Hamster Dancin' Around the World

Jespah, Penny told me you have a question for me. Hillel is teaching at BU since 1980s, yes. He's short and had real curly hair, lots of it. Is that him?

A halal rabbi. How .....unusual.

It is so great to catch up with Penny.

Girlfriend - you sure know how to travel and meet people!

Well, Penny, you decided which pic out of the 340 from Lexington/Concord (and dozens from Boston I should post.

But I agree: you in front of a pub with closed blinds, and in the shadow, didn't look attractive. :wink:

Yes, I did. I found the behind on that statue incredibly attractive. Such taunt and masculine buttocks they were oops, ah well. It's only human.

What a long day. I am very sleepy now. After we relaxed and napped a little, littlek, aka Kris, came home. She was asking me about school and such, and well, I haven't been to any school yet. So I got some tutoring in math. Here I am trying to draw a hexagon, all by myself!

First you draw a circle, Kris said



Then you mark the six corners, and draw the lines with a ruler



I thought geometry would be more difficult and boring, but I liked it, in an actual fact. Then we watched a movie. We watched When Harry met Sally. I snuggled with Screech again, who seems to think I'm his little sister or something



But I must sleep, my eyes are closing. I am up so late, it's already after midnight! This will be my bed while I'm here



Comfy. And now that you've all seen where I am and how I am, I can post a little less photographs. I think if I posted this many every day, nobody would even look at them anymore. Although sozlet would, I know she would. I wonder if we'll get to spend Christmas together. It would sure be nice to be home again for a little bit. But not before Canada. Ahhh, falling asleep. Good night y'all.

Ha, I wonder if it is him. I recall eating at the vegetarian dining hall (yes, there was one, it was in the back of the Student Union) with a guy named Hillel. And there just aren't a lot of Americans in our general age group named Hillel. So it's a definite maybe.

Anyway, thank you for asking.

Penny, of course, knows how to bring everyone together.

It's great to see Penny having such a good time and that she now has a new account!

Hi Penny and Sozet :-D

Hi, Montana! How is my tractor doing?

Well, we had another busy day. Adult people spend their days in a strange way. They go to work and sit around there all day and talk about boring things. Meetings meetings meetings. Luckily, I received a royal treatment and got to meet some exciting people.

They rolled out the red carpet for me!



This building where Dasha works is unbelievable. It has carved wood everywhere and chandelliers that one could swing on for hours, marble fireplaces... Very posh. Snobbish, Dasha says. I would not mind swinging on that chandelier though. She said we cannot, that it's in poor taste. Oh whatever! Here is me contemplating jumping up on it.



Please note also the little lamp in the back. These naked girls are hoisting up the big lamps on their back. I did not like that one bit. I helped one of them to lift it up... When I stood next to her, I saw how strong she was. I have collected a bit of a tummy on my travels - that's because everybody feeds me so well. I am glad we bike everyday nowadays, cause I do need to exercise a little.



We went out to lunch with Jennifer and Adam. Jennifer is from Kansas and is very funny. Dasha is sure happy to have her around. She let me pick anything I liked from the menu. I chose Exxxtreme Avenue - that's a Thai dish that comes with this deep fried basket thingy. Oops, not a good start of a diet, is it?

You're staying at a really nice place, Penny, with even nicer friends joining you for yummy meals!

At the office, I helped Adam and Dasha in their meeting, preparing a schedule for a big workshop. That's when people come from all over the world to sit together for three days and talk about clever things, but they also play games a lot and even sing, but Dasha said that they don't know about that yet. Me and Adam got very excited when we figured out how to make everything they want to do fit into two days program. Adam was very thankful for my help and I felt very proud.



I also helped to staple papers together in the office. I sat next to Dasha's computer (you can see the Newsletter she made all by herself on the computer screen). On the pictures, there is her sister Sasha (isn't that just silly - Sasha and Dasha?) with her son Sebastian (that, too, sounds like a song: "San Sebastiaaaaaan") and then her colleague with her family (that's because Dasha likes them so much, especially their son) and then there is Dasha's father Miroslav on the right.



I wanted to take a closer look at Miroslav. They look very much alike. Unfortunately, Dasha says. This picture is very very old and Miroslav is very old now, too. He lives in Slovakia. Dasha said that I am invited to come visit anytime I like. That would be so fun! Slovakia. Think of all those mushrooms!

