest, I don't even need the "science" tags, because it was way over my head, too. But even if it had been at a manageabl level, it still would have been relatively unexciting.

For lunch I met everyone in the square again, but this time the group had expanded to include someone from Clay's lab, Lior, and Tamara. We went to San Martin, the meat cafeteria where you can load as much on your plate as you can fit (which results in some interesting food sculptures). We ran into Claudia and Maria Magdalena in line, and Lisa and Dan (physics) joined our table after a while.

< .science >

After lunch, at 2 pm XiaoMeng and I headed over to Wolfson (the microscopy building) to add another coating to the TEM grids. This time it was a carbon layer, which conducts and therefore prevents the electrons from becoming trapped in the sample and causing charging. The apparatus consisted of a bell jar, a carbon filament holder, and a stage. XiaoMeng vented the cahmber, placed the grids (still on paper from the polymer coating) on the stage and strategically and scientifically weighted down the paper edges with old metal nuts. She then replaced the carbon filament from a roll of filament, tightened it, and resealed the chamber. After venting, she ran a current through the filament, instantly vaporizing the center of it. The chamber immediately dispersed the carbon evenly throughout it, effectively depositing a thin carbon coating over the polymer on the grids.

As with anything that sounds awesome (like vaporization), this was rather anticlimactic. In one second it was done, then she vented the chamber once more. As I told her, I always get excited for this stuff and then am sort of sad when it's not an epic, visible reaction. Once in p-chem lab, we did bomb calorimetry. Literally we're exploding a bomb of our sample, multiple times, so I expected movement, or a visible quiver or muffled boom, but all we got was a little red LED light to tell us it was over. Needless to say, I was incredibly disappointed.

< / science >

As I walked back to the lab, I pondered the most recent plot I had constructed of my data. Something was really bugging me about a very clear trend that was present, so I resolved to check exactly what I had done to create it. After looking at it for a minute, I reached the unhappy conclusion that the trend was completely a product of my automated measurement method. And then, being as anal as I am, I decided that the only way to show this for sure would be to recreate all of the data by hand and see if the trend remained. So basically, I started over again, this time taking manual measurements.

After about 3 hours I realized what time it was and left work. I had hypothetical plans to go bouldering with Anna, a girl from New York City who I had met at the top-roping gym on Sunday. I called her and we arranged to meet at the Tel Aviv train station nearest to the gym. In the kitchen back at the dorm, I invited Ari and Jonathan to accompany me. After pondering it for a bit, they both decided to come! We caught the 7:38 train from Rehovot, arriving at the Hahagana station in Tel Aviv at 8:00. Anna called me to tell me she was running late and would meet us there, so we started walking without her.

It was an interesting part of town, so I was glad I had recruited others to accompany me on the walk. About 15 minutes later we found it, with the help of my hand-drawn map (which of course I had printed, in color, at work and then intelligently left on my desk). When we paid to get in, there was no change, so the man behind the counter recorded his debts to us and we went in. The guys both changed into shorts, I put on my shoes, then I helped them try to find matching shoes to borrow from the large bin of them. Then I gave them a brief introduction to bouldering and we began.

They both knocked off the V0s relatively easily, but the V1s were more challenging. As we climbed I gave them a few pointers and occasionally demonstrated some moves. Both of them got very pumped pretty quickly, so I advised that they slow down. Soon, Anna called me to ask if she was nearby. I went outside and it turned out she was walking towards me from the other side of the street, so she successfully found us. She was dressed for a party at synagogue, though, so she changed and began to climb with us. She and I climb at almost exactly the same level, so it was really great to tackle the problems together. She told me the best advice she had gotten out of a climbing course once: try to be as quiet as possible with your feet. I really like thinking about it that way!

We climbed literally until the place closed, then walked back to the train station and waited a bit for the train to Rehovot (Anna is staying there, too). On the platform we met an Israeli girl our age who had recently returned from a year's stay in New Jersey! We sat with her and chatted all the way to Rehovot. She went to learn English, is the oldest of 13 children, and was recently accepted to an architecture program in Israel. When we got to Rehovot we exchanged phone numbers, so maybe we'll see her again!

As we walked back towards Weizmann, Anna redirected us to her friend Shaun's house. We met and drank some water, then headed out to the pub on Hertzel for a late dinner. Anna is obsessed with edamame, so we had some as an apetizer. After the meal we all parted ways, and just before Ari, Jonathan and I entered Clore, something icky fell from the sky onto my shoulder. Its identity remains unknown but Jonathan was kind enough to remove it.

Ari went to bed, but I showed Jonathan and Stephen (who was still awake!) The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks (see my feeds, on the sidebar of this page), which is really amusing and which you should all check out, before going to bed myself.

Since you've all been suffering, enjoy a picture of the varied reactions of Jonathan and Anna to a french-fry machine on the train platform in Tel Aviv...