March 2007

You know you're at Stanford when: you can do your finals from Los Angeles

Spring Break is upon us, and it has been very strange but full of BIG NEWS!!!!! I am getting accustomed to having a different outlook to what vacation will be, a good time to finish up my research!

I spoke with Serafim and he is anxious to get started as soon as possible on my research rotation. He was hoping to begin at the start of the quarter, but Gill would like me to stay through for the full 10 weeks. Gill started at Stanford late, and so I was not able to keep to a normal quarterly schedule, and he has somewhat insisted I stay until the 11th of April after a meeting I had with him on Tuesday.

On Wednesday we had a good talk in the lab, and I really need to step up my work to finish up as soon as possible so I can move on to Serafim's rotation, who has a really great project suggested. I spoke with him the same day and he believes we may be able to get a publication in the 10 week time!!! I am also very much looking forward to the rotation as Pavel Pevzner, at UCSD, was extremely excited about his work and had encouraged me to try to work with him.

On Wednesday night I had decided to reward myself with some shopping, but as I don't really have the time to window shop, I ended up doing it online. I have decided that online shopping is COMPLETELY dangerous for 2 main reasons! One is that it is so much easier to shop and spend a large amount of money in a much shorter period, since we don't need to go around and try things on, but also there are too many sales incentives that easy to find with minimal effort. The second is that it really does not satiate my desire to shop! I do not feel like I have shopped if I do it online. I think I may have replaced my addiction for shopping with coffee, which is good since I can get it for free virtually all the time, either at school or at home. However, I have occasional shopping relapses! The bag I bought is HUGE (see right). It fits my 17 inch laptop!

On Thursday I drove down to LA, and then spent the entire evening working on a presentation for my talk on Friday at my old high school, Beverly Hills High. Running on 3 hours of sleep, I arrived at 830 AM to give a talk to the Computer Science class of my former high school CS teacher, Mr. Paul. He's really great and has a great vision for incorporating CS into a general high school curriculum, and believes I have a great example of how this has been done and why it is so important!

At 930am I spoke to the AP Biology class, who were so extremely receptive. I have to honestly say that I was NOT this advanced in high school. The students were asking some VERY impressive questions,and were totally interested in the field. I had a 2 hour break until my last talk with the faculty at lunch, and tried to nap in the library at BHHS. I was on the floor until I decided I needed to get some food at the nearby mall! At lunch I gave my talk a 3rd time, and actually had a great conversation with a Biology teacher about a way to integrate some Bioinformatics into his curriculum. Hopefully he will contact me!

That evening I had plans to go to the high school play with my friend, Tracy (it is my last chance since her younger brother will graduate this year)! We first went shopping, then I had dinner with my family, but by the time it was 630, I realized that I was NOT going to be able to go as Alex called me and reminded me I had to turn in our Final!!!!! So I rushed home, and finished up (YAY ALL DONE WITH FINALS!!!!!!!!!) and promptly fell asleep.

I woke up around 11 when my mom was headed to bed, and checked my email. I found a message had been sent to me by my friend Angela on facebook, and it said I should check the NSF website. OH NO! I did NOT want to know! She clearly must have gotten one and it must have been announced! I have no emails in my inbox from the helpdesk!!! (If you all remember, I had to do it for practice in the fall and was certain I had a great research proposal which I slept on for 2 hours and had changed my mind)! I check, and yes, Angela is listed! BUT OH MY GOD! MY NAME IS ON THE FIRST PAGE!!!!!

My left hand ring finger tip instantly tingles (isn't that a heart attack? Didn't I break that finger?!) I look at it about 100 times, and then I look at the number, 931 students, that's about right. It has to be a mistake! I call Angela, and she is completely calm, and we are still discussing the possibility it is a mistake. I look on my account and see a letter drafted with my address. Can it be?! Is IT REAL!? I had just been talking about it a few days earlier, how I was certain I would not get it since I had dreams I might.

I decided to be on the safe side and not email thanks to my recommenders until I was certain I had won the fellowship, but still decided to have a pseudo-celebration, if for no other reason than that the quarter is over, and went out to Jerry's Deli with Shirley and Ryan.

The next day Ryan and I head down to San Diego for an afternoon, and I check my email on my cell phone on the ride, and there it is! The email from Russ! Congratulating me on getting the fellowship!!!!! I guess it is real!?!??!

