in my life

This totally brightened up my morning, aka the Last Morning of Unemployment:



Today shall be filled with finding a way to write yuletide in between schoolwork, or maybe the other way around, and -- this is important -- going to sleep no later than 1AM tops so I am all well-rested tomorrow.

My reactions to the finales I watched this week are as follows:

Chuck: HOLY SHIT

Grey's Anatomy: HOLY SHIT

The Good Wife: How much do I love Alicia Florrick?

I've really been loving these two Tnuva (dairy company) campaigns, that just have this really whimsical visualization that plays on the idea that everyone's house has a different feel to it.

I'm debating what to do tomorrow. I have a car, and I just need to decide; north or south? Green or desert? I have not been south for a while now. Hmm hmm hmm.

This year with Remix, I'm really happy to be able to see my story's hit count! It's like I planted this seed and every day it gets a tiny little shower of rain while I'm sleeping, or like it's a little baby fish, and the handful of hits it gets every day is like the universe sprinkling it with flakes of fishfood. I am so very fond of it. *pats story*

So apparently the one class I missed the entire semester was the one where the teacher extended the paper deadline from tomorrow to next week. This is what happens when you procrastinate, in this case, procrastinate catching up on missed classes :/ The paper still isn't done of course, but I am less stressed about it now and will hopefully begin the new semester well-rested.

My dad bought a new gadget, kind of like a Flip camcorder thing, all tiny and HD. I took it to the uni a week (or more?) ago and played around with it when I was having having coffee with marina, and in the interest of my new career as an exhibitionist, apparently, I am posting it here! It's ten nearly-unedited minutes of us talking about nothing though, and caveat lector, if you watch this, it's ten minutes of your life you're never getting back. There's a mini tour of the university which may be of mild interest? And an anticlimactic sunset. That's about it.

anyway lalala video of us

PS I finally watched the Cuddy episode of House! OMG ♥♥♥

Okay, obviously I am only putting the gorgeous photo on the cover to lure you guys in, but. Photos from Italy! When are those ever not cool? (Possibly this will not be exciting for any of you guys living in Boston or Philly or, hey, CANADA OR ALASKA, but they are pretty groovy for me.)

So this is a short -- at least, compared to how long it took in real time -- account of my vacation, and photos! Which you know I love.

( SNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOW )

ETA: before I forget -- I also made a short video for LJ! ( And here it is: )

1. As a follow up to my last post, I'll mention that my paper was handed in after 43 straight hours of working on it, because I suck, but it was okay. (I dare say it might even have been good! But we'll see what the prof has to say first.) And then I spent a few days with weird jet-lagged sleeping pattern and aversion to the internet, and then another test, and now I am back! ... until next week's tests, that it.

2. I'm in a vid reccing mood lately! Okay, so rarely do I watch a vid and go *squee*SOCUTE!, but this vid is SO CUTE *squee*. It's zoetrope's 2 atoms in a molecule, John/Rodney with clips from up to The Shrine, and it is absolutely adorable and pretty, with really cute flash animation (including cactus Rodney! Aww.)

3. 90210 pilot - yeah, like you thought I wouldn't watch it. Did I grow up in the '90s, or did I grow up in the '90s? ( Short, non-real-spoilery reaction. )

4. Mom celebrated the big 5-0 at the beginning of the week, and we all (minus the sister currently touring Central America... somewhere) went to Jerusalem for dinner and the new exhibition at the Tower of David citadel.

Guys. It was... amazing. Anyone reading this who is in the country should get their butts to Jerusalem and see it right now, before people hear about it and flock (it's very new and not really advertised yet.) The Tower of David exhibitions are always nice, but this was above and beyond what I expected - I'd seen the Chihuly exhibition there in 2000, at night, on Christmas, in the snow, and it was enchanting. This was just as good if not better, which says a lot.

The citadel itself has been continuously destroyed and rebuilt ever since the 2nd century BC, so it's a great big archaeological playground, and now they've set the entire place up to be a play of lights and sounds and shadows. As you walk around among the different ruins, you come across all these beautifully lit silhouettes walking on the stone walls, shadows that look like they're planting seeds or drawing water fron a well or playing a game of chess, while in the background you hear soft music and eerie nature sounds, and seriously, the description might suck but it's beautiful.

And then, after the tour, you take a seat - they've set up chairs in a location with a great viewpoint of place - and that's where the real highlight begins: a half hour show of lights, where an animated history of Jerusalem is projected across the entire citadel. No words, just gorgeous music and gorgeous animation, still combined with shadowy silhouettes, that reminded me more than anything of scenes from Fantasia. From the creation of the world in bright colors through the Temple, the Muslim periods, the Crusades, the British, turning the 3D surface of stone walls and trees and towers into a nearly flat screen.

I'm sorry for the long exposition. But... did I mention it was breathtaking?



Naturally, I took pictures. ( Which are beneath the cut. )

Oh, and one other thing - I really hate Jerusalemites for always living 20 degrees below whatever hellish weather I'm currently in. I wore long sleeves. I hate them.

OH EW I just killed the mosquito as he was feeding and my thumb is splattered with blood :-(

Anyway.

Five people drowned at the beaches this weekend - five! It's so awful, and I am both sad and upset at my fellow countrypeople who do not heed the warnings - they said it would be a turbulent weekend - except that not really, because I was this close to going to the beach myself, and you never really expect anything to happen to you.

One of the stories was even sadder - it was a 70-year-old woman who died, and my grandmother knew her - ( it's just incredibly sad )

So I visited my grandmother yesterday afternoon, and she got another call telling her that one of her friends died - not the one above, a different one - and this isn't the first time I've witnessed her getting such a phone call. And she'd just been telling me about the funeral she'd been at earlier this week (sounded nice actually - he'd died two years ago at the age of 100, donated his body to science, and they were finally burying him now. He'd planned his own funeral, she she says he did a good job!). I can't imagine what it's like - I just know I'm incredibly blessed to still have her with me, and to not have her friends dropping off like flies break her spirit.

She also told me about the event she went to last weekend - I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say my grandmother and her friends went on a road trip to an event up north and returned home at 4AM. The driver was 82-years-old. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my grandmother? I think it's been, like, a month.

In younger news, I saw the sunset at the port yesterday! Guess what that means? That's right, PICS. And I've just remembered what made me lead with the drowning people story - it's because the sea yesterday was very, very angry.

( I shouldn't even call these photospams, should I? Sunsetspams. There should be a tag. )

And this time there's a bonus - I videoed it with my crappy digital camera! So you can see 31 seconds of the sunset, with my voice in the background irritably trying to coax the ocean into showing some foamier waves, for the camera.