not really so different than free time

My job, that is.

So it's going pretty well. I've met with my "boss", Dr. Adi Wolfson of the Be'er Sheva Technicalogical Academy (or whatever it's called). He is very laidback - he goes by his first name, and he says it will take him a minute to respond if I address him as "Dr. Wolfson". It's very casual here - I think the best part so far about working in Israel is that I can dress however I want. No fear of suits here - who would want to wear them in this weather anyway?

I first met Dr. Wolfson a week after I arrived (I was taking it slow here - I'm still technically on vacation). His building is about fifteen minutes away (a little bit less with the shortcut I found), and it's right across the street from a building that looks like a spaceship (see their website, http://www.sce.ac.il/Extra/). He came down to meet me, and my first impression was that he's a lot younger than I thought he would be. I guess between the "Dr." and the fact that he's Israeli, I expected some leathery-faced, nut-brown old man with spectacles and a thick accent. But, Dr. Wolfson (see I still have problems calling him "Adi") has a very fresh face, and speaks excellent English. He is a professor of Chemical Engineering at the Technological College of Be'er Sheva. As I mentioned, he specializes in green chemistry, and is also a strong proponent of green engineering (i.e. environmentally friendly) practices. He just recently finished his post-doc in Belgium, and said that the European scientific community is a very interesting place. I also got the idea that they're particularly stuffy over there...

So we went up to his office, where we sat down to discuss my job. Apparently Stagerim doesn't do anything really besides introductions - kinda like JDate crossed with MonsterJobs. Dr. Wolfson didn't have anything set in stone when he decided to take me on, so he kinda threw out some suggestions of what I could do. We toured some of their "new" labs, which aren't new in the sense that they're brand-spanking, but rather that they're newly converted from regular old chemistry labs. He was fairly excited about them, and I can understand why, but I am spoiled by living for the past two years in the recently-built Engineering Buildings at NCSU.

I met some of the people working for Dr. Wolfson as well, and he explained a little about what they're doing. I sorta just nodded my head at the appropriate times, but as everybody was wearing lab coats I'm sure it was all incredibly scientific.

Then we went back to his office and he elaborated on another option I had - he had just initiated a project with a professor from the Software Engineering Department, specifically the "Monte Carlo Research Center" led by Dr. Schlomo Mark. Monte Carlo is a modeling software package capable of tracking molecular distribution and all sorts of other crazy physical systems - pretty heavy stuff. Dr. Wolfson is interested in dioxins, a particularly nasty chemical side-product of incinerators, and would like to create a model of how they disperse into the environment.

I thought it sounded interesting, and it involves both computers and chemical engineering, so I said "sign me up!" We then headed over to the spaceship building to discuss the idea with Dr. Mark. About five minutes after we arrived, I had already met the grad student I would be working with, I had a workspace in his office, a computer to work on, a login-id, and offers for more help/information. Schlomo is a little more focused, I gather. I didn't have the heart to interrupt him to say that I was just thinking about this project, but I think it will be for the best.

So I've basically just getting acquainted with the tools. I did a little preliminary research on dioxins, just to find out what they are, but mostly I'm goofing around on the computer. I will be writing code in C# using Microsoft .NET - both stuff I wanted to learn anyway, which is another plus. I'm also going to be using OpenGL, a graphics library (I guess so I can draw the models...?). In the last week or two I've basically been playing with .NET to try to figure out how stuff works. I messed around with making a calculator, and when I got bored of that I made Connect 4, just to see how to draw stuff. The coolest part of .NET is that I can take the final product to my home computer to play it whenever I want - although there are some bugs with portability (but when aren't there?). Now I'm practicing physics by writing a cannon-firing program - it needs stuff like gravity and acceleration etc, which I imagine I will be using a lot of with the actual project, only to the nth degree.

Kobi, the grad student (or "2nd Degree" as they call it here) is awesome - he's one of the nicest and most personable people I've met. He's very animated, and helpful, and fortunately for me he speaks excellent english. He's been so helpful and solicitous that it's actually almost interfered with my work ("Jeremy, can I install anything for you? Can I get you a new office chair? Do you need this or this or this..."). But seriously, he's making me feel very comfortable, and glad with my decision to do the computer work.

But now it's the weekend. So no more talk about work. I'm going to continue trying to sort my music - ever since I got the iPod I've felt like all the track info needs to be correct. Incidentally, if anybody has a free video converter so I can watch movies on my iPod, please let me know, since the only one I could find makes videos with "TRIAL VERSION" across the middle.