We spent the evening with his family, eating and helping his sister out with her homework assignment. Later we head out to Il Fornaio and have dessert and coffee with Ryan's former roommate, Sahand (we seem to meet with him at Il Fornaio every time). Ryan decides we should head back to Los Angeles that night, so unfortunately we miss the opportunity to see all our other friends down there!

The next day I had a hair appointment! I colored my hair....dark brown! I had been considering it for ages, and I had finally found the perfect color, Cameron Diaz! Now, I know I look nothing like her, but I LOVE her color, and if he had the nerve to go from platinum blonde to black, I can go from blonde highlights to dark brown! And so I did it! I have never gotten such a strange mix of reaction! Initially everyone is simply shocked! But eventually people warm up to it. Here are some reactions:
My Mother (very calmly and matter-of-factly): "Oh my god, that is dark, it looks like a wig."
My aunt Karen (not calm): "WHAT DID YOU DO?! People pay to have your hair!!" (I pay to have my other hair also)
My uncle: "Karen!!! Sarah, it looks very nice!"
My aunt later said, "you are right, it does make your eyes stand out."
My grandmother: "Oh Sar!" Then about an hour later. "Well, it's still you."
Shirley, Sahand, and Ryan all "LOVE IT"!
Oliver "You should have gone darker"
My friend Joe "What did you do? I love blonde."

It has been such an array of responses, but I have started to realize, that age old adage of "If you have nothing good to say, it is best to say nothing at all" is very true. The fact is, Joe Schmo who meets me on the street will never know that I had blonde hair before, and will like it all the same. The opinion is purely based on the shock and comparison. And when they have a frame of reference, they will say something, regardless, because they can have an opinion since they have both views. I am trying to stay positive! It is pretty scary for me too!!!!

I decided I had to take my "hair out" on Sunday so we went to our local dig, Barney's Beanery. I got some great reaction from people I've never met, including this guy's reaction. Okay, that was actually induced by the Tabasco, mustard, pepper, sweet and low concoction we made him which he drank, but he did say "you are pretty". Although he was so drunk, I'm not even quite sure he was saying it to me! I know it was mean but it's not like we made him drink it, and he was perfectly aware of what he was having because we asked him to guess the ingredients and, while he didn't get the Sweet and Low, he did get the mustard and Tabasco sauce right.

Let's all remember why Stanford is so great!

I finished my BMI211 final yesterday, and I have to say, this was a toughie! I had fewer courses this quarter, but I still managed to commit my time in such a way that made it a struggle to make it through the whole quarter with 8 hours of sleep every night (this was a luxury I afforded myself on weekends).

I have to start off by apologizing for the lack of time I have spent blogging. It is partially because my camera decided to spontaneously turn on after my trip to Las Vegas, and so I had to take out batteries to keep it from staying on constantly. It took pictures just fine, but I would have to wait and indeterminate amount of time fo this to happen once I put in the batteries, so this unreliability resulted in my not taking pictures! I did finally manage to get it replaced, but it took a while. At least I got it back in time to take pictures for Jane Peace and Alayne West's going away party, where Jessie and Noah did the right thing, and got one of each kind of cake we had there! I have to say I was really sad to see Jane go! She was so great to have around, and it seemed to go by so quickly! Hopefully I see her at a conference!

I've had a pretty busy couple of weeks. Last Monday I had to present my work for BMI217, Translational Bioinformatics! I think I did a decent enough job, but somehow I still manage to feel totally inferior to everyone else. I am convinced that my work is not computational enough. It relied heavily on getting biologically relevant results, and unfortunately this meant that I did not have time to invent some test for statistical significance. Fortunately, however, this afforded me time to start working on work for Gill at some point. I was suffering from major lack of sleep so I had to recover on Monday, but on Tuesday I managed to forge ahead.

On Wednesday, I had once again, a South Africa seminar to attend, but I also had to construct a presentation. I was not pleased with my results, but I had also not decided to shirk my duties for the lab, so I was hoping to have time to work on a presentation for the lab. Regrettably, I had to get up very early to go to the seminar, and subsequently ended up focusing my presentation on making a very clear depiction of what ChIP chip was for the lab, and decided to have a more "chalk talk"-like presentation which I was accustomed to seeing in Arend Sidow's lab where students presented 2 talks per quarter (one short and one long) rather than the weekly talks we have in Gill's lab!

