January 2007

Fondue and Fon-don't

These last couple weeks have been insanely busy. I had a chance to go to the city last Friday to celebrate Naomi's birthday and get some fondue (yay swiss food), but I didn't even get to leave the house all day Saturday! I now realize that reducing the number course units does not necessarily mean a reduction in your course work!!

At Naomi's birthday we had a great time. We had cheese fondue, chocolate fondue, and raclette (which is my favorite, and equally unhealthy, swiss dish). We also had chocolate fondue and wine. Wine definitely gets me tipsy! It also makes me forget my table manners! It was nice to relax, but we went back home fairly early, which ended up being a good idea since the head start I got on the homework for Atul Butte's BMI 217 class proved useful.

The homework is pretty scary since it was supposed to be released on Wednesday but, because Atul could not get his program to finish running in time for a solution, he couldn't release it until Friday! I had the inital parts pretty much done, but I was getting anxious to finish the other portions. I have used R once before in college, but let's just say I haven't used it since, even though it probably would have been easier, simply because I was so frustrated with it back then.

By Thursday I hadn't completed the assignment yet, and I was fairly ceratin I would be taking a late day (it was due Friday at midnight). While running the program locally it was just eating my RAM, so I basically couldn't do anything else at the same time. I had tested my program on Chromosome 22 (this is the shortest in sequence length and so the fastest) and I let it run while I went to dinner with Alex and David at, where else but the Counter!

David and Alex were suffering from major lack of sleep, and we were pretty much laughing the entire time. It never fails that every time we are at the Counter we have the strangest conversations. This time the topic of conversation was plastic surgery, and more specifically, butt implants. We were talking about how strange it would feel, and how dangerous since it seems pretty likely that it would explode. I was talking about how I had heard about a woman whose breast implants had saved her in a car accident by preventing here from hitting the windshield, but simlutaneously they exploded. So I said "There are so many ways your butt could just explode". Alex and David could not stop laughing (sleep deprivation), but it certainly continued through the entire evening.

My lack of sleep was evident when we were discussing Thalidomide, which had caused problems with limb development in children whose mothers took it during pregnancy, and I could only come with the word "midgetness" to describe what happened. The next day, Alex drew the Nosology of the various disease we had discussed. He had plenty of sleep overnight, so it is just, once again, a demonstration of why we first years at BMI feel that we are truly the bottom of the totem pole as far as nerdiness is concerned. I still think it's pretty funny, so here it is!

On Sunday Alex planned a football watching get together at MSOB. We sat in the student lounge and made good use of the nice TV they put in there. I was rooting for the Colts (only because I was still upset that the Patriots had beat San Diego)! It was fun actually caring about who won! The only unfortunate thing is that it meant I would be rooting against Alex and Nikesh's team. Oh well, it's nothing personal! David left early for a fancy dinner! Oh lala! Everyone's getting as life while mine is quickly fading away!

At least I can watch a fancy TV while I'm at school? Who needs a life?!!

You got some NERF!

Getting back in the cycle of classes is hard, but there's nothing like a few great classmates to keep you motivated! Today Alex popped out of nowhere with some Nerf guns!!! He was attacking us, and then happened to have a second one! Of course we started a war, which resulted in Amar saying it was "going in the BMI handbook"! No Nerf guns allowed in MSOB!

Alex tries to attack me!

Alex sneaks around SMI. Look at unsuspecting Maureen!

Noah is cowering in fear!

David helps Noah pick shrapnel out of his hair.

We're getting back into the swing of classes. We are going to get our first homeworks this week, and we have to seriously start thinking about projects. Stanford, or graduate school classes, are different in the sense that the projects are far more focused on getting papers out! Which is certainly a challenge.

I need to learn how to think that it's possible, at the moment I don't believe it. Every extra minute devoted to these projects, is one less for research, which is a hard thing to balance. I came to this school for research, and I know the faculty is amazing, but I spend a lot of time wondering if I will be able to do what I REALLY want, and be recognized, if I focus too much on courses. It's super strange to let yourself realize grades are no longer your focus. Russ told us if we're getting all As in our classes, we're probably working too hard in our class, I really need to take that to heart.Russ also said that we should be doing as much research and classwork as we can, without going insane, maybe I'm enjoying myself too much?

