December 2006

Canadialand!

On Christmas day Ryan and I headed up to Canada. His family has a house in the town of Rossland, BC. We were going to ski at the nearby Red Mountain! I was pretty excited! I have been there many times in the summer, but this was my first winter searson there, and so my first time on the slopes. It was snowing when it arrived so we were expecting some pretty great conditions the next day.

We stayed for 4 days and had great skiing, powder for Ryan and really nicely groomed runs for me. It wasn't super crowded so it was such a nice break from the SoCal slopes I was used to.

His brother, Peter, has moved up there and is opening a bar called Nowhere Special. He's working on it with some college friends! We got a sneak peek at the inside, it looks really amazing. Both he and his friends who are co-owners have been doing a lot of the construction by hand. They have this really cool logo they.

There were these HUGE icycles that had formed on the house. I took a few pictures and tried to paste them together. These were over two stories high! It was pretty insane. We were careful not to play in the snow directly under them!!!!

It snowed the first couple of days, but by the third day it was warming up and they were starting to melt, although I'm sure they won't disappear anytime soon. They'll probably hang around until spring. The lifts don't close at Red until March or April so I'd guess they'll be around until at least then. Hopefully I'll get to go back and check on their progress.

Ryan and I went skiing for a bit on Tuesday, but he had some work to do (he works for the mountain, his dad's company). It was pretty cold and still wet that day. The runs are all pretty nice but Ryan decided to take me down runs that he was convinced were groomed. Not only wasn't that the case, I was informed later they are never groomed. In addition, they had a huge number of rocks jutting out! I couldn't see them most of the time so I skiied over about 4 of them.

I went down the rest of the slope REALLY slowly poking at every single bump I saw in the snow, for fear that there would be another huge rock just waiting to ruin my new skis! I was positive they were destroyed. As it turns out they were in perfect shape. I guess it sounded a lot worse than it looked!

Ryan's other brother (Reid) and sister (Hannah) and parents arrived that evening! It was really great. They had a little gift exchange, and were super sweet and got me these great scarf. I loved the bow as well, that I decided made a nice headband. We warmed up by the fire and relaxed a bit.

Of course one of the best things about them coming is being able to play around in the snow! We decided that, although the boys were determined to get the first chair in the morning for the fresh powder (and so get up at 6 am) that we could go sledding.

We started out sledding down the street which was pretty fun! But all the fresh snow made it hard for us to make a track!

Reid passes out in the snow after running around for an hour!!

Hannah makes a snow angel after devouring a delicious meal of SNOW! I've seen her fill a cup with fresh snowfall and eat it a few times!

I try a slide down the steep side of the house where Reid had made a little track.

It didn't end exactly the way I expected.

Latke Ball and a traditional Christmas Eve

Saturday was the Christmas Eve's Eve, and even though there were plenty of places open, the Jewish Federation decided to hold the Latke Ball on that day. In Los Angeles and most other cities they hold it on Christmas Eve so that all people who are not spending time with their families have something to do. Susy and Shirley (friends from school back in LA) and Beth, Ryan and I went, and were later joined by Noah.

It is traditionally a singles event, but it seemed really fun so I go anyways. This year Ryan and I are headed up to Canada on the 25th so he was around as well, and it was his first time.
Overall it was pretty fun, but there were some strange people there. Shirley was convinced there were guys there who were married and looking for dates, which is pretty sick. And there were some people who followed us around all night, which was extremely odd. But we got some great pictures!

3/4 of the girls before going out.

We told Susy that San Francisco was significantly colder than LA this time of year and she should dress accordingly. Her solution: wear gloves with her outfit!

Shirley, Susy and Beth get their groove on!

We found Ryan had an aptitude for the robot! But he was practicing other dance moves.

Getting our groove on in the girls only section...the stage!

Noah paying for drinks with the most disorganized set of bills!

Noah and Ryan acting as Red Stripe spokespeople.

Susy is very pleased with her eHarmony VIP card! Now if only we knew what that meant! Is it a compliment?

Noah demonstrating his dance skills. Beth's opinion is all in her expression! (PS, Noah you were right! This IS going on the blog!)

Ryan takes a cute picture behind the curtains!

Suddenly a creepy bulge appears! Ryan is clearly distraught!

He's relieved to find out it's just Noah!

Ryan and Susy are sweet as pie!

Ryan finds a surprise on the floor! Looks like someone is losing hair...

