TX First Weekend

Here are more pictures from our tour around campus on June 1st (slideshow opens in new window)

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 Day 2: June 2nd
"S" and I leave at 8:30 am to walk down University to the Veterinary buildings across the railroad. It only takes 10 minutes to walk there, so we hang around for a bit. We take a look at the Critical Care Cafe and look at the decorations. All along the walls are paintings and photos of animals - dogs, cats, cows, horses, etc. This is a very elaborate veterinary school. We come back to Dr. Quick's office and wait. He comes some time after 9 am since he had to drop off his kid at school. As he's quite the talker, and passionate too, he tells us more about the two projects: pulsatile lymph flow and bat blood vessel reconstruction. Total, he probably talked 3 and a half hours. He gets excited about what he talks about, and he really knows what he's explaining. Plus, he tells it in a way that is understandable, and even writes things on the board so we understand. The most exciting thing for me was seeing my two BioE classes from last semester and a couple other classes prior integrating into the projects described. Transport phenomenon and cardiovascular physiology! I actually understand this! This is why I got pretty interested in the lymph flow project, although the other project sounded interesting to work with the bats (which are trained to sleep with their wing open in a lego-constructed box!!!)

After finally being saved by our GSI Tam, who mentioned lunch to Dr. Quick, we escaped around 1 pm. Tam was really nice and he drove us to HEB supermarket so we could buy food. I lingered as I usually do at the grocery and felt bad to get so much, but I'm glad I did now. Yay snacks and sandwich materials. Dude, HEB has the awesomest coupons. Buy one get this free.

I did some reading about the lymph project and then looked at the NSF grant for the bat blood vessel one, but I still felt drawn to the lymph one.

Eventually, we all went to dinner at Antonio's Pizza by the Slice. Dannggg, HUGE slices of pizza and of many different varieties. I got the black bean avocado one; pizza crust with black beans replacing marinara sauce, crumbled cheese, avocado, and some other vegetable. The black beans kinda sucked out the flavor, so I dumbed all the pizza condiments on it and stole S's red oions to give it more flavor. Afterward, I was very full. We went back the apartment after that, hung out, talked, went to the pool, wandered. Good day.

Back to front: Sausage/pepperoni, ranch chicken, black bean avocado

Day 3: June 3rd
S and I went in the morning to meet up with Dr Quick again. After a little more talking and explanation, I decided on the lymph one and S decided on the bat blood vessel one. We got a bunch of articles to read to prime us on it and then we left around noon. I dragged S along with me to the Chef Tai Gourmet Truck to get Asian-fusion. We both got 2 tacos, one Korean BBQ beef and one caramelized brussel sprouts and tofu. The two stuffed tacos morphed into four normal sized tacos for me.

 Caramelized brussel sprouts and tofu (L) and Korean BBQ beef (R)

 The Chef Tai Mobile Bistro

Me and my box of tacos

The Korean beef taco was very flavorful and delivious. The tofu one was a little lacking in flavor but nonetheless good. We ate the tacos in the McDonalds. McDonalds here is HUGE and very nice. They have an extension with lots of chairs, tables, benches, couches to study and eat on! And it's clean here. AND, best of all, it's SUPER CHEAP! The ice cream is only 50 cents, sundaes $1. Sooo good.

After I wandered around North campus and into a couple of buildings:

Later I got most of us plus a CivEng intern to go to Downtown Bryan for  First Fridays. By stroke of luck, another gourmet food truck was there: Madden's Street Cuisine. S and I split one of their specials: softshell crab sandwich. It came with their spiced up shoestring fries (with cilantro). It was pretty good, although I don't think I'm that much a fan of eating the softshell crab. Softshell crab sandwich with (spicy) slaw and fries We wandered around Bryan more. We went into Must Be Heaven and got Blue Bell ice cream. My first time having it. Got it since Becca said it's "the best". I got the cinnamon flavor (yay cinnamon!). Dude, the single scoop ($1.85+tax) is like a third or half a pint! (My photos on yelp)  After, we came back to the apartment then went to Daisy Dukes for some country clubbin'!!! It was SOOO MUCH FUN. First thing we do when we get in: country line dancing! It's like the electric slide but country! There were waitresses walking 'round with test tube racks filled with dollar test tube shots. These are basically mixed drinks. Soo cool! They also played hip hop and gangster music. Danced to that too. Ash, L, and E danced like crazy, but Ash most of all! She's sooo energetic and fun! Eventually, I danced with this guy who does fancy footwork, like top-rocking. He was pretty cool. He then showed me how to two-step, even though he admitted he didn't really know himself, being from Utah and all.  Man oh man. That was a great first Friday to begin this internship. A lot of things, I admit, making this post long, but so worth it.