Day 34: A Lengthy Week in Review

Gah, practically another week has gone by. I need to update cause so much happened, but mostly towards the tail end of the week. Wowza, can you all believe it’s already July? And that I’ve been here for a month? Time is flying by like a rabid monster.

Tuesday-Thursday: No need to expound on what I did each day, cause these days were kinda the same. My aunt was out of town still on her trip to Ireland, so it consisted of me going to work for the most part. I got through a lot of my Genesis class, I only have one lesson left, a paper to write and the last test. Hopefully I finish this week. On Tuesday I tried out Twiggs, a coffeeshop in the Kensington neighborhood I had been eyeing. It was alright, cheap but not fantastic. Will be trying out other coffeeshops before returning to that one. On Wednesday and Thursday, I went out to Balboa Park to go hiking in these trails close to the park and then chill/draw at the dog park. I saw so many Bostons, it made me miss my Otto a lot.

Oh Mr. Otto, I miss you a lot!

Friday-This day was exciting. So on Tuesday, I talked with my good from Sharon from high school. As we got to talking we realized we were both in southern California for the summer, so she decided to come down from LA and visit for the weekend. It was SO good to see her. She is definitely one of my closest friends and I hadn’t seen her in over a year. It’s crazy, we go to school less than 10 miles away but it takes us being in CA to finally hang out. She came in at 6pm. We basically did a lot of talking that night, figured out what we wanted to do for the weekend and went out to Gelato Vero Café, a great gelato place right in Mission Hills.

Saturday-This is the day we were on our feet from 8am-8pm. We woke up real early and went hiking at Torrey Pines, cause that was something I suggested doing. It was gray and overcast, but it was still lots of fun. After we went to Roberto’s cause you can’t go to San Diego and not go to Roberto’s, especially since it’s literally right next to Torrey Pines. After, we were able to go to the San Diego Zoo. It was awesome because we were all set and ready to pay for entrance, which is like $40, but Gladys had two free tickets she wasn’t going to use so she gave them to us. We were incredibly thankful. Once we got to the zoo, we were so lucky because right as we got there, they were opening up the dirt parking lot so we got free parking right away. Such good timing. The zoo was lots of fun, especially going with such a good friend. But describing the zoo I don’t really know how to do without being wordy and boring…I’ll just say it’s a good zoo and if you’re in San Diego, go see it! It’s considered one of the best zoos in the world. After, our feet were killing us, so we decided to go back home…we started making my desert for the 4th that night. I have this personal tradition where I like trying to make a new ice cream treat, so we made the brownies for this desert which I’ll explain shortly. After, we jumped in the hot tub at my aunt’s house. After being on our feet for 12 hours, it felt heavenly. Oh and this day marked my one month mark out here.

Walking along the beach at Torrey Pines.

Sharon and I right outside of the zoo entrance. A day well spent with a great friend!

Sunday-Happy 4th of July! This day as well was jammed pack! I got up ridiculously early because I signed up to do a 2 mi. fun run at Scripps Ranch. Groggily, I got up at 5:20am thinking “I am a crazy person for doing this, but I’m excited!” Anyways, the race was fun and I’m so glad I did it. It was nice too b/c about a mile of the run was downhill, so that was nice, though between that and really pushing myself my tendentious was worse than normal but it was worth it. I forgot how much fun these organized runs are. I didn't bring a camera, but here's a link to pictures from the run online: Scripps Ranch Run Pics☺ Later that morning Sharon and I walked up to this park in the neighborhood because we saw signs that there was a parade. We got there, expecting to watch a parade but instead we were in it! Apparently what the Mission Hills neighborhood does is that the neighborhood comes together and walks together to celebrate the 4th (and everyone dresses up for the 4th). It was kinda cool to take part it. Plus it was great because Paula, Colleen, Laurie, Enrique and Lulu were all able to take part in it too. After that, Sharon and I went out for sushi cause we really wanted to do that while she was in town. We went to Itto Sushi in downtown, right across Horton plaza and it was very delicious! After, we went back to the house because Laurie wanted to do a pool party, so we jumped into the freezing pool and then mostly stayed in the hot tub (which did wonders for my leg). After that, I was tired so took a nap while Sharon figured out her busing situation. Then we had our delicious 4th of July meal-we had hot dogs(and Laurie bough be Chicken dogs since I don’t eat red meat, which was very nice of her, they were tasty!), grilled chicken, baked beans, corn-on-the-cob and a lemonade/cranberry juice drink. It was delish! Then came the moment of truth, finally trying my desert. I had no idea if it was going to be good or not. Basically it was an ice cream sandwich, but instead of using cookies I made dark chocolate brownies and in between there was chocolate chip ice cream and a layer of peanut butter. And the verdict was…..everyone thought they were delicious-even Colleen, she kept on opening her mouth like a bird because she wanted more and more of it, which was quite the compliment. While eating desert, we watched Fantastic Mr. Fox. The movie ended at the perfect time for fireworks. Because Missions Hills is well, built on a bunch of hills, you don’t need to go to a specific location to see fireworks, you just need to go to an opening somewhere in the neighborhood. It was sweet, we saw about 6 fireworks shows going on all at once across the bay(and we could hear them). There were only about 20 people where we decided to watch, so it felt like we were getting our own private showing of 4th of July fireworks. This was definitely one of the best 4th of July’s I’ve had in quite some time.