We're all super tired, and the party hasn't even ended!

Once we get home, we all stayed up talking on the couch, and laughing, until we fell asleep!

Today (real Christmas Eve) Ryan and I packed for going up North, and Susy, Shirley and Beth came over to eat chinese food and watch 3 chick flicks ("Bridget Jones's Diary", "The Devil Wears Prada", and "About a Boy"). Of course Ryan didn't participate in the television festivities, but he did enjoy the food! I'm also making sure the massive amounts of chocolate my dad brought are consumed so I can avoid my seasonly seven!

I'm also excited to have gotten all my grades! Russ Altman told us not to stress over grades too much, but somehow I still can't get used to that idea. Of course I overworked in two classes, but somehow just couldn't swing it in my BMI course.
Noah and I had a bet that I would get a B (he said I would get at least an A-) in the BMI course. I won! Yay! But not yay at the same time. Thanks to Alex's genius idea, and Noah's jess skills I was able to avoid getting kicked out of the program, I was definitely stressed, coming up with alternatives if I don't make it through. I haven't spent that much time studying before in my life! It was pretty intense!

Hopefully I'll get a chance to relax sometime this winter. I have so much to do to finish up my rotation. Unfortunately the work from courses has really overloaded me and I couldn't finish up to well. I have to present in my lab on the 17th of January, so I've got time, but I want to finish things up before the new year!

My first trip to Tahoe

One of the best things about the bay area is finally being close to good skiing! In SoCal we basically have a couple of relatively busy mountains with decent terrain but they don't get much real snow.

We got season passes to Kirkwood, which is not in the most fun part of the area. We opted to stay in the small town rather then South Lake Tahoe, which apparently has a great nightlife and also some casinos. Kirkwood is really expensive, so if my dad is not around, I'm thinking it may be a bit pricey to stay there. However a 40 minute drive can be infeasible if it snows. We plan on getting a big cabin as a group, that will be great!

We got in the first night and it was late and COLD! We went to sleep pretty soon so that we could get an early start the next day. The conditions were pretty good, and it started snowing mid-way through the day. There must have been at least 2-3 inches per hour, and by the end of the day I was soaked!

After skiing we took time out to relax. I tried to build a snowman but I found some oddly colored snow underneath the new snowfall. There had been a dog nearby recently so I decided to stop.(ew! yellow snow).

We still enjoyed the rest of the day, and had a good dinner at Bub's Pub, the only place open after 8pm in the whole town! We played some pool but it was so cold I had to keep on my gloves!

It was still snowing by the time we left that night, and the electricity was going on and off for awhile. It really made us glad we had decided to spend the night in Kirkwood, although it basically consisted of eating and playing some games at the condo while struggling with dial-up internet (wow did we ever miss the civilized world)! It made my obsessive checking of grades and emails near impossible. Maybe it's a sign I should just relax?

By the end of hte day our car (Leggie) in its natural environment, covered in snow like an all wheel drive Subaru should be! It only gave us hope that the rest of the night would continue to be this, even if it meant we would have to dig the car out from 5 feet of snow!

The next morning was absolutely gorgeous! We waited in line at the ski lifts, and were the first ones to ride down the mountain in fresh powder! It was absolutely incredible! I loved every minute of it!

Fresh powder! We were the first ones down!

Ryan totally excited!

My dad and I skiing down the slopes!

Totally exhausted, taking a break, and making a snow angel!
Unfortunately I am totally sore, but this was a good beginning since I will be skiing again next week in Canada at a resort called Red Mountain! They are famous for their powder, so I can expect to be exhausted at the end of that day as well! Let's hope I'm in better shape by then.

Celebrating old age and the end of instruction!

After my botched presentation I was pretty down, but I still had work to finish on Friday. We had to give a write-up and late homework (we were allowed to be late) for BMI210, and I had to summarize a paper for Algs in Bio. But I also had to cheer up in time for my party!

There were many end-of-quarter events going on at Stanford, and the best part, of course, is the free food. I spent the day drinking coffee and eating miscellanious leftovers, including spinach dip. I went and picked up 3 of these finger-sandwiches, and got some crazy looks. I tried to play it non-chalant and picked up one to "examine" and promptly announced it was rude to put back food I touched. I was told it's not a big deal, but Noah needed his food.

