October 2006

Housewarming in the Ghetto

This week has been pretty uneventful. The best part by far was the housewarming at Shirley, Maureen, Runa and Sarah's house in East Palo Alto (Sarah is not a BMI student but a Stanford grad student). Their house is super nice. I was pretty surprised.

East Palo Alto is a relatively undesireable area. We were sent to EPA for a lookt a house for rent. While the house was nice, had a hot tub, was larger and cheaper than the place I'm living, I just could not imagine living there. I guess the area is really improving.

They found a new development in a cul-de-sac which is pretty secluded, but the area you drive to get there didn't seem so great, but they ride their bikes!!! I'm pretty sure I'm going to move closer to the city next year, though. In any case, here are some pictures from the evening!!!

David rocking out to Bon Jovi

Everyone loves Bon Jovi!

Alex decided since Yael was sitting on the couch she was asking for a lap dance.

Alex didn't seem to be getting the right reaction so David helped!

Masumi and David dance.

Shirley checks under all the hair and finds...Sam!!!

Cheese-y music=Cheese-y dancing!

Ryan and I get sleep early, as usual!

But at least we didn't fall asleep AT the party!

Housewarming Party!!!!

On Friday I had to stay home to try to finish my recovery. After all, today was my housewarming party!!! I slept a lot, tried to do some work, but mostly tried to take in liquids and rest. At night, Ryan and I gathered together party supplies, and I started baking. I had a plan to make cupcakes, cinnamon cookies, and chocolate chip cookies.

This morning Ryan's family came up to visit from San Diego. It was really nice because it felt like my own family was here! We went to lunch, and walked around Stanford. Ryan's little sister got a cute Stanford bear from the hotel! She gave it to me, and now it's on my keychain.

Between Stanford and dinner time, I went home and cooked like mad! Even with all the safety precautions (including the helmet in the previous post) Ryan seemed to be feeling under the weather. So while he tried to get some R&R, I tried to push out as many cookies as possible! We also went out to dinner at this cute French Indian place in downtown Palo Alto. Ryan's family seems to love it up here, but I still miss San Diego, I confessed. I'm not sure if that will ever go away.

After dinner we rushed home to make sure that we would get everything set up in time. Ryan dropped me off and went to the store to get plastic cups. Even so, some people arrived before he did! Vincy helped me frost some cupcakes that I hadn't completed. More people arrived, and they also helped out, it was great.

We broke out our homemade poker table and spent the rest of the night playing. People came in and out of the housewarming. I really appreciated everyone coming by. It definitely makes the place feel a bit more like home when your friends come and visit. Overall it was just very nice to see everyone! Even Beth's brother, Louie, made it from Los Angeles!

Marc gets a great shot of Senator and the preparations.

He must like Marc because he NEVER poses for pictures!

People arriving at the party

Poker game begins. Marc takes pictures!

Marc catches me not paying attention to the poker game! David seems to be doing the job for me though!

Things start to get more serious!

I have a terrrrrible poker face! Marc!!! Now everyone knows!!

Looks like Louie and Ryan and pretty happy too! Their poker faces aren't much better. Eugene is pretty serious though!

I don't look like I'm doing very well!

Sharon freaking David out with the hilarious chicken that Beth gave me!

Louie shows the camera the chicken!!

Nikesh, Louie and David eat my cupcakes (they didn't eat enough because I still have a ton left!)

Louie plays video games...I think all the poker has gone to his head.

Ryan and Mrs. Scoots all partied out!

Quit blogging and go to bed!

Bad luck week!

So sorry for not posting on time or sooner! Unfortunately I caught a slightly miserable cold on Tuesday, which bogged me down a bit. On Tuesday and Wednesday I had to go home sooner than intended, in hopes that I would finally feel better on Thursday for our first tennis match.

