really long update

Hmmm... a lot has happened since i last updated... i guess... even tho it's only been 2 days... no... wait! i typed up stuff, where'd it go?!?! okay then... let's start with saturday afternoon... what did i do? oh ya, woke up late, went 10 feet across the courtyard to the renamed Wyndham whatever hotel to ask about their check-in time. the lady, on friday, told me it was noon - HA! that's their check OUT time. dumbass. anyways, they stored my luggage for me for free, which was great, and then i headed over to the convention centre. Crystal's poster was that afternoon, so i found it, and with here were her sister Hollie, Jemy, and this other girl called Zenya. all from UTSC. anyways, we hung out for the day, and then at night, we hung out too. i can't remember details, but it involved a lot of walking around. dr.gurd was there too, and we saw Brown as well. anyway, for dinner, we decided to go to the Steak place after i checked into my hotel #2 - which btw, was a whole SHITLOAD nicer than hotel #1!! my god! hotel #2 was the best hotel of this trip, altho seriously, after the events of last night, it doesn't even compare... anyway, i'll get to that. So, after following direction-less ppl for a really long time, we finally went to this place called Steak and Ale - which, for the record, i asked Crystal about earlier, and she said no, that's not the restaurant they were thinking of. of course, it wAS the restaurant they planned on going to. anywho, because of SfN, Atlanta was PACKED! same with DC last year tho. so, every single "nice" restaurant (i.e. entrees cost >$10), was PACKED with professors, doctors, etc etc etc. the cheaper places were packed with us-ppl - i.e. poor kids. this Steak/Ale place was in the middle. so, we get there, and there's still a line, so we ended up waiting for 1.25hrs outside. we all sat in a row, like ducks, in the dark, while Jemy studied. yes, studied. by the eerie glow of the streetlamps above, she read her papers. so, what were the rest of us doing for that 1.25 hrs? well, i dunno about crystal and her sister, but me and Zenya were car watching!! I have FINALLY found a girl who knows about cars!!!! i thought i knew about cars, but she knows waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than me! altho i do admit, i know nearly nothing comapred to MOST guys, but i know A LOT compared to almost all girls. so, in that span of 1.25 hrs, we counted 5 Hummers, 1 Corolla (ya, ONE!), about 100 Mercedes, Beemers, Lexus, etc etc etc, and the rest of the cars were either huuuuge SUVs, or those ghetto rap-music-video-pimped-out-hydraulic-up-and-down-shit-box-cars. yup. lots of those, in between the >$50,000 cars. it was nuts! we've never seen anything like it!! FIVE hummers! all different colours too! .... what the hell is up with atlanta?! i thought it was supposed to be ghetto?!?! ... oh well, guess not everything u hear is true. ... It is a little scary at night, but overall, Atlanta's pretty safe. just don't piss ppl off, and don't stare at ppl. rules chinese ppl, for some unknown reason, just can't abide by! at least the staring part... anyways. so saturday night was really fun. then comes sunday.

Sunday i checked out of Hotel #2, and checked my bag at SfN. in the afternoon, i set up my poster. I tried to avoid my poster as much as possible... so i was sitting in a chair, NEAR my poster, with my nametag turned backwards so no one could associate me with my poster. ... but then Jemy found me (ppl i know coming up to me and asking questions was fine...), and told me to tell crystal when i saw her about dinner, blah blah blah. then she left. then Dr. Gurd found me, and we talked and killed some time, and he told me to tell crystal about dinner and meeting a DIFFERENT place and time. then he told me that Sheng and Ari were here too!! i was so happy!!! so i found their posters, and found Sheng by his poster, so i was talking to him 'til i had to go stand by my dumb poster. during this time, Sheng told me to tell Dr.Gurd that Brown told HIM to meet at a different place and time for the same dinner!! so far, three locations and times. then i stood by my poster, and David came by, looked at my poster, and left. he's getting married!! WTF!!! i didn't even know he had a gf!! hahahahaa! she's japanese too, and they speak japanese at home, which i think is sooooooooooo cool. anyways. a total of THREE people looked at my poster - out of the 30,000 ppl that attended the conference. that's a pathetic number. it really is. ... but i attribute it to the fact that no one knows our model, and no one cares about lipid rafts. there are sooooooooooo many posters about excitotoxicity, NMDA receptors, pilocarpine models, temporal lobe epilepsy, neuron death, etc etc etc, but practically NOTHING about absence seizures, and lipid rafts! i count 2 LR posters in the entire event, and 3 absence seizure posters. and i searched it. that's it. no more. it's nuts. so if ur research was about anything else, ppl visited ur poster. grrrr... anyway, i took down my poster early, and hid from Dr.gurd, cuz he's a by-the-books kinda guy, and i didn't want him to know i took it down early. i had to, cuz i had to go check into my final hotel. switching hotels is so fucking annoying.

