yo-yos and daisy petals.

wow i feel like there's so much that's happened over the past couple of weeks...

one thing i haven't put up yet is that i got to see obama and bill clinton in person, and got to shake (more like grab) hands with bill! cool cos he was a past president, not so cool cos one of the first thing that people seem to think about when i mention bill clinton is monica lewinsky.

it's hard to believe that a week ago the temperature was in the 30s (celsius), cos by about tuesday or wednesday the high was back down to about 14 or 15. today was a really pretty day tho, in the low 20s in the afternoon... had a good day with sean, bryan and esh. saturday market, bum, and then bbq and pictionary at sean's parents'. twas spring break-y. =)

classes seem to have gotten a bit easier... maybe if i hadn't gone to florida i'd have had a relaxed term. no complaints tho - i would choose mommy and florida again if i had the choice. but it's definitely nice to have more time to do what i will with. like on wednesday, i actually caught the champions league final between man u and chelsea, all the way through the penalty shoot out! i don't think i've watched FOOTBALL at all since i got here, except for the video game rony plays but that doesn't count. and then later that day i went to play badminton! again, i hadn't played at all since i got here, so it was a blast. and i only missed the shuttlecock like once. or twice. =P

and then of course there's stanford. which really deserves a whole post of it's own. but here's the whole story:

in fall i took a class with a professor who had studied in stanford. it was a great class, and i did well so i guess i made a good impression on her. i was talking to her about getting research experience and she suggested that i look into getting a summer research internship at stanford. i thought it sounded like a good idea. i looked it up online and couldn't find applications or anything... so i emailed her (she had gone back to stanford in winter term) to ask her how i could get in. she said she'd send out an email to her colleagues to ask if any of them needed research assistants for the summer, and put in a good word for me. some time passed, and she hadn't heard back from any of them. so i thought, well maybe this wasn't gonna happen after all. she said maybe it was a bit too early for them to think about summer, and that she'd ask again later.

fast forward to early this term. she forwarded me two emails from two different labs (we'll call them lab a and b) saying that they might be interested and asked me to send them more information. things were looking good. i was excited. this was when i was really busy with the beginning of term and mommy and florida, so i sent them both an email a couple of weeks later. then i got a reply from lab a saying they had hired research assistants two days before i sent them my email. and this was when i put up the emo "coulda woulda shoulda" post. lab a asked me to email lab c, because they heard lab c was looking for summer research assistants, and i didn't hear back from lab b so i assumed they weren't interested either. i decided to email lab c cos i figured i had nothing to lose, although i honestly didn't think it was gonna work. i started getting excited about other plans - summer school, travel, maybe even home. maybe it was a good thing i didn't get into stanford.

whaddaya know, lab c emails me back a while later saying they'd heard about me from my professor, and yes, they would very much like to have me there for the summer. there was one problem: they couldn't take in volunteers, so they'd have to pay me and they needed to check if they had the funds first. this wasn't so much a problem for me - i don't mind getting paid at all. things were looking up. then i got another email from them saying that i could volunteer after all. i thought it would've been nice to have earned some money out of it, and it really would cost a lot of money for the two months i would spend there, but it sounded like i would get some really good, hands-on experience and heck, it's stanford. it's worth it. why was i even debating whether or not to go?

then earlier this week, i got an email with the subject "abject apologies" from lab c. turns out at the bing nursery school that i was supposed to work at, parents sign a consent form that allows stanford staff and students to run experiments with the kids. and since i was neither, i couldn't work there. they said maybe i should consider alternative summer plans after all, because they didn't think they would have enough for me to do to make my time and money spent worthwhile. considerate, i guess. i wondered if i would be able to work at the nursery if i registered for summer classes. they said it was an interesting question. thing is, the closing date for international student applications was may 1st. i try calling the international office for about three days and don't get through. oh well.

so i start thinking about my alternatives again. maybe it's a good thing that i'll have time to take a couple of classes, so i wouldn't have to take on insane credit loads next year to graduate by spring. it'll be nice to spend the first half of summer with vania and rony since vania will be going to denmark in in july or august and rony's most probably going home in july. maybe we could have a house trip. maybe i could still go home. maybe sean could come visit. maybe i could travel. maybe i didn't really wanna go to stanford after all.

and then... and then. i get an email on friday from lab b. they're sorry they didn't get back to me earlier; it's been a busy term. they've heard about me from my professor too, and they would like to have me as a volunteer at their lab this summer. i am to let them know if i was still interested. i haven't emailed them back yet. it's a long weekend - they'll probably only get my email on tuesday anyway. so yeah, i guess i'm going to stanford. woot.

pretty eventful huh?