On Wednesday I got to go to my first lab meeting for the Sidow lab. I still feel somewhat lost in that rotation, unsure of what I should be doing until I walk in the door. I am still trying to work on feeling more incorporated in the lab, but at the moment I am meeting with additional advisors to see how well I fit into other labs. I couldn't go to my TA office hours because I felt stuffy and sick, so I went home and went to bed. Ryan has been trying to protect himself from my germs! He's even wearing a helmet in bed!!!!

On Thursday I woke up and had a clumsy run in with my hairdryer plug. I woke up and in my half-awake half-sick state, stepped directly on the plug! It hurt soooo much. By the time I had it all disinfected and wrapped up I was pretty late to school. All I could think about was the fact that I would not be able to play tennis! I hobbled around school all day, but couldn't muster up the energy to walk across campus. My first couple days I thought UCSD was about the same size as Stanford. Now I'm realizing, that's definitely not true, or at least my classes are more spread out than they used to be. I did walk across from MSOB to Clark for my class, but underestimated how painful and long that would take, and even though I left on time, I was about 10 minutes late!

I had to go to tennis so that I could get everyone signed up and organized. Thankfully, Ryan came and drove me over. He intended to watch my first match, but I knew I wouldn't be able to play. I also didn't want to forfeit girls doubles, so I decided I would be able to stand on the court and just serve and let Marina do the rest. We did surprisingly well! We lost the doubles set only 4-6! As it turns out each player could only play 2 sets, so I had to play mixed doubles with our other player, Derek, as well. He's really good! We won that set 6-3 and went into overtime.

I look intimidating, but Marina did all the work!

Marina was so sweet and stood at the back so after I served she could cover the court.

We kept the spirit up! Marina did so well! She basically scored 4 games against two other people

Flag football!

Today was our first team flag football game! In the morning and afternoon I worked on my class assignments. I even skipped the Beckman Symposium, which I really wanted to attend. I have come to realize I could spend all my free time going to the talks on campus, but at some point I have to realize that what my priorities are at the moment. We did, however check out the Thai food stand in the Psych building, which was hilarious.

It was pretty intimidating (even though she may look petite). There was a long line, and it was moving at an alarming rate! People were just saying their orders and she would shout it back to her employees who would pull it out of a back room and set it down on the table as you were paying. It was pretty intense. Shirley's description of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld was pretty perfect. I was so afraid by the time I got there that I just repeated exactly what David got (chicken curry). It was really good, and I got to hear her scream "CURRYYYYYYYYY", which was pretty funny! That, and Noah's imitation after!

Then we had our flag football! So many people bailed on us that we barely had the minimum of 5 players required to avoid a forfeit! The other team was all male from the Business school. They were all wearing cleats! We all had tennis shoes! They were pretty cocky, asking us if we wanted to forfeit, take a member and scrimmage. It was pretty insulting. They did beat us, but it would have been close if our team had been full.

My position was to run at the Quarterback and try to pull off his flag, which, I have to say, is pretty hard on a field with grass! But I think I did some good at least some of the time. On the offense I was mostly useless. I did sometimes confuse the other team, especially during huddles when they figured they might end up throwing the ball to me, so they would waste extra players on me, but mostly they could cover everyone since we were so grossly outnumbered.

A couple guys on the other team were pretty crazy. Even though it was supposed to be flag football, where no contact is allowed, they would rush right at me. One guy told me not to get in the way, that I wasn't allowed to, when that is exactly what I am allowed to do. It was actually his responsibility to avoid me! Obviously! Otherwise what is my purpose?! One guy hit me pretty hard in the hip, but the ref didn't seem to care. Another guy blatantly tripped me. And this was only me! The guys were getting super beat up! They were ruthless! I have to say that was pretty terrible. The rest of the team was really nice though. Those guys were just getting way too into it. At one point some jerk said "who hasn't scored a defensive touchdown yet?" He was super proud of beating a team of 5. Good job! Really!

Arlo, our mascot.

Regrouping at halftime

Noah has great moves!!

We are not wearing any cleats!!!

Me as a lineman!

Noah shows off his Quarterback skills.