On Wednesday I had to present at my lab meeting. It was pretty stressful, I had quite a bit of work to do before getting there! I was awake most of the night, and was working on my presentation, but when I was mostly done, powerpoint crashed!!! IT WAS HORRIBLE! I had to start FROM SCRATCH! I was so upset. I just wanted to give up. I was exhausted, Ryan was already in bed, and I was up alone, frustrated with Microsoft, but I managed to get my butt in gear and go.

I think the presentation turned out pretty well, I hope Arend thought the same! I realized how sad I was to leave the lab at the end, and that there were some pretty great people in the lab. I'm not sure what the normal way is to end a rotation, but I still have some things to finish up. I was supposed to meet with Gill on Thursday, but it looks like were going to hold off until he gets here on the 1st since we couldn't find a time that worked for both of us in the next two weeks. I am really looking forward to that rotation.

We had a going away party for a visiting professor, Guenther. It was sad to see him go! He has been a great smiling face to see every day I came in. Everyone showed up to his party, and Amar had some wines that he showed to everyone. It was pretty funny. All this free food is really dangerous! They also had cheese, crackers, and most importantly, CAKE! It was really good!

Jane Peace, a student visiting from UW at Madison in Mark's lab. She only wanted a bite of a cake and let me have the rest of the piece! I was going to just have a bite also, but everyone else wanted their own, so I just scarfed it down! She's super nice! I only feel bad for her for having to sit near me since I'm so obnoxious! Guanglei on the other hand helped himself to a massive piece! It was pretty hillarious! Even so there was still quite a bit left! I can't believe how healthy all these BMI folks are. I guess I should learn from them. I'm still hurting from the time I brought cupcakes and no one ate any! I will never bake again! Except for Guanglei! He obviously knows good dessert when he sees it!

After the party I was having everyone over to play the Wii. Angela came ALL the way from Berkeley!!! It was so great seeing her! She has a ton of work, and also is heading into quals, but made her way over. She almost didn't but realized she wanted the break. Alex, Marc, David and even Noah showed up! Maureen came by for a bit as well! It was great! We played doubles tennis, and Maureen and I kicked some boy butt! She is a natural (hahahah). She was hitting the fast serves her first time playing!

I made some strawberry milkshakes (with real strawberries). Since they required minimal effort I thought that would be okay. I did not bake, however. I went to the store and bought chips, sliced meat, and bread. It was a build your own Mii and Sandwich party! Well actually, I took over and started designing people's Miis! We all decided I should quit grad school and pursue my real talent! We'll just have to see! Too bad I'm not good at making my own Mii!

Marc's Mii

Noah's Mii

David's Mii (even though he denies it, he totally makes that face when he thinks I said something obnoxious)!

Alex's Mii! What a likeness!!

So my Mii still needs some work. At least our profiles are pretty good!

Ryan gazing longingly into my Mii's eyes. I guess he thinks we look alike!

It happened, with probability .000225

I went to LA last weekend for a wedding. Erin Murphy, a fellow UCSD student I lived with during my second year of college was getting married in San Diego. We flew in to LA so that I would get some time with my family since I didn't get to go over the break. The worst part...they lost our luggage, not once, but TWICE!!!

In all fairness the company is notorious for losing bags (15 out of every 1000 bags are lost). But the probability that it happens twice, less than .1%! That's right!! The worst part was I spent a ton of time shopping for clothes on Thursday. I spent FOUR hours shopping, time I didn't have (the money probably either). But I had just been paid so I splurged. More than splurged, I overindulged! Beth and I snapped some cute pictures at Anthropologie! Doesn't she look cute with the lampshade? It was on sale!!!

So on Friday night we arrived (after a 45 minute flight) to no bags. It there in shock over other people drinking cold things! We were a really big group, so we basically filled the whole place (I think we had a total of 13 people)! We just hung out for about an hour, and eventually went home, after taking pictures of ourselves making werid faces!

