BiWeekly Update...

It turns out that I'm updating quite rarely.  So rare in fact, that my mom threatened to call the MEET emergency number.  It turns out that after 8+ hours a day of students, and a bajillion MEET-related e-mails, I'm quite terrible at responding to anything (though I do still READ the e-mails).  If you're worried, don't worry.  I'm not dead, I swear!!!

Today, I'm composing this e-mail from the Aquarium lab at the Hebrew University.  It's called the Aquarium lab because there are windows between us and a library, and people are always looking in.  I feel comforted by this, as it reminds me of the Fishbowl at MIT.  It seems perfectly natural to have your computing observed by random people.  The only difference here is that the observers are students, rather than giant tour groups.  In any case, thinking of the Fishbowl makes me smile... many hours were spent in that cluster, and inevitably, a friend or acquaintence would walk by and knock on the window to say hi.  Mmmmm, the good ol' days!

But, that's neither here nor there.  (What does this saying mean, anyway?!)  I'm composing this blogpost in the lab, because my students are starting their final projects.  They are writing a Boggle board game, their first big MEET project.  Boggle is a very popular word game in which 16 or 25 letters are randomly displayed, and the player has a set amount of time to identify as many words as possible.  Each letter of the word must touch the next letter, either on the side, or diagonally.  You can play it online here: http://www.fun-with-words.com/boggle.html.

Of course, talking about this final project is really skipping a lot of other things that have occured in the past two weeks since the previous blog post (which I just posted, but has been sitting in the drafts box for some time!!)  As before, it's list time!!!

MEET Week 2:

Exam 1, 

mini-project I (MEETCad!), 

sports day aka soccer-with-a-stitch, 

team lead run; control structures, max's last night, dinner at foccacia bar, party at omri's friend's house; arraylist, polka dots,

 shakshouka, CANNNNDY; 

objects I, stitch removal, 

j-town bridge;  

objects ii, sandwich day, end-of-day circle, 

PARENTS NIGHT!!, 

wine-drinking-in-a-park; ir amin tour (tour of the wall), 

drive to jaffa, 

lunch in the grassish-carpeted cafe,

 tour of jaffa with JOEL the god of tour guides, 

sunset in tel aviv, 

dinner and swimming in hertzelia, crashing at anat's parents' house, "clubbing" in tel aviv; breakfast at anat's parents' house, 

swimming in the mediteranean, 

ice cream in ein karem, 

broken mosque, 

rassssssssshhhhhh.

MEET Week 3:

objects iii, mini-project ii, jumana paddling skillz, 

MUSTAFA'S BBQ!, candy, hookah on the street.; objects iv, sunset run;  inheritance i, apprentice;  inheritance ii, 

sandwich day, CLUMPS!, last recitation :-(, boweling; 

unification, final project kick-off, end-of-week circle.

 

Next on the agenda: FREAKING DESERT TRIP!!!  And also, wall reflections.

It's gone by so incredibly quickly.  My favorite memories have not really been the things listed above.  They have been the moments of awesome conversation.  Talks of religion, for instance.  Or, just simple conversations in recitation.  Going around the room talking about our scars or our fears or our first memories.  Playing clumps on sandwich day and watching all kinds of barriers break down.  Dancing the YMCA during lecture.  Coming home to find flowers on my pillow from Anna's long walks.  Falling asleep to explanations of physicsy things.  Falling asleep to explanations of non-physicsy things.  Lying in the grass of HUJI at the end of the day.  Team Lead meetings in all their ridiculous.  Just sitting near Nick when he says anything at all, because he's hilarious.  Cooking food, and/or eating the food that others have cooked.  Conversing in broken Arabic while sharing a hookah on the street with random neighbors.  Nutella fight, ice cream fight, hummus fight.  Exploratory runs.  Listening to Arabic music on the way back home in the evening.

That Time Another Week Passed

First and foremost: HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES!!!!  (I tried calling just now, but then I realized it's 7am in North Carolina right now, and thus, no one answered... hopefully I'll get to talk to you later)

At the beginning of the summer, I thought I'd be updating as much as I did last year.  But, since a lot of the historical and touristic points have been previously covered in writing, I'm feeling less compelled to record things.  I've still taken a boatload of pictures, but the literary extremism has died down.

At times, I feel like too much is happening.  There have been many frustrations associated with the workload and the lack of sleep, but I've been able to vent them openly and encouraged others to do the same.  In this regard, I feel much more relaxed than last year.  I also have encountered more personal issues, such as this whole falling-in-the-drain bit and a recent divergence in a long-standing relationship.  My fellow instructors, friends by now of course, have been with me and help me through.  I also came into this whole experience questioning how it would compare to last year.  I've never been one to repeat experiences if at all possible, favoring breadth over depth.  However, coming here again is like coming home after a long break.  It simply feels good to breath the air and see the hills and sleep in the parks.  Thus, all these factors combined have allowed this summer to develop into an incredibly worthwhile "repeat" experience.

My students this year are top notch.  They are calmer than last year's rowdy bunch by far... or perhaps I've merely grown more immune to them?  A summer of MEET, plus another round of TAing at MIT certainly would support the latter; though my intuition aligns with the former.  In any case, they are splendid, and I am quite sad that a week has already passed.  I've barely gotten to scrape the surface with them, and I worry that maybe I just won't get as close with them as last year due to the shortened MEET length (4 weeks instead of 5) and the added responsibility of being team lead.

I will condense the week into a shortened list as before...

Arrival of MEET students, familiar faces, hugs galore, excitement, iced coffee, kickoff event, projector fail, HelloWorld; corn pizza and Goldstar and dance parties; day two, primitive types, extended I/P bonding, recitation glories, parallel parking mishaps, Burgers Bar; 

one-legged cat,

 HP tour fail, sexy corn flakes, Indigo experience, 

poster acquisition, 2-hour return delay, Intro to Objects, the disappearing lab trick; Nutella warz, 

long walk through the city to reclaim serenity, Rabinovitz Park, 

monster slide,

secret pathway, full moon grass laying; 

English event, Using Methods, Yoyo/DoodlePad/Sandwich lab, 

double lab duty, alum TAs galore; Pharmacy run, 

Max pickupage, laundry entertainment, 

eXtreme shopping sans cart, 

din din dinnah; ODT, omega, schneppling, team building, 

inner ethnicity argumentation, phone and ipod collections, flower cup, 

end-of-day circle bodes well for end-of-day ice cream; 

OPENING NIGHT OF THE JERUSALEM FILM FESTIVAL!!!!, 

unexpected e-mail, middle-of-the-night call-to-prayer graveyard-sneaking-extravaganza;

 sleeping til 3:30pm, more parkage and wandering, communal dinner, night out on the town with yohanan et al, 

misti connection (EDITH!!), gent (polish butterfly) --> mias (omri) --> tuvya (kozel!);

dance/sandwich party sans Woody despite the greatest of efforts, foxtrot-on-feet, brushing-of-teeth because not-in-the-bed; J-town tour, 

cistern detour, lina cafe... and now.

See there.  I wrote it all. 

And finally, for those concerned with my little mishap of a leg, I can assure you that it feels SOOOO MUCH BETTER than even a day or two ago.  I even ran around the block a little bit yesterday without any complications!!

Miss you all... sorry I'm not doing a better job keeping up with everyone.  But I can assure you, I'll have ample free time when I return to the states!