We regroup in a serious huddle!

My new position!

Good game!

After our game we went to coffee to work on some homework. We did Biomedical Informatics homework, as well as Statistics. Maybe it will help us in our plays in the future!

We're all learning to get used to the Macs!

Noah working hard on stats. Now I understand why so many people have crazy hair! Because they keep pulling on it in confusion!

Good students eat Dim Sum

Today was a day that was supposed to be dedicated to work. We decided to skip the Fleet Week activities completely, but try Dim Sum (for me for the first time) in Foster City with Micah and Vincy.

David loves Dim Sum, so he came with. I tried some things that were hopefully exactly what I was told they were. I am not one of those people who won't ask just to taste it, because I need to know. It was really delicious. Of course Vincy had to take a hilarious picture! She also let me take her bike to use on campus (which is great because I don't have anything at the moment) so it's pretty exciting!

There was a 49ers against Raiders game in the city, so the traffic was terrible. One guy had a Raiders flag on his trunk. It was backwards. We thought of the most ridiculous reason why someone might think to do that. Of course the reason must be he thinks people might read it in their rearview mirror (kidding of course). We concluded he must be a Stanford graduate student. As it turns out David and I have both done this for quite some time! When we do something outrageously stupid, we follow it up by saying we're graduate students...I'm glad I'm not the only one suffering from Imposter Syndrome!

David and I went to the really good coffee place that Atul recommended in downtown Palo Alto. The bar across the street was PACKED with fans. They were pretty excited, I wish I could have been there! But we were good students and sat and did our work until about 6:30.

At night I had dinner with Ryan, and sat and relaxed a bit. Senator Wuxiums reminded me how Alex gets to be so smart and know everything (picture above, studying the books). So it's time I get back to work. The Senator is pretty serious about keeping me on task!!!!

Full Moon on the Quad!!!!!!

So let me preface this by saying, that event is pretty strange. I was looking forward to a night of some funny pictures (including streakers!) for my blog. I didn't get quite what I expected!

In the afternoon I headed up to the city (again, I know?) to spend some time with Beth and her family that came to town! It was like having my family here! They were my surrogates for the day. We went shopping, mostly for the girls. The time we did spend for the guys was pretty short. Of course, we found plenty of things to amuse ourselves while we were waiting for them, like posing as Superman or getting massages at the great chairs they have there. Maybe there aren't as many good props at clothing stores, but I think they need to complain a little less!

We went to the new Westfield mall, which was gorgeous. More interestingly, though, Beth's school (SFSU) is going to be holding some of her classes there. It's a double-edged sword, since she can just leave class and go shop! Oh no! While we were there, we looked at some earrings. My ears haven't been pierced for almost 10 years now! I noticed Sharon's weren't either! So we decided it was time for us to get ours done. We found a place, and waited around, and I grew increasingly nervous. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I'm not quite sure) I ended up not being able to do it. After I signed the waiver, and was told I could not remove them for 6-8 weeks, I realized that wouldn't work since I'm on those IM teams! Too bad! Sharon's turned out great though! I'm a bit jealous!

We went to dinner at Indian, and Beth and Julie's classmate from Syracuse joined us! He's a great guy. He was working in advertising in New York City (exciting, right?) but has decided to look for new employment. He has interviews, but it seems he is considering San Francisco! Sadly, I couldn't convince them to come to Full Moon on the Quad. They think it's such a long drive, but I do it all the time!!!!! I guess it's always different when it's the other person.

So Full Moon on the Quad! We got there around 10:30, and it was mostly tame. We met up with Marc and David. There were some strange things going on. Some people were clearly coming in pretty drunk, and of course that was high time for the sober students to have fun with them. They were very confused! One guy came up to us and excitedly asked us what dorm we were in. David and I just cracked up, and since I don't know a single dorm, I just said EV! There was also a guy in a really strange costume, not until later did I realize why!

