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University of Nebraska, Lincoln Visit
Soon after I got my acceptance letter from UNL, Mark Walker of the math department contacted me and invited me to attend their Graduate Recruitment Weekend. I was to take a plane from Oakland to Salt Lake City (It was a week or so after the end of the Olympic games, so I hoped to find some decent discounted merchandise to take home with me! But alas, none were discounted except for the horribily overpriced sweaters.), and to Omaha. I stayed at the cutest place called the Park Inn Regency Lodge. The entire hotel was themed to outdoors, campfire motif. Very nice.

What Really surprised me was that the complimentary breakfast at the hotel consisted of more than juice, bagel, and cream cheese. Nice, HOT eggs, hash browns, sausage links, and ...gravy...? Interesting. I've never had gravy for breakfast before. Anyway, breakfast was my first chance to hang out with the semi-locals (since they were in a hotel, I'm assuming they don't actually live there.) Everyone there knew each other, so I was sitting at a table by myself and just listening to them. I wonder why no one talked to me (everyone _else_ was having one big conversation.) Anyway, I didn't think too much about it since I was enjoying the breakfast goods. When I was leaving, a gentleman fell down the steps and I offered my hand to help him up, but he just ignored me. I thought maybe he was still too in pain to notice, but the guy next to me offered a hand and he took it immediately. I was kind of offended. Was I invisible? :p

Anyway, that was about as negative as the trip went. Everything from then on was fabulous! Professor Harbourne gave me a ride from Omaha to Lincoln, and on the way there we talked about the city, the school, math. Very interesting. I was afraid we would have some awkward silences but we had a really nice conversation. One thing he mentioned that was funny was that he paid less in mortgage than what I pay in rent in Berkeley, California.

We arrived in Lincoln in about an hour. ("Traffic" consisted of five other cars.) It was COLD! It was cold in Omaha also, but we had to walk from the parking lot to the math building, and I was shivering the entire way. Everyone around was more bundled up than I was (I tried! I wore my most serious coat!... okay, that's not saying much since it's a California coat. I wouldn't have bought it at all, but I had to for my previous trip to New York for a Mock Trial comeptition.) Thankfully the walk was not long, and it was time to start the Graduate Recruitment weekend!

I finally met Mark Walker, the department recrutiment director and an Algebraic K-Theorist. He gave me some hand outs on what I could do for the day. He delivered the bad news that since only three spots were open for the Othmer Fellowship this year, I probably won't get the money. Oh well. I asked him to show me those housing prices again to cheer me up ^_^. We're talking housing for 1/3 the price of what I'm paying! WOW.

Two other students arrived, and we all attended Professor Roger Wiegand's Algebra II class. It was interesting seeing such a small class (I think five people were in the class, three of us were visiting.) The material was familar (I'd heard the vocabulary before) but I hadn't seen the results. It was quite interesting. At one point, he asked his class a question and I implusively blurted out an answer (GAH! Old habits die hard.). Miliseconds later, I thought "Uh oh, if I'm wrong, it'd look REALLY bad." Thank heavens he said I was right. Phew. That felt nice ^_^.

After that, we headed out, along with a graduate student, to lunch. We talked about what we did in our undergraduate years, what the city is like. I asked the graduate student if he's ever heard of "Pearl Milk Tea" before, and he said he hasn't. The student from Texas immediately said: "Yeah, we have those in Texas too!" Cool.



After that, we went to a graduate student lead class, and then headed to the department lounge to meet more graduate students. Things for uneventful until someone ALMOSt spilled Sprite on me! In a very "Matrix" like moment, I saw the globs of Sprite fly into the air and ducked away from them. Most of the Sprite hit the floor. Okay, that had NOTHING to do with grad school selection, but it was interesting to me.

After an information, we finally went to the Hotel where we settled down for an hour before heading out to Mark and Judy Walker's home for a department party. I talked to several of the professor, graduate students, wives of the graduate students. All of them were really nice and put me at ease. If only everyone in the world were so easy going.

Someone at he party looked outside the window, and that's when I noticed something white outside! I jumped to the window and yelled: "Oh my god, it's snowing!" Everyone turned to look at me. Perhaps I was less embarassed than I should be, since I said, "I've never seen snow before!" A collective "Ohhh" sounded. I went upstairs to get my camera, and took some pictures. After bouncing around outside for a bit, I took some photos of the going ons. I went back inside, when a professor offered to take my picture in the snow! That was so nice of him :)

The next day I had an hour to attend a talk on research areas, and then was rushed off to the airport. A graduate student, Mike, drove me from Lincoln to Omaha. On the way he talked about how excited the department would be if I came (It REALLY makes me feel nice that someone wants me to attend. :) No one's ever been _excited_ about me before. Anyway, we also talked about the area, the people. He was from Washington initially, so he also talked about how the transition was to Nebraska.

I returned home (sans luggage...which was probably stuck in SLC while I was in Oakland) brimming about Nebraska. On Sunday I checked my mail and discovered I got into UCLA! The dilemma!

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