It seems like I don't got a break again and I'm waay behind again.
I'd expected it to be a little easier this summer, more time to do fun stuff like read fiction and study for GRE. But noooo.....I'm already behind in reading papers and writing assignments and programming projects. It's sad. Plus I still have to learn Microsoft Active Server Pages in less than two weeks. EEEEEEEK!!

very catchy song:

Junior Senior - Move Your Feet

Don't stop, don't stop the feet
Won't stop, won't stop the beat
And go

Refrain
Everybody,
Move you're feet,
And feel united ohohoh (x2)

Yeah, got the dance energy, oh yeah (x4)

Don't stop the beat
I can't control the feet
People in the streets
Com'on everybody, move you're feet
Don't stop, (don't stop) don't stop, the beat
I can't stop, (can't stop) can't stop the beat
I won't stop, won't stop (won't stop) the beat
And go

Refrain

Yeah, got the dance energy, oh yeah (x3)

Sing my song and
You sing along, just
Put my record on
And all of you're troubles are dead and gone

Don't stop, (don't stop) don't stop, the beat
I can't stop, (can't stop) can't stop the beat
I won't stop, (won't stop) won't stop the beat
And go

Refrain

Yeah,
Oh yeah (x3)

Don't stop, (don't stop) don't stop, the beat
I can't stop, (can't stop) can't stop the beat
I won't stop, (won't stop) won't stop the beat
And go

Refrain (x3)

Yeah

I miss UCLA already.

go cynthie!! i just found your paper on pubmed =)
haven't read it yet, but looks cool

Guess what I got in the mail today.

hoooheee....I'll be visiting City of Hope tomorra!
I'm liking my internship very much. The other interns are friendly and I'm really surprised to find how well UCLA has prepared me for this. Everything is almost a breeze!! =)
I'm hoping that picking City of Hope will turn out better than if I had gone to BioDiscovery. Things always work out unexpectedly and I hope this is one of those times. I had so badly wanted to work for BioDiscovery for the past quarter. But I can't due to transportation limitations aka I have no car. boo!
Anyhoo, I'll still looking forward to it, it's got the two things I likey: microarrays and cancer research.
I also have a partner, I hope he doesn't mind driving me to City of Hope tomorrow and every Friday from now on. He seems nice....graduated UCLA with a masters in Biostatistics. It's less intimidating with other people.

I miss UCLA already! Hahahha, I wish I could get paid as much as I'm getting paid now to work in the Nelson Lab.

When you finally accept that you're a complete dork, your life gets easier. No sense in trying to be cool.
~Reese Witherspoon

My First Day of Internship

I got there reaaally early, like at 8am when it's supposed to start at 9am, we thought the traffic would be bad, twasn't if you go on the car pool lane, zippity doo dah!
We met in the Engineering and Technology building in a computer lab. I met some people, blah blah blah... met the four principal professors of the program. Discussed the goals of the program, which research site to choose, getting professional advisement. Wendie Johnston, the professional advisor, kept talking about preparing for presentations by talking to yourself in front of a movie like 15-20 times. oooh boy....
Then we took a leeettle tour of Cal State L.A., all of us disappointed to hear that the really cool new Food Court wouldn't be open until another three weeks, which is when we won't be at CalState LA that often. I then ate lunch by myself, sort of ditched the other interns, or maybe they all ditched me.... Anyways, then there was a choice on whether to do the bio workshop or the computer workshop. I chose the computer one, I can always refresh bio with a book anyday.
However the computer one was a bore, the professor started to teach us about the very very very basics of C++, like variables, arrays, for loops, while loops,...yaaaawwn.. I seriously almost fell asleep or did I???? Afraid to find out if I did or not.
Then we had to write our own program in C++, finished that in 15 min. or less, easy breezy. Some people still took a while though. I guess I'm not the least qualified person there. It's all good. Hopefully, I'll be able to tackle anything they give me.

My laptop is coming soon, and only today did I find out that I don't need a laptop there. Oh wells!! =) I'm still keeping my laptop, still got to name the sucker. How about Solange?

all my finals and projects done, never thought i'd actually finish everything, but here i am....
still so much stuff to do, it never ends

still can't believe the quarter went by that fast!!!!

all in all, i worked very hard this quarter, but my grades probably won't show it

my stats 100C was terrific, as i knew it would be, if you think about it, that class cost me a graduation this year, that's how important i deem the class to be,
if i didn't take 100C, i'd have finished my cybernetics major and graduated with the rest of the seniors

that don't matter though, while i feel left out with all this talk about graduation, i get to stay at ucla some more while the graduated seniors will miss ucla, well, some people, not all, yes, i love it here and if i end up going to another school for graduate studies, i'll be even more glad i decided to stick around for another full year =)

this sucks, as you know, i've lost all my previous blogs!!! what up wif dat???
my paper journal is more dependable than this...

hella long day tomorrow

So, as expected, highly difficult statistics final today from 3 to 6:30pm.