The South Africa Seminar encountered a huge number of problems (the speaker was in South Africa this week)! It was pretty rough and took way more time than expected! I had little time to work on my talk, and completely disappointed Gill in my lab meeting. I prompted a rather harsh email which nearly made me cry! I was so upset! I am not the type of person who responds well to very harsh criticism, particularly when I don't feel I can fix it. The email made me feel as though I had been giving sub-par presentations throughout the quarter, and of course did not help my already dwindling self-esteem! We went out to dinner that night after BMI217 (where the rest of the class gave outstanding talks to which I, of course, felt inferior once again). But at dinner I simply no longer cared. We compared sizes of key chains, and gabbed about spring break plans! Unfortunately Gill has decided not to cancel lab meetings during spring break and finals week, so I will not be able to head home until Thursday, and have to return the following Tuesday!

In addition, as I may or may not have mentioned, I had a former mentor at UCSD who is now a professor at Brown! I have been working with him on the side a bit to get a paper finished, which seems to be heading quickly towards submission at this point! In addition, he has asked me to pull together some loose ends on another project I had my hands in at the beginning of my work with him! I'm quite excited as this will lead to another paper! Unfortunately this cuts into my already non-existent sleep! I am also planning to spend part of the summer at Brown (depending on when my additional summer rotation takes place).

Christine Hilliard had mentioned this great little Chinese restaurant off of University Ave where the first years went to have lunch with her! We had talked about it for quite some time, so all the first years went (Guanglei, David, Alex, Noah, Marina and I) along with Christine. It was SO good, and cheap! Alex has this thing where he refuses to share food with me for whatever reason! I now realize that people in general find the food sharing the abnormal, but he will specifically not eat from my plate! He even took a spoon from Christine's plate and ate from it! I'm not sure if it's just a joke at this point or if he seriously thinks I'm diseased!!! While we were waiting for Marina, we snapped that great picture (way above) of the first year guys in the tree directly outside MSOB. It should be in a school of medicine or BMI catalog!!!

On Friday Ryan also came to pick me up from school. He has been flying RC airplanes, and I wanted to try them out. We went out to Lake Lagunita, which is the lake here at Stanford, which at the moment is just a huge open field. I guess it fills with water in the winter if it rains enough, but it hasn't been I guess. I definitely do not recommend wearing sandals when you go out there. It was pretty painful! and there was a dead squirrel, ew! It was in two pieces! Ryan wore my sandals on the way back (see below) and I put on his shoes. It worked out much better. Ryan let me fly the plan, I am definitely not good, but at least I didn't crash the plane! But that was pretty much my only break that weekend! I managed to complete my 10 page paper and turn in my take-home assignment yesterday, but I am still working toward a 20 page paper for BMI211 with the guys (Alex and David) for Friday! It is very hard to motivate myself for this! I also am presenting at my High School this Friday (details will follow).

The weather has just been amazing! It's winter quarter and I can spend time by the pool doing work! I decided since I couldn't go out I would just take advantage of the internet by our pool and do work out there...it was great! I keep hearing all the students I met at grad school visits talking about how much they love where they are at school. The fact is, none of them can beat this weather! Particularly the ones at Columbia that love being in New York City, they definitely cannot do this. Ryan and I had a conversation about the best places I think I've lived. I still loved living in Los Angeles, and it is probably my favorite place to live, but the fact is, when I live in a city like that, it's very difficult to get work done. Both UCSD and Stanford are located in more suburban settings where we are not in the middle of the city, and to get any "action" we have to drive quite a distance to go to a bar or concert. The benefit is that I am not tempted to constantly go out and do work. Of course the fact that I can do work by the pool is a perk of living in an area that is a technological hub. I'm sure people expect no less around here! Plus, while I'm doing work, Ryan got to play in the pool with some of the kids around the area! One of the kids was eating Ritz crackers in the pool. It was pretty funny. He accidentally dipped them in the pool on multiple occasions, but he was completely not bothered by this and just kept on munching away.

I did manage to go to dinner with Beth, Julie and Ryan in the city on Friday. We went to the Foreign Cinema, which was quite interesting, in a pre-celebration for St. Patrick's Day (as I knew I would not be able to go on Saturday). The food was okay, I actually preferred Rose Pistola, but change is good, right? I am looking forward to going home and spending time with my family! I haven't seen them in a long time, and I miss them terribly! Maybe they can re-inspire me!!!!

