Spring semester The spring semester has begun.

Back to being a full-time student. Currently taking classes on:

• Thermodynamics. This was supposed to be a chemistry class, but oops I got all physics again.
• Differential equations and multivariable calculus. I was promised we would do some calculations this semester.
• African-American writers throughout history. Very excited for this one! We’re reading a lot of interesting books.
• Bugs Insects! I ate crickets for the first time. I’m also learning the different classes and orders, which is a fun lesson in taxonomy.

Back at it again in the lab

The lab’s first paper is published in Cell! It’s really cool work, and I’m thankful to have been a part of this team. There’s also a supplemental movies playlist that is absolutely worth checking out. Very visually striking! UW—Madison’s Research in Brief also discusses the lab’s work.

Current experiments in the lab are promising as well. 78 things left to test in this batch of microscope work.

Learning to write research proposals. I want to come out of this with a clear goal for this year, as well as some long-term directions to go in.

Learning python

Learning to use python for data science. Working with Anaconda and jupyter notebooks, since that allows me to save outputs and mess around with small parts of the code. Also learning to handle machine learning and modeling via scikit-learn.

The D&D group lives

Some of my friends and I put together a D&D game this semester. We commandeer the classroom in the dorm basement once a week and run through shenanigans. We’re using a a house-ruled version of 24XX for this, and I’m very pleased with how everyone’s adapting to a rules-lite game. I’m learning a lot on my end about improv and how to set expectations at the table.

Reading I’m still reading lots of books.

The shelf has new additions. I’m on a nonfiction bender right now, since there’s some stuff I want to read on information theory and systems (and maybe systems biology).