Let's all remember why Stanford is so great!

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!