ARGH! Ryan as the spoon-y pirate.

Susy makes a funny face.

I think this is the creepiest face I've ever made (aside from the unintentionally horrific picture I took at Julie's party, below)

I had a hair appointment the next morning at 10:45 and the wedding was at 4pm in San Diego (which is a 2 hour drive)! If it isn't already painfully clear what was going to happen, we got a call in the morning that our luggage had been recovered, and the could deliver it between 12 and 2pm (obviously too late). We opted to pick it up, but between eating chocolate chip pancakes my aunt made, and my hair appointment, we got there just before 2 pm anyways! Ryan had big plans to go to his parent's house before and get dressed, shower, and shave. I was in total shock that he had no idea how inappropriate that was!

We finally arrived at the wedding (45 minutes late) and had completely missed the ceremony! I had also totally forgotten my camera! There were some cameras at the reception, so hopefully I can get my hands on some of the prints! I wore the dress I purchased with my mom, because it was cold! That was a pretty bad move since my other purchase from BCBG could not be returned!

We spent a while at the reception, and I even drank some wine! It made me feel totally sick though! I had 2 glasses! Plus some champagne! I guess those don't mix well or I just can't drink wine!

The next morning we had a couple friends over at Ryan's family's house for the Chargers versus the Patriots game! We were super excited in the beginning, but that faded toward the end! We were all pretty depressed after, which in retrospect is pretty funny.

Sahand, Kyle, and Ryan are super excited about a touchdown! (What a well-timed shot)!

Group picture, we are all a bit less happy after the game has become more tense. Particularly Sahand, growling behind his glass, and Kyle's ANGRY expression!

We drove back that evening and went out to grab some more food at Mel's Diner in the valley with Shirley and Susy at 11pm (us having really great table manners at the left)! We just messed around, took silly pictures, and enjoyed each other's company! I realy miss those girls! There are way too many guys around me at Stanford. Not that I don't think that every last one of them is super great fun, it's just that I MISS MY GIRL TIME!

On Monday Ryan got his hair cut at 9am (which he clearly needed based on his nutty professor look above), and we went to brunch with my cousin, aunt and mom! We went to this really great place called Toast! It's amazingly good, all the restaurants near my mom's house are! We sat at the couches, and ate off of the coffee table, which was pretty interesting. Ryan kept putting his feet up! They also have this really cool tea garden where you can go and pick out your tea! I didn't do it, I'll have to try it next time!

The Toast rendition of "Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil" in no particular order!

I had a meeting with Mehdi when I got back (6:30 pm). Our flight came in at 4, so I figured we had plenty of time, but since our luggage was missing again (go figure) it ended up being pretty close! Mehdi was super exhausted from getting back from his trip from Iran, so he was super jet lagged, and I guess I was from a generally hectic weekend! I have a presentation in the Sidow lab this Wednesday, so I need to get my butt in gear!

Wiidiculously fun start of classes

Classes started on Tuesday. I learned my lesson from last quarter and I'm only taking 2, although that isn't necessarily "taking it easy". I wanted to be sure to have time for my research rotation with Gill Bejerano that begins in February. I don't want to make the same mistake as last quarter, when I had barely any time to do work in the Sidow Lab.

The courses I'm taking are BMI211 and BMI217 (these are both required for graduation). I'm also struggling to decide whether or not to take CS228, which is known to be a very challenging class (taught by Daphne Koller). I'm still shooting to rotate with her, and she really wants me to take the class, but it's a tall order. Since 217 is newly required (for all students entering after Fall 2006) I figured it made more sense to take a broader-level class now and go into the specifics later. I hope to talk to my academic advisor to get her input.

After Amar's 211 class, I went to Serafim Batzoglou's 262 (Computational Genomics) class. I have been exempted from this class (a great part of having a Bioinformatics background), but I still wanted to audit the course. I'm going to try my best to show up to the classes when new or material I'm rusty on is being presented. However, it starts at the same time my BMI class ends, and they are pretty much on opposites side of the campus. Even if I had a bike on campus, I doubt I'd be able to be on time.

After Serafim's class I had a date with Alex and David to go rock climbing! We were super excited since we had been talking about it for awhile. Someone had mentioned that the ventilation system might have been installed there, and I was pretty sure that it smelled better, but once I got deeper inside I realized it was just as bad. I couldn't remember a thing from the belaying lesson last time, and I didn't get certified.

Alex is a climbing fiend. He's like a monkey when he climbs up there. I still can't even make it up the second easiest routes (I couldn't make it up one named "Kindergarten"), but at least I tried my best! Alex and I have the same types of shoes too! He has been a climbing guy for awhile, but I just got my shoes. But I still wear socks in mine, I can't help it! David is good also. He already kicked my butt at climbing last time around!

Me struggling on the "Kindergarten" climb

David showing off his climbing skills. Alex also has a crazy belaying technique!

Alex balances on the rope at the end of a climb!

After climbing we went to dinner at a Greek place on University. There are two, and they're both delicious. I ate everything in sight! I was SO hungry! Luckily Ryan wasn't so I could eat half of his. We were all super sore and tired, but somehow I was laughing really loudly (in regular form) and the people at the table beside us were staring! Oh well! We were talking about crazy video games that people spend years of their lives (literally in the David's case) on certain games. A lot of games track your number of hours. The funniest part about it is that David is right, while in college, he basically sacrificed in class time to the games. So in the most academically un-P.C. comment possible, we pointed out he had no net loss! Of course if he had been at Stanford he NEVER would have done such a thing!

Ryan and I went grocery shopping after against my will! I was so tired so I sat in the cart and Ryan pushed me around! It's pretty effective shopping. I just took items that were within reach!

Today we got our Wii! I was really tired and kept hitting the snooze button. Then around 11 am (yes that's pathetic) Ryan came in the door with the Wii, so I immediately jumped out of bed (here come my years of gaming). I then realized I had signed up for colloquium units (Tuesday and Thursdays). So I got little time to play. By the time I got back, though, Ryan's Mii was all set! It looks like a lot like him! Don't you think?!?!

Last day of freedom

Classes start again tomorrow, and I'm ready to go. We are going to get a Wii this Thursday, so we'll be able to be fully addicted in time for midterms...excellent. I'm planning a Wii party next week, and also a Tahoe trip. I hope I have time for research and classes!

There was a big announcement this week that Russ Altman, the director of our program, has been appointed as director of the Bioengineering program here at Stanford as well. This is a much newer program but it makes me very nervous!

I went up to the city on Saturday to see Chris, a grad student from Columbia who I met during interviews (I kept in touch with a few of my fellow visitors)! We went to a house party at his friend's friend's house, which we left early. As we were walking out, I heard my name, and it was Runa (from BMI)! She was walking with her fiance (they are recently engaged!!!) to his UCSF program event. We stopped in but it was sooo tiny in the place they were going so we left.

On Sunday I went to Vincy and Micah's house, and we got to practice our Wii skills on their Wii. Ryan bought a whole bunch of Wiimotes when he followed a truck pulling in to Target and bought them immediately after following the driver! They named it Viincii (after Vincy). How cute! She had also knit me a cute hat! Ryan got one too but she is putting earflaps on it! I can't wait (I'm going ot steal it for sure)! I love earflaps on hats!

On Monday, I took a prospective student to lunch with Shirley, one of the Czars. He's also from UCSD so I've been talking to him via IM for awhile. We went to a greek place and ate lunch. He seems very eager, and is hoping he'll get invited to the retreat as well. They weren't sure since they spent time with him on this day. David and Guanglei also didn't go to the retreat, so it's not uncommon. While I was walking on campus I saw a woman walking a ton of dogs!! I had to snap a picture!

