Biscotti solves everything

I was in the museum working on my midterm for Ben's class, which I realized I was nowhere near finishing, since it's such a slow question to work on and there's so much detail to sift through.Argh, I say to myself. Since it's due at 3:30 PM, and I have class from 1:00PM on.

Fortunately, Ben has office hours between 12:30 and 1:30. So I stopped by at 12:30, and he wasn't around, so I decided that I wanted to see what the roof looked like [there's a chain after the 5th floor on the staircase that has a sign hanging from it, saying "not an exit" or something like that]. So I ducked under the chain and went up, but I decided not to go out since I heard voices. One was male.

So I duck under the chain and start to head down, and lo and behold, Ben Porter is on the staircase. So I get to talk to him. Yay!

And I ask him how much he wants us to write, and he tells me what I was planning was way more than necessary [I had only taken notes up until now...] And everything is all clear and happy. Then I tell him that I have class from 1:00 until his class, though I could skip into to archaeology or primate behavior if he wanted me to finish the midterm now. Of course he wouldn't want me to do that, so I get a shiny extension.

And I give him a shiny mishloach manot of biscotti and marzipan ["How did you get Marzipan?!" he asked. By my Hobbity powers, also known as my parents.] All is well.

I have until wednesday night/thursday morning, which means a long tomorrow and wednesday. The question isn't even hard, just long!

Purim falls on another secular holiday: Pi Day!!!

I managed to assemble my shiny mishloach manot this morning and still make it on time to the women's megillah reading [it helped that OCP shacharit ran late]. In order to get them over, I had to put the bags into a big paper bag, and that into my bike basket, and wear my purse and knitting bag over my shoulder which is not the best thing to do when you're biking. But I made it without falling, losing anything or ripping my skirt. masteraleph refrigerated them.

The reading went well. I only messed up a few words, and there were some lines that I forgot the trope for, but I was able to save myself. And no one got the trop* perfectly, partially because the JOFA CD doesn't have everyone singing it correctly. [Which meant that I learned my section without aid of the CD beyond the eicha line, the repeated line, and learning the trop in general.]

Then I went about giving out mishloach manot. When I gave arigi his, he said I was the only person he knew of to ever make fleishig mishloach manot. Then I had the following convo with his roommate:
( conversations that should NOT be happening at 9:30 in the morning )

Then I had my Hellerstein class, during which, I realized it was Pi Day (March 14 = 3/14=3.14...and then at 1:59 pm it's like ultimate Pi!) Brett was a little scared of my revelation.

Then I went to monge-land, and she had me go to the basement and pull files on excavations in Canada.

And I learned that I have museum access, finally! That means that I can go on that porch on top of the cafe [3rd floor, also means I can use the working elevator in the front and take the shortcut] and I can go to the basement. Though the basement is a little useless if you don't have keys to the rooms inside.

I had lunch with Monge, this grad student Emily, and this guy with red hair and a British accent who is a professor who was visiting America for the 2nd time in his life. My lunch consisted of deli-roll.

And I kind of gave up at 2:45 after going through 2 of the 3 filing cabinets, and had enough time to go to the library, pull the report on Izbet Sartah, and take enough notes to [hopefully] finish the midterm tonight.

And I got a really nice e-mail from Ben, thanking me for the biscotti and rugelah. Apparently I'm good at making them. Now, the key would be to be able to reply to his e-mail with a finished midterm.

So חג שמח, and happy Pi Day!

*Edit* I forgot to write my footnote:
*I often wonder if the word "trope" came from the word "trop." Trope, with the 'e,' refers to a repeated theme/event/situation/thing throughout literature. Trop, without the e, are those Torah reading symbols. Also repeated throughout the different books of tanach, and mean different sounds if you're reading different things [like Torah vs. haftarah vs. high holiday Torah vs. Shir haShirim vs. Eicha Vs. Megillah. Did I miss any?