David's Excellent Adventure

Ha, PhD qualifying exams are *finally* over -- a big thank you to all of my friends & classmates -- I was awfully touched at all the support / care packages / food from everyone! Anyway, went home to Chicago over the weekend to celebrate, which was lots of fun compared to the hideous wake/sleep/study routine for the last month :)

In any case, went on Saturday morning to a nanotech symposium at Northwestern University's Evanston campus with big sister and her postdoc! J.'s doing her MD/PhD in esoteric bio-nanotech stuff, so I was pretty lost after the second plenary speaker, but still, it's amazing to see just how much funding is poured into J.'s research -- cancer epidemiology studies from my department usually hover in the $150,000 - $750,000 range, but nanotech funding *starts* at $2 million, and that's just from the NIH/NSF, excluding funding from industry sources.

Anyway, after that, went to the Museum of Science of Industry, watched an IMAX film on astronomy, tried to blend in at Northwestern Med School's Family Day function, and met up with friends at the three-day annual 2005 CSI retreat!

I've actually known the above group for ages upon ages (parents of the above have been family friends before I was born), so it was really fun to hang out with everyone and sing songs with the band -- I shall definitely miss them while in Urbana (T_T)

PS: Just as a final note, kudos to my little sister for capturing a perfect 5.0/5.0 GPA and ranking first in her high school (again!), despite taking hordes of AP courses. Go you! :)