Chris came down to visit as well, and I invited him to coffee with Marc and myself. Marc and I meet regularly to practice Swiss German, but today I figured since Chris was around we'd have to speak english, or he might've been pretty bored. We just sat and chatted for at least 2 hours! It was pretty crazy! I drank two teas, Chris had a cupcake, Marc had a coffee and a grapefruit juice. You know you've been there a long time when you go for seconds!

We had been thinking about going to the city for dinner and drop Chris back at his friend's house, but Marina convinced us that it was a better idea to stick around and eat at the Cheesecake Factory in Palo Alto since there are usually fewer people. Chris had never been and David doesn't really like it, so I was determined to make them love it! Ryan joined us as well. We got two desserts, but neither was a cheesecake!! We got a huge piece of chocolate cake and their lemon/vanilla cake! They are both amazing. I'm not sure if they loved it, but I did!

After this Chris had some time before he was going to catch the train back to the city so we went to go play pool. There was a game on and this one woman was pretty enthralled in it, and totally upset her team was losing. She was pretty funny. I played 2 rounds of pool with Marc and was totally obliterated. David didn't play at all, so we decided to take pictures instead while Chris and Ryan took on the woman and her husband.

As usual with pool, it's not that fun to watch for hours, so we started messing around. Ryan and I balanced the pool sticks on our faces and heads! (In actuality they're wedged against the ceiling but it looks pretty good!) but there were giant cones of chalk on the wall. Of course I decided it was a good idea to get chalk all over my hands and cover Marc and Ryan with it. Eventually I just picked up the cone and tried to draw on Ryan, which totally backfired. At the end I decided I should buy one of these in case I ever TA a class and have to use the chalkboard, it would be great to stand up there and write with it!

Ryan's a victim.

Marc's a victim too!

Ryan draws all over me.

Ryan definitely won in the end.

Autotimer skills!!

I figured out the autotimer on the camera, but as it turns out I'm not that handy with it so I accidentally took 5 pictures in a row! They turned out pretty cute though so I'm not too unhappy!

First picture, Marc would've ruined it with the bunny ears!!

We are caught off guard with the second picture being taken!

So we start to have fun!

Look at David's designer jeans! HAHAHA

Alright off to bed! Tomorrow's a big day!!!!

Back to the Bay for a Happy New Year!!

Ryan and I spent the last day in the snow, skiing on a gorgeous day! It cleared beautifully on Friday, and we were able to ski under gorgeous blue skies and still fresh snow before heading home to celebrate the beginning of the New Year!!!

We skied as a group with Reid, Hannah, and Hannah's friend Danielle (the two girls pictured above) while their parents went snowshoeing!

It was an absolutely beautiful day! The sky was totally clear and the most gorgeous color blue that contrasted so nicely with the snow-covered trees. It was still pretty chilly though! My fingers were hurting from the cold by the time we got to the top of the one long lift (called the Motherlode...hahah). We took some time off to warm up at the lodge with some hot chocolate with mini marshmallows! Genius! They also have homemade soup which was a nice way to warm up.

I'm going to have to get mittens because taking off the fingers of my gloves to ball up my hands (Hannah taught me how to do this...maybe the problem is that my gloves are to big?) makes me risk dropping my poles! On our trip to Kirkwood some guy lost one ski and both poles on the lift! We saw him getting off, which was definitely a challenge, but I have no idea how he got down the mountain or recovered his gear. We saw it from the lift while riding up the slope. Luckily it hadn't hit anyone.

That's me taking a rest on the slope while we waited for the snowboarders to go down the roads (Reid is sitting in the back, he kept throwing snow!)

We pretty much spent the rest of the day just relaxing. We played games with everyone, this fun game called Tripoli. This was my second time playing it and somehow I always manage to win. We play with quarters, so it's pretty funny how everyone gets really into it. At the end we just give the quarters back, though. It's like Monopoly!

The day we were supposed to leave Ryan and I really wanted to stay! We left really late because we were debating on what to do. In the end we figured Mrs. Scoots and Senator were going to be lonely and we had to get back. Also, we were planning to go to LA the next night but ended up staying.

