Stanford Stories VII - National Postdoc Appreciation Week

Another week passed by way too fast in the Bay Area. This week was kind of special since it was National Postdoc Appreciation Week here, meaning that a couple of special events were organized for Stanford PostDocs. Interestingly, PostDocs here suffer from very similar compared to Europe: short term project-based contracts, mediocre payment and very limited benefits. For PostDocs without kids, the situation is actually not too bad, but for those with kids or dependents life can be pretty expensive here, e.g. due to extremely high costs for child care.

To celebrate the amazing weather (and also all PostDocs), our local hiking group organized a fantastic barbecue in a garden of an amazing house in Atherton (see photo below). Definitely, the most spectacular place I have been so far here. It was a huge mansion where 6 rooms are rented out to Stanford PostDocs. There were tons of delicious food and again I managed to meet many new interesting people.

Finally, together with seven other friends, we went to see a (preseason) hockey game of the San Jose Sharks against the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday. It was the first hockey game that I have seen, and it is indeed a pretty dynamic and exciting sport. However, I guess that American Football will stay my favorite.