They also passed out condoms, so our group did the only reasonable thing and blew them up to throw into the crowd so they could bounce them around like beach balls at the concerts. They stayed up for awhile! We were impressed! The performances were mostly good, some of them better than others! I particularly liked the Bollywood dancing. David and I were narrating the story to each other of how they normally work.

A lot of the people were wearing shirts that designated their year, or that they were interested in a midnight kiss. One guy had a sign pasted on his shirt that said "I am a senior". Unfortunately I decided against the "faculty" or "I have mono" sign. It might've been good because later on it would have helped me avoid uncomfortable questions and confrontations with random guys! They were definitely drunk, and way too forward! One of them literally almost knocked me over!

She is a senior! It's like a classifieds ad, seeking freshmen!

Her shirt might actually drive people away! I'm not sure she realizes what a Biological Clock usually refers to, or she needs to take a sex ed class!

So you basically get more kisses if you dress like this!

Later on there were streakers, who completely cracked me up. They ran around naked, covered in paint. It was pretty interesting. That cannot be part of the tradition, but definitely a recently added portion. Here are some tame pictures, your imagination can fill in the ones not posted.

Most blog-friendly picture of the streakers!

David's perfect reaction to everything funny!

At midnight everyone was supposed to kiss someone, but the most interesting ones were by far the streakers, who seemed to have the easiest time just finding each other with their bright body paint! They just hung out in the crowd, no longer streaking, just hanging out naked!

Probably the best self-censored picture of streakers ever, sharing their midnight kiss!

There was also the tree that everyone was supposed to kiss. I was under the impression it was a real tree, but as it turns out, it's a person under the tree! It was great though! I will be more prepared next year!

There's the tree we're all supposed to kiss (Mono is apparently included, woohoo)!

Let's hope that's a joke or she'll be terribly unhappy in a few months!

BioNexus Barbeque

Friday is my emptiest day of the week. I spent the morning at home, mostly catching up on sleep. After this I headed over to campus and picked up lighter fluid for the BioNexus barbeque, for which I volunteered when I signed up for the mailing list. I'm actually pretty interested in getting involved at school. I figure it's a great way to get connected to people! And they're very nice.

After I dropped that off, I went to sit with Vincy for lunch. I didn't eat because of the BioNexus event later, but I just chatted with her a bit. I also found an amazing parking spot because I was pretty late. I took a picture of Vincy at her truck after, it's brand new! She works for the grounds department! All the stuff around Tresidder is hers (along with many other places).

I then worked on some math and BMI 210 homework, and had a meeting with Amar Das (which was quite interesting). I got pretty hungry, and the coffee machine sounds were driving me mad, so I got some coffee and grabbed some chocolate from Carol's bowl! It was delicious! I gave her the Twizzlers I grabbed for the Candy Fund from the night before!

Unfortunately Ryan was sending me funny, and nerdy, pictures of cats and dogs like this one . I couldn't help but laugh really hard, and Noah walked by and said he could see me laughing at my computer, so I had to show him I wasn't crazy. He actually laughed too. Later we stood in the hallway laughing at my laptop, and Amar (his advisor) walked by and laughed at us! Oh well! At least it made people smile!

We went to the BioNexus BBQ after that...I was STARVING by then, and so was Noah judging by the picture! We had a cute little group, but then eventually most of BMI dropped by at one point or another. Of course there was tons of beer, as seems to be standard at all Stanford events. Jessie made delicious food, and Adam eventually had to leave. David and I decided we should help out a little, but we weren't doing so well. I even asked people to test the food to see if it was ready! Thankfully I wasn't really cooking anything raw!

Small BMI group at the beginning!

Noah inhales a hot dog!

Beer seems to be required at all events!

Zephyr and Alex dance!

Jessie is the master BBQer!

David and I try to jump in and help, but I never know when it's done. I needed Jessie's expertise. I think we were just more work for her! I even dropped a couple burgers!

Jessie approves and adds it to the platter to be served.

Alex joins in!

David poses with raw meat!

Leticia dancing! She's like a pro!

