Birthday Pinata for Katya and Li

Two of our collegues and friends, Katya and Li, celebrated their birthdays within a week of each other this past week. To add some fun and crafty spice to their celebrations, we (Mirna, Ellen and Michelle) built a pinata for them (cardboard box with top mostly cut out, a trap door at the bottom, and tissue paper decorations).

The pinata was filled with chocolate and candy, and little slips of paper with embarrassing and/or funny and/or touching stories about each of them. After a hearty song of Happy Birthday, Katya and Li pulled the strings on the pinata and spilled the contents. They then each took turns reading the slips of paper (each reading stories about each other). The stories were collected over the past week or two, with the participation of alot of Ciborowski lab members. It is interesting to note that since Li is so much more well-behaved than Katya, Katya's stories outnumber Li's, and some of Li's stories were pure fiction!

Check out the hilarious and well-done cartoon sketch of Katya and Harry Potter's Severus Snape, done by Jess and Daniel: