Monday, October 15, 2012

10.12.12 by Jacek Jarczynski



It is now almost 10 pm in Beer Sheva and I am unwinding from what was a very productive, exhausting but overall excellent day.  There was much to review for an upcoming biostatistics exam.  My friend Ashley and I put in a solid 7 hours doing practice problems and making sure we were clear on the conceptual ends of the material.  Much was accomplished today and tomorrow will be the final push as far as the studying is concerned.  After tomorrow it will be just a matter of knocking out the exam.  That was the business end of things for the day.  In the evening the books were temporarily retired and I decided to take a walk through Beer Sheva with no destination in mind.  Just wanted to clear my head and decompress.  On Fridays after sundown the town becomes very quiet and there are relatively few cars on the roads.  It is now much cooler in the evening here and most of the time there is a pleasant breeze zipping by.  I was walking down Ben-Gurion Avenue when from a distance I heard the sound of a beautiful melody.  I walked toward the source of the sound and passed by what looked like a wedding reception in one of the gardens adjacent to the street.  The melody was absolutely authentic to this area.  There was so much life and strength in this music and I could hear people dancing and celebrating behind the walls of the garden.  It was like a breath of fresh air.  Music is so essential … I lingered in the area just to listen a little bit longer.  Back in my room now and I am eyeing my bed … I will sleep like a rock tonight and will NOT dream about coefficients of determination nor will I be 95% confident or whatever % confident that the true proportion of a population is within a range of whatever.  I will catch up with the remainder of that business tomorrow!