A week of IMs...and some flipping.

First, a cool NY Times article about David Swensen, the endowment manager whose work allows us to do so much stuff here: For Yale's Money Man, a Higher Calling

This week was extremely busy, not just studying for my physics midterm but running around to all these IM games! Being no-so-athletic, I went mostly to cheer on my fellow Sillimanders, but in the end even I managed to contribute a little =)

Tuesday: Swimming, A-hoops, B-hoops, W-hoops
Swimming is one of those once-a-season sports: the colleges are split into two "meets" with the top three teams in each meet going on to the finals. We did respectably well, winning a few events and making it to the finals, which will be this Tuesday! In basketball, women's hoops lost by a heartbreaking three points, but A and B hoops both dominated:

Aaron backstroking his way to more IM points

Kunal taking the B-hoops tipoff

Vanessa and Emily dribbling down the court

Wednesday: Inner-tube water polo, men's volleyball
Perhaps one of the more esoteric IM sports, inner-tube water polo is exactly what it sounds like: trying to get a ball in the opponent's goal while paddling around in big black inner tubes. Unfortunately, I only got there at the very end, so no photos (yet). After that game ended, however, a couple of the guys dried off and ran to join the end of the volleyball game:

Jeff setting the ball for Alex...

Spike!

Thursday: Women's volleyball, C-hoops
I was taking my physics exam =(

Friday: Bowling!
IM bowling = bowling for free. Seriously. Each college selects 4 bowlers (3 guys, 1 girl) as their "competitive" team, but then everyone just gets to go bowl for fun. About 20 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave, Zach sent out an email saying Silliman needed a girl...I was planning to go anyway, so it worked out well. Amazingly enough, I scored 144 in the first game (first and probably last time I'll ever get two strikes in a row), enough to average 110 across the three games (things just went downhill from there =P). The guys were ridiculous, despite two of them claiming that they couldn't bowl well...

Ben, the freshman phenomenon who had never bowled IM before

In the last game, Vespe was leading the rest of us by 40-ish points...

But then Alex (same guy as in volleyball) came back with six strikes in a row!

Even after all that IM goodness, I found myself back in Payne Whitney this afternoon to watch the gymnastics meet against the University of Rhode Island. There was a large Silliman contingent in the stands including Master and Mister K - not surprising since three of the gymnasts are Sillimanders. Yale eventually won the meet =)

Kristen on the balance beam

Alina transitioning between the uneven bars

Forecast for tomorrow: Lots of reading, some note-taking/problem set-doing, and a few scattered meetings =P

ECAASU 2007: Breaking Through!

50 volunteers + 900 participants + 3 days = lots of fun!

ECAASU stands for East Coast Asian-American Students Union, a conference that was founded at Yale in 1977 to encourage activism and promote dialogue between all participants, not just Asian-Ameicans students. ECAASU returned to Yale for the 30th anniversary, so it was a great chance to get involved in this bit of history. Being a volunteer (and still going to class Thursday/Friday =P), I didn't get to participate in everything, but here's a sampling...

Friday night: LiNK Dance-off & Divided We Fall screening
First major event was the dance-off with teams from Rutgers, Columbia, Northeastern, and Mt. Holyoke as well as Yale's Rhythmic Blue and Jashan bhangra team. Check out Jashan's winning entry!


Valarie Kuar began Divided We Fall as a Harvard student, documenting the wave of violence against Sikhs after 9/11 because they fit the projected image of terrorists: dark skin, beards, and turbans. I especially remember about a month after 9/11, a Sikh man published a letter in the local newspaper explaining how he wore a turban for religious reasons but that it was a completely difference religion from Islam. At that point I didn't know any Sikhs in person (my Indian friends were all Hindu) but it was still really disturbing that people had found completely innocent scapegoats to blame and punish.

Divided We Fall screening in SSS 114

Saturday morning/afternoon: Breakfast & Workshops
Saturday morning we provided a continental breakfast for the delegates...the juices were half-frozen, we ran out of cream cheese and bananas, but overall we (thankfully) had enough food =P At one point the line stretched all the way around Dwight Hall, which had us worried but it turned out ok. Saturday afternoon we had a bunch of workshops with topics ranging from the fashion industry and filmmaking to LGBT issues and Asian-interest Greek Life.

The breakfast crew =P

Psychology professor Marvin Chun speaking about stereotypes

William Lee, producer of The Five Points, talking about Asian pop culture

Saturday night: APA Rhythms concert & Afterparty at Alchemy!
We had a huge concert in Woolsey Hall featuring spoken word performer Giles Li, Filipino dance group Kinding Sindaw, R&B singer Vudoo Soul, and rapper Jin. For me, it was especially interesting to see how Filipino dance was so similar yet so distinct from Chinese dance, using similar props but with very different movements.

