Vernal Passover in the diaspora

This week began with Passover eve that took on Monday, I allowed myself a day off to get ready for the Seder. We had the Seder with our friends who also happen to be the other Israeli postdoc chemists at MIT. I made KUBÉ and KNEIDALACH with soup - so we had both Spharadi and Ashkenazi food on the table, as should be. We also had GEFILTÉ FISH to add some more Ashkenazi delicatessen and the rest of the food was race-neutral. We read the Hagadah (Egyptian-Jewish style) and we stopped when we reached dinner (as we always do). It was raining the whole day on Monday (and Tuesday and Wednesday), and we sat in the warm house and enjoyed the food and the company.

Tuesday, even though it was Passover day, I went back to work - because research waits for no one, and I really have to move things ahead.

This week really demonstrated the bistability of the spring weather. The beginning of the week was raining endlessly, the sky were gray and there was no break in the rain. The second part of the week was blue skies, and warm, very warm. During this weekend the temperatures reached 24-25 degrees and broke the heat records of Boston for the beginning of April. It was a beautiful weekend. Daffodils (NARKISIM) are blooming everywhere and other flowers started their blossom. The trees are starting to grow leaves, after a bare and gray winter, the green is returning to the streets. I can only guess that in a couple of weeks the scene would be amazing.

This week I have also done something that I avoided for several years - I went to see a movie in a cinema! I went with the MRS. and here friend to see Alice in Wonderland 3D which was a new experience for me. I have not been to a cinema in ages, and it was my first time in an American cinema. The American cinema would never work in Israel - here you give your ticket and enter the complex of cinemas and you can enter any hall, after the movie ends you return to the complex of cinemas and you can actually enter another movie in another hall. But I guess that doesn't happen too much around here, otherwise the cinemas would change the way they check tickets.
Oh - and by the way, 3D is cool, but I don't find it very realistic since there are still problems with focusing and depth of picture.

That's it. Research has not bear any fruits of interest this week, and has been quite monotonous this week. But, this post has been long enough even with no work-related stories.

Traveling around the outside of the city

This week was a regular one. Work and rest. However this weekend was totally different. We have rented a car for several days. It was the first time I drove in 5 months which was kind of a strange feeling that disappeared after 1 and a half seconds behind the wheel. We have decided to check out the surrounding areas around Boston, where all the rich people go for vacation in season.
We started at Provincetown and Cape Cod on Saturday... Nice, but the town itself is a quiet uninteresting place. I guess that in summer it must be much nicer, with people on the beach and boats in the water. I guess we'll have to give it a try one day in summer.
On Sunday we traveled north. We started at the witch town of Salem Massachusetts, where the residents have adopted and fully merchandised the whole idea of witches. It is kind of pity that it is so commercialized. Then we kept on driving northward to Rockport on Cape Ann. This is a nice town, again in a winter slumber, but you can really see the potential of the area to be a great resort in the summertime. The winding beaches and the green vegetation are just a perfect combination.
So as we returned the weather turned crappy. At least we enjoyed two dry days.
Tonight we will be celebrating Passover with friends. The MRS. has a friend from back home staying over for a week or so, so she joined us on our trips and she'll join the Seder tonight. We are going to be around 11 people (not counting kids, infants or fetuses). I have taken a day off from work to get the food ready and to prepare for the evening.
And tomorrow we'll dive right back into the science.

Happy holidays for all. And it's OK to steal a bite of bread/scone/cake/pita/bun/and much more every hour or so.

Passover is almost here and we are starting to organize the SEDER. It seems that we will have around 12 adults in the SEDER this year and each of us will bring some type of food. The MRS. and I will bring Kubé, as it is the food most recognized with Passover for me. I spent Sunday morning preparing the Kubés and you can see what a beautiful work I've done.

The week was great, dark arrives only around 19:30, and the temperatures climbed above the 20 degree mark. Returning home from work every evening while it is still light and with a short T-shirt is really uplifting.
This week also had St. Patrik's day which a few of the guys in the group decided to celebrate with lunch at a bar. Yes, beer and beef in the middle of the day, just before returning to work in the lab. Later that night I went with a friend to a pub and saw green beer. I didn't try it and I don't think I'll ever want to drink green beer, but it seemed to be an attraction at the pub.

Work was partially better this week. I had some good measurements and some bad. But this week was mostly an accident-prone week. It started by me loosing a part of a finger nail in the lab, then I hit my leg on a dolly and got a pretty big bump on my knee. But the strangest "accident" I had this week is sunburning. I got three round burns on my arm (see picture). These marks are a result of work with a strong lamp at the lab. This lamp can simulate twice the radiation of the sun, and if you have the light focused (like with a magnifying glass) you can get sun burns in a few seconds, which I did when I tried to focus the light into my system.

Anyway, this week most of the group will be in San Francisco for a conference so I have most of the lab space for myself. This will allow me to work with no waits for instruments and with shorter lunch/coffee breaks, because there will be no one to talk to. Let's all hope for great results.

Not licking honey

This week kind of sucked. My research hit a huge bump and crashed for a while. Everything I tried failed, either because of instrument faults or human errors, but nothing worked. So I took a quiet weekend to try and recover before I return for a new week of science. But, of course, the weekend was extremely rainy.
I hope that this week will be better.

