I'm looking through you, where did you go?

Is that really my dad?
(Guitar, second from right.)



Mom, who are the rest of these guys?

All along the undertow is strengthening its hold / I never thought it'd come to this, now I can never go home

There are so many reasons for the smallest of smiles to come creeping across my face at the most random times of the day.

This week has been all too unproductive, and quite hyper for me. Though I've had a lot to do, my mind is already on spring break. Luckily, I'm filling my spring break up with school, so perhaps it balances out in the end. I took my cancer epid midterm today and it was fine, I guess. We'll see. I talked to a classmate about it afterward and I felt pretty okay with it.

Sachi and I are currently sitting at Amer's on State Street working on our papers for lab that are due tomorrow evening. Then I have to get my cat to his kitty hotel, get my plants to Steve's, pack, hang out with a bunch of people, then leave! Lots to do!

My roommate is leaving for China tomorrow. She'll also be doing an internship there this summer, which is pretty exciting. I'll miss her though. Luckily, Steve, Krishna, and Josh will be around to keep me company all summer.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed about my internship. We should find out soon!!!

My mathematical mind can see the breaks / so I'm gonna stop riding the brakes

I am such a dork.

In my genetics assignment, we are to find LOD scores, and maximum likelihood estimates in one of the problems. We are to estimate the MLE by plugging in 5 values (chosen by the professor) and saying which gives us the maximum value. Well, this isn't enough for me.

At one time or another, I was fluent in the language of calculus. As most languages go, once you stop using them, you begin to forget important communication tools. But, I was determined to find the REAL maximum value by taking the derivative of this absolutely horribly ugly function, then setting it equal to 0 to find the maximum value. This took about 10-15 minutes, which was a horrible waste of time, but, darnit, I proved to myself that I can still do some mean calculus!

High five.

Take that and rewind it back

I rocked it. Yup. The impossibly hard Epid 601 midterm -- I took my air guitar and rocked that thing. Big, fat A.

Class average was 55%, up from last year's 40%. As previously mentioned, who knew that an open note, multiple choice test could be so difficult?

So, now: one down, three to go, a few homework assignments, prep for a group paper/presentation, and then I'm coming home in a couple of weeks.

And, as your sweet departure gift, I post a picture of me "breakdancing" at Gotham:

Got my toast and my tea and I'm warm and...

It's currently 36 degrees and raining, on February 9, 2008. What a strange winter, with all this rain... and 60 degree days in January. But, I didn't begin writing this to talk to you about how the weather belongs in April, or how we might just have green grass and roses tomorrow. There might be more important things to discuss, but perhaps not.

So, I had my first midterm of Winter Semester last week. When our teacher said it was to be an 11 multiple choice, 1 problem-solving test with 90 minutes for completion and open notes, I have to admit, I scoffed a little. Seriously? Open notes and only 11 multiple choice? Ha!

I could have used at least 10 more minutes. I had no idea that anyone could make a multiple choice test that difficult. Oh, Epid 601, you make me yearn for the days of Epid 600...

This week, I have a biostats exam, as well as a genetics midterm due (it's take-home). Being in that genetics class is all sorts of inspirational for me. I've considered trying to get into a genetic counseling program after I'm done with my MPH so I can combine epidemiology and genetic counseling, but, on the other hand, I feel that if I were going to do a few more years of school, it'd be more worth my while to just get a PhD. Thus, I'll probably just graduate and get a job.

My genetics professor is awesome. She's literally the coolest woman on Earth (aside from my mom). I kind of want to follow her around all day and have her teach me everything she knows. I'd even be willing to be her errand girl, just for a taste of her humorous, yet insightful, stories and anecdotes. I'll even watch all 4 seasons of Battlestar Galactica so I can relate to her a little better.

Speaking of genetics, I had an interview last Friday with a post-doc who is hoping to get some grants to go through and set up a lab to do epigenetics research this summer. Assuming he gets his money, I'm working with him this summer. He is also really awesome, and, assuming things work out, I'll actually have the chance to follow him around like a puppy and steal his knowledge. I can't wait. More on that in a few weeks when I know whether or not he's funded.

Completely unrelated to my education, my friends are pretty neat out here. Yesterday, Steve and I were looking for something to do, so we decided that we were going to make Indian food. Of course, I didn't get home from the hospital until 6:30, and he got home even later, so we didn't actually start cooking until around 8:30 or 9:00. By the way, if you're starving, don't make Indian food. Naan took us hours to make (yeast had to rise).

Marina and Andy came over to enjoy our company as we made daal and naan, and we watched The Simpsons Movie. Andy brought beer over, and Marina brought a bottle of wine. It's nice to have friends who can cook, because I am not very good at it.

Our daal resembled this. We put it over rice.

And our garlic naan looked like this:


Tonight, Sam's jazz musician friend is playing at the Firefly, so I think we're heading over there. We also may or may not go ice skating, though, with the heat wave, I bet the ice will be horrible!