AI2V workshop (2)

Wearing in business casual for a straight four day is indeed a breakthrough for me. Thus, group picture again:

What else did we do? We had quite an experience staying in this really ancient, old-style "Memorial" hotel. Here is the word which everybody uses to describe it: creepy. We found one really scary thing in Vanessa and Lu's room each day: a naked pony doll under the bed, a children drawing in the drawer, (Believe me, you will NOT want to see it), and another toy which I don't know how to describe. Besides this , there was also flickering light, (both in the room and the bathroom), blood on the curtains (and shower curtains), a old piano at the lobby which looked like it would brought you back to centuries ago if you play it. Also, the coffee shop next to the hotel is called "Uncommon Ground". True. Everything is very uncommon, and ... haunted. Back in 1920s it was a 5 star. The decoration itself was very flowerish, and colorful: bedsheet, wallpaper. There were even two armors on first floor. Thus, all in all, Vanessa and Lu ended up pulling the Bible out and touch it before touching any thing in their room. :-(
We also played Mafia, at the last night of our stay there. Harry made up some scary stories of people who got killed by Mafia. I was strangled by the curtain. (Vanessa was sucked into her laptop... we should all get one red envelope for compensation following Chinese tradition) Mafia is always very triggering and interesting. I did doctor and Mafia once this time which was completely new to me, despite the fact that TJ, who was supposed to be my mafia teammate, accidentally admitted that he was the MAFIA and got killed immediately. :D It was also Girish's first Mafia game. (He had done quite well, surprisingly.) We celebrated his birthday earlier that night at a decent Thai restaurant near by as the grant paid for it.
Nimra learned A LOT OF Chinese during our trip. She is now able to say "你的中文好爛" to other Chinese-learning beginners. She also recognized all the Chinese numbers through our Ma Jong playing (previously in MS/PhD retreat). We planned our graduation trip next June at our flight from Indianapolis to Atlanta. (US-tokyo-上海-杭州-西安-HK-Taipei-US) We are going to intentionally not submitting our thesis to the department, take our time traveling and graduate in August. :p How does that sound? Also We had talked about the spring break CA trip.