so, i leave the convention and what do u know, the Falcon's game just let out. and what the hell sport is that?! i had NO IDEA!!! i had no idea what was going on, cuz this was 3:30 in the aftenoon, and i'm used to hockey and bball games AT NIGHT. so i had no friggin' clue where these ppl were coming from, and why the hell they were all wearing red and white, and cheering "NEW YORK SUCKS!" ... they all seemed happy tho, so i assumed their team won. who knows. Anyways, i asked someone, and figured out that the Falcons was a football team, and that they were just playing at the Georgia Dome... and that the mass exodus of ppl wasn't gonna end for a while!! so i smooshied my way in there to get onto the subway, and to my next hotel - WITH my huuuge suitcase with me. 'k, it's not so huge, but i packed it weird, and it was top-heavy and really, not very fun to manovre around, cuz it kept on tipping over away from me. so, i finally get to my last hotel, rest up for about 10 minutes, and then headed back down to SfN again. ... i met Sheng and Dr.Gurd and Ari and Brown at location #4 (we were told of this location after my poster time), and then they told me that they wanted to attend this one lecture, and to meet them at Location #1!!!! grrrr!!! apparently, crystal and friends knew only that location. ... so, Sheng and I went out and took some pictures, talked, sat around, played some frisbee, and he gave me some of the stuff that he got from the conference (the freebies that i was too shy to grab!). ... when it was FINALY time to go in, it was dark already, and i was yawning. ... we went back to the congress center, and sat outside the "bar" where Brown and his former student were sitting (cuz we didn't wanna join them... cuz we're shy... and we have nothing to talk to them about... and Brown isn't known to be the socializing type!). ... then, the rest of the crew showed up, and we made our way to this Indian buffet place. maybe i've been spoiled with dr.gurd, but in the 6 years that Sheng's been in Brown's lab, they have never, EVER, gone out to lunch or dinner or anything with their PI! ... i thought that was pretty weird, and what's weirder for them was that this time, their PI came out with all of us!!! AND! get this! he paid for his students!!!! altho, we all think that it took some convincing or peer pressure from dr.gurd for that to happen. ... so anyways, the buffet place was really crappy. they had let's see.... butter chicken, lamb, and that's it. yup. and there was hardly any meat in either. ... of course, they had rice, and naan. and then there was some gulab jamun. and there was also "salad". and that's it. so, 6 items in this buffet. ... it was $20 per person for this buffet. US!!!! i didn't pick the restaurant. ... so, we ate, and Sheng and Ari and i sat together and we talked and talked and talked. it was so much fun! apparently, Kallie (Ari's partner) really likes leehom too!! so, we were discussing LeeHom and more leehom, and Sheng was looking out of place, but then Ari brought him in too. hehehee.... then, dr.gurd paid for me (i dunno why, just cuz he's so nice... i totally wasn't expecting him to), and then we took his group pictures, and left. Dr.Brown's hotel - the Westin was the first stop, because it has this really cool elevator that we wanted to ride on!! so we went there, and their have one of those weird revolving doors (like at Sunnybrook), where instead of four spaces, there are two. so, we were in there, and Brown led the way. and occassionally, the PA would tell us to "please step forward" in this revolving door thing. except every single time it said that, the revolving door was stop in its tracks, and dr.brown would literally, COLLIDE with the glass!!! it was sooooooooooooooooo funny! he walked into the glass twice, and we honestly could not stand up straight cuz we were laughing so hard. (billy just called. lost train of thought...) anywya, unforunately, there was a speical event that night, so we weren't allowed to ride up the elevator, so we left. we then went to the oh-so-cool marriott hotel, after dropping dr.gurd off and singing to ourselves (me and ari, leehom songs, outloud. dr.gurd looked at us funny). the "kids' then, went to the Marriott marquis, where sheng and ari are staying, and went up and down the elevator MANY times cuz the insdie of the hotel is GOOORRRRGEOUS! actually, it's not as nice at the JinMao tower (Hyatt hotel) in Shanghai, but it's a similar idea... so, there, we also talked about plans, etc... and i'm not in the plans cuz i leave tomorrow and they all leave on thursday. oh well... finally, ari got me a cab and we left for our own respective hotels.

