Scavenger Hunt, Lunchbox Wines and IKEA salads
Posted 10:51 PM, September 19, 2006, by saerniToday was my first event as a Stanford grad student with BMI. We had a scavenger hunt that was loads of fun. I met the incoming class, Alex, David, Guanglei, Marina, and Noah. They're all really great people, funny and outgoing. Of course they'll make this experience really great. They all have unique backgrounds, including professional experience and advanced degrees (beyond a BS).
It's definitely intimidating. But I have to remind myself that everyone's experience in graduate school is unique, and just because you have a certain profile as another student, doesn't mean that you'll have the same experience. Every experience is unique.
I also have set up another meeting for a chat about a research rotation. I'm pretty excited about them all. We were swapping ideas about courses and such during the hunt. It was really fun! We were instructed to go to these various places and take pictures of different BMI-related subjects (DNA, proteins, Chemistry, sequence alignment). Our group (consisting of Shirley, Runa, Guanglei, Noah and myself) was trying to be creative (our pictures are below). They are mostly pretty funny (if you find nerdy science jokes funny). I'd say we did pretty well since we won, although I'm not sure how much of that is simply because I was loud when we had to cheer on our group. I think that's bad sportsmanship, or "huntsmanship", but I felt the need to find out what the prize is. I hope it's not a bad one like, clean the dishes at Darlene's house at the kickoff dinner this Sunday.
The group as a Poisson Distribution
Shirley being hydrophilic
Noah's "Jean" Finding Algorithm
Our version of K-means clustering. (I'm standing in the shape of a K, Runa and Shirley are looking mean, and Guanglei and Noah are a cluster)
Here's evolution in action. Runa's an amoeba followed by Noah's representation of an Ape, while I am slightly more upright. Shirley is the fully evolved, but slightly less intelligent human, while Guanglei is the tech-savvy, PDA using, modern human.
Our lovely visual representation of a multiple sequence alignment. Of course Runa, Shirley, Guanglei and I are the only sequence that is ungapped at that location.
The Stanford Bookstore came in handy for our Open Reading Frame (shown in reverse order here).
Protein folding is a complex problem, particularly when we're working with Subway Roast Beef.
Translational Research, Bench to Bedside (at the International Center)
Search Tree!
Our Greedy Algorithm outside Peet's Coffee
We had a lunch after the hunt, and just stuck around chatting and getting helpful hints from the more advanced-year graduate students. Of course they're the best place to learn a lot of information. I found out I have a box, and that I could get a laptop from the department, but I'm thinking I may just buy a MacBook Pro at this point. Arend had really suggested it.
We headed back to IKEA later on and spent a ridiculous amount of time and money there. Of course we made up for it by having a snack there, again. $1.50 for a salad and roll, we couldn't pass it up (ew that is such a grad student comment)! After the snack we headed down and picked up our eleventy-gazillion boxes of furniture. That cart Ryan's pushing me on was only one of three that we ended up needing to get all of our furniture! Thank goodness we still have our U-Haul, but at some point we'll have to get all the stuff up to the apartment so we can return it sometime tomorrow.
At night I went up to San Mateo to see my cousin Micah and his girlfriend Vincy. We had dinner at a great little restaurant up there, and then went to a crazy grocery store after. Vincy showed me Pinot Grigio in a juice box which I just found completely amusing, so I had to take a picture. We were also talking about a house warming party for us sometime at the end of October where we hope to break out our home-made poker table and try to make up some of our moving costs in winnings, although it will probably just add to the growing deficit.
Even though my fellow BMI first year student, David, seems to have battled the jet lag well, I'm still suffering and so off to bed! Good night!
Comments
Comment by: Susy at September 20, 2006 06:00 PM
NERD!!!!
hehe <3
Comment by: buddy at September 22, 2006 01:31 PM
For LOL!!!
Comment by: Tracy at September 22, 2006 08:28 PM
you're all giant nerds! :P
Comment by: jennie at September 30, 2006 08:43 PM
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OMG - The first pic was the best one - Only because I didn't know what I was in for and I got a representation out of a friggin science thingy - "Thingy," Yeah...I think we now know why you're the one at Stanford to learn how to be a better genius.