Day One

Posted 10:22 PM, September 25, 2006, by saerni

My first week of graduate school started off at 9am with my first class, Evolution. Stanford has something new to me, "shopping for classes". You're basically given 2 weeks at the beginning of course at which time you can add and drop classes as you please, so you can test out courses and see which ones you enjoy.

Marina and I both tried out Evolution, but as it turns out it wasn't right for us. We chatted after and sat as MSOB (where we have our desks side by side with names and everything!) and decided to check out this developmental biology class at 11. As it turned out, it was a med school class that did not start until the following week. I sat there with about 10 other confused students while the class TAs handed back quizzes.

We stopped by and watched Sam Pearlman's practice qualifying exam talk (the actual one is tomorrow at noon)! It was great to see what would be expected from us, and what kind of support you get from your classmates, lab mates, and even family. Particularly if you have pizza available! The talk was interesting, and I even learned a few things. Sam's a great speaker. I can definitely picture him as a professor, although I'm not sure what he hopes to do with his degree.

Alex, David, Noah and I walked around in the afternoon picking up our books. The bookstore was SO packed, so I waited in line while the guys went downstairs to pick up books (the picture is of the line when I was about half way through). Noah stood at the end holding on to all of them so that when I finally got to the front we just brought them all to one spot. The clerk who directed us to the right cashier didn't seem surprised at all. I guess we weren't the only clever ones that came up with this idea. On the way back we somehow got on the strange subject of cannibalism. Alex, who still knows everything, had interesting stories about foreigners who somehow avoided jail for killing and eating people. He also had a story about a graduate student whose PhD advisor refused to let him graduate, and after something insane like 11 years, the student killed his advisor-with a hammer! I think I have to watch my back with Alex...just kidding!!!

After that uplifting, and not at all morbid conversation, we went to the BioMASS orientation. They went over a few general things we'd heard before about money, rotation, and various other things, but also had some inadvertently hilarious advice about keeping sane. The best student by far told us that if we find ourselves at lab on a Saturday night at 3am, having eaten a jar full of "chocolate covered something" then we've gone off the deep end. I could just picture myself doing that...scary! There were also some great clubs there. I'm pretty sure the MD blogger from last Spring, Kenny, was there!

BioMASS included a dinner, for which Ryan showed up. We enjoyed the free food (wow, 2 free meals in one day-I wonder if I can keep this up!), and each other's company, but weren't particularly successful in the "meet and mingle" portion of the evening. Everyone seemed interested in sitting at tables that were pretty homogenous as far as department was concerned. I guess I'll have to go to the BioX happy hour sometime to get that portion worked out!

Ryan and I went home after dinner, and tried to relax. There were two guys at our gym downstairs watching the game in New Orleans. They were sitting on some equipment beside me while I was running on the treadmill. When I grabbed a mat for crunches, I saw an uncorked bottle of champagne in front of them. One guy popped up, came over, grabbed the bottle, and after apologizing said "This is how you exercise when you get old." I guess in the gym, giving your liver a workout could seem like something healthy!