Best pic! Jessie and Yael show BMI love!

Sorry Annie (she was hiding from the camera all afternoon)! It was the only non-blurry pic I had of Nikesh. And I wanted one of you as well!

Jessie's solo!

Finally! A well deserved meal for Jessie after she worked so hard BBQ for EVERYONE!!!!!

We also had dinner plans, and by the time we got to the city we were hungry again (it's a pretty long drive, but the traffic was crummy). We picked up Mike and Sharon on the way. It was this GREAT Italian restaurant. At the end we ordered dessert, but couldn't decide on just one. We ordered 4. 2 arrived together, and by the time they came with the second pair, we had eaten one of the first two completely (that's why there are only 3 in the picture)! It was totally delicious!

I sat on Elmo!

Even though today didn't start off too exciting, it was all in preparation for an amazing weekend which basically kicked off tonight!

It started off with another full day of classes. They start at 9 am on Tuesday and Thursdays and go until 4:30, with a lunch seminar. So basically, it's a day of sitting and listening. I had one short break from 2:45 until 3:15 when I had coffee with Marc.

I also went to the team tennis captains' meeting (I'm a captain, only because Noah is the captain of our flag football team). They went over tons of information, from which I absorbed only that we have to have 2 guys and 2 girls present at every match, and we'll probably get slaughtered. One nice thing that came out of is that a girl thought I was a first year undergrad! Woohoo! I guess I don't look that old. Either that, or she thinks I just started school REALLY late.

Ryan and I went to Costco (as usual) where I sat on the cutest Elmo chair every! I was pretty surprised I could fit on it. It talked and shook when you sat in it...like a mini-kid massage. I think it's so cute!!! This one kid really wanted one, and I kept seeing them in random places throughout Costco, which probably means a little kid picked it up and dragged it around for awhile until their parents made them leave it. I only know this because recently when I went to Target, I saw a cute stuffed ghost that I carried around the store until we got to the checkout and my mom made me put it down...I need to grow up, clearly! A guy in class told me today he liked my "Kickers" (the bright orange what I call rain boots I'm wearing in the picture). He said his little daughter has a pair!!!

Later on I went to the event of the evening, the Student Night at Cantor Arts Center. It was pretty cool. I took a bunch of packages of red vines to give to Donna for her candy collection (classy grad student like, right?) We went down to the spoken word area, which was pretty interesting, and grabbed some churros. Ryan was pretty excited about the pretzels that were all gone by the time we got there. We were pretty glad we hadn't waited to eat dinner there since that's pretty much all there was.

Marc was there (he was the person who told me about it in the first place) and so was David. We walked around to find him, and he was in a room listening to this amazing a Cappella group. I couldn't see them from where I was standing, and a guy with a big afro and a drum kept shouting in my ear, so I decided to move, and bumped into Nikesh (our now former Czar since Lucy and Shirley have taken on the position-yay)! I talked to him about how it felt to be relieved of his duties, and also whether or not I should help coordinate the seminar series with the South Africa with which our program is affiliated. He said I should. I would also get to bother faculty members who are potential ones to work with.

Marc, David, Ryan and I headed down to the tent again, where the spoken word was, to see about chicken wraps David had spotted on the way in. He found the churros, but we found no wraps! We made a plan to go to Full Moon on the Quad! I can't wait! It'll be so funny. We're thinking about dressing up! Marc wants to wear a sign that says "faculty" and Ryan one that says "I have mono". I can't think of anything clever, so we'll see. We'll see what fun pictures develop from that night! It's definitely worth googling! We are also going to go to fleet week! Yay! Tomorrow is also the barbeque for BioNexus for which I've tried to volunteer. At the moment I'm bringing lighter fluid! Maybe I'll help later also!

I also need to start working on schoolwork! Aaaah!

David is happy about his churro!

Bite-sized Apple!

Ryan likes free food!

So does Mrs. Scoots!

Camping out in the BMI student lounge

Today was not a particularly scholarly day, but productive in other ways!

