quick-hits
February 15th, 2007 by Lawrence David
quick-hitting post, since my flight leaves in 5 hours and i’ve yet to pack a single article of clothing.
classes: wonderful, unfortunately. had hoped by now i’d be sick of school, which would expedite process of entering real world + earning real paycheck. instead, i love my class on inference & information: i miss seeing math that isn’t some ODE describing protein synthesis rates. instead, i see real math: probability. in only 3 classes, i’ve already learned how to derive computational tools i’ve taken for granted for years, such as the likelihood ratio test and the ROC curve. yes, i was turned on by the end of last lecture.  my other class, chris marx’s microbial evolution class over at the big H, i’ll celebrate similarly.  in only 2 weeks of lecture, i feel like my understanding of evolution has grown exponentially. i’m much less embarrassed now to say i’m getting a phd in biology stuff.
biking: freezing rain, sleet, and hail all enjoyed a menage-a-trois on my pants and socks today as i biked to and from harvard. Â as much as it sucked, will make the following 3 weeks all the sweeter [see below].
valentine’s day: nothing says romance like the movie christina picked out for renting this evening. “centipede!“ think romeo + juliet, where romeo = awesomely bad screenplay and juliet = 20-foot rubber centipede in a south-asian cave.
tomorrow: hopping on plane to philippines to wish my grandfather a happy 90th birthday. am elated for so many reasons: seeing side of family for first time in 8 years; getting to visit remote island away from cities; tagalog has no words for sleet, freezing rain, or hail. if anyone wants me to bring home filipino non-perishables, let me know. i’ve already got some people down for filipino broccoli [dog-meat jerky].