Allow me to introduce you to our home: 75 Jefferson Rd. The tenants are Augustin Soule, Ragesh Jaiswal, Xiaojuan Ma, and moi. In addition to these inhabitants, our home is regularly guested by several good friends: Matt Caesar, David Steurer, William Josephson, Chang Kim & Juni, Marion Riggs, Midori Valdivia, Jing Cao, Yi Wang, Jiayue He, Jialu Huang, Chris Park, just to name just a few. And our favorite activity is to host these friends for dinner parties: Asian potluck dinners, pre-Movie Club dinners, Janek dinners, random dinners, Halloween dinners, etc etc. Rarer guests/treats to our home include Ann Raldow, Forrester Cole, Jamie Consugra, Janek Klawe (here also with Ann and Jamie).

The Cornell Engineering Career Fair was held in mid-September, which happily brought us Ramona and Polly from the west coast. We had dinner together on the 14th at Alfama: Aditya, Kori, Polly, and Ari; Neal, Ramona, Tammy, and moi. Both Polly and Ari were in their usual form, and Ramona looks very intellectual in my glasses. After Alfama we headed to a bar for some drunkenness. You here see Aditya and Kori in a fond embrace (note Kori's nice necklace!). I believe Chethan is here scheming how to get Polly drunk (or was it fake Polly?). I am smiling here because I won a Yankees-Sox debate with Ari. The next day we played lackadaisical ultimate (contradiction in terms?) in Central Park. The End.

My mother was visiting me between the 3rd and 10th of November. The first thing we did was to head up to Ossining to visit my guardians. After returning we attended a housewarming potluck dinner at my advisor (Jennifer Rexford)'s new house in Princeton. Other attendees included: Elliot Kaprilovsky, Jiayue, Juni, Jing, Minlan, Joe Jiang, Matt, Yaping, Natasha.

One of our social inventions for the fall was a Potluck Dinner + British Mystery evening, and the first British mystery was "Prime Suspect". We had a very good bunch for this first get-together, including Chris Bienia, Moritz Hardt, Elaine Auyeung, Jia Deng, Jiayue, Melissa Carroll, Shirley Gaw, Sombuddho Ghosh, Yongxin Xi, Tim Weyrich, Yun Zhang, and me!

The first and biggest social event of 2008 was---not surprisingly---the hopskip party. It was held on February 3rd, which was the day after Augustin and I submitted our SIGCOMM rejection of '08. The party, unlike our submission, was an unmitigated success. There are many reasons for this: great attendees, great photographers, and even better hopskip! The evening started with the ceremonious hopskip mixing (again sadly w/o Harlan's trash can). The people who appreciated the hopskip the most were obviously the Cornellians (here in the famous pose: "Two Cornellians, Three Cups of Alcohol"). You here see Jeff, Frances, and Dan. Cornellians love sweets almost as much as alcohol (??), but tasty vegan sweets confuse us. There were several couples in attendance, including Haining and Clinton, a loyal Yi listening to his Jing (Yi also listens to other girls, which makes Melissa happy), and Anirudh and I (just kidding, grandma!). Dhruva was in a great mood (recall this was when Lehman was still a company), but made several prescient comments to Joe regarding finance ("the market will move thusly"). Other attendees included Minlan, past office mates, future apartment mates, past apartment mates, an artsy Shannon, Taylor, an engaging Tony, and even the shao (here being hugged by Jeff). Thank you all for showing up and making it a memorable party.

Later that same spring, I took Jialu to the graduate school formal. And here is a picture of Jialu in front of the blooming cherry trees in Princeton.

The summer of 2008 was spent in Ann Arbor, MI interning at Arbor Networks. Ann Arbor is a college town with a vibrant feel much like Ithaca, NY. I ended up living on a cute house on a quiet street called Dewey Ave. A view inside the house: kitchen, dining room, and living room. The University of Michigan is undoubtedly the focal point of the town, but the sprawling nature of the campus (at least when compared to the Ivy League standard I am accustomed to) means that it is difficult to find a "central point" with a high density of old architecture. In any case, I took pictures of Hill Auditorium and the Hatcher Graduate Library. "Downtown" Ann Arbor is located near the aptly named Main Street, but the best restaurants in this area are generally on side streets (including Cafe Zola on Washington Street). Finally, an uninteresting picture down Fourth Street.

I spent the first full weekend of June in Chicago with Jialu. I was first amused by the bascule bridges in the middle of the city over the Chicago River. Note also the strikingly hideous apartment buildings, complete with semi-open parking spaces near the base, to the right of the photo. Chicago's Millennium Park [W] is supposed to be the new most awesomest park in the world. Naturally it comes with some trippy architecture/scultpures, including the Jay Pritzker Pavillion (this is only a picture of the band stand) designed by Gehry, and the Cloud Gate (aka "The Bean") designed by British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor. Finally, some token pictures of the Chicago skyline: from the Shedd aquarium [W], from the Hancock Observatory [ext], and with Jialu in the foreground.

