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Mar. 29th, 2003 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jainaI promised an update on my grad school deal and my visit to San Diego, so here 'tis. I really enjoyed my time at UCSD biomedical sciences, and right now it's looking like my top choice. As I said to someone else, it's great people who do great research, but they know how to have fun, too. If Stanford ever accepts me off the waiting list it might make my decision a little harder. I've already sent in my decline to UCSF, and if I can figure out how to decline UCSD molecular pathology without the graduate office thinking I'm declining both UCSD acceptances, I'll do that soon too. I've emailed the costume shop managers at UCSD and Stanford to ask if they'd mind me playing in the shop and helping out with their shows. Progress is being made.
I had a great time during my actual vacation in San Diego. Mom picked me up at the Residence Inn on Sunday morning (I'd stayed there for interview weekend, SWANKY!), and then we spent Sunday looking out at the ocean and driving up the coast road as far as Oceanside. Monday we went to the Zoo, which was exceedingly crowded and featured an hour-plus-long line for the pandas. Given that mom and I have both seen pandas at the National Zoo, and knowing that a zoo's definition of "panda" is "black and white lump plopped agaist the wall, as far from people as it can get," we opted to do more fun things, like see giraffes and polar bears. And meerkats. Can't forget the meerkats.
Tuesday we drove out into eastern San Diego County (it is SO bizarre to be going east and going AWAY from the ocean!) to see the mountains and the desert. We climbed Stonewall Mountain, three-thousand-something feet, and by climb I mean we walked up a very pleasant trail with lots of switchbacks. But it was very high! We also got sunburned as we didn't realize it was going to be so sunny. Then we drove out into the desert with the convertible's top down. The desert is quite brown, with some dull green. And then we drove back.
Wednesday we went up to San Juan Capistrano, to the old mission, which supposedly has swallows. We didn't see a single swallow, but we saw plenty of screaming schoolkids. Yeah. We had lunch with Tish up there (she was nice enough to drive down from Orange County to see us, even though her reason for being in the area for her mother's funeral). I had the Monte Cristo sandwich that sent all the other little Monte Cristos screaming in terror. Mmmm. Then that night we were finally able to meet up with Debby and Dan. We saw their condo-- very nice-- and they took us out to their favorite Mexican restaurant, and had dinner courtesy of Pfizer.
Then on Thursday I went home. Or tried to. It figures, four cross-country trips in five weeks, and I don't have a single problem until my very last flight home. I was supposed to be on a nonstop American flight, but they cancelled it and then had to rebook all 150 of us on other flights. You can imagine how well that went. I managed to get home that night, five hours later than planned, by connecting through Dallas. And I was one of the lucky ones. At least there was Chick-Fil-A in the Dallas airport.
Last night was Rogue's birthday celebration, a few days early so that the DI guys could come, since they're all headed for Ireland on Tuesday. There were about twenty of us; we had dinner at the Temple Bar, which was very nice, and then we all went to Steve and ML's for games and socializing. Bonk gave Rogue a very special Jar-Jar figure-- "Cantina Corpse." He'd chopped it in half and made it look like he'd been bisected by Obi-Wan's lightsaber. Brilliant stuff; everyone was laughing madly. And I gave Rogue his new Aragorn vambraces (okay, technically they were Boromir's, but he's dead now) from Kropserkel. They were a big hit, and Kimmerie laced him into them, cause she's good at stuff like that. Heh. Ooooh! And Kimmerie gave me a SILVER SHARPIE!!! It is the coolest thing EVER EVER EVER!! :-D
Ooh, and I got to talk to Jeffy on Friday night. I hadn't talked to him in a long long time. I might babysit Baby Jacen in August! It depends if we're out in San Diego by then or not.
The ladies' portion of Worlds is tonight! GO MICHELLE!!!
I had a great time during my actual vacation in San Diego. Mom picked me up at the Residence Inn on Sunday morning (I'd stayed there for interview weekend, SWANKY!), and then we spent Sunday looking out at the ocean and driving up the coast road as far as Oceanside. Monday we went to the Zoo, which was exceedingly crowded and featured an hour-plus-long line for the pandas. Given that mom and I have both seen pandas at the National Zoo, and knowing that a zoo's definition of "panda" is "black and white lump plopped agaist the wall, as far from people as it can get," we opted to do more fun things, like see giraffes and polar bears. And meerkats. Can't forget the meerkats.
Tuesday we drove out into eastern San Diego County (it is SO bizarre to be going east and going AWAY from the ocean!) to see the mountains and the desert. We climbed Stonewall Mountain, three-thousand-something feet, and by climb I mean we walked up a very pleasant trail with lots of switchbacks. But it was very high! We also got sunburned as we didn't realize it was going to be so sunny. Then we drove out into the desert with the convertible's top down. The desert is quite brown, with some dull green. And then we drove back.
Wednesday we went up to San Juan Capistrano, to the old mission, which supposedly has swallows. We didn't see a single swallow, but we saw plenty of screaming schoolkids. Yeah. We had lunch with Tish up there (she was nice enough to drive down from Orange County to see us, even though her reason for being in the area for her mother's funeral). I had the Monte Cristo sandwich that sent all the other little Monte Cristos screaming in terror. Mmmm. Then that night we were finally able to meet up with Debby and Dan. We saw their condo-- very nice-- and they took us out to their favorite Mexican restaurant, and had dinner courtesy of Pfizer.
Then on Thursday I went home. Or tried to. It figures, four cross-country trips in five weeks, and I don't have a single problem until my very last flight home. I was supposed to be on a nonstop American flight, but they cancelled it and then had to rebook all 150 of us on other flights. You can imagine how well that went. I managed to get home that night, five hours later than planned, by connecting through Dallas. And I was one of the lucky ones. At least there was Chick-Fil-A in the Dallas airport.
Last night was Rogue's birthday celebration, a few days early so that the DI guys could come, since they're all headed for Ireland on Tuesday. There were about twenty of us; we had dinner at the Temple Bar, which was very nice, and then we all went to Steve and ML's for games and socializing. Bonk gave Rogue a very special Jar-Jar figure-- "Cantina Corpse." He'd chopped it in half and made it look like he'd been bisected by Obi-Wan's lightsaber. Brilliant stuff; everyone was laughing madly. And I gave Rogue his new Aragorn vambraces (okay, technically they were Boromir's, but he's dead now) from Kropserkel. They were a big hit, and Kimmerie laced him into them, cause she's good at stuff like that. Heh. Ooooh! And Kimmerie gave me a SILVER SHARPIE!!! It is the coolest thing EVER EVER EVER!! :-D
Ooh, and I got to talk to Jeffy on Friday night. I hadn't talked to him in a long long time. I might babysit Baby Jacen in August! It depends if we're out in San Diego by then or not.
The ladies' portion of Worlds is tonight! GO MICHELLE!!!
