Here we go. We have this one masters student in my class. Even though he's just a masters student (and couldn't hack it as a Ph.D. student ... jk), he's quite fun, and organized a Secret Santa for our class. Last night we passed out the presents and let me tell you, it was brilliant. Why brilliant? Here is the story:
So there are these two kids in my class, Yoosik and Sheng, let's call them. Yoosik is from Korea and is really smart. Sheng is originally from China but when to high school here and she is also very smart. Now, upon beginning our year at Princeton, everyone pretty quickly found their usual study groups: Dave and Baley, me and Bob, Linda and Samantha, Tom and anyone who has time, Yoosik and Sheng. Now, not only do they homework together, but they eat dinner and lunch and breakfast together, and are always seen walking to and fro together. So Dave (the masters student) pulled Yoosik's name out of the Santa hat.
In steps Baley with a genius idea: give him a poster of Sheng. How were they to do this? Well, naturally the person they come to is me, the one with the resources. What resources do I have? Well, Dave knew I had a sick camera (Nikon D50 ... quite awesome). Dave's plan was to lure Sheng to the E-Quad and have me standing by taking photographs of random stuff. Then I was to approach them and ask if I could take a photo, at which point he would suddenly have to run off and I'd photograph just Sheng. Too obvious, right? I told him I had a better plan. The better plan involved the fact that I have a 200m zoom telephoto lens. Dave was confused. What did that mean? Well, that simply meant that Sheng never had to see me taking the photographs. I totally should be a spy. So we arranged for Dave to meet up with Sheng outside the E-Quad at 11:00 AM on a Thursday.
I arrived at the E-Quad with a few minutes to spare and ran into Dave. He was about to call Sheng to get her to meet him. Where was I going to be, he asked. I pointed to a 2nd story window in the building. Dave just started laughing. This was going to be awesome. I took my gear up to the 2nd floor and got into position. Perfect. I could see him beautifully through the window. Zoom lenses are awesome. He called Sheng and she arrived. I started snapping photos like I was in the KGB and was witnessing a meeting between two CIA operatives. It was quite comical to notice the looks I was getting from people passing me in the hallway. There was one kink in the execution of the plan. Shortly after Dave and Sheng started talking, an older professor walked in front of her and set his bag down. He then took out a cell phone and started a very long conversation. Enemy operative! Ruining my shots! I couldn't get a clear one. I immediately called Dave who answered "Hi Mom!" I told him the situation, that they needed to move so I could get a clear shot. He did. It worked. I snapped a total of 50 pictures and she was none the wiser.
After perusing the shots (and seeing that I had a number of good ones), I thought my job was done. Until Bob suggested we make a photo mosaic. Uh oh. Such a good idea. Could we do it? I looked into how to make one, found a program, and banged it out in such high quality it took my computer 3 hours to chug through and make it. But it came out beautifully. Dave brought the file to Staples to have it printed as large as the quality would allow it. Want to know how large it got?? Try 2.5 feet by 4 feet. Oh, it was poster sized.
I just have to say this:
Nikon D50 camera: $600
200m zoom lens: $200
Poster printed at Staples: $20
Look on Sheng and Yoosik's faces: priceless
Who loves gingerbread cookies? I do. So Mart and I baked and decorated about 4 dozen. The absolute best cookie, however, was our Trogdor cookie. For those of you who don't know who Trogdor is, well, he's a dragon, made by drawing and "S" and then a more different "S". Travis began making the Trogdor. I helped with the frosting and made the wings (because he's a wing-a-ding creature). It was a group effort and came out beautifully. We even baked lines of majesty, since every great dragon needs lines of majesty. For more pictures of our fantastic cookie-making experience, please follow the links to my photo albums. Otherwise, I leave you with one final photo of our chorus line: a line-up of our finest cookies (or most ridiculous).
