An crazily eventful week comes to a close! Holi, Parties, and a Summer Internship

I really don't even know where to start this blog post - the past week has been such a whirlwind! But I guess the best place to start is always at the beginning (and use lots of pictures)

We had a lot of fun playing Holi with our friends on the Diag of the University of Michigan. I'm sure some of you remember our previous Holi escapades. Thankfully, this year we didn't play with water, so the experience wasn't nearly as intense.

Later in the week, we got to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy during which I could only think about how much I missed swing dancing.

THEN, we saw master tabla player Zakir Hussain perform at Hill Auditorium on campus. The performances was amazing and we're unlikely to forget it anytime soon.

Because school couldn't be all work and no play, we had our "formal" (what I affectionately called Prom) last Friday.

Thankfully we had an opportunity to cut up a rug!

But it didn't stop there! After a crazy semester of scouting out internship opportunities (including endless submissions of resumes, phone interviews, and even being flown out West for an in-person interview) .... I officially accepted an internship offer from VMware for the summer!

Find out more about VMware here

Not only do I go to internet school but I will now work at a company that does most of its business in the cloud!

It has been an exciting and eventful week for us here in Ann Arbor and it looks like we're in for an even more exciting summer. In May we head out to New Hampshire, where Allen will be giving a lecture at Dartmouth. From there we head to Connecticut to see Darek graduate with a PhD in Physical Therapy. After that I get a little time in NYC before shipping out to SF and Allen gets ready to head off to London for two months of dissertation-writing boot camp!

We'll be sure to keep you all posted on our up-coming adventures!

2012: Best Birthday Ever?*

What a crazy and amazing birthday week** I've been having! I don't even know where to begin. I guess the best place to start is the beginning.

The week began with a networking fair an expoSItion, a student showcase of their various projects. Claire and I presented the A2 Datadive in the hopes of convincing incoming prospective student to sign up. I'm happy to report that I think I was able to convince at least 2 students to sign up just to help out at the datadive.

Partners in crime

The expoSItion was also great opportunity for us to show off to employers as well. I got two interview for summer internships because of my presentation on the A2 Datadive; fingers crossed, I should know in the next week or so what I'll be up to this summer.

So, needless to say this week go started off to a bang, so I was really looking forward to my plans for Friday (my actual birthday). I was going to hang out with friends in the afternoon, go to a student-org sponsored happy hour, and then top the night off by going to see "The Hunger Games" with Allen and a few friends....

Boy, was I wrong.

In what will probably be family-lore for a long time Allen was able to *again* keep a multi-month secret planning a spectacular surprise party for my birthday. I love Allen, but he's terrible at keeping secrets, mostly because he's so darn excited about how sneaky he's being. But he pulled it off again and it was awes-amazing***

Instead of going to a theater we drove to (seemingly) the middle of nowhere and came to this random looking office park with a building that said "Whirlyball" on it ... which before Friday had absolutely no meaning to me.

Neville and I rocking Iron Man mask, for reasons

Whirlyball, which seems to be a truly mid-Western experience, is a cross between bumper cars, lacrosse, and basketball (use your imagination folks)

Putting my game face on

Driving your bumper car, you use that little net I'm holding to toss a whiffle ball into the net, which is built into a basketball goal. Yeah - it was just as awesome as you are imagining right now. Mind you, these bumper cars had no brakes or steering wheel; you basically had no idea what direction you were about to head at any given time. We were laughing hysterically, shouting curses and encouragement, and generally just having a great time. Probably the funniest part though was how serious people got driving their little bumper cars like mini tanks.

Then we got home for dinner and I found that the apartment had been decorated in an Avengers/memes/internet theme (Allen, Neville, and Gina couldn't really decide).

The picture on my cake was really the icing on the ... erm ... cake

We must have ALL OF THE MEMES at this party!

But honestly, the most amazing (and touching) part about this birthday was how many friends came out for my party. Allen said that he had to comb through Facebook to find everyone in a stealthy way -- but I was still really blown away by how many people were in on the planning (my friends who hung out with me that afternoon, the officers of the student org who planned the happy hour to keep me out, and my crazy friends who pretended to be spies on a secret operation to decorate the apartment).

I feel so blessed to have so many amazing people in my life. Thank you guys for helping me cap off a birthday I will never ever forget!

Oh! And I finally got to see the Hunger Games last night - and totally loved it!

______________________________

* I leave this as an open question because it's pretty tough to beat my 25th birthday back in 2008 when Allen surprised me by whisking me down to the Dominican Republic for an vacation where he proposed to me. He got me good then just as he got me good this year.

** I don't believe that the awesomeness of a birthday should be limited to one day

*** Awes-amazing, is totally a (SI) thing

Not all work...

Yesterday I went to a friend's 30th birthday party - the twist was it was at a rollerskating rink. It brings me back to elementary school when rollerskating parties were all the rage! It was ... the coolest thing EVER. And I gotta say after this party and Bill's a couple year's back I gotta say rollerskating parties are still pretty awesome. Friends! You've all been put on notice - next year's the big 3 O for me and I might just have a rollerskating party....

