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 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 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 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.