This worked out really well since otherwise this would have meant that Julie would have been all alone on New Year's Eve! We went up to see her and had a plan to head to a sponosered event, but it turned out they were mostly sold out! I called Noah, who hadn't had much of a plan except to go to the North Beach area and just walk around, so we decided to join him for the evening. We decided to have a "fancy dinner" at this place called Goldenboy's Pizza. Noah laughed at us and said we would probably end up there again at the end of the night. Ryan LOVES the food there! Pizza and beer, I think he truly thinks it's the perfect meal!

Noah had a bunch of friends in from out of town, most of which also knew my cousin, Adam, since they all went to the same school. It's funny how we all maintain such close relationships with our high school and even younger friends. The internet has made it so easy, not to mention free nights and weekends with cell phones.

We started over at his friend Mark's house who has the most amazing view of the city from his rooftop! It was just goregous.

Noah's friends are really funny! Mark had one of those singing fish on the wall, and Julie and I kept showing people so I think it played about 10 times, (how irritating)? Dan decided to give it a kiss. Who knows why? I think he knew it was a blog photo op!

The apartment was amazing in general. It was one of those very typcail houses for San Francisco, with the bay windows and wood floors. It makes me really want to move to the city! It's also cheaper than where I live, but it also requires the trip in to school. I'm a total SoCal girl in the sense that I cannot imagine taking public transportation. I also like to sleep in late, so I'm not sure how well that would work. But where else can we get a view and house like that?

Apparently we could have seen fireworks, but we decided to head out to Grant and Green instead. Most places charge quite a bit but instead we just found a place that let us in for very little money. On the other hand we didn't get any champagne (except for the big champagen balloon we pretened to drink from)! But it definitely beat paying upwards of 75 dollars!!

We stayed there until midnight, at which point we decided we were done with the bar and were headed to another place with better music for dancing. We stopped at a restaurant halfway down to our next location when Noah bumped into someone he knew (he's so popular)! She invited us over to hear place which was, again was a gorgeous place in the city. It has stairs on the inside of the door. Julie and I were in quite a bit of pain at this point from our high heeled shoes (we had walked around looking for Mark's apartment, to the bar, to the restaurant and then to this apartment, so we were ready to go back. It was just before 1AM so we left Noah and his pals and figured we would be safe to get a cab at this point since we figured everyone else would still be staying until last call at the bars, but we could NOT find one ANYWHERE!! We walked to the Hilton, hoping they would let us use their service to call for a cab, but they weren't too friendly. We were standing on the street corners with about 10 other people in any given area, and we knew that no matter what happened, everyone would be mobbing the same cab, so we pretty much had no chance.

We ended up walking up to the Broadway tunnel, thinking every cab would pretty much come through there. Unfortunately they all wanted to head further north for longer cab rides, and more money I'm sure. As I was giving up hope and crouching down in vain so that me feet wouldn't hurt so much, I heard Ryan shouting something from the other side of the street, I look up and see a cab going by with Noah's friend Yaron hanging out the window!!! He actually shouted at me "HEY I KNOW YOU!" But they didn't stop!!! Apparently Noah said later that Yaron had said that and he didn't believe it, although Ryan had seen him! I called Noah but their cab was already too full. They had 6 people and it was NOT a minivan, so it only seats 4 besides the driver. That may be a partial explanation as to why Yaron and Noah were both hanging out the windows!

We finally gave up and decided to get some food at a chinese place in China Town (where we were) and figured by the time we were done we'd either get a cab back, or take a room at the Hilton because it seemed hopeless. We sat down and ate some chicken and beef, and suddenly a rat ran across the dinning room!!!!! I couldn't believe it! I was so grossed out I immediately stopped eating. The guy sitting right next to us was laughing so hard, but Julie just kept eating! She completely regretted it at the end.

We did get a cab in the end, it was actually a town car, and we paid a pretty penny, but it was definitely less than a room. The driver was laughing at the "rat chinese food" we ate, and told us that we probably didn't need to worry, but was completely maused. Julie started getting really disturbed and by the end just kept saying "I just ate a rat"!

I guess this is a typical BMI New Year's Eve?