Picture from the neighborhood 4th of July parade/walk.

The brownie sandwich ice cream desert. With a strawberry on top to make it classy.

Monday-Had to drop Sharon off early this morning. I was sad that she had to go, the time went by so fast but I’m very grateful she was able to come out for the weekend. Really, words cannot describe how thankful I am for the time I was able to spend with her. She’s one of those friends that no matter how much time passes between talking, we can pick up things like we had just seen each other the day before and our friendship hasn’t changed. We just click somehow. I am hoping I can come up to LA, even if it’s for a few hours, but seeing how pretty much the rest of my summer out here is planned out, I’m not sure if it’s going to happen or not. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed! Anyways, after dropping her off, I drove to work fully prepared to work. But then I got there and the building was locked and the campus was just dead. So haha, had an unexpected day off from work(guess it was a holiday today?). My aunt decided that she wanted us to go to the Del Mar fair because she really wanted to go and today was the last day it was open. I was totally up for it cause I’m really loving fairs this year. Anyways, we had perfect timing when we got there. Just as we were going to buy tickets, these people asked if we wanted tickets and we said yes and they just gave us their two tickets cause they weren’t going to use them. This saved us like $26! Seriously, so nice of those people. And it was nice because since we went to the fair so late last time, I got to experience and do new things at the fair this time around, like see the art and place where people sell things and such. I got a little backpack that I thought would be good for hiking cause I’m really into that out here. Twas a day well spent at the fair. And I’m incredibly excited for the MN state fair. I didn’t go last year, so I think that’s why.

Phew, that’s it! But really, one of the best weekends I've had in awhile. Seriously.

~Lauren

Day 12: All I Did This Weekend

An update...with pictures!

Friday: Work. Left early cause my aunt had to be at the Salk(where she works, the guy who invented the cure for polio built it, a bunch of scientists work there). Met everyone she works with there, it was fun to see how scientists work and how they all interact together. It's cool b/c at 3:30 every day they all take a break from work and have tea together, it was fun to take part in that. After I was a test subject for my aunt to make sure this test she is making is properly working...it is. I may be helping improve the art in it though, yay. Then I babysat for the next door neighbors. All I did was watch Cheaper by the Dozen with them, put them to bed and then waited until the parents came home. Very easy job. And geez did they pay well, I can’t believe what the hourly rate is out here(well at least for the neighborhood I’m living in)!

Saturday: Went shopping (Targets out here don’t compare to the ones in MN at all). Walked to and explored Old Town, it was kinda fun but so touristy, but they do have my favorite Mexican candy there for practically nothing, so I’ll have to walk down again. My aunt had this benefit thing at night, so I just chilled at home.

Oh Old Town, you just can't help yourself, you're so touristy!

Sunday: Went to Balboa Park with everyone in the house. It was really nice, I know I’ll be spending lots of time there once I get my hands on a bike I can borrow (which should be soon). Really worked on my Distance Ed. Classes like doing the test prep., blehhhhhh. Took a nap, apparently I was tired. Got up. Had a birthday dinner for Laurie, one of the workers who is here on the weekends with Colleen. Dinner was delicious-we had grilled shrimp, couscous with kale, grilled vegetables and apple pie for desert. SO GOOD, but I was so full after. Went to the night service of The Rock church out here (apparently it’s this huge church that a lot of people from NWC have told me about), it was pretty good, though perhaps a little to big for my liking and I kind of felt like I was on one of those televangelist shows on Sunday morning, except more contemporary flavor. Liked this church better than the one I went to last week, but I am trying out another one next week I think. My aunt left for Las Vegas too, she’ll be back on Wednesday.

Part of Balboa Park...I'll upload an album or something soon of more of the park, as this doesn't even begin to capture it.

Monday: Another start to the work week. All the programmers were at work, so they are starting to do all the code work and such to make my animations work with the CERT program the scientists in my lab have created. Relieved to know I set up everything perfectly for them, they’re going to do something to fix the code so it can work with my animations better. I’m excited to see when they are done with the coding, gah that’s going to be amazing! Otherwise, just chilling at home for the night, going to really work on getting some coursework done for my DE classes… I just want to be done with them already!