Well, Penny went to brush her teeth so I can get to post also. And I have a big secret to share while she's in the bathroom. One flight up above my office, up that grand staircase, is the office of Elie Wiesel. That's a very important man, he was a Nobel peace prize laureate, which is one of the biggest awards a person get get on this whole wide planet. When Penny was working with Adam, I ran upstairs to see if I can finagle a meeting with Prof. Wiesel for Penny. He has a real nice secretary named also Jennifer, like my colleague. She said she will try her best to fit a meeting into his busy schedule. Penny is to show up at 9:30am on Tuesday (so early!). If we cannot get a picture with him, he will at least write a letter to sozlet. And we will get to see his office and take a photo there, with or without him. But don't tell Penny! It's a surprise! We have been talking about history a lot - about the war of Independence and also we talked a lot about conflict and how history can help overcome it. She will be very excited to meet Elie Wiesel in person, we talked a lot about him, too! If you'd like to know more about him, sozlet, here is a little bit written by a girl called Madison.


PEACEMAKER HERO:
ELIE WIESEL
by Madison from Alpine

Not many people know what a hero Elie Wiesel is, or even who he is, but he is a hero nonetheless. He was born in the small, close-knit Jewish town of Siget, Transylvania (now what is called Romania) on September 30, 1928. He had three siblings, all sisters, was raised an extremely religious Hasidic Jew, and started his studies when he was a small child. His parents encouraged him with his Hebrew and religious studies as well as his secular studies.

Elie's life changed tremendously in 1944, at the age of 15. At this time, the Nazis invaded his town and all of the Jews in the village were deported to concentration camps across Poland. He was separated from his mother and younger sister immediately and he has never seen them again. He managed to stay with his father for one year while they were worked nearly to death through starvation, exhaustion, cold weather with improper clothing, being shuttled in cattle cars, and being beaten regularly. But in the end, his father was murdered by the Nazis in Buchenwald. While living in France, years after his horrible experiences in Auschwitz, Bun, Buchenwald, and Gleiwitz, Elie learned that his two older sisters had survived.

In France, he studied philosophy and supported himself by becoming a choir master and teaching Hebrew. He also became a professional journalist. He did not talk about his war experiences for 10 years, and then he wrote a 900 page book called And the World Kept Silent).

Since then, he has written about 30 books and spoken out about the horrors of war. Wiesel has been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, an appointment to the President's Commission on the Holocaust, the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement, and much more. Elie Wiesel makes it clear that we cannot forget the Holocaust, and that he never will. He honors those who have died and makes sure that none of them will ever be forgotten. He expresses his feelings through these quotes

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."

I know him, of course. Small world we inhabit..






















and of course I only know him by rep.

I haven't met him either, but am crossing my fingers that Penny will. My boss (Hillel) meets with him once a week, they are good friends. And the secretary is sympathetic, she did travel to Poland with her niece's doll so she knows how Penny's travels work. So I have complices.

Well, this is far from my purview. Ok, not so far, at least re interest. I won't ask you what is he thinking now - totally presumptuous.

If Penny meets him, I may just cry...


But even if not, interesting association for a hamster...

What is who thinking? My boss?
I agree, Elie Wiesel surely is a good company for any hamster! We will gett Penny all edumacated while she's here, and exercised. Kalokagathia (beauty of soul and body). She has done math, history, and lots of biking already.

Oh, look, I have a lot of things to say, and can't get them together fast enough.

Oh my goodness...!

This is some amazing stuff.

Sozlet knows what the Nobel prize is and was suitably impressed though she didn't yet know who Elie Wiesel is. I certainly do, and a letter from him... wow. Sozlet has ancestors who died in the Holocaust. We have talked about it a little bit, just talked about it more now.


Meanwhile, one of her best friends is from Slovakia (as in, moved here a few years ago), and she perked up at that. (I'll have to ask her if she knows the happy goat story.) Great picture of your dad. Not how I pictured him.

Sozlet says, "I liked the part where Screech thinks that Penny is his little sister."

Ha, well that was my dad some 40+ years ago.

This is him now, though you don't see much. I found that online, apparently it's a 'cage of solidarity' - it was an event to support freeing of politcal prisoners in Cuba. He was one in communist Czechoslovakia, so they locked him up there.... not sure how that works as solidarity, but hey. if it gets people stop and think, it's good.