Parents Invade the Farm

Yes it's official. My parents have landed @ SFO and proceeded to invade the Stanford campus. I stayed up till 4am in order to tidy up my room into an acceptable state. I knew that my parents would just faint if they saw my room in its post exam glory. Tidying up involved clearing my desk, throwing away a weeks' worth of garbage, clearing exam notes (notice how valuable they are to you before the exam but after that, they are worth zilch), and vacuuming the room. I must say that I dropped a lot of hair....goodness me I must be quite stressed during this period. Vacuuming at 2:30am was no fun because I was soooo worried that the people next door would be disturbed but at the same time, I knew I simply must tidy up the place. I collapsed onto my bed exhausted at 4am and had barely a cat nap before having to wake up at 8am to catch the Caltrain and BART to the airport to get my parents.

I waited at the airport for over half an hour. Even though my parents' flight was not delayed, I heard that they got delayed at the customs checkpoint because the air stewardess handed my mum the wrong form!!!United Airlines!!!! UGH.I also heard that they deliberate don't offer alcohol on the flight even though you can ask for alcohol...must be a money saving ploy on their side.$.$ We got onto the BART on time but failed to make the 5 min switch at the Milibrae BART/Caltrain interchange. Sometimes I keep forgetting that my parents are old and can't move quite as fast as I move. The Milibrae interchange required my parents to climb a long flight of stairs about 3 storeys high and down it from the overpass....so we ended up waiting 30min for the train instead of hurrying. Better be safe than sorry.

In the next 5 min, it dawned upon me why I chose to complete my tertiary education overseas, far away from my parents. Even though one person has two ears, he/she only has one mouth and one brain! Try having two people talking to you simultaneously and expecting you to answer them. It's like they're having a tug of war for my attention. It is simply exhausting trying to keep up with them because my parents talk about very different things, one in English and one in Mandarin. I was glad to get a brief respite when we finally got on the train and I could doze off. Very unfortunately, my dad took an unflattering photo of me with his phone camera...now now since when did he know how to operate a phone camera?!???!

It was sweltering hot that day and it was 88F. When I got back to my dorm, I had to set up the place so that 3 people could live in it. It involved taking some computer chairs from the comp lab. We then went to get lunch from the Netappetit food truck. That $7.50 of meat could last 3 of us for 2 meals (now you understand why this amount of meat can last me for one week). Right after that, I had a meeting with my boss for a new assignment so my parents sought refuge in the Memorial Church. Apparently, my dad dozed off while sitting in the church and was snoring soooo loudly that my mum had to prod him every 5 min. Parents' first impression of Memorial Church was : outside ugly and plain....then when they went inside they were full of praises for the very grand gold plated decorations.

The most common question I got was: how does Stanford compare to Duke? Different lah. How to compare? Campus looks different, campus culture also a difference of black and white.
Stanford:
Pros: Beautiful weather, Spanish architecture, accessible to SF, mall right outside, dorm rent is cheap, no meal plan required, entrepreneurial atmosphere (learn a new thing for me), great consulting recruiting.
Cons: Cheating Chinese students, hard to do well (high Asian population), caterpillars in Spring, Terman is ugly and far from my dorm.

Duke:
Pros: Beautiful weather (more variety), relatively easier to ace exams, I got to know the people better, better ibanking recruitment, Sarah P Duke Gardens, dorm near classes
Cons: Bad location in the middle of nowhere, expensive transport, bad consulting recruitment
Ambivalent: Duke culture - focused and just focused. We are the pragmatic lot.

I was so caught up with earning my $15 per hour that I left my parents to have their post dinner stroll around my dorm . They nearly got lost and tried to get into Crother's Hall (for law students) instead of Crother's Memorial Hall (for engring students). Parents also couldn't stand the weather and were tempted to carry a couch into the aircon computer lab and sleep there but seriously, that would be really weird. Imagine that you need to use the com lab at 3am and suddenly you see an old woman and an old man snoring inside the lab. hahaha...anyway they decided not to sleep there so my mum and I squashed onto the little bed and my dad got the exercise mat and use the sleeping bag as a pillow. It didn't help that he talked in his sleep "get a broomstick here!", yes he is beating up ghosts AGAIN!