I have another few thoughts floating in my head that I wanted to write about, so I’ll hopefully be getting to those sooner rather than later, because they are more enjoyable to write. I know you all want to know what I’m doing out here, but I just feel like I’m writing a big old list, which is probably kind of boring. Journaling is not really more forte.

~Lauren

Day 8: A Week In Review

Holy cow, I need to start writing about all I’m doing here before I start forgetting…I was trying to remember what I did on Saturday and was having a hard time, so then I was like “I need to write about it before I forget and everything just meshes into together in my MIND!” Anyways, crazy thing-I’ve been here for a week. It doesn’t seem like I’ve been here that long yet it seems like I was in Minnesota months ago. Ah time and trying to perceive it.

Okay but back to the point, the fun stuff I’ve been doing out here. I’ll just go day by day, giving the highlights…yes that would be best.

Saturday: My aunt was a keynote speaker at this talk at UCSD, I tagged along. She is way smart. Then when we were driving back home, we saw a street festival by the beach, decided to have lunch there. It was alright, but my aunt and I decided it wasn’t the best street festival we had been to. After that, had a relaxing movie night. Good way to end Saturday and the week.

Sunday: Tried out a new church, it was okay but I am trying a new one next week. Went to a performance of Bye, Bye, Birdie at a theater in downtown San Diego. We went b/c my aunt’s 10-year old neighbor was in it(so it was a children’s production of it), holy goodness it was AMAZING. We were blown away!

Monday: Crap, what did I even do this day? Well, first day of driving in San Diego. It was pretty easy, traffic here is comparable to the Twin Cities. At work, really started to understand Flash…otherwise…hrm what did I do this day? Apparently nothing terribly exciting…

Tuesday: Work. Then when out to dinner/movie with my aunt and her best friend from the academia world and her friend’s 16-year-old son. Dinner was good-it was at Berta’s in Old Town(I only mention the restaurant so that I remember when I look back cause it was delish). I already wrote a post about the movie, no need to comment…

Wednesday: You guessed…work! Able to design and animate a whole character in a day, really starting to get a handle on Flash, yay! Then went out to eat a fabulous restaurant (The Red Door, Mission Hills) with my aunt and some of her bff’s.

Thursday: Wow no way, I had work again. Able to design/animate a character in half the time it did Wednesday without the glitches I have had previous. Proud b/c I started off the week as a complete novice/beginner at Flash and now feel like I really have a handle on it. I am told that the heads of the lab I work for are going to see if I can get a stipend for the summer because they like the work I am doing. While on a run, one of my aunt’s neighbors stopped me, I have a babysitting job for the summer-win!

Yay, looks like I remembered most of what all went done this week!

~Lauren

Day 3/4: Adapting and Internship Info

So the past few days have been going a lot better than the first day. Though I’m still adjusting, I’m used to things and after a phone call home, I got over being homesick. I have never been homesick ever in my life and I’m glad that I got over it so quickly cause frankly, it was not fun at all. I have not been that miserable in quite some time.

On Friday I had my first real day of working. Since my full team isn’t here yet and the rest of the lab is preparing for the site visit (where they are showing that they should get this $20 mil. Grant), they are just having me add to an already existing project. So the project I am working on is called an emotion mirror. The people on my team have created a program for the computer that through use of a webcam, it can detect someone’s face and the muscles that are being used. So then with this software, they have it connected to flash and with some fancy coding, basically whatever your face is doing, the character in flash can mirror your facial expression. The people in my lab are SO crazy smart, I’m amazed by the things they are doing (as this is not the sole thing they are working on). So anyways, with this emotion mirror, all they have right now is a pretty simple smilely face so I’m creating a few more characters to work with this program to make it more appealing. When my full team gets here though, we will be designing games to help kids with autism learn to understand emotions (which the emotion mirror is also tied to). So that will be my primary focus for the summer.
Another the thing the lab I work in is that they are building these things called learning robots. I don’t understand them fully yet, but basically when the start with them, they basically are like babies and so they are working on teaching the robots to do various things, such as sit up or follow someone’s hand. I have only seen video of these things, but I can’t wait to see them in real life. If I can take video/pictures and get permission to post, I’ll try to do so if I get the opportunity to do so.
Oh and if you’re interested, here’s the link to where I’m interning this summer, they are really doing some amazing stuff: http://mplab.ucsd.edu/wordpress

Today’s been good so far, went to a talk my aunt was the keynote speaker at and then she showed me more of San Diego, I really wish we always had 3-day weekends, there’s so many things I want to do that are all-day excursions. My aunt and I stopped by a street fair to eat lunch which was pretty fun. Otherwise, just chilling and enjoying the beautiful weather we are having today.

~Lauren