Orientation: Day 1 of 8

Today was my first day actually inside the Statistics Department, as we started 8 days of orientations today. Today wasn't terribly exciting... a couple of review sessions on stuff we learned as undergrads. Most of the orientation days will be more of the same, with occasional talks by faculty describing their current research, etc.

We're going as a group to the A's game tomorrow night. It'll make for a seriously long day, but should be fun. I haven't been to a baseball game in several years.... I think the last time I went to a game was during the inaugural season of PNC Park back in da 'burgh.

Mike now has health insurance (yay!) at a much lower rate than we were paying in Pittsburgh (double yay!). He's still locating good primary care doctors and specialists and such, but it's a relief to have coverage on him again. My insurance through school kicked in today as well, so that's a happy thing to. We don't have to pay anything for that coverage (triple yay!)

I'm not entirely sure yet how many 1st year PhD students there are. There were about a dozen people in orientation this morning, but that included some master's students and some Biostat folks as well. I'm guessing 7-8 of the folks there are Stats PhDs... there may be some more folks joining us later as they arrive in the Bay Area. Some of the university owned housing doesn't open until later this week, so some students haven't come yet. Others are here and staying in hotels or on other people's couches until their housing becomes available.