Author: Doris

Now, I have the most communication gears in my whole life. Before coming back from China, I have seven active phones (4 land lines and 3 cells), one mobile USB in China by “China Mobile”, one US BlackBerry and two laptops. After I came back, I added an AT&T mobile hot spot to my list. Before going back to China (I hope pretty soon after I get my working visa there from here), I should add one iPhone (my friend would like me to get one for him.) Don’t exactly to know what to do with all these. Not very efficiently at least. Especially, carry them around in and out of airports. I guess it is quite different to be an IT guy to support an active project – on call 24/7/365 🙂

Glad be back from China & see our “Just Regular Folks” again 🙂

Yesterday, I found out that my senior thesis advisor, Anne Mayes, passed away earlier this year from complications that stemmed from breast cancer treatment which started in 1994. When I was working on my thesis, she was 29 years old – a freshly appointed assistant professor at MIT. I remember her taking me out to Chinese food after a long day in the lab, I remember finding her in the morning asleep on the floor after pulling an all-nighter writing a paper or grant proposal. I was her first undergraduate student and she made a huge impression on me. She was not diagnosed with cancer until a few months after I graduated and she managed to simultaneously successfully undergo cancer treatment and become the first woman tenured in the Mat Sci Dept at MIT – what crazy dedication that must have taken (also, she’s just brilliant, but that’s a given). I lost touch with her many years ago, I’m not sure she would even remember me – but she was a pivotal person in my life. So RIP Anne, you will be missed.

God, it was so hot! It is always suppose to be over 90 F on Memorial Day? Vince marched again this year. The rest of us walked about 300 feet from the assembly point and plopped down under the first tree we saw. Could have been more ambitious and actually gone to town center, but we were pooped.

It’s a scorcher out there. Nothing better than an open fire hose to cool off.

As the school year is drawing to a close, we wanted to host a thank you party at Edda’s school to thank all the folks who help Edda make her days at school fabulous! We showed up at school and Edda’s hair is amazing. I don’t know who did it, but it was unbelievable.

Edda’s favorite cake:

Don’t forget about the fire drill in the middle of the party:

Vince and Edda:

My high school girlfriends and I planned a weekend getaway – to Atlanta! Why Atlanta? Because it offered the cheapest airfares from the three cities we were traveling from. We wanted to go to Las Vegas – but the flights to LV were crazy-high! It’s been 20 years since we’ve spent time together – it was a lot of fun, and not as hot as it is here in MD this week!

We saw the Aquarium:

Splurged on one fancy dinner:

Saw the art museum:

And visited the Oakland historical cemetery :

And unbelievably – my brother was in town for business – so I spend 45 minutes with him at the airport and ate a McMuffin with him before he had to run off to do something with Power Point (I’m sure).

Edda’s been on Keppra for about 9 months now – her daytime seizures are gone, but we are still seeing up to 4 nighttime seizures a week. We’ve pretty much maxed out the dose of Keppra – so we are trying Lactimal now.

The Lactimal seems to taste better than the Keppra – at least Edda doesn’t complain when she has to take it. We are hoping this works, because if not, Edda’ll be classified as having intractable seizures. Blech!

We hurried back from the wedding to make Vince’s first violin recital on Sunday afternoon. He looked dapper with his red bow tie.

The tough part wasn’t the playing in front of the audience, the tough part was sitting still for all the other students’ performances. We forgot to prep him for that, so he was extra wiggle-ly.

Kappa came down to DC special just for the occasion.