Back to New York!?!

In a crazy turn of events, just days after we finally sold our apartment in Brooklyn, I found out that I will be returning to New York for one year as an Art History Research Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art!!!

It's an amazing opportunity to spend some quality time at the Museum and I am very excited about it!

Just thought I'd let you know.

For awhile I was officially "runner up" for the 2 year post doc, but the person who was awarded it decided to take it (not really surprising).  Either way, I am honored that I will get funded to spend another year in New York at a fabulous museum!

Cheers,

Allen

The Brackets Are Set Tonight!

Hello Friends and Family,

It's time to get excited about NCAA College Basketball again!

To join the Roda Family and Friends Basketball Bracket, 

Click on this Link:  http://rodabracket.mayhem.cbssports.com/e 

You then have to make your own CBS Sports username and password.  Once you have joined CBS Sports website, then you enter the password for our group, which is UNCA.  Because, obviously this year the UNCA bulldogs are going to win it ALL!!!!!!

This year, I have decided to make the bracket ever so slightly more exciting by making it a charity fundraiser.  Everyone who joins this bracket should, on their honor as a decent human being, agree to donate a minimum of $5 to the charity named by the winner.

So, if you win, you get to decide what well deserving institution should receive our collective financial support!

The winner will inform you of their choice in a message in which they also gloat about how much more intuitively they understand the nuances of bracketology and otherwise rub in your face their winningness.

I would urge winners to choose charities that are national or international in scope and a-political (i.e. I wouldn't ask you to donate to my bowling club, but I would ask you to donate to the Red Cross).  Let's just do something good!

Them's the rules.  May the most clairvoyant among us win!!!!!!

March Madness UNCA to Win!

Hello Friends and Family,

It's time to get excited about NCAA College Basketball again!

To join the Roda Family and Friends Basketball Bracket, 

Click on this Link:  http://rodabracket.mayhem.cbssports.com/e 

You then have to make your own CBS Sports username and password.  Once you have joined CBS Sports website, then you enter the password for our group, which is UNCA.  Because, obviously this year the UNCA bulldogs are going to win it ALL!!!!!!

This year, I have decided to make the bracket ever so slightly more exciting by making it a charity fundraiser.  Everyone who joins this bracket should, on their honor as a decent human being, agree to donate a minimum of $5 to the charity named by the winner.

So, if you win, you get to decide what well deserving institution should receive our collective financial support!

The winner will inform you of their choice in a message in which they also gloat about how much more intuitively they understand the nuances of bracketology and otherwise rub in your face their winningness.

I would urge winners to choose charities that are national or international in scope and a-political (i.e. I wouldn't ask you to donate to my bowling club, but I would ask you to donate to the Red Cross).  Let's just do something good!

Them's the rules.  May the most clairvoyant among us win!!!!!!

Spring Break Finale: ASB Output, DWB in DC, and an Appeal*

I'm not even sure where to begin recapping my Alternate Spring Break (ASB) experience. I'm totally amazed that in a week I was able to pull together a fully functioning Excel application for my mentor, Dr. Lee-Ann Hayek. To be fair, she hadn't expected it either; it was a pretty tall order.

My mentor, Dr. Lee-Ann Hayek, and I at the Smithsonian

As I mentioned in my first post about ASB, I was helping Lee-Ann build a better user interface for her Excel application which compared samples of species to test the evenness of their distribution against a known model. The project name (SHE) stands for Species H-Model Evenness. From a frantic looking collection of sheets with links and formulas all over the place (information overload), I created a front-end, instruction set, and logical process for other scientists to use Lee-Ann's application.

(Because I feel like showing off ) The Instructions Sheet (click to enlarge)

The Input Sheet

The Main Output Table Sheet (There is also a Charts and Regressions page, but I'll spare you)

But the fun didn't stop there Data Without Borders was in town (!!!) and even though I couldn't stay for the entire weekend event I dropped by on Friday to say "hello"

Here's DWB's founder Jake Porway giving the opening speech, introducing everyone to the work they'll be doing. This weekend's groups were National Environmental Education Foundation, GuideStar, DC Action for Children. I was super pumped about the projects - several of which are being framed around designing questions to measure social impact - and was a little bummed that I couldn't stay the weekend.

source: DWB Facebook Page

Over 100 people showed up for the presentations on Friday night, which bodes well for an enthusiastic bunch of participants over the course of the weekend.

Source: Mayur Patel's Storify board

Also, because I'm still in a bragging mood - I won "best dressed" for the t-shirt I choose to rock (Cool Girls Code).... it was an easy sell to this type of crowd.

And last, but not least, I'm making an appeal to you - friends and family - to help support Alternate Spring Break at the School of Information by considering a donation to our Crowdwise campaign. ASB was an amazing experience for me and the other 140 students who participated this year... and it was all funded and coordinated by our school (transportation, housing, the projects ... you name it, they worked it out for us). But as you can imagine it takes a lot to put this together. Please consider a donation as a way to support all the good work that the School of Information and us students are trying to do.

Thank you!

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* Trying to squeeze as many acronyms as I can, like a good grad student should