Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Office 2007

Yesterday was my first full day here. In the morning I went to eat breakfast at McDonald's, guided by my trusted navigation system. The first McD I went to was closed, so I went to another one which was open.

After breakfast I returned to the motel, and figured out I somehow managed to lose my room key. In any case, I decided to go on line and plan the rest of my day. It was still early to go to the International Center at Stanford, so I decided to go to see a new car for sale. I called the person I've been in touch with at the dealership and set an appointment for an hour later. The price he quoted at the dealership was too high for my parent's taste, so I did not yet buy the car.

From the dealership I made my way to Stanford, ate lunch, and went on to get my temporary ATM card and visit the Int'l center for an orientation. Then, I drove to the CS faculty and met with the administrator there. I signed lots of forms to be on payroll and got signed up for an orientation meeting today. Then, I went to see Yoav -- the professor I'll be working with. Even though he was not expecting me, he took the time to give me a short tour of the faculty and have his assistant assign me an office and give me a key. Now I have an address where I can get mail! The address is:
Alon Altman
Gates Computer Science
353 Serra Mall, room 258
Stanford, CA 94305
USA

After arranging all that, I went back to the hotel room and on line. I had a chat with my friend whom I met in Hawaii and met up with her for dinner. I really enjoyed it.

Overall, I feel good and even though getting settled is hard, I think I'm doing pretty well. Today will be another day at Stanford and I hope to start looking for places to stay tomorrow.

8 comments:

  1. A closed McD in the middle of the week? A computer sciences building named after a certain Gates individual? What's going on here? :)

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  2. Maybe it's a different Gates...

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  3. you are doing remarkably well, and in a little while you will really love it all...
    yet, please do not forget too quickly where you came from, and all the people waiting for your safe return :)

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  4. No no, it's the same Gates, but I didn't see any one of the researchers use their software. Only the administrative people, and they curse it all the time.

    Regarding McD, I guess that branch didn't serve breakfast.

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  5. What kind of breakfast can you get at a mac anyways? and what did you have?

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  6. They do serve bfast. I had bacon&egg McGriddles + hash brown + coke.

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  7. McDonalds, of course. Reminds me of my freshman year in college. I stocked up on loads of Griddles only for somebody else robbing the stock, LOL. But one thing I was glad about is getting through the year when I knew where I can buy assignment online from experts as I struggled with the burdens of assignments pouring on me. They got me through college and I realize, I should’ve bought some stock of the discontinued McRibs from EBay.

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