School (or lack therof)

I finished my exams the 18th, and then spent some time sleeping in and doing decidedly not-school things. I think my favorite class this semester was nonlinear dynamics, followed very closely by organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is a new language to me, but one that I loved—there are so many puzzles to it, and I found it very satisfying to devise a synthesis. I think that was the first science class I’ve taken where we did no calculations at all! A novel experience, to be sure.

I’m looking forward to the spring semester, where I’m taking classes on probability theory, more organic chemistry, cell biology, and possibly linguistics (which is what I would have wanted to study if I had not been scooped up by Scott’s lab).

Research!

‘Tis the season for writing research proposals. I love the writing part almost as much as the doing part because here I get to dream—to think up crazy things that might never work and wrestle with them until we get something possibly-usable. I have a lot of fun with these, and I’m planning on enjoying this month as much as possible by throwing everything I’ve got at this.

And then I get to actually do the experiments! Joy!

Reading

I’m catching up a lot on my reading list! I finished Wind and Truth, which was amazing. When I first read The Rhythm of War, nearly 4 years ago, I made some predictions about the conclusion of the fifth book of the Stormlight Archive. I’m pleased with how well those predictions held up, though some of them came true in ways I did not expect. It was a thrilling read, and I liked the “Szeth and Kaladin have the worst road trip ever” aspect.

I also started reading On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, and it’s been interesting thus far. I like biochemistry, I like cooking, and this book combines the two to explain the weird things that happen inside of our food. I’m looking forward to finishing it and figuring out what’s going on with those souffles.

APIs, Web Development, and Automation

I learned what an API was approximately three weeks ago, which should be somewhat embarrassing, but really just reminds me that I was one of the lucky ten thousand. Once I knew a little about how they worked, I refined my book search shortcut and set it up in a way that wasn’t a horrific abomination of regex and html scraping. It’s one of three iOS shortcuts that I use on a daily basis, so I felt it was worth giving some love and attention.

I also turned my Paprika database into a recipe website for easy sharing with friends and family. I’m rather proud of how it turned out, given that I threw it together in about four days.

I’m thinking about learning to put together my own server now for self-hosting or toying with different useful tools. I have this list of little projects I want to work on to scratch my “make things” itch.