Giles Li

Kinding Sindaw

Vudoo Soul (check out a video clip here)

Jin (check out a video clip here)

After the concert was an afterparty at Alchemy - no photos because I didn't want to risk my camera in the craziness, but it was a lot of fun =D

Sunday was pretty quiet by comparison, but I still got to see Master K and the Silliwops at the Valentine's Day musical brunch!


Time to go study for my upcoming physics exam *sigh*

A 'typical' weekend

There was so much going on last weekend: Mixed Company's "Snow Job" jam, the YSAC Winter Arts Festival, the YSAC Winter Show with comedian Lewis Black (Drama alum '77), and of course, Superbowl parties in every college Sunday night. I think I took the road less traveled (but still lots of fun), as you'll see below =)

Friday: Comix 101
As some of you might have seen from Nedelman's post, Art Spigelman came to give the Hersey lecture (sponsored by the Yale Writing Center)...despite the cold and the rain (and the Lewis Black show starting a scant half hour later), the University Theater was packed. I remember reading Maus in junior year of high school for US History, and it still boggles my mind that now I've met the author in person. Then again, I didn't think I'd ever meet people like Arthur Levine (American Harry Potter editor) or science writer Carl Zimmer either, but that's just one of the awesome things about Yale!

Saturday 8 PM: Purple Crayon "Ted" show
Axel, Ned, and the rest of the Purple Crayons put on an awesome show with this guy named Ted, who auditioned for them, but then they found out he was already a college graduate with four years of improv experience! The show began with Ted getting a random word (alphabet), which he expanded into a rambling story about third grade, learning to write in cursive, a weird teacher, etc. The Crayons then took this story and turned it into an hour-long series of hilarious scenes, one of which you can watch here (photos are also online here:


Saturday 9 PM: YBDT "Fire and Ice"
Since the Purple Crayon show was in the Davenport-Pierson Theater, it was convenient to hop to the Pierson Dining Hall for the Yale Ballroom Dance Team's "Fire and Ice" party. Members of the team circled around giving one-on-one lessons depending on what song was playing at the moment...I learned a bit of cha-cha, a little rumba, and a bit of swing...I'm used to dancing from Phoenix and all, but only now do I appreciate how difficult it is to coordinate with a partner!


Sunday: Birthday party and Superbowl!
My friend Elisabeth's birthday is today, so last night her suite organized a dinner in Pierson plus a massive ice cream cake from Ashley's (half banana, half cookie dough ice cream with crumbled Oreo bits and icing, mmmm). We thoroughly embarassed her by singing "Happy Birthday" in the middle of the crowded dining hall, but it was all in good fun. Later that night, even though we don't have our own dining hall, Sillimanders gathered around a big-screen TV in the common room with subs, pizza, chips and salsa, and lots of other yummies to watch the ridiculously rainy game. My friend Neil was really happy this morning (he's from Indiana) =P

Happy 21st birthday, Elisabeth (in the red shirt)!

On a semi-random note, Silliman has been doing awesome in winter IMs so far: A-hoops, C-hoops, inner-tube water polo, and ice hockey are all undefeated so far, and everyone's participation help us keep racking up the points! A few photos from women's volleyball and C-hoops against JE last week:

Go Sarah! (FYI: The ball's going up...)

JE Spiders can't stop Howie!

Funmi's killer underhand serve (really.)

So much stuff is going on this week too! There's the huge ECAASU conference (over 1000 students from all over the East Coast descending for three days of workshops, panels, a gala banquet and a MTV-sponsored dance party at Alchemy!), the Harvard-Yale blood drive challenge (I'm going to be donating for the first time on Weds!), the Proof of the Pudding "Jam Noir" concert, the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus' spring jam, a Purple Crayon "Wild 'n Out" rap-off with 108 Tongues, the OTYC's production of Hansel and Gretel...the list goes on and on! I seriously need a Time-Turner to go to all the stuff I want to see!

But first, time to go study for Cell Biology quiz tomorrow morning...

Back in the swing of things

Ok, so the post title is a rather corny reference to New Residence Hall (aka Swing Space or Sillispace). Anyway, now that the craziness of shopping period is over, I finally get a chance to sit down and write about all the cool stuff that's been going on even though we've only been back for two weeks!

First stop: Classes!
The above photo is PSYC 171b: Sex, Evolution and Human Nature with Prof. Santos...she's an awesome prof and the class is offered only once every three years, so you can imagine why so many people want to take it. We were moved twice, from Davies Auditorium (about 250 seats) to SSS 114 (where the photo was taken) and now we're in the Law School auditorium, where we finally seem to fit. It's not just the topic matter either - she specifically said the first day that the class was not all about sex, all about evolution, or all about human nature. Instead, it's more about how human nature is a product of evolution, more specifically how certain behaviors are the production of sexual reproduction strategies. It's been lots of fun so far - one of the few classes I've heard of where the professor gets applause at the end of every lecture, not just at the end of the semester.

