Berkeley Stats dept visit day today and last night I just really realized that my life has changed since I've been here and I can't go back to what I was doing before. And the path to today is clear now. Still so much to learn.

I was just thinking for a moment yesterday of all the times a person's name gets mentioned in the past and at that time, you have no idea how much that person is going to affect your life in the future. For instance, three years ago, I was reading a paper that was proving useful for my work, and I'm the sort of person who likes to know who did what and where, so of course I noticed who the first author was, but back then, I didn't realize that the high importance of the last author (PI). So I was discussing this paper with my (very smart) ex boss and he said sure, that's [so-and-so]'s stuff and I was like noooooo, that wasn't the name on the paper... and was feeling just a bit annoyed [in general, not at my boss] that it seemed like I didn't know whose work I was reading about when I had taken special notice of it in the first place. Anyways, haha, to cut down a very lame story already, that time my boss mentioned that name was the very first time I ever heard my advisor's name. And then to think, I didn't know that at the time, and even now, I'm just starting, I still have no idea the extent of the impact on my life.

Similarly with my close friends of course. Who knew when we first met that you'd be dealing with me for years and years and years???=)