I had quite the eventful trip back to UCLA these past few days.

Our (Terry, Soyeon and I) trip from Oakland to LAX on United was supposed to be at 5:29pm, in order to make it to the 7pm banquet at IPAM (UCLA). We got to the airport quite early (4pm). And then what the heck, the flight became delayed again and again until the woman up front mentions that it "probably will be cancelled." And this is already almost 7pm, fine, we missed the banquet, but still need to get to LA by tomorrow! So we're in a loooong line, until Terry uses his United VIP status (almost one million flyer miles) to get all three of us transferred to another flight. OUT OF SFO!! Anyhoo, once it was confirmed, we hightailed it out of Oakland airport to make it to our new 8:45pm flight to LAX from San Francisco. After a pretty pricey cab ride to SF, we got there to find out that Soyeon and I got transferred successfully to the flight while Terry's was on the next night! Yes, United is that great. So, anyhoo, he luckily got a seat on the correct flight. And then b/c of Terry's high status, we got to hang out for a bit in the Red Carpet Club before the flight. Man, our dinner that night consisted of some cherry tomatoes, celery sticks, carrots, crackers, cheese and juice. Haha, it was a nice experience though, hanging out with Terry and Soyeon throughout three airports that night.

We FINALLY got to LAX by almost 10pm, took our third cab ride of the night to the Doubletree hotel on Wilshire in Westwood. Deb, Duncan and Mark had been hanging out at the bar area and thus greeted us when we approached the front desk. And here is where maybe I shoulda kept my mouth shut: the hotel guy in the front was extremely funny dude, so anyways, I had to give him a credit card in case I ordered things that the program wasn't going to pay for. So this hotel guy starts listing things that might be additional charge on my card and then... in front of other hotel people, Soyeon AND my advisor Terry, I added a thing that he hadn't remembered to mention :

"Porn."

Man, the hotel guy started really cracking up, and said "OH, my virgin ears!" Haha, anyhoo, I have no idea what my advisor thought, hopefully he thinks I'm funny? =)

So apparently, Nicolas thought I was going to be at the 7pm banquet and actually went there to look for me, as Deb told me that night when I got to the hotel. I had called him earlier to tell him about the delay, but didn't when it got cancelled, thinking that he wouldn't care enough to wait until 7pm to see me in the first place. But I was happy he did, he got a great dinner (that I was supposed to have had) and he got to meet Deb and John Rice (after teaching out of his book for so many years). And I'm glad I got to tell Deb and Terry about the major impact that Nicolas has had on my academic life. Anyhoo, that night in the hotel bar was fun. I shared a room with Soyeon that night and we talked for a bit about her boyfriend (I wish I was as lucky as her, since she has truly found the one.) Sleeping in Westwood that night was kinda weird for me, but very nice.

Woke up at 6am the next day to get ready and make sure I didn't miss breakfast (after missing dinner the previous night, I was so hungry!). Anyways, had breakfast in the hotel at 7am after we spotted Terry there. After that, Deb, Terry, Duncan, Soyeon and I walked to the 9th floor lab in Boelter (I had spent many days there for stat labs.).

The day mostly consisted of two of Terry's lectures, and two parts of the lab. If you wanna take a lookie: www.stat.berkeley.edu/users/frances/UCLA Gosh, those undergrads are SMART! I can truly say that the trip to UCLA did make me feel stupid, but I was very happy that I got to participate in a panel of grad students to talk about grad school. I LOVE grad skool! So they are lucky they picked me to talk eh? =) I found out that Deb remembered that I took forever to decide where to go to grad skool last year; since I was UCLA undergrad and Berkeley grad, I had to talk about why I chose Berkeley and what the differences were. I think I handled that well, hopefully not insulting anyone! Some people can't take jokes, serious!! This other grad student from UCLA was so dead on my case about my jokes during the panel, yet she was selfish in talking about herself and how Berkeley sucked. I never said anything bad about either school: I love both!! Oh wells, that's just her personality, I'm just glad I'm not her classmate (or her academic sibling, cuz she's decided on the advisor I was planning on if I had stayed at UCLA). Throughout all this, Terry had come in to listen, during the middle of it, I had noticed he wasn't there. So I just kept talking and giving comments to questions the undergrads asked, without realizing that he was sitting on the ground in the BACK and listening to everything that was said! Hahaha, I hope I didn't say anymore "insulting" things. I really had to tell those undergrad privately how LUCKY they were to have Terry available to them for an entire day when he's so busy, and how renowned he is. Some were really impressed and asked more about grad school life. So I'm glad this has helped a bit in persuading more students to seriously think about graduate school since I have been on the other end of these sort of panels many times and it's great hearing from grad students.

After the end of the panel, Deb, Duncan, Mark, Terry, Soyeon and I had dinner at Eurochow. Terry loves their food and I've never been there in the 5 years I was in Westwood. I can't afford that fancy place! =) Anyways, so pretty inside! And you know you're in a fancy schmancy place when the menus don't list a single price! We shared the appetizers and all of us ate a main course and dessert, I ate soo much, they were laughing at how I "inhaled" my dessert (tiramisu). Anyways, Duncan ended up treating us all to dinner, I really appreciated it. It was quite an experience (dining and conversation wise ;o) ) After dinner, Terry left in a cab for Australia again and Soyeon and I met up with my parents to go home.

Apparently my parents recognized Terry outside of RiteAid getting money out of the ATM. They said he's very quick, dude, you can't even begin to imagine how fast we were walking/running in all three airports: OAK->SFO->LAX. =)

So, my parents drove Soyeon to her relative's house and I got to sleep in my own bed that night.

I forgot to mention that I was so busy that day (I had to work through lunch!), that I had no time to see much of Nicolas. I had to sneak out of lab a few times to see him for a few minutes. I'm not even sure if he came to campus just for me; if he did, I'm very grateful. The third time I sneaked out of lab ( I did work in lab, serious!!), his door was closed! I was so disappointed! Anyways, you know me, I decided to go check the bus stop. I recognized him from very very far ahead and thus I made a huge sprint in his direction and finally caught up with him. Hopefully he was pleasantly surprised (instead of thinking "STALKER!!"). It was very nice being able to talk to him for a few more minutes until his bus came. Man, I'm just glad I wasn't too late in catching up with him. I had to go back at 4:55pm for the grad student panel, but before that, he did something that I didn't expect, but it was nice.

So overall, great trip back! I missed UCLA, and I'm so glad I got to see Mark and Nicolas again. They are always so nice to me! I feel proud being a statistics grad student. Haha, how great life has turned out. =)