Unforutnately I decided yesterday was a good day to watch 50 first dates again (one of my favorite cheesy movies-I think it's super cute)! I got way too tired half way through and had to stop, but I still stayed up until about 1:30. As a result, I decided to skip the 229 lecture (the class I'm auditing). And so it begins, right? I can watch it online, but it's still not a great idea! I came in to go to the monthly BMI-complete with free pizza which was delicious. I also got to chat with my fellow Swiss in the program, who remembers me from the retreat back in February! It was quite flattering!!!

The room was completely full (the pictures don't accurately capture everyone who was there). The whole table was filled, along with all the seats lining the room, as well as some people standing! It's also been completely decked out with Halloween decorations, courtesy of Carol who has a great little light on her desk and a candy jar that I will have to help fill. I'll have to take a picture and post it as well! People were ducking from my camera today. Amar said I could take pictures as long as they don't go on my blog! Sorrrryyyyy!

We also had a short talk, courtesy of Russ Altman, on the new format of the journal club (our Tuesday seminars). I guess students used to present their research on these days, but I think the journal clubs come in pretty handy. Russ chose a great paper by a former BMI student, Olga Troyanskaya. She is now a professor at Princeton (pretty impressive, right?) Russ also wants to make this an opportunity for us to show the methods, not just the Biology. We have an opportunity to look at more than just the Biology (which is usually fascinating) and find out if the methods are truly novel.

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get work done. David headed to Monterey with his aunt who popped in unexpectedly on Monday for a surprise visit (which I think is great). Since Marina, Alex and I are office-less at the moment, we set up shop in the student lounge area. I decided to move our sign over in an amusing gesture. We didn't do it to keep the area clear, mostly to be funny, but if we get to reserve some seats for ourselves in the meantime (or a true lounge in Alex's case-below) it's not a bad deal!

Of course the great thing about being there is that people stop in and say hello. Amar Das turned on the lights for us, Maureen and Nikesh (Czar and Czarina) stopped by and chatted. We also tried to recruit everyone for flag football. At the moment our team is composed of David, Alex (who is worried he'll break his hip), Noah and myself. Maureen and Amit both sound interested, but we'll see what happens! Peggy also came by, and we tried to recruit her for tennis. She seems a bit hesitant since she just started, but hopefully we won her over! It also started to rain, so I got to make use of my new pink umbrella! YAY!

At one point, Marina and I were sitting side by side on our laptops. The Macs looked sized for the person, I had the big 17 inch and she has the 14 inch. Alex suddenly grabbed the camera and was grinning pretty big, so I figured he just thought it was a funny picture. I grabbed the sign quickly and Marina and I posed for the picture at the right. Alex burst into laughter suddenly and inexplicably, and Marina took a look at the camera (don't we all want to see right after taking a digital picture). Turns out Noah dropped by as well!

Marina, Alex and I headed over to a talk later (since we just could not focus). I could spend my entire life at seminars at this school! It's pretty crazy! It was an interesting subject, and it seemed like all of BMI was there, including Nikesh and Jessie, as well as some affiliated faculty, Serafim Batzoglou, Daphne Koller, Mike Cherry and Gavin Sherlock. Leticia from my Algorithms in Biology course was there as well!

I headed over to TA office hours where I pulled an Alex and explained a problem on the board while the TA looked for a bigger room. One of the CS Master degree students, Andrew, asked if I had a group. We decided to group up with one of the BMI students I already have. I love how students at Stanford are so friendly. At UCSD I remember standing at the front of a CS class and announcing that I was searching for a group for homework assignments. I looked back at a sea of blank stares, which was pretty infuriating. Here everyone is ready to talk and join groups! I love it!