Other classes I'm taking: Cell Biology, Physics 181 (electricity and magnetism), Directed Research with Prof. Santos, and this cool college seminar called Medicine, Molecules, and the Millennium with Dr. Irvin Modlin from the Yale Medical School. We've only had one meeting so far but it already looks like it'll be an awesome class, so keep an eye out for more updates in the future =)

The weather has also been kind of funky - over winter break it was around 70 degrees every day, but now it's just bitterly cold outside. We've gotten bits of snow here and there (as seen below) but so far it hasn't stuck around for more than 24 hours. This is both a good and a bad thing - today I almost slipped several times on icy patches but at least I'm not hiking around campus through six inches.

First weekend back was a lot of fun...Friday night I was a participant in the first ever Asian Idol competition, something I will probably never live down ^^; It was a lot of fun though, and a nice way to showcase that you don't have to be Asian to appreciate the various cultures. I don't have any photos, unfortunately (since I was on stage!), but apparently there's a video somewhere that I will have to see and perhaps post later...

Saturday night was just as cool - I went to my friend Axel's improv comedy show in the Davenport Theater. Axel is a member of the Purple Crayon (along with fellow PoS-er Ned) so for they came up with the idea of an "iPod shuffle" show where each scene would be inspired by songs from a random audience member's iPod. In the second half, they mixed this up even more by choosing 10 iPods and taking one song from each. The result: absolute hilarity! A few clips are below - you can see more on my Youtube account.




In the week to come: Grand re-opening of the Sillispace Buttery, a few panels about women in medicine and life after Yale, perhaps a few IMs, and of course the second full week of classes. Time to go read for MM&M!

Caplab 101

Since I've had to explain my research in Caplab multiple times to friends and family, I figured I should write a post about it (plus it's super-cool anyway).

To start, Professor Santos is an incredible mentor as well as an excellent teacher - Animal Cognition class last semester was really interesting and "Sex, Evolution, and Human Nature" this spring is awesome. It's such a popular class we that we've had to move twice (Davies -> SSS 114 -> Law School auditorium) to accomodate all the people who want to take it! She insists that all of us call her Laurie, which took a little getting used to at first, but now it's cool. As a PI (principal investigator) she doesn't get to spend much time with the capuchins running trials but she stays up to date on all the projects going on at the same time through weekly meetings.

Second cool thing: the monkeys! On campus we work with a group of capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) who all live together in a social colony. They get all sorts of toys to play with and lots of food - standard monkey chow plus fresh fruits and vegetables every day, even exotic stuff like pomegranate and coconut. They also get treats for finishing experiments, and each one seems to have a personal favorite: May Day really likes sunflower seeds, Felix really likes peanuts, etc. A few photos - I would post some of my own (like ones with the two babies!) except they're not officially approved...

Felix, the alpha male of the colony

May Day begging for food from Jill, her mother

Besides the capuchins, Caplabbers also get to work at a couple field sites: Myakka City, Florida has a lemur preserve, and Cayo Santiago is an island with about 1000 free-ranging rhesus macaques. People will go down for spring break, summer research, even a few for Thanksgiving break. A few more photos:

A family of macaques on Cayo Santiago

A red-ruffed lemur at Myakka

Third cool thing: the overall atmosphere of the lab is really chill. Lab meetings usually have one project presenting their work so far and getting comments from the rest of the groups. It's always helpful to hear other people's suggestions, especially when you've been thinking about one problem for too long and need a fresh perspective. We also have a system where doing chores to help keep the lab space clean earns "brownie points" with prizes at the end of every semester. That's how I ended up getting this little guy (the stuffed monkey, not the Santa hat) - he was promptly dubbed Nick-Nack because that monkey always seems to have his tongue sticking out...

Personally, I have found getting involved in research to be really easy. Since I was part of Perspectives in Science, I had guaranteed funding for last summer. I had already heard good things about Caplab from my freshman counselor Amy (Laurie was her senior thesis advisor), so it was just a matter of asking Laurie to sign the Perspectives form and off I went! In general it's pretty easy to get involved - some people take research for credit during the school year or just email professors whose work they find interesting and ask if they can volunteer.

Doing research in the summer was cool because a lot of my other PoS friends were around and we could concentrate on our work instead of having to juggle research with classes (which is a bit trickier but totally doable, based on my experience this past semester). We also got to plan a lot of fun events, like a picnic at the top of East Rock park, fireworks at Long Wharf for Independence Day, World Cup-watching parties, movie nights (Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest!), and of course a huge crepe/dessert night at my apartment.

Picnic at the top of East Rock!

For my independent project, Laurie helped me devise a procedure based on something she had published with grad student Jon Flombaum and additional lemur work (Note: link goes to a PDF file so you need Adobe Reader) to study what the capuchins understand about what someone else can visually perceive based on gaze cues. Working out the kinks and getting the monkeys to come in for trials took longer than expected, but we've recently finished acquiring all the data and this semester I'll be learning how to analyze that data as well as how to prepare a paper for submission to journals. I feel that I learned a lot from being involved in all aspects of the experiment from conception to completion, so in some ways I already have an idea of what graduate school would be like =D