a few observations from my trip to san francisco / berkeley / vancouver

(may 1st - may 5th, san fran / berkeley, workshop)
(may 5th - may 8th, vancouver, visit)

1. san francisco is well and truly a big and typically american city. somehow i had this impression that san fran was different. it's very beautiful, but still typically american. and with that, it has all the usual pluses and minuses.

2. the bay area does have a lot of science going on ... let's see, ucsf, uc-berkeley, stanford ...

3. university of california really knows how to build a campus (unfortunately, they don't know how to manage their finances -- the president has been recently asked to step down). of all the UCs i've been to, berkeley is perhaps my favourite. i think it's partly due to the city of berkeley. small, quaint, laid-back.

4. my supervisor spends half his time at the stats department of UC-berkeley. ironically, all these legendary mathematicians and statisticians are in perhaps the most run-down of public buildings i have ever seen. there are no staff (resources) to clean offices. from what i hear, garbage pickup is bi-weekly at best. you'd think that in one of the most prestigious stats departments in the world, you'd be able to at least take care of the place.

5. my supervisor is equally responsive on email as he is at a conference. he blew me off several times until i eventually got about 20 minutes at lunch (though with several interupptions). i guess i should be thankful for the 20 minutes. but, it's a little exhausting.

6. lombard st (you know the curviest street in the world) is over-rated. nonetheless, i got suckered into going there and taking pictures of it. just down the street from lombard, however, is an excellent view of alcatraz and the north part of the bay.

7. there is no place like home. not that i can really call vancouver home at this point, but there is a certain calm and warmth i feel when i walk on canadian soil. i'm look forward to the day where i can call vancouver (or somewhere in canada) home again.

8. even in heavy rain, vancouver is amazing.

9. i think i enjoy running hard. not 5k pace sorta hard, but 21.1k pace hard. of all the half marathons i've done, this one was quite enjoyable. i managed a personal best of just over 82 minutes, which is >3 minutes better than my previous best and good for 22nd overall out of >2500 men!

10. my brother is a fast swimmer. not that this is news to anyone really, but i went for a short swim with him on monday ... and well, i got dropped in a hurry.