UCLA recap & Birthday plans

Tadaima! ^_^

Huzzah, I'm home from UCLA, after having missed 2 days of classes! *urk* Now I have a whole shitload of catching up to do for the two days I missed, but I've had a great time in SoCal. ^_^ I have to say I love UCLA. It's amazing, especially compared to what's going on at MIT. It's so big and there are so many amazing facuilty in the Neuroscience Program, and they're all such a huge range of work. I'm really excited I got invited, and I really hope I get accepted into the program. ^_^

It was fun hanging out and meeting other prospective grad students. I think there were about 23 people in my round of interviews, and probably about the same next month in the 2nd round of interviews. They say they'll be making some preliminary offers in the next week or so, and then make the rest after they've interviewed everybody. ^_^ I don't really expect them to contact me, but who knows? I'll let everybody know if I hear from them earlier than I expect to.

Thanks to everybody who wished me luck on my interviews. I think I did pretty well. UCLA was really relaxed and nobody grilled me on questions at all; the faculty interviews went more like casual conversations rather than interviews; they really did a good job with putting the students at ease. It seems like nobody really gave the rest of us applicatants a hard time.

Overall, I really like UCLA. Even if they were the only school to accept me, I'd be happy because I got such an impression of openness and awesomeness. ^_^ In two weeks I haul my ass off to UPenn (after missing 3 days of classes), and the UCLA kids who interviewed there last week said they had a lot of fun, and they really enjoyed it too. :3 Personally, if I get accepted into all schools I've got interviews at, I think the final decision will come down to UCLA and UPenn, but hey, UCSF isn't out of the running yet, despite the bad vibes I've been getting from them so far.

Anyways, I've got a lot of reading to catch up on (I spent the flight to LA writing RaitoxL smut and the way back I spent reading Snow Crash), so...

BIRTHDAY MOB PLANS

Those of you who haven't gotten an e-mail about the logistics of my b-day party (or want one), it'll be 7pm at Sunset Grill & Tap on Saturday Feb. 12, but you can meet the gang at Fenway House where we'll be heading out at 6:15pm. ^_^ Maybe we'll even get together for gaming at Good Times earlier that day, maybe about 2pm or 3pm-ish. :D We'll see. Let me know if you're interested in heading out to game.