Academics

Choosing a Lab

I have not chosen a lab yet.

Most of the BMI first years have, but I'm in a pickle. It is a luxury, I know. All of the labs I have rotated are great, but I still don't feel right choosing one. An excerpt from my confusion lies below, in a gtalk chat with my friend David.

Tiffany: Dude
I DREAMED
about choosing a lab
IN A FOOD METAPHOR
David: ...
David: lol
that's hilarious
Tiffany: yeah no dude
i was like
tasting this dish and trying to decide which components were better
David: carrot or banana?
Tiffany: Hahahha
no it was like
an elaborate plate
and then i was done tasting and i realized i ate everything except some of the mashed potatoes
David: lol
Tiffany: and i had a preferred chef
David: leave the starch out of ur life
Tiffany: Hahahhaha
David: so, you've decided.. congrats
=)
Tiffany: no!
HAhahahhaa
i woke up more confused
lol
David: go with what the food told you
food never lies
Tiffany: because i can't remember which chef was which
and then i remember talking about the chefs and their pantries
ohhhh
but
hmmm
maybe
noooo
DAG NABBIT
I DON'T KNOW WHICH CHEF I PICKED

SIGCSE 2008

DR. RODGER IS AWESOME!

She did a great job this year. I will elaborate more about this soon, since I am working on a lot of stuff right now, but the computer science education conference was excellent.

I am in Portland right now, and yesterday we helped run a session on peer led team learning. Here are some of the leaders:

The picture is a bit large--I'll edit it shortly and put up others.

I crashed the volunteer dinner yesterday--i have some amazing pictures from the games we played--they're spectacularly nerdy but awesome at the same time. Stay tuned. One was angels and devils. If you want to see the pictures, those who know me can check facebook.

But YAYYYY I got to see Joanna!
Saw Professors Astrachan, Forbes, and Duvall as well...it was great! I finally got a copy of the CS unplugged book. There are some really interesting things on their website, if people are interested.

I even got to see Dave, Dan, and Daniel, and all the other great students from Duke/Other schools. I will give more details in a bit. However, SIGCSE is a great opportunity to meet more people interested in teaching and who really get the foundations of what we want to teach in computer science.

Tonight I saw Danny, one of my awesome amazing spectacular friends from college today, and we went on a food spree with her best friend Joel. And when I mean food spree...anyways. I'll put up photos.

More to come in a bit...

Learning a new language

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Okay so apparently in RMySQL you have a difference between SendQuery and GetQuery, such that you have to do something after you do SendQuery.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but I have wasted many hours on this.

I need to put up pictures from the retreat. In all of my laziness, I have yet to do this.

The quarter is quickly coming to a screeching halt, and I feel like there's not enough to do everything that I want to do.

Next week there's Atul's Translational Bioinformatics SUMMIT, which will be held in SF.

Unfortunately I'm not going...too many meetings that would have to be canceled, etc. Plus we have an exam on Wednesdsay in his class. Tuesday is the BMI 211 presentation, and then I have to leave on Thursday for SIGCSE 2008 in Portland, which Dr. Rodger (of Duke awesomeness) is in charge of this year.

I'm so excited!

Not only do I get to see Joanna, and Dr. Rodger, but all of my old computer science processors and my friend Danny, who is currently living in the area.

I'll have to figure out how to get research done during this time as well...

Oh well, one day at a time, right?

Man, I miss dancing.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Ah yes, once again I have managed to say something rather dumb and not realized it until later...

I didn't even realize the humor of my words until during dinner when Noah pointed out what I said...and David just cracked up at it...

Walking back from lunch, we were about 5-10 minutes late to Marina's talk today. One of the professors briskly walked by, and remarked: "You guys are late to Marina's talk."

Immediately the first thing that popped out of my mouth was

"Well, so are you."

Now looking back at it, I think it's still kind of amusing, however I realize that I have this tendency to be frank with everyone, regardless of status.

Ah, Mr. Peters of Centerville High School yore, I remember one day when he looked at me and asked my opinion of two poems, and I gave a quick reply. His eyes widened as he remarked:

"WHAT? What is this?! Tiffany has...an OPINION?"

My reply:

"Shut up."

As if they could not get any bigger, his eyes widened more as he scanned through the class and remarked, "did you just hear that?"

Hopefully more people are amused than taken aback by my comments...

Sometimes my social ineptness amuses even me.

Retreat

I will post something more informative in the near future, but in short.

We are at asilomar for the BMI retreat.

It is 3:35 in the a.m.

We just came back from Denny's.

It was good times.

Everyone should apply to BMI.

just a little thing...for mysql

If you are like me, you are probably a control+c addict when it comes to copy/pasting all the time.

or compulsive ctrl-s.

Don't ever do control-c in MySql--it will crash it.

This is the lesson for today.

Thank goodness I didn't have anything important on there.

I need to do some self-training to wean myself off of control+s, though...

Final Exams

Wednesday Night.

BMI210 exam.

32 pages.

It was long.

But now I am done.

I don't have my voice software on, so I'll make this short (plus I still hurt from PT this morning). It's kind of weird--since i've started trying to fix myself, I've been getting these headaches from all the tension in my neck. it's strange how pathetically weak and inflexible i am these days.

Starting to read through research things (haven't looked at these in about a week or so)...rediscovering why I find this stuff interesting, which is especially good. :D

Short entries

I have decided to post short entries more often, as I used to do with my old blog. The quality may lessen, but it will be a more realistic perspective, at least...

What type of course do you enjoy? Small? Large? Powerpoint? Chalk talk?

Here is my evaluation of the tradeoffs...specifically, a mini rant about how I don't understand one thing in particular.

Here at Stanford, many courses are videotaped.

This, of course, is great for studying for exams, because we can review exactly what the professor said and what happened during class. The drawback is that missing a class becomes relatively trivial to most students.

When I was an undergrad I attended many workshops about how to teach--Dr. Rodger gave us the chance to learn about PLTL (peer lead team learning) and how to work with students. Looking back, and thinking about the professors from whom I have learned the most, only two or three of them (okay, about half) used slides. These professors who did use slides, tended to either (a) be very animated and use them very loosely, or (b) gave us information that was separate from the slides--the slides were merely a loose guideline.

I have come to this conclusion.

I don't like slides.

Everybody here uses them.

Oh and when you use a laser pointer, please circle what you are highlighting instead of jumping around. i like that. that's a personal preference.

I think slides are good sometimes, but I would rather a professor give a chalk talk.

I am sure that many other students here love the slides, and learn well from them. Heck, I KNOW that most students use slides and are glad to have them printed out.

Slides drive me NUTS.

Thinking back, I wonder if my old high school or middle school has changed to using slides. Perhaps this is a new standard of learning, and i'm used to the slower, more procedural sense of things.

I have to say it, now ... of course watch me be a hypocrite and always use slides...i will now try my very best to write out a chalk talk first, before creating any slide. Or do both.

Slides. Please just derive it on the board...or something...or explain it to me and then show me what you mean. I see the slide and all the words just mix together and then i zone out. I should just close my eyes and listen.

I'm guilty of it as well...i don't know how to stop this cycle.

What is it about seeing projected text that makes me wants to stop thinking?