Today was Rashmi's last day at Stanford as well! She got her MS here and is now going to be working for Yahoo! She seemed pretty excited, but Amar is sad at losing her! It's crazy how many people are leaving. I guess it's so different, everything is always in flux, and since it's such a small group we all notice when people leave. It's quite sad! Runa is also preparing for her wedding and has been shopping for shoes and jewelry. I pointed out some online sites to her so hopefully she can find something great. Of course if she needs a shopping buddy, I am always available for that! :) I also snapped a picture of us all wearing our different sweatshirts representing all the different schools we've been to (see below). It was pretty funny, and totally unplanned!

We are leaving for Los Angeles tomorrow, and I'll have to get all my work finished up remotely, so it should all turn out quite nice! I'm excited to see my family, it has been way too long!

Viva Las Vegas!

Last weekend we went to Las Vegas for Susy, J.J. and Marc's birthdays! It was pretty fun, but unfortunately I got less work than expected done, and so I had to do overtime for the rest of the week, and I predict for the remainder of this quarter!

On Friday morning I have a meeting with Marissa (from Arbor, with Alex right), David and Alex, to go over the User Interface I created for their system. Of course since we are going through the iterative design process we learned in Amar's 211 class, as expected we got feedback which we will now transform into another round of development for a new prototype. Ryan created a cute little logo for us (EMRbor is the great name David came up with awhile back)!

Ryan and I met Beth at the airport (she took the BART)! Public transportation is great! But we decided to park so we could bring everyone back on Sunday! We were so excited we had some drinks on the plane, which I have never done before. This was the worst idea EVER. I don't recommend it to anyone. Beth got super sick (see barf bag left), and I could not stop laughing at her! By the time we landed she felt better, mostly because we were so excited to be there, but I had to pee like nobody's business. Ryan was really amped to get to our hotel (the Luxor), but that turned out to be a huge mistake since we hit horrible traffic after waiting in a 30 minute line to even get the cab!!!! At least the cab driver heard I had a problem and rushed there, but then there was a line in the lobby! By the time I got to the room I almost did not have to go anymore!

We spent the evening with Rik, JJ and Tom, since Marc's plane didn't land until 11pm, and Susy, (her boyfriend) Ryan P. and his friend Akshay didn't hit the road until around 9pm, they were driving from LA!!!! We went to dinner, the Rio hotel, then the Hard Rock Hotel. But ultimately we decided we were just too exhausted and needed to go back to the hotel! Ryan and I stayed up until 5am, though, playing poker! Marc joined us sometime in, but didn't make it the whole time! I broke about even that night (thank goodness)!!

The next morning we got up at 10 am to go to brunch. We went to the Mandalay Bay brunch. It wasn't so great (it was a buffet). Grad school has destroyed my concept of a buffet. Buffets are great because you pay and eat a ton. First of all, I think I am no longer capable of eating that amount of food, but more importantly, I think I can get free food whenever I want, so quantity has become irrelevant, and quality is always secondary. Beth had a marzipan carrot on her carrot cake, so I scooped it up with a knife and was referencing the picture below, which I had shown Tom the night before. Some guy a couple tables over promptly imitated (I guess he has seen the same picture). So we snapped one together!!!

Beth, Susy and I decided to go on a shopping spree at the Fashion Show Mall. Bet is busy interviewing for summer internships at huge firms (she's getting her MBA at SFSU)! So we were trying to find her an age-appropriate business casual outfit! We found the PERFECT one at Banana Republic. The funny thing is, I completely do not agree with the saying, "You always find things in the last place you look" since obviously it will be the last place since once you find it you will stop looking, but in this case it was completely true! We had initially intended to go to Banana Republic, but when we set out to get there we stopped by at many places since they were on the way. But of course we found her whole ensemble there! Our favorite place, by far, was Neiman Marcus though. Susy and I were able to relax on the couch in the huge dressing room while Beth tried on clothes. We were sad when she didn't have much to try on!