One thing to ponder however:
On Tuesday I went to office hours and I asked him about whether such and such method could also be used to prove this. I sort of knew it was true but I needed confirmation, but the professor looked at my notes for awhile before he said yes it works and then elaborated a little more on it.
Then I saw IT on the final!!! Exactly what I had asked about and what he hesitated just a little on.
So the million dollar A+ question is:

Did he go "Ooh, Frances has a good point, I should put this on the final!" or was the final already written before I had gone to office hours?
Hmm....if it was on the final already, he wouldn't have to hesitate in thinking about it.
If he changed the final because of me, that'd be soooooo cool! He'd be giving me freebie points because I was the one who brought up the problem in the first place.

Whoohoo.....I'm good! =) hehehe....

Thinking of getting laptop soon...Dell Inspiron 8500. It looks pretty! Even if I order it tomorrow, still won't get it in time for start of internship.
Anyhoo, need to make sure I want this one, otherwise, I'm stuck paying a whole lotta money for something I don't like.

I went to BestBuy today to find Clay's cd, no such luck. Didn't bother asking salesperson because I've looked at their online site. If bestbuy.com don't got it, why should the stores? Still kind of weird though, they have tons of Metallica's new cd for 10 bucks but not Clay's. Anyways, so I went to Borders and it was only $3.49. Whooohoo, I was expecting 5 bucks.
Yeah, I only like the second song.

one final down, one more to go and one darn project not done yet

scared about that project, wish it was over with, but it's not, don't even know what i'm supposed to do, complicated stuff

Japan’s chilling Internet suicide pacts

very sad...

ooh yeah, hilary is cool, this makes me a little more excited now, because i was sort of slipping on the appeal part of bionformatics, seemed like no one cared anymore...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bio-IT World:
link to report

(06/06/03)—Despite the media barrage surrounding her new book, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton made a brief appearance in Buffalo on Friday, June 6, to praise the University of Buffalo (UB)’s ambitious Bioinformatics Center of Excellence initiative.

The Democratic senator for New York was receiving an award for helping “ignite” the process that has generated almost $300 million in potential funding for the new center. U.S. Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, received the same award.

One after another, speakers noted that the project has united a key Republican and Democrat, as well as many members of the community and local government. “Anything that could bring together a kid from Springfield [New York] and a former First Lady is bound to succeed,” said Reynolds.

“It has taken a lot of work to make the case to fund bioinformatics,” Clinton said. “When we started, the response was, ‘What’s that?’ ” Despite this, Clinton and Reynolds have helped to earmark more than $9 million in federal funding for the project.

Jeffrey Skolnick directs the Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics. Norma J. Nowak recently joined as director of scientific planning, and more faculty are being recruited. The center aims to become a world leader in bioinformatics by merging supercomputing, genomics, bioimaging, and other disciplines.

While its supporters hope the center will play a big role in revitalizing the region’s economy, this initiative also targets some of the foremost problems faced in converting knowledge from the human genome into better, new medicines and diagnostic tests.

“For me, this is not just about what this will bring to the university and surrounding area,” Clinton said. “This will create new technologies that will improve healthcare.”

The two “Igniting Ideas” awards were presented at UB’s Business Partners Day 2003, which was held in conjunction with the first annual UB Frontiers in Bioinformatics Symposium.

I'm just so happy right now.....
Professor Christou is the nicest professor I've ever met. Today was our last day of lecture and instead of lecturing, he thanked us for being such a great class and then brought in a pizza delivery guy with like 10 huge pizzas from BJs. It was just so nice being there, a little end of the quarter class party, so incredible compared to other professors who go over the class time lecturing to us on boring new material.
A guy in my class borrowed my notes, so I stayed in the class room until he brought it back. This guy and girl made a bet on whether Professor Christou was married or not. He's not, as I guessed already. These other girls invited him to a BBQ next Saturday. It'd be really nice to hang out with him outside of class, but I don't see how that's possible.
After I helped him bring leftover stuff back to his office with other people, I got to hug him and then I left.
I was thinking about bringing my camera to class today, but didn't, thinking that there would be no opportunity to do so during lecture. Damn, I really wish I did, it'd been perfect time. That's okay, I've already waited over a year and a half to get a picture with him and it's not like he's leaving anytime soon, I'll try again sometime. Yeah, I still have to harass him later about helping me get into statistics graduate school with a letter of rec. =)
Gosh, it's so cool to know someone like him.

From CNN:

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Doctors who fight cancer want a stiff new tax on tobacco and tougher laws against secondhand smoke in public places as part of a strategy to save the 1 billion people expected to die this century because of smoking.

I think smoking is the one of the dumbest things a person can do. I know it can be very addicting, but why start in the first place? And if you think that ignorant people or people under peer pressure are the ones smoking, think again. The people who very much know how bad smoking is are smoking too. I seriously don't understand. Take my boss for example. He is one of the most intelligent guys I know, really, this guy got over 1350 on the SATs after only being in the U.S. and learning English for 9 months. I heard he did extremely well on the MCAT. He teaches me so much everyday, most of the stuff is common sense, but some people don't have even that. Yet, he goes outside of Gonda to have a cigarette break at least twice a day. It just baffles me, we do cancer research in this lab! We analyze survival curves all the time, does he not see the people who are dying? He is not the only person in the lab who smokes; by my count, it's at least one third or more who sometimes meet my boss outside for a smoke. They do it so nonchalantly like they have no idea that each one takes away 10 minutes of the lives and leaves their health so much for the worse. I can't explain it.
Smoking: 1,000,000,000 Humans: 0

Central Park