So much ice-cream!!!

Yesterday Yos and I went to a dream event - all-you-can-eat ice cream!!!
This event took place in Boston's downtown. After paying a modest entrance fee, all of which goes to the Jimmy Fund for cancer research, we walked into the wide plaza and dug in. We sampled ice cream from 11 producers, including both big names (Hagen Daaz and B&J) and also smaller local ones. In total, I ate 9 scoops and Yos ate 12. This is not including the ones we tried and discarded... It was sooo much fun (but of course we felt sick for the rest of the day...).
What was most amazing about this event is how quite and clean everything was. I mean, can you imagine something like this ever happening in Israel?

Just an uptade...

Hola amigos!
Seems like every end of month I manage to get my act together and write a post... maybe I should make this an official schedule.
The past couple of weeks were, as usual, crazy. Work on my current project was so-so, with quite a few set-backs but also some solutions; over all I'm not too excited about what I'm doing now, even though I know it's important and needs to be done.
I also decided to organize a special session at the upcoming fall AGU meeting (December 07). I am hoping that organizing a session that deals with the topics I focus on in my research would allow me to meet other people who are interested in similar things; perhaps this would make me feel less isolated. So far I found three co-organizers, and quite a few people who were supportive and offered to help. I hope our sessions is accepted. An additional benefit for me would be the extra exposure, which is very important, as I will soon be looking for a postdoc/job.
Another source of anxiety was health-related - my doctor noticed something weird in my annual check, and wanted to run more tests. Typically, I completely repressed that idea and went on normally until the second exam, which revealed that it was actually nothing. Only then I freaked out... This is so me. But the tension was there in the back of my mind, which made everything else seem much worse and made me very edgy. Anyway, everything is fine, so no need to worry anymore.
This week I also kinda freaked when I realized that I don't have anything cool and fun scheduled for the summer. As Yos wisely said it, "the fact that our trip to Israel is only in September makes it look like a long vacation-less summer". Anyway, after getting all depressed about this, I booked plane tickets to Chicago for a conference I'm going to, and immediately felt better. I also went hiking and wall-climbing, and made plans to take a whitewater kayaking course with some friends and to go visit Maureen in Washington DC, so I'm feeling much better already.

This was my monthly update. The coming month holds lots of activity as well, so stay tuned!

What a week!!!

This week was extremely intense (which is my excuse, or reason, to be writing in my blog instead of getting right back into work...).
It started with the very Israeli emotional roller-coaster of memorial-day-turn-into-independence-day. It is even worse because of the time difference - on Monday morning I was still crying after reading several bereavement stories and listening to Chava Alberstein, and in the afternoon I was already watching the beacons and the fireworks of the Independence day opening ceremony, and talking with family and friends happy in barbecues and parties...that's one sharp transition.
Wednesday was the opening day for the "big defense festival", with Emily's defense at WHOI. She gave a great talk and it was fun to see her smile afterwards, but also sad because I know this means she will be leaving soon :( Ping (Thursday) and Chang (Friday) followed action with great talks as well. While I really don't have to do much for someone else's defense, all these have raised the overall level of excitement in the department, and it just felt like there was a lot going on all the time. On Friday night we all went out to Rob's house in Concord and had a big party for all three defenders. Good wine and food were as usual part of the deal.
On a little different mood, this is now also the time for many friends to take their general exam. This, naturally, raises the overall level of stress in the building, with practice presentations and mock exams... Many of these students come to see me, seeking advice and just wanting to talk about it. It feels great to be able to (at least try to) help them. This just makes me understand how much I would not like working in an all-adult research-only facility. I need this human interaction and the mentoring process.
If this wasn't enough activity for one week, yesterday (Saturday) I went wall-climbing for the first time ever. I was lucky to get a free spot on a group trip from MIT, and got a climbing lesson for a great price. We learned how to belay, and then climbed for 4 hours in pairs. It was a lot of fun and actually not scary at all. But it is hard! I managed to get to the top of three 5.7 routes, and to about 2/3 of the way up a couple of 5.8s. I guess I could use some practice... Then I went directly to the barn and rode Tasha, who was really good - maybe she felt that I really couldn't move my arms any more...
And now it's back to work - there was some progress during the week, and many of the problems with the code were solved, but now it's time to actually do something with it...
As I said - What a week!!!

Spring break in the Bahamas

As promised in my opening statement, this blog will mostly be about horses and travels, my two main hobbies. The previous post was about horses, so it is only natural that this new post will be about... travel!

This time we headed for a quickie in the Bahamas. This week was spring break, and wile it shouldn't really have mattered to us (we don't take or TA any classes this term) we decided this was a good enough excuse to pay another visit to Logan.

On Monday morning we left on a direct flight to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. There we spent half a day and one night in Cable Beach, one of the two main resort/hotel areas on Nassau island. Our hotel was so-so, but OK for it's price and for just one night. The beach itself was fine, and the best part was the water - the color was just amazing!!!