I had plans to meet with Beth and Julie after classes to go to dinner and a movie. The plans got a bit switched around, and I couldn't go back to pick up Ryan since it was raining (we really need a second car)! We decided to go to the Counter, the place we went after Sam Pearlman's qualifying exams. It was so delicious the first time, he converted me. I also had an eye on the burger that Sam was eating, but I have no idea what it was! I'll have to ask him! So it's getting to be late, AGAIN, and I cannot miss tomorrow morning's class, so I'm cutting this short. I decided I had to write my blog after Noah asked me why I hadn't put the pictures from tennis up again...he said I must sacrifice sleep to get his photos up. I'm convinced everyone likes my blog because it features them...which is fine by me! Just leave comments when you visit! I LOVE THEM!

Tennis and Football

Today was highly entertaining! I got to play tennis and sign up for flag football!

Tuesday started off in a normal way, I went to my morning lecture, MS&E 220. The professor is pretty entertaining, so getting up for a two hour class at 9am is made less painful. After this I went to Daphne Koller's class. Even though I decided not to take it for credits, I want to get as much out of the lectures as possible. I will also have to glance at the papers through either David or Maureen, or any of the great students in my program that are in that class.

Unfortunately this class runs right into our seminars (12:15pm) which was Brian Naughton's final presentation on the MotifCut paper, which I think I just the greatest thing! It's a new algorithm applied to an old problem (motif finding) that really captures the biological information that the current methods sometimes miss. It's so encouraging to see papers like this produced!

After the seminar was over, we waited for Mark Musen (our 210 professor and a BMI executive committee member) to leave. But we decided to walk ahead anyways. While we're walking, everyone was on their cell phone at one time or another. I snapped a picture of David and Noah on the phone, and Alex in the process of hanging up!!

On Tuesday Marina and Noah and decided we wanted to do team tennis together in the Intramural leagues. We thought it would be best to play tennis and test the waters as to what the best league was for us to join. Marina invited Eugene's (her boyfriend) brother Constantine to play with us as well so that we could meet the minimum size of 4 students. The size required is 4-8 per team. We may or may not have a couple more join.

After lecture I went to coffee with Marc, my fellow Swiss in the Algorithms in Biology course. At first we spoke English, but then made me speak Swiss German, which was actually a good thing since we started off in English. He just pointed out we should be speaking German, and BOOM he started!

I was also in dire need of the latte I had with him, but as it turned out the talk in our course was really interesting! It was given by a Developmental Biology student, Leticia. She's a great speaker, and her slides were great (not just the ones she "stole" from Serafim and George). Hopefully I can consult her for my slides for the class! She definitely set the bar really high.

After class I headed over the MS&E 220 office hours, where the party had already started! I came in and Alex was writing on the board. I swear he's already got like 5 PhDs (which he demonstrated today when he knew all this stuff about previous Nobel Laureates-yay for Andrew Fire and the Kornbergs). After he was done he must have been tired from exerting himself (since he's so convinced he's so old) that he laid his head down on the table. I had to take the picture!

Noah and I just couldn't wait til our 5 pm scheduled time for tennis, so we headed over to the courts earlier. We'll definitely have to play in the stadium at some point! When I first got there, Noah wanted to play mini tennis. He hit 3 easy balls at me, and I missed every one of them. By miss I don't mean they went into the net or out, I actually did not make CONTACT with the ball. It was pretty bad. Once I did, it sounded pretty weird, but I think I was doing better by the end. We played a round-robin tournament, and I sat on the Umpire's chair. Noah tossed me a ball, which I lunged for out of my seat, and I guess I almost toppled down because both Noah and Marina gasped. Noah just said "Umm, Russ"...that would be a great explanation to give our program director! I killed Sarah on the court! Way to go Noah!

He is really good at tennis! He was even giving me pointers on what to do to hit better. Marina is just a little powerhouse. She hits the ball SO hard and it goes in! In high school I was once called the Terminator because every ball that came to me (I was playing doubles) was the end of the point. I would either miss or hit a winner. I need pointers from Marina as well! Constantine is good as well! They are so much more consistent than I am.