monday: woke up. crappy hotel, thin walls, loud ppl. but at least there was breakfast - a HOT breakfast, with EGGS and orange juice and MILK and FRUIT!!! it was amazing. the best breakfast i've had here (it's been shit. this breakfast was actually shit compared to the one in Shady Grove, but still the best on this trip). so finally, i leave, and i thought i was gonna be early for the aquarium, but i wasn't, cuz the map doesn't tell u about hills, which can extend ur walk quite a bit, and it also doesn't tell u about roads that are blocked off!!! grrr.... so i finally get there, and go in, and saw all the cool creatures. so adelaide, i take back my "i hate aquariums", cuz this aquarium was really cool!!!! my favourite animals now are: orangutans (at the toronto zoo, sooooo adorable), great apes (at the DC zoo), pandas (in general, cuz their babies r so cute), and now: sea otters!!!! they're sooooooooooooooooooooo OMG cute!!!!!! and i got to pet a cownose ray (it looks like a sting ray.. .they removed the barb), and i got to pet a starfish too!!! it was hard, and exactly as u would imagine it. but the ray was slimy and icky, and COOOOOL!!! so, i saw their famous whale sharks, who are still 'babies' right now, but are friggin' huge! 19feet!!! they have 4 whale sharks, in this huuuuge tank, with this huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge "window". it was awesome. ... i also saw their 3 beluga whales, which wasn't so cool, cuz there were no other fishies in that tank and the belugas had absolutely nothing to play with. they were just big and white and semi cool. i have, once again, no pictures of me. just of fishies. .... i also saw jellyfish, whom are amazingly gorgeous (and dangerously poisonous/deadly) animals. esp. the moon jellyfishies. omg, gorgeous, with the light that the tank shined on them. ... what else did i like? not much. i went to see theri 4D movie - it was cute. doesn't compare to disney world movies, but oh well. ... after the aquarium, i went to SfN, and started stealing my own stash of freebies. no time to be shy here!!! ... i also did talk to some vendors... altho talking to them does not guarantee u will get anything cool, whereas walking around and stealing as much as u can, DOES! hahahaaa!!!

so the coolest part of today?? let's see. ... the first time i walked thru the vendor pits, i was looking for the journal i published in, "neuroscience letters"... but i kinda didn't remember which publishing company it was under, and i didn't wanna search through all the major publishers. so i figured, even if i found, they prolly would not have my issues, so who cares. TODAY! out of pure chance, i noticed a journal with the heading "neurosciencce letters" on it. so i took one, and flipped thru it, and MAGICALLY, the first thing i flipped to was MY paper!!!! i was in shock, and i thought "ya right!"... so i closed it, and flipped thru it again. only this time, i couldn't find my paper. so i looked at the cover, and saw that it was the July issue!! rephrase: it WAS the july issue!!!!!! so i looked thru the table of contents, found my name, and realized hey, duh, that is my page number, and flipped to it again!!! it was soooooooooooooooooo amazingly cool!! so i took all the copies i could (i think i got 7) ... one for parents, one for yaya, one for yeye/nainai, one for billy, one for me, one for andrew, and one for some other cousin, somewhere. COOOOOOL!!!! even tho they all already have pdf versions, this one is BOUND!!! and in a book format!!! how cool is that!!! hahahaaaa!!!!!!!

so, lemme tell ya, 7 scientific journals is REALLY fucking heavy! ... i lugged that around for the rest of the day, met up with Sheng, abused internet priviledges, found some neuro jobs in Cali and Boston i could apply to, got some more stuff with Sheng, and then went to eat dinner with Sheng. we wanted to go to a chinese restaurant, and he had found one called "lee's Golden Buddha", which sounded good enough, so we set out to find it. it was fucking ridiculous! we FINALLY found it, like half an hour later, walked in, got seated, and looked at their menu. ... this place was fucking ridiculous. firstly, their menu had no chinese. secondly, when u spoke chinese to the waiter, he spoke englsh back. WHAT THE FUCK?!?!? fine, when chinky peeps speak mandarin to me in the lab, i speak english back, but that's cuz the lab is in Canada, and there are ppl around who don't know Mandarin!!!!!! but in a chinese restaurant, when i speak to u in chinese, u had better damn well speak either canton or mandarin or shanghainese back to me!!! holy!!!! after looking at the menu, and then reading the fine print "minimum order of $15 per person", we got out of there! $15/person?!?!?! and the menu wasn't even good!! it was CRAP chinese food, at ridiculous prices, in a fake chinese restaurant!!! omg! so, we ended up getting fast food chinese food! cuz that's prolly better than that restaurant! at least the girl spoke mandarin!!!!!!

and now i'm back at my hotel. i've packed my 7 journals, and organized all my freebies. i got lotsa chocolate! :D ... gonna get more journals tomorrow - must stock up! heheheee.... after throwing away 5 crappy pens, and keeping the rest, and throwing away some useless magazines and pamphlets and catalogs, my suitcase is surprinsingly empty!

i'm gonna watch 24 now. then sleep. good night! flying back tomorrow.