Starting new things in lab

Having been in the research lab for more than a semester now, I'm now easily able to handle the straightforward techniques I've learned so far. I'll soon be learning how to do more complicated and delicate experiments involving tissue culture. The safety training seminar is next week, then I can get started.

Assignment almost ready

The CS assignment I'm helping write will be released to students in three days! Last night I finished up the Javadoc documentation and tweaked the writeup a bit. Barring any adjustments to the writeup, my part of the project is done. The UI frontend (to help the students test their code) is being finished up by the other developer.

Partially registered

General registration opened for me this morning. As expected, I got a seat in all the non-CS classes in my plan. Surprisingly, I also successfully registered for one of the two CS classes! Registration for the other should open up near the end of next month.

Done documenting for now

Tonight I finished hammering out the documentation/writeup for the CS assignment I'm writing. It's a rather long document, but much of it is for the optional extra credit part. I've asked some of the other course staff to try solving it so that we can anticipate commonly asked questions before the assignment is released to students on Friday.

Still documenting

Last night I continued working on the documentation for the CS assignment I'm writing. It'll be released to students in 6 days! I've produced and embedded a bunch of helpful diagrams to illustrate the correct behavior of students' code. I just have three more subsections to write tomorrow, but they're all probably going to be diagram-heavy.

Schedule sketched out

After seeing academic advisors yesterday, I put together a possible schedule for next semester. If I can get into the CS classes I'm hoping for, I'll have to get up really early for an 8 AM class every Monday/Wednesday/Friday, but other than that the schedule is nice.

I get to register on Monday for all non-CS classes. That's pretty early, so I'll definitely get seats in those. The restriction schedule for the CS classes isn't out yet, but it'll probably be at least a month away.

Seeing advisors

This morning I got up early to go see a biology advisor and figure out what classes I should be taking next semester. I'll continue in the MCB core sequence, of course, and probably take a 300-level MCB course to get started on the advanced hours requirement. I had hoped to take the second organic chemistry class over the next summer session, but it's only offered in-person then and isn't strictly required for MCB anyway, so I'll put that aside for now.

I then walked across campus to the CS advising center. Information on enrollment restrictions isn't finalized yet, but I'm hoping to get into the next two CS classes next semester as well. More excitingly, this is the semester that I can apply for admission to the College of Engineering and the CS major. I have quite a while to actually fill out the portfolio - it won't be evaluated until grades are in for this semester.

Writing documentation

Tonight I sat down to seriously start on the documentation/writeup for the CS assignment I'm writing. I wrote a section suggesting a couple built-in data structures Java has that will be helpful, then I wrote much of the problem description. I still have a few cases to cover, then I need to make the illustrations, then I need to write a section about using the debugger. The other course developer and I will be meeting with the professor tomorrow morning to discuss our progress.

Holding office hours

Originally I intended to spend this afternoon working on the documentation for the CS assignment I'm preparing, but I saw on the course forum that a lot of people were having IDE setup problems, so I decided to stop by office hours after lunch to help out. I ended up staying there for five hours troubleshooting issues and answering normal questions about the currently active assignment. It was fun, but exhausting, and now I still need to write documentation.

Now to document

A few days ago I finished up (for now at least) the test cases for the autograder of the CS class assignment I'm writing. It's going to be released to students in two weeks, which is a while but also really close because there's a lot to check over for a brand new assignment. My goal for this weekend is to write the documentation so that students (and the people who will test solving the assignment) will actually know what to do.

Lab work going well

Today we got sequencing results back that confirm I've completed the little project I'd been working on for the past month. Plasmids extracted from the cell cultures do indeed contains the desired sequence.

MCB exam tomorrow

Tomorrow evening is the second exam for MCB 250. Interestingly, the course splits after this point - a new lecturer will take over the course starting Friday.

Cool weather at last

Last week had very inconsistent weather - hot at the start, snow on Friday, and moderate cool this weekend. Now the forecast looks consistently cool, which is nice.

Weekends are packed

Since I'm in class, lab, or a meeting pretty much constantly throughout the weekday, work tends to pile up for the weekend. Today I just handled work that's due on Monday, pausing in the afternoon to go take a CS exam in the computer-based testing facility. There's still plenty left to do tomorrow, mostly another MCB lab paper for Monday and chemistry lab preparations for Tuesday.

New data analysis for the lab

Earlier today I met with another researcher (not my supervisor) in the lab to discuss a possible project. My part will mostly consist of data management and querying that seems pretty straightforward so far.

Nearly finished writing test cases

Tonight I wrote yet more test cases for the auto-grader of the CS assignment I'm writing. All but one section is now finished. In the process I found another tiny bug in my reference solution which is now fixed. I think the assignment itself will be done very soon, with almost three weeks to spare before it's released to students.

Troubleshooting in the lab

Last week, my lab supervisor returned from his conference and we figured out why the procedures I did the previous week didn't work. We've corrected the problem and I re-did part of the process last week. I'll pick up again tomorrow.

Intermittent sidewalks

Yesterday afternoon I went walking east again to visit some more bus stops. My usual strategy is to go straight out to a region I haven't visited, then follow a loop back, picking up all the stops along the way. This time my loop took me through a small, quiet residential region without sidewalks in the middle of a system of more navigable roads. Eventually I ended up near Lincoln Square again, at which point I decided to end my trip and take a bus back to the dorm. I've now visited 13.1% of all the stops.

Nearly finished the reference solution

Tonight I continued working on writing the CS assignment that will be deployed to students in a few weeks. I mostly focused on writing more test cases to exercise student code on difficult cases, fixing up the reference solution in the process. The reference solution may be finished now, but it's possible that it has more tiny bugs that will be uncovered as I continue to write tests. Once that's done, I "just" need to write the documentation/instructions/writeup.

Still walking

Earlier tonight I continued my quest to visit all the bus stops in the town by foot. On this trip, I started going east toward the residential area, but following a trail of stops led me to Lincoln Square, a hub for bus travel, parking, and shopping. The difference between sidewalks on campus vs. residential parts of town (real brick roads!) vs. business areas is very striking, and they're all within walking distance of each other. Tonight I passed the 10% mark, having now visited 125 of the 1108 stops.

Further progress on the assignment

Tonight I continued working on the reference solution for the CS assignment I'm developing. Even the much-simplified version (relative to my original idea) that I'm now going with is turning out to be fairly tough. I'll probably need to finagle the test case organization and grade cutoffs such that the vast majority of points can be earned without hitting the really interesting cases.

Running out of sidewalk

Continuing my goal of reaching every bus stop in the town by foot, I went exploring a bit south of campus a few days ago. Even near big installations like the sports stadiums, I found a lack of sidewalks. That wasn't too much of a problem in this instance since there were parking lots to safely wander through, but it could become an issue farther away from the population-dense region.

Chemistry lab wasn't all that bad

Today was the first true organic chemistry lab session. Interestingly, the lab itself took just about as long as preparing the notebook for it yesterday. It was about using thin-layer chromatography to characterize and identify compounds. It went pretty smoothly and finished in half the allotted time, which was a relief.

Turns out "wet" chemistry labs are a lot of work

Tomorrow is the first "wet" (i.e. using an actual lab instead of doing worksheets) organic chemistry lab session. These sessions require copying the entire procedure by hand from an eBook into a physical lab notebook for use in the lab. This turns out to be quite an ordeal, since the procedure is extensive and there are some other sections to prepare too. On the plus side, this first lab probably won't require the full four-hour period allocated for the class.