After this we headed over to the Ford Center that has a big Gymnastics room. It was pretty cool. We got on the waitlist for Advanced Tennis, but we'll settle for Beginner/Intermediate if we have to. We also signed up for Flag Football! Noah got us on the men's top division. He said "we're really good". He's so funny! We need to put up a sign "now recruiting for Flag Football team Protege" because at the moment, I am Noah's star player, since I'm the only one!

Marina hitting one of her signature winners!

Hitting my serve! I hope my summer coach thinks it's good form, but from the looks of how I'm bent at the waist already, I'm about to hit a ball into the net :(

Noah being an excellent Umpire/Ball Boy during our game! He was even humming circus songs (I think)!!!!

Oktoberfest

On Sunday was Oktoberfest in Ryan Park in Foster City. My cousin Micah and his girlfriend Vincy had invited us, so there was a huge buildup to a hopefully very exciting afternoon. They even biked in figuring there would be no parking available.

But once we arrived we saw there was TONS of parking, and a small space (maybe half of a soccer field) where the actual place was set up.

Needless to say, it wasn't quite what I expected. There was no beer tasting (although I don't drink beer, it was mostly for the benefit of others), there was line dancing (not sure if that's very traditional) and some random vendor booths. There were brats and you could buy an entire leg of turkey if you wanted it. I had a chicken and Portobello mushroom bratwurst (very traditional, right?) and a Diet Coke (hey, you have to watch the calories somewhere). There were tons of cute kids and adorable dogs all over the place. They were even auctioning a puppy black lab. It was SO cute. They carried it around and it basically slept in the arms of the auctioneers.

After we walked around for a bit, we just stopped and started chatting, and Vincy shared that she had painted Micah's toenail bright red while he was sleeping, which of course I HAD to see. She started laughing after she finished and he woke up, so she did not finish the whole foot. But then it was somehow funnier to have only one toe, even funnier that he hasn't actually used nail polish remover yet.

After about 30 minutes we felt we were done with the place, but there was a big bouncy-gym inflatable obstacle course that Ryan and I decided we had to go on. We stood around for about 15 minutes waiting for our chance to go on, while the 4-10 year olds went on it about 10 times. They were so bouncy and excited, and laughed the whole time. Ryan and I went through it once in about 4 minutes (it took forever) and we were totally exhausted after the first time. We went on once more since I would not be able to stand the jeering of the small kids who clearly had to climb obstacles about 10 times their size, rather than 3. Although I think they were just happy we didn't take terribly long (since the operator closed it to everyone else except us for the time).

Me sliding through a tube that was huge for the kids!

Me doing just what the sign says...Squeeeeezing!

Ryan doing the same thing!

I have no idea what I'm doing in this picture, aside from looking totally insane. Maybe I'm growling at the kids!

Final slide! Yay, we made it!

After this Ryan and I went up to the city. We were supposed to go see a movie, but instead we went shopping for Halloween clothes in Union Square, and had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (which of course was sinfully delicious). I finally got to see Beth's AMAZING loft apartment. It's on the 12th and 13th floor, with amazing views.

Today I got up early attend the course that I'm auditing (go me, I'm so dedicated). Then I met with Mehdi for the Sidow lab. Unfortunately I think that the project they gave me is too basic, and I'm going to be under-challenged here. I need to see what I can do about that. I really want to complete a rotation, but I am concerned I won't get a feel for the lab since I don't feel very well connected to it at the moment.
I went to a Population Genetics talk, which was interesting, and shopping at Whole Foods after. It's great being able to walk over there and go shopping!

I also have a picture on the BMI website now, along with my details and all. I feel pretty weird looking through all of the descriptions of other students. They all have amazing backgrounds. I definitely suffer from that condition that was explained to me at the graduate student orientation, where I feel I got in on a fluke, and everyone else around me is amazing. I'll have to figure out what that was called! In the meantime I just stole the blurb for research that I had on my website, since it's mostly still applicable. Maybe I'll change my picture there as well, since I think it's horrendous! http://www.computationalbio.com/about.php. At least my hair looks good!