Today made me feel happy to be a grad student.

My midterm actually went quite well. I thought it was kind of too easy for a graduate class midterm, but I ain't complaining. =)

I went to a seminar by Leroy Hood today. It was basically an intro to systems bio and what the future holds and what we need to do further the frontiers of systems bio. I thought it was a very nice talk. It really made me excited again to be here as a grad student. Go bio! I have been immersed in so much stats lately, I haven't gotten any taste of bio. I even miss being in a lab! Hopefully, my decision to phd in stats instead of bioinformatics was right.

Go grad skool! hahahhahahah...

KaMiLien (11:46:20 PM): so how many hrs do you study a day?
franiwack (11:47:01 PM): every hour that i don't spend in class, shower, eat, walking, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, potty, etc...

Bring it all back now

Don't stop, never give up
Hold your head high
and reach the top
Let the world see what you have got
Bring it all back to you ( bring it all back)

Hold on to what you try to be,
your individuality
When the world is on your shoulders
just smile and let it go

If people try to put you down
Just walk on by
Don't turn around

You only have to answer to yourself

Don't you know it's true what
they say that life ain't easy
But your time's coming around so
don't you stop trying.

Yeah, yeah, na,Don't stop,
never give up
hold your head high
and reach the top
Let the world see
what you have got
Bring it all back to you
(bring it all back now)
Dream of falling in love
anything you've been thinking
of when the world seems
to get too tough
Bring it all back to you
( Bring it all back now)

I guess I don't have any interesting things to blog out. All I did this weekend was study. The highlight of my weekend was grocery shopping. Well, not exactly, the best things in life are your friends and family, so thanks to all who actually listened to me whine even though I didn't deserve it. I am one lucky gal, to have so many friends that care. When I get to writing that acknowledgements page of my dissertation, you know you will be named there. =)

Anyhoo, back to homework, what else?

Cool random picture of the day:
My roommate Kristen's pic of a statue in Belgium.

Think you're having a bad day?

A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen
shaking frantically, almost in a dancing frenzy, with some
kind of wire running from his waist towards the electric
kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly
current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood,
breaking his arm in two places. Up to that moment, he had
been happily listening to his Walkman.

STILL think you're having a bad day?

Two animal rights protesters were protesting the cruelty
of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn, Germany.
Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke loose and escaped
through a broken fence, stampeding madly. The two
hopeless protesters were trampled to death.

STILL think you're having a bad day?

There was a case in one hospital's Intensive Care ward
where patients always died in the same bed, on Sunday
morning, at about 11am, regardless of their medical
condition.

This puzzled the doctors and some even thought that it had
something to do with the supernatural. No one could solve
the mystery as to why the deaths occurred around 11 a.m.
on Sundays.

So a Worldwide team of experts was assembled to
investigate the cause of the incidents. The next Sunday
morning, a few minutes before 11am, all doctors and nurses
nervously wait outside the ward to see for themselves what
the terrible phenomenon was all about. Some were holding
wooden crosses, prayer books and other holy objects to
ward off the evil spirits.

Just when the clock struck 11... Pookie Johnson, the
part-time Sunday sweeper, entered the ward and unplugged
the life support system so that he could use the outlet
for the vacuum cleaner.

Think you're having a bad day?

The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon
Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special
ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were
being released back into the wild amid cheers and applause
from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, a killer
whale ate them both.

What? STILL having a bad day?

Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet didn't pay enough postage on
a letter bomb. It came back with "return to sender"
stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it
and was blown to bits.

There now, feeling better?

Time goes by really fast. It's Friday again, but that doesn't really mean anything to me nowadays, since all the time I am ever allotted each day goes towards classes, studying, eating, sleeping and hygiene.

My classes are hard, but I like them and I do love statistics. Hopefully the department didn't make a mistake in letting me come here. I'll work hard, I will, but I'm not so sure if my mathematical abilities are even up to par around here. I'm surrounded by math geniuses...

I really am still amazed that I'm even here. Who woulda thought? If you told me what I'd be doing now when I was in high school or even the first three or four years of college, I'd be like "You be smokin crack, why would I ever think about doing that?" Anyways, amazing how people and things can really change your life. Goooo statistics! Whoohooey... hehe.

So, I'll be doing what I do every weekend, study and waste time. But feel free to bug me online anyhow. I like to feel loved every now and then. =)

Statistics is hard.
Probability is hard.
I don't really belong here.
But I will do my best.

Anyone seeing me doing something different?

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Try to make ends meet
You're a slave to money then you die
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
You know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet yeah,

No change, I can change
I can change, I can change
But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
But I'm a million different people from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no

It's now four weeks that I've been here, I'm adjusting okay actually, but I won't be home until Thanksgiving. Still can't believe I'm actually here. Anyways, back to studying. Hopefully I will have changed for the better by winter break. =)

i'm trying to keep a happy mind

too many bad things are happening

i have no free time at all

homework is extremely difficult and it keeps piling up

a bit of elizabeth is broken

and other stuff that i'd rather not even list here cuz it'll just make me even sadder

okay, headache...

bye bye

i'm still alive

Recent Pictures!
===============
>>> Jasmine (roommate), Eugene (Jasmine's boyfriend), and Kristen (roommate) <<<

>>> Me at the top of Macy's outside of the Cheesecake Factory, San Francisco <<<

>>> Shantisa and Kristen (roommates) at Cheesecake Factory, San Francisco <<<

>>> View from my office (Campanile Tower, Berkeley) <<<

>>> Lucy in my office when she came to visit me <<<

>>> Cynthie and I in my room when she came to visit me =) <<<

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on the way.

- Carl Sandburg

I'm 23 today! =)

"This dissertation is dedicated to all the students who don't think they can understand Math or Statistics. You can - you just need the right teacher."
- Dawn Porter

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