Passover is getting close and we have started planning the Seder. Since it is on a Monday, I'll have to decide if I want to take Monday off or if I prefer Tuesday. I really don't want to take a longer vacation because I know that I have to work as much as possible before CJ arrives (not too far away!).

We have started checking out the option of getting a local driving license. The bureaucracy of the DMV is astonishing, we need to bring so many documents to prove who we are, when we were born, where we live, if we exists, and so much more... oh, yes. You can't use one document (like a passport) to prove more than one thing. Yes, a passport can prove your identity OR your date of birth OR your signature, but not all things together. And apparently, if you try to be a "smart ass" and try to use one document for more than one fact you will be denied a license and will have to try again another day. Stupidity at its best!

So with hopes of a better week. Bye.

Springtime in Boston

Spring time has arrived to Boston (at least at the time being). The frozen river has finally melted and the rowing teams started training. This week that started with snow and winds ended with blue skies and scorching heat (Boston style - which means around 13 degrees). And it seems that this beautiful weather will stay for most of next week.
We have decided to enjoy this beautiful weather with an outing with friends. We have walked around a small man-made lake close by and had a nice brunch on the open patio of a small restaurant close to the lake. It was kind of strange to look at a big group of Israelis (we were 9 adults and 3 children) walking around the lake disturbing all the joggers, cyclists and other "healthy" Americans. Apparently, walking on the right side of a road, any road, is almost impossible for Israelis. They have to walk in the middle of the road, and preferably to zig-zag from side to side.

I have spent most of the remainder of this day shopping - my most hated action. The story begins yesterday night when we went to hear a talk by an Israeli author/screen play writer/columnist in one of the synagogues in Brookline. I know him from high school, and The MRS. knows his wife from work. We started talking and ended up going out for dinner and drinks, and inviting him to join our walk around the lake. After we finished the walk and the brunch, he said he needed to buy gifts for his wife and kids, so we got back to Boston and went shop-hopping for several hours. Never mind - hospitality is an important aspect of the Middle Eastern culture, and we are all Middle Eastern!

It feels like (not true - only feels like!!) this whole week was socked in alcohol, and not in the chemistry sense of things. We had a group meeting this week - which means a few beers - then the group went out for some more drinks, and a day later I found myself drinking again with the visitor. I do not get drunk (I don't drink enough for it, because I don't enjoy the feeling), but I do get more "loose". No extreme emotions (happiness, depression and so forth), just more fun to talk to - or at least I hope so. But my note-to-self from this week is - I shouldn't have so many drinks in the future.

As for work - I am pretty excited. It seems that my research progresses in the right direction, I started getting agreeable results. I also had a few words with the boss (which is a great achievement by itself) and got him really psyched towards my research. He really wants me to finish these experiments and to start writing a paper. I hope I'll be able to do this ASAP, since just as I started seeing great results, different delays and problems have already popped up. I guess I will enjoy long days in the lab until I can wrap up this project.

So that was another week towards the success we strive for. Until nest time...

Craziness

Sometimes it's just too much. The long hours, the stress. This week was just crazy. I have worked hard and long, and I still cannot say if I've got exactly what I want or not. This upcoming week should not be much different, it will be as crazy as the previous, with synthesis, measurements, and more.

We have witnessed the crooked ways of the American health system this week. The hospital where we are to give birth has invited 75 pregnant couples to a "Meet the Docs" event. 10 doctors sit in front of the invitees and answer questions, trying to hook the costumers. Even though The MRS. and I do not have a choice of hospitals, most people here can choose from different places. The hospitals earn money by the number of people who check in so they try to get as many people to come over to their institutions. It is really different than the system in Israel, since here if you have a good insurance you will be treated like a king and be courted endlessly (where as in Israel you will always be treated like a nag and there will never be an opening for you) but I cannot say that the system here is good.

I've also went to a Tax Session for foreign scholars. The tax system here is really strange. You will have to submit the tax report by yourself - when there is a tax treaty with foreign countries it means you need to fill several forms and send them to different government agencies (federal, state and more) just to tell them "Hey, I don't need to pay anything". And after 2 years my employer will start taking tax out of my paycheck and only in the middle of the following year I can ask for the money back.
They do not have the system where an employer takes the right amount of tax and that's it. Here the employer will usually take more tax than needed, and you HAVE to ask for money back.

Getting used to living here still requires more work!

The MRS. celebrated her birthday this weekend, and I would like to wish her a very happy birthday, may all her wishes come true. I love her.

Oops - forgot again

It's already a Monday, I just totally forgot to post in the blog yesterday.

It's been a busy week, as usual. Work has kept me busy throughout most of the week and We had a visit from Dani and Maayan that allowed me to take a breather and site-see Boston a bit.

Time is moving so fast I can't even keep up. I work long hours, which typically includes lab work, paper work, meetings and seminars. And it seems like the week is way too short.

Dani and Maayan spent 2 nights in Boston, and we went around the city to see different sites, including historical sites, Harvard and MIT. Luckily for us the weather was nice and warm (at 6 degrees) after a short snow episode.

CJ seems to be growing fast. You can even see him moving from time to time inside the MRS. It's a good thing he is due in the springtime when it will not be too cold to take him outside.

Other than that I have nothing to tell. It's becoming pretty routine, working and resting cycles everyday.