Last day of freedom

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!!!!