Pictures from Afar!

Ha! My comrade Damon (who is a genius & from UIUC's elite department of CompSci) sent me a marvelous postcard while presenting his research in Australia! I am terribly chuffed, since Australia has to be one of the most awesome countries ever (go marsupials!). In any case, Damon's comments on the back made me laugh, so here they are:

Also, the most excellent M. (fellow MD/PhD from my department) gave me a gorgeous wooden carving from the Philippines! M. just celebrated her birthday (and is super-smart), so I think it's quite necessary to give her a round of applause! *clap clap clap*

Anyway, life for me is going rather swimmingly -- I'm planning on defending my PhD proposal in the spring, so right now I'm in the process of picking four faculty members to sit on the defense committee. Disturbingly, this is a *huge* amount of fun -- the only thing I can think of is RPG character selection prior to a boss battle, but instead of picking, say, the top flame Pokemon / melee fighter, you're picking the top biostatistics professor / top spatial-analysis professor on campus. Anyway, suffice it to say that, come February, my posse will be *stacked*. I choose you, Professor Doug- . . . err . . .