I spent about a month at IPAM@UCLA in October hanging out with Janek. Jialu visited me one of those weekends and we took a few trips. The first trip was to Disneyland. Some random pictures of the park: 1, 2, and 3; and with Jialu in the foreground: 1, 2, and 3. We took no breaks, and the next day it was on to Universal Studios. One of the main attractions there was the Water World show, which makes sense when one cosiders what a block-buster smash-hit the movie was. Jialu naturally loved the Kwik-E-Mart. We also took Janek on a one-day trip down to San Diego to visit Scully and the Flamingos (sounds like band Sonny Crockett would appreciate). Shamu is the main attraction, although I personally preferred the salmon burger. Finally, here is your's truly and Jialu posing in front of Santa Monica beach. Hasta la vista, LA!

The final hopskip party of graduate school was held in early March of 2009. I am thankful for much assistance in mixing the famous drink. It is important that the mixers are unafraid to get their hands dirty. I think the party is most likely to be a success if the host gently encourages consumption of alcoholic beverage (I blame my heritage: it's called to 'nøde'), which is why I prefer to be called an "enabler" not a "pusher". I take pride in careful pouring, however, and frown upon those with a more adventurous/hazardous bent. You here see a picture of the (groom and bride)-to-be - clearly the heavy burden of wedding preparations is taking a toll on the groom. And more charming couples: Xiaojuan & Melissa and Richard and Taylor (aww). The party was well attended with fabulously cool people (such as Josh), fellow Cabernet group members (such as Yaping), Germans (Bienia), and yes.. people from California who are easily cold. David Robinson even brought his bother Noah who absolutely did not drink. It was a successful evening indeed: people played odd party games, learned to distinguish between fake and real pearls, and apparently salivated over fellow attendees. Finally, some indescribable group photos: 1, 2, and 3. Thank you for attending!

In April I was presenting a paper at INFOCOM, which was fortunately being held in Rio de Janeiro. I invited Xiaojuan to be my traveling companion, and she fortunately agreed. We came in peace, but we firmly believe that peace is best achieved through superior firepower. Here I am barefoot on the Leblon beach [W] near the conference hotel within hours of touching down. As a dutiful student, my time in Rio was mostly spent in the hallways, but we did find time for a quick trip up Corcovado [W] in terrible rain, and a visit the botanical gardens [W]: here I am in the midst of cactuses and unknown flora. After finishing my presentation, we took a flight to Salvador, which I found much more exciting. We lived near Largo do Pelourinho (and opposite direction) [W], in a hotel called Studio do Carmo. The church on the plaza was celebrating some saint on our first full day in Salvador. Here I am walking down a street in the old town. I used slightly different attire every day, but I always tried to stand out and look like a tourist to maximize the chances that we would be robbed wherever we went. Such as the Bonfim church [W]. As always, however, my most vivid memories of Brazil revolve around food: the way they used banana as a side much like Asians use rice, the many ways in which they could create coconut desserts, amazing BBQ, and of course ridiculously delicious Caipirinha. Here Xiaojuan is standing with the hostess of our favorite restaurant in Salvador and here is a statue of that very same woman (she's apparently very famous). Finally, I decided to impress Jiayue by climbing up the lighthouse (now a maritime museum): one of many tries, and finally success. Obrigado Brazil!

In late February a bunch of us finally made the trip to Peter Lugar - something we'd been talking about since beginning graduate school nearly five years prior. In early May I took a trip back to Norway to accompany my grandmother through some difficult surgery. A week later I was back stateside to accompany Jeff for his bachelor's party. In mid June Radha visited NYC and a large group of Cornellians (and other friends) came together for the occasion. I defended my thesis in late June, and nine Princeton friends took the time to celebrate the occasion with me afterwards: thanks so much! I spent an extended 4^th of July weekend with Jialu visiting Ithaca and Boston. We started out by stopping by my guardians near Teatown lake [W], before visiting Croton Dam [W], and Bear Mountain [W]. In Ithaca we visited the usual Cornell sights, such as the Cornell Dairy Bar [ext], Sage Chapel [W], West Campus, Ithaca Falls, and McGraw Tower [W]. In Boston we briefly stopped by Harvard campus, but spent quite a bit of time walking near Boston Harbor (here I am trying to look like a doofus).

[Several of these photos are Copyright Augustin Soule and/or Melissa Carroll. Released under a creative commons license.]