On Monday night we had the pleasure of joining the American college-students on spring break in the only club that was open on a weak Monday night. It was actually not as bad as we expected... Maybe because the drinks contained more sugar than alcohol.

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday on a small island named Harbour Island. It is really small (5 by 0.7 kms) and located near the north tip of the longest island in the Bahamas - Eleuthera. The main attraction of Harbour Island is Pink Sands beach, which is, basically, a very pretty beach with pink sand. It is a very quiet and romantic island, without the crowds of Nassau and Freeport (but also without the activities). We were hoping to do some snorkeling, as the underwater world on the Bahamas is supposed to be great, but the weather was very windy and the sea too rough, so we sadly decided against. We had some nice food (mostly sea-based) and drinks on the island. We stayed in a cute "zimmer" with our own kitchenette and friendly owners - more fun than a grand hotel in Nassau, for sure.

On Thursday morning we flew back to Nassau, where Yossi spent a couple more hours on the beach and in the casino, and I went exploring the fish market in downtown Nassau. It was fun although most of the stores were already closed. I was brave and tried a conch salad made of fresh conch, onions, tomatoes, green pepper, cucumbers, sea-salt red hot chili pepper (she only put the tiniest piece in mine and it was still really spicy!) and lime and orange juice. It was really good.

Over all - the Bahamas are really pretty and the people are very nice. If we'd planned more carefully maybe we would have been able to make more of it (e.g. go scuba diving, jet-skiing, etc), and one should take into account that the islands are expensive.

You are invited to visit our Picasa web album and take a loot at our pictures from the Bahamas!

Riding clinic with Sue

Today was a riding clinic at the barn, which means that a special trainer from outside came and gave private lessons to some of the riders. I rode Tasha at 9am. She was relatively relaxed and did not pull any door-related tricks. The beginning of the ride was the most different part compared with Rachel's lessons - Sue made me go real fast around the whole arena many time, first in the canter ("think like trail-riding!") and only then in really big trot. I was supposed to not care about the collect-ness and position of the head. She also didn't let me do any circles for the first 10-15 minutes. Only go around and change directions all the time.
Then I made the reins shorter and we started working more collectedly, but still I had to keep her really forward and keep the strides very big. We did some trot sitting, after which Sue made me shorten my stirrups by one hole each (I put both them in #5, so now i guess they should be in #6). This made my leg more stable, which helped me sit a little better. Sue said that my seat is very good but that I put too much weight on the seat and too little in the stirrups, and I should NOT work without stirrups because it keep my legs weak and I need to learn how to deal with putting more weight into them ("you need to marry them!"). Sue made me take the legs out of the stirrups, lift the knees half-way up, then release VERY slowly! after a couple of these my hip-flexor started aching, a sign of how weak it was...
Another issue we worked on was the straightness and how to make Tasha bend from her rib-cage and not from the hips or neck. Sue claims that the rib-cage is the source of her flexure problems, not so much the hinds. To do this, I did some 20-to-10-to-20 meter circles, transitioning through leg-yields, which helped get her to bend. But her head needs to be exactly in between her shoulders! When Suzanne was riding her after me, Sue taught us them "Shoulder-four". It is a baby version of shoulder-in, and basically it means that the haunches stay on the track, the shoulders come slightly off it to the inside, the angle of the body is no more than 10-15 degrees, and the body very straight. For Suzanne, Tasha's head was too much bent inwards to the left, which made her shoulders pop to the right. The other direction was better. When spotting a shoulder-for from the ground, it needs to appear that the hind inside leg is showing between the two front legs, but not stepping between them. It looks from behind like the inside hind leg is lifting diagonally under the body (which makes it look like good circle steps?). When Sue explained to me the idea of bending from the ribcage instead of from the neck, she demonstrated it by putting her hands between her shoulders and ears. "This distance must stay the same at all times".
In the end I did some shoulder-ins and leg-yields which went very well. The first one did not go so well and lacked energy, but once I big-cantered again they all became very good and forward.

So major points are:

1) Forwardness!! from the beginning. Make her run and sweat and become active and through. Key exercise - big canter, big trot, no circles. If possible - work withput the draw reins.

2) Straightness and place of bending in the body. Key exercise - shoulder-for, shoulder-in. 20-10-20 circles with leg-yields, keeping the 10-m bend on the straight line.

3) Putting more weight into the stirrups so that the weight in stirrups is equal to weight in saddle. Key exercise - make my hips stronger off the horse, make the stirrups shorter, on the circle turn body outwards pressing the inside leg down to the ground. She suggested doing a few
lounge-line lessons to work on this (blaaa...)

21st century here I come!

Welcome everybody!
This is my attempt to set up a blog. This is a mere result of peer pressure and following others. But hey - why not? (possible answers: no time, I got nothing interesting to say, no one will read this anyhow).
In this blog I will probably talk a lot about school and horses, as these are the two things currently filling up my days. You are expected to also hear quite often about Yossi (aka Joe), my dear husband. Every now and then there will also be trip descriptions, as travelling is one of my favorite hobbies.
OK, I should get back to work. The future of science is on my shoulders!!