After we got back we had a little time to play some poker in the hotel room, hoping that Susy, Ryan P. and Akshay would get comfortable enough with it to be able to play downstairs. They did fairly well but could not work up the nerve to get down there! Beth was busy playing slot machines and won two jackpots!!!!! Unfortunately they were nickel slots, but she was still up 200 dollars!!!!!! Marc and Susy decided on an Italian restaurant for dinner at the Venetian (I had never been, and it was quite impressive)! We had a great dinner, and headed over to the Bellagio for a club called Light.

That's Susy (at 10pm) at the restaurant! Doesn't the light look natural?!

Look at the sky! It's so romantic (I'm Beth's date for the evening).

We decided to walk off dinner, and stopped along the way. I have to say, by far the strangest thing about Las Vegas that makes it seem very much like a Disneyland for adults, is that open bottles of liquor are permitted in public. Not only that, they seem to be encouraged! We stopped by a place on the way that sold 30 dollar margaritas in 4.5 foot plastic containers! It was directly on the sidewalk, with open doors, much like a newsstand. It had these big slushy machines, except rather than regular slushies they served slushy with tequila. Of course we could not resist to get one, since that basically cut the cost of drinks for the evening in half! The funniest part was that it was possible to hang it around your neck! (Beth and I are hands free left, and below you can see how big it is). It was pretty much the most ridiculous thing we'd ever seen, and it became a prop for the rest of the night (see below).

I'm nearly 6 feet tall, and the cup is taller...so that gives you some idea!

Unfortunately when we got to Bellagio, the club, Light, cost 30 dollars for the guys to get in! Girls were free of charge! The guys deemed this too expensive, and Ryan headed over to Bally's to meet a friend for poker. The rest of us went to a fun lounge called Caramel and proceeded to dance the night away! We couldn't take in outside food or drink so we dumped the margarita and held on to the cup, but of course, it got left behind (I look so sad in the picture, like I know we're going to lose it)! It was great fun, but alas someone paid for a sofa and those who were sitting lost their seats and we headed out. Beth and I got a chance to peak in at Light (we got in for free) but by the time the others joined us, it was 30 dollars for the guys again. It was pretty fun, but I think Caramel was actually better. I guess we should make it a girls only trip (or at least split off for the evening portion)!

I spent the rest of the evening playing poker with Ryan (at an insanely expensive 4-8 limit table) where I suffered two horrible beats! I had a full house and a 2 pair, and lost both hands, and all my money (100 dollars). I was pretty upset. I should have mentioned I was a grad student to get some pity money, but alas, I did not. Ryan's friend took us to get some food. He has some kind of amazing pass where he basically gets a free room and everything complimentary while he is staying! So he flashed his fancy card at a cafe in Paris, and we got free sparkling water! It was strange sitting "outside" in "daylight" at 5am, having a snack. It's so crazy...you could basically stay in there all night and have no concept of what time it is (that is after all the point). We also ran into this machine that had an I/O error. The nerd in my snapped a picture...maybe I can debug the slot machine? And then program it so I win?

The next morning we checked our bags, and Beth and I gambled her winning on the slot machines, on the fun popcorn game. We went over to New York, New York, where Marc met us and we had some food. We eventually headed to the airport and back home. My best winnings: a stuffed Lion (I named him Gryan) and Beth got a stuffed Elephant (Belephant) that she got while we were playing a game in the children's game area at Excalibur. It was a consolation prize she won because her machine broke while we were playing, and she was nice enough to trade in her big stuffed animal for two smaller ones!

Of course after two weekends of fun, must come the repercussions. We made an amazing presentation for BMI211, which we presented on Thursday and I was quite proud! On Wednesday night, we rehearsed our parts in the big conference room. After much coaxing, they decided I would have to present as well. I really did not want to but since I spent quite a bit of time on the animations, Alex pointed out I probably envisioned how things would be presented, and being a bystander would probably not be satisfying. I do have to say I hate being recorded while I present. The benefit is that I can go back and see how I did, and actually use it as a constructive self-criticism for the future!

On Wednesday morning, the exec also had admissions meetings. People have been pretty excited on theFacebook! I've seen the students all communicating about their acceptances and rejections! Some of them have interesting theories on the admission process. It's strange because as a grad student you dont want to dash any hopes, but you also know that it's bogus! I'm sure they will all come to terms with their places eventually! Now we have to see who will make the right choice, and choose Stanford!!!

Now I can look forward to 10th week and Finals!!! I am pretty scared!!! I'll keep everyone updated!