Later on Betty offered us leftover wine, so we took it! No one else was interested and we kept offering it to more people. At one point the janitors came and tried to clean it up so we took the bottles. Noah, David and I enjoyed some while finishing up work late on Friday night. I mean how amazing is free food? But free wine, now that's just classy (hahahaha)!

I also have my ever-expanding row of drinks. As you can see it's slowly indicating that I am going through the natural stages of some sort of degradation of will-power, or gradual discovery of performance enhancers. I start out with the caffeine in diet beverages, move on to the coffee maker, followed by the bottle of wine! At least I recycle! Or I plan to when I ACTUALLY get around to cleaning up my desk!

David was pretty excited about being done mostly because he still had a ton of other work to do. Alex, David and Noah all had to miss my birthday party for finals and projects. It was pretty sad! A ton of other people didn't show, including Vincy and Micah. I completely understood since it was raining and just before finals. I probably should have been studying myself, but I couldn't let my birthday disappear and I certainly needed some sort of a break after staying at MSOB until 11 pm on a Friday night!!! Ryan even made me a great card with an aged version of myself.

Marc, Marina, and Eugene all came by together. They also brought me a gift, which was completely lovely and not necessary! It included lipstick, which I had to apply and test out on Beth's cheek! It actually left a pretty big smooch! I was surprised!

We tried to make it a classy affair with wine from real wine glasses. But we ran out of the glasses and resorted to the red plastic cups popular at frat house keggers the world over. We also were so late due to traffic and the necessary shopping Sharon, Beth and I did before heading up (Sharon, Beth and I all wore new tops that night)! This meant that we had to order the classiest food of all...PIZZA! Fortunately no one seemed too disappointed! We also had chips with queso and salsa (maybe they were just being nice?) We decided to head over to a nearby place after to avoid irritating neighbors with music and laughing.

I was also super excited to see my fellow UCSD alum and current Berkeley PhD student, Angela! My friend Maya from high school, currently studying psychology in graduate school, also dropped by, as well as other people throughout the night. It was quite nice, just what I wanted! Time with people I care about!

The girls laughing it up and donning their new outfits!

Julie, Beth and I dancing. Julie's face is hillarious!

Julie and I were pretty thirsty after dancing for about an hour. I asked the bartender for a couple of straws so I could gulp down my water. I guess he misunderstood because he gave us the entire contents of one of his containers! Either that or he could tell how thirsty I was!!!!

Finals week is coming to town!

This has been an extremely stressful week. I turned old on Wednesday (23) but definitely did not have a break. I had two presentations on Thursday, one for BMI210 and one for Algorithms in Biology. Fortunately (or unfortunately) we had the BMI holiday party which was TOTALLY fun.

I'm suffering from a major lack of sleep. If it weren't for the free coffee in the lobby of my apartment, and the amazing coffee machine we have in our kitchen (courtesy of Atul Butte) I think I wouldn't be walking very much longer.

The holiday party was loads of fun, mostly because Russ Altman was the emcee! We had a secret santa gift exchange. I, delirious from lack of sleep, and thought it was on Friday. That means I also forgot the bring the drinks I signed up to provide. Carol, in her never-ending generosity and general awesomeness for setting up these events told me I should go ahead and eat (she even went through and made decorations for everyone, including personalized stockings with candy canes). That was a good idea since otherwise I might have keeled over. I'm not taking good care of myself as a grad student, I pretty much only eat free food or cheap food, which usually not healthy).

There were some really awesome gifts, but the best was how Russ decided to write them on the board. Basically all that happens is numbers are pulled from a bag, and people go up and select gifts in numerical order. The person can opt to keep the gift, or trade it with any person's previous gift.

Russ kept a running count of every gift that was frequently requested for a trade. The very first set was a set of preserves, which Russ decided were a risk for botulism. He named the preserves "Botulinum Preserves". There were also an array of other hillariously-named gifts. The "15K calories of chocolate" (which Russ calculated based on the massive box of chocolates Sam got), and the one gift everyone wanted to trade, or at least some of us, the "Signed PhD Thesis"! When Ray took his turn at the gifts, he brought it along, and Russ promptly signed it. I really needed the laugh to loosen up.

The room was packed! I'm pretty sure people were there for the gifts AND Russ.

Sam as santa's little helper! (he got the 15,000 Calories of chocolate)

Russ giving the best gift, and it was NOT tradeable...

even though it made the list!

