High Class

Monday there was a New York undergraduate biomedical research conference on the 50^th floor of a building near the World Trade Center. This place was so high class haha, I felt very rich. There were about 200 undergraduates doing research in the city, we all gathered together, and had a panel of 5 people give us advice for the future. The advice was definitely needed, but mostly geared towards MD/PhD and biology labs than what I want to do: clinical neuropsychology. It definitely made me feel a lot better about the GREs, even though it’s still very important because I want to get passed the first cut of people.

Tuesday night I went to “The View” restaurant with Alice, Susana, Tina, and Victor, which is probably one of the most expensive places I’ve ever been. Talk about high class! The place was at the Marriot and it was located on the 50^th floor right by Times Square. Each 3 course meal costs $35 because it’s restaurant week, I also got a pina colada (and they didn’t even ID me). Honestly though, the view was great, the food probably wasn’t worth THAT much money but it was really delicious. The restaurant was two stories and it rotated around, so you can see the view of entire Manhattan and some of Queens/Brooklyn. I ended up spending $65 on my meal, waaa, but so worth it.

It’s so frustrating working in my lab sometime because Denis honestly just doesn’t care. Plus, no one is ever there, except for the grad student, Sarah. I dunno what I’d do without her, I’d probably go crazy because I can complain to her about him haha. My presentation is this Friday and he hasn’t even seen it yet. Most of the mentors have gone through it 5-6 times with the other students. He didn’t show up to the practice one, made me summarize in words during lab meeting (of course I can summarize it, that’s not what I’m worried about), and I don’t think he’ll even see it on Friday. I’m totally fine with him not seeing my powerpoint because I honestly just don’t care at this point. I did the program for the experience, money, and a recommendation letter and I’m leaving with 2.5 so I’d say that’s an A- in my book haha. The people in the department all know him and before I even say anything about what has happened they can guess which lab I’m in, which is really sad that his reputation goes that far. If anything happens on Friday, questions I can’t answer/mess up on talk etc., I think ultimately it’ll make him look bad and not me.  

At night, the program went to “How to succeed in business without really trying” broadway show. They bought the tickets for us and our mentors (how nice)! The show starred Daniel Radcliffe so I was excited just for that reason. Compared to Wicked and Bengal Tiger at Baghdad Zoo, this was my second favorite. The only problem with this was that the songs were that great or memorable, the actors were not great singers. However, the dances were the best I’ve seen, they threw around boxes, jumped around, tap danced, did weird things, and it was crazy. Also, the plot was very very clever. I wanted to wait for Daniel Radcliffe at the end, but everyone in my program left already. So…I went to Jane’s place to go cut her hair like I promised. It turned out better than I thought, I’m pretty proud of myself hahaha. Then I told her to cut my bangs, just a straight cut and she ended up cutting too much so now it’s short L Oh well, it’ll grow out. She gave me some clothes though so it all made up for it hahaha.

Thursday I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Yichen for the Alexander McQueen exhibit. I’ve heard about the first day I came to NYC and just kept hearing from random people about how good it is. Finally, I decided to check it out. His clothing…is art, I can’t describe it. He’s so creative, but dark. I would describe his pieces as frightening masterpieces (look up Alexander McQueen on youtube or something for his stuff, it’s AMAZING, words cannot describe this).

Friday was the symposium for the program, so everyone in the department + outside people were invited. Of course, my mentor didn’t show up so no one I knew was there, which made it a lot easier for me. I’m so proud of everyone in the program for going through this 9 weeks so far! I still can’t believe that I was 12 out of 500 people selected for this. Preparing for this presentation truly taught me a lot (even though my mentor never saw the finished product).

Friday night, Anthony, Alex, and Willie came to town so me and Nita had dinner with them at a Pho & Shabu place in St. Marks. I had a Vietnamese sandwich and it was ok. I think once you go Num Pang you just can’t go back. I then dragged Nita and Alex along to a roof to take pictures of the NY skyline, but it kinda failed cause my tripod wasn’t high enough, was fun though.

Saturday I went to Flushing with some Rochester people and finally had Picnic Garden! For $20, all you can eat Korean BBQ. It was definitely good, but not as good as China (expected). However, I loved the marinated ones, just not the sauce as much. Overall, it was definitely worth the long hot walk there. Did I mention NYC is currently in a heatwave? 100 degrees with lots of humidity = I don’t wanna go outside

Sunday I had brunch with Alex at a cool place that was really good, but totally maxed out on amount of eggs I can eat per day. I totally food coma’d after. But…had to make room for dinner with Jay and Yi at Soba Koh, which is the best soba noodles I’ve ever had, definitely recommended! I haven’t seen them for a while, so it was nice catching up (and practicing my Chinese).