David, Marina and I relaxed for a few minutes while eating and enjoying the entertainment! Russ could definitely become a wedding singer-type of person if he so desired! Although we later determined that some of the jokes may not be as funny to people outside of the BMI community! (I have definitely lost my status as a non-nerd, although I'm not sure I ever had one).

I am super concerned about my grades. I'm by far most concerned about BMI210! I've made decisions about what I could possibly do if I (a) get kicked out or (b) don't get to academia. I figured I can always become a high school teacher, and then move up to be a principal, which isn't half bad! Otherwise I could work for the CIA! Wouldn't that be fun? I don't know exactly what that would entail, but I think I could figure something fun out with codes in DNA and such. My final alternative is just to move to London and try to emulate the life of Bridget Jones from her films...this is how I relieve my stress (chick flicks)! Noah's backup is to move to Sweden, and David has not yet revealed his backup, but he is certainly participating in this conversation!

For the presentation in BMI I was pretty confident. Aside from the fact that I had some hard-working geniuses on my team, I also only had to present a few slides. I wasn't too happy that they were recorded but other than that was fine. For "Algorithms in Biology" I had to give a 50 minute lecture! I was a nervous wreck before the course, even though I knew all the material and I had pretty good slides, I was just totally freaked out I would run out of time or say something stupid. I had 64 slides and I presented them in THIRTY-FIVE minutes!!!!! Terrible I know! I was devistated and totally unhappy, but at least I was done! I even had a funny slide in there with Serafim Batzoglou (the professor) in it. He basically runs through an alignment matrix. It's online but it's pretty far in to the slides. Very close to the end.

Marina turns 22-wow I'm old!

After Thanksgiving I could only think about how much work I had to do. I didin't realize we only had 2 weeks of instruction left! This is insanity! I still had to take time out to go and celebrate with Marina.

I must say, I thought it would be just fine to take 3 courses this quarter and do research, I mean I had done 4 courses with research before. I'm not quite sure what's going on. Is it me? Is it that Stanford is that much more challenging? Am I spending too much time having fun in the city?

I am definitely getting acclimated to the whole idea of grad school, but I have been suffering a bit. For some reason over the Thanksgiving break, I spent a ton of time on the stats project, but I got nowhere. We were working on creating a model for the TV show "Deal or No Deal". It's pretty challenging. They pretty much mess with the contestants completely. I wrote a quick program to make data entry easy for the shows, but it requires actually watching and paying a decent amount of attention. Noah gets distracted by the girls, I get distracted by AIM. Together we somehow got a bunch of episodes completed. We also did some online game play. Noah has horrible luck. Mine's better but David is by far.

Noah, David and I have gotten pretty efficient at splitting up the statistics homework and getting it all done. We've been consistently getting close to or exactly 100% on the homeworks. Unfortunately since I didn't allocate my time correctly over the break, we were at MSOB until after 11 pm! Even Alex stayed late, and he tends to go home super early! It's really the final stretch when he's staying there until all hours of the night as well.

Somewhere in our insanity, we decided to make good use of the white board by my desk, but got totally off-topic at one point. We decided that Noah's craziness was worth capturing, with all our free time, what else should we do? So in a very successful attempt at procrastination, we came up with a few smileys that truly capture "the essence of noah".

Hard to read but from the left:
Noah in a couple of months (he has decided to take a spiritual journey, which essentially began with him seeing how long it would take him to grow a full beard).
Noah during office hours (likely doesn't require explanation).
Noah on the phone (he's too cool for school).
Noah while studying stats (pictures earlier should clear that one up).
Noah in Mark's class (he knows everything in BMI 210).
Noah during flag football (where he is the MVP and his shirt is torn).
Noah next year (this will not be revealed until our retreat next year when we are the second year students responsible for the entertainment).

On Friday we went out with Marina to a delicious dinner followed by a bar at on Castro St. in downtown Mountain View. I was expecting a pretty fun night, but there are some pretty lame people there. We did take the tinsel and wear it, since it was hanging loose everywhere, but they definitely did not appreciate that. We made it an early night since I had so much work to do I felt stressed even while I was trying to celebrate!

Everyone got Marina a drink, they looked really nice, but we ended up distributing them amongst the rest of us. She's just too little to stomach it all.

David and Alex toasting to Marina's 22nd...she's the baby of our year!

Eugene is feeling the alcohol, or the stress from school...either way he needed a nap!

This picture of David serves the sole purpose of showing how long David's hair has grown since the beginning of the quarter...I swear that's the only reason! See...