Women win Hack Day.....so?

All Female Team wins Yahoo! Hack Day Overall Prize

I congratulate the winners for a job well done, and I am rather amused by the project they did. However, it makes me sad that such a big deal is made about the fact that it was a group of women. Yes, it's awesome that a group of women won since there are so few of us in technology. But it shouldn't be surprising or unexpected that a woman could do better than a man! The probability of them winning is not based on the ratio of women teams to men teams...

I do think that advertising their win and the competition is a positive thing though, because hopefully girls who have the misconception that they are inherently not as good as the boys will note that maybe they are.

I guess my main question is why the title of the entry was not something more like "First place team hacks purse."

Article Review

I think I'm going to turn this blog into a review of articles, which is basically what I had in mind originally anyway. I have at least 5 articles that I've bookmarked for comment over the summer, and I hope to soon get to those. I'm hoping to have at least 1 per week that I want to write about. If that happens, this blog will be active again soon!

Although I did not go to Switzerland to present my work, a colleague of mine went and stood by my poster to answer basic questions I prepped him for. My work was deemed interesting by a few different people, but unfortunately I do not know who they were so I can't follow up. I think that is a good start to grad school anyway though, and I have other papers being reviewed right now at a conference and a journal. Publish or perish!

Academia: Disillusionment

Academia is an odd animal, at least for Computer Science. To succeed as a graduate student it is known that you must have plenty of publications and do plenty of networking. To network you must attend conferences that your work is accepted at, and go to many talks that you can. All of these requirements are quite reasonable and easy to understand; if it doesn't sound interesting, then academia is not where you should be.

However, the odd part comes with the money. It is hard to get funding for travel, both from your own university and from the conference itself. For an example, I will not be going to my conference in Switzerland because the conference would only waive my registration fee and the department could only give me enough money to cover less than 1/2 of the cheapest plane ticket I could fine. The university may have been able to give me more, but their deadline for applying was before the acceptance date at the conference and required proof of acceptance. However I don't know the probability of getting university funding; it may be slim, or may be high. Of course, if it works the same as with the department where the student must pay up front and then be reimbursed it almost doesn't matter; I do not have the ability to buy a $1200 plane ticket, even with credit cards.

So I am disillusioned at the requirements coupled with reality. We are expected to do things that are near impossible. We certainly cannot afford most conference trips on our student salary, but yet it is difficult to find funding. How ironic that one of the most important things is so far from our grasp. I even know of someone whose advisor has good funding (mine currently does not), but her advisor would not (or could not?) fund her for a good conference her paper was accepted at. What a lost opportunity.

Overall, we are better off than non-science graduate students as we have almost-guaranteed salary funding, but we still have a long way to go before overall funding is realistic. The other part of academia that disillusions me is the fact that I'm being paid less this summer than I pay in rent; but that's an issue I'll have to strike up later, probably when I start wondering why I went to grad school right out of college instead of taking a few years to save up some money.

Switzerland, here I come!

About a month ago I found out that my abstract was accepted to the AI 50th Summit in Switzerland this summer, to be presented as a poster. Although being accepted is great news, I've been worried about the large cost of going there, as my advisor doesn't have money to send us (another person in my lab also had an abstract accepted). I did, however, just get some funding from the department, and am hoping to get one of the student travel grants from the conference to pay for the registration fee and a few meals. The department funding is enough to pay for half of a plane ticket if I can't find cheaper plane tickets than I've found so far. Therefore, I'm optimistic that we will find a way for it to work out!

Although I've had a paper accepted at a conference before, this conference will be the first one I go to. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to meet people in the AI field, as well as to learn about their research. I'm hoping that either my advisor or the other person in my lab will also go, as I've also never traveled to Europe before, so having a big trip to my first conference all on my own will be a bit daunting. I can do it, but I would enjoy it more if I had someone else traveling with me that knew what was going on.

I'm very excited about the trip, and I hope that it all works out. This summer is going to be filled with a lot of short trips, so hopefully I will be able to do everything else I want to do. Since this trip will be my first trip to Europe, I hope that it goes well and that I have time to sightsee in Switzerland while I'm there!

Cancer Stem Cells

Event: Robert Weinberg
Date: Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Time: 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM

This talk was on cancer stem cells, a topic very pertinent to my research. The beginning of the talk was on basic cancer information, which made it very obvious that it was occurring at an undergraduate venue (Amherst College). He did reaffirm a few numbers for me though, such that a cell can only split a max of about 50 times and that that probability for mutation is very low (at most 1 in 1x10^6 according to him).

The later part of the talk was actually on stem cells, and was interesting after we got past the description of what the different types were (stem, progenitor, differentiated). Apparently it is possible to separate stem and non-stem cells from a group by the proteins they each have on their surface. The stem cell will have a different type from the other ones. So, you can bind a die to an antigen that will bond with only the stem cell protein, and then bind dies to antigens that bond with the other cells' proteins, and use light refraction to see the different colors and separate them out. That is very interesting for both cancer and regular medical/biological research.

Also interesting was a discussion on whether or not tumors are organized hierarchically like regular cells are. In regular sets of cells, we have stem cells that are a sort of "super parent" in the fact that they can create any type of cell (most people would know this just from the regular news). These cells can create progenitor cells (he called them "transit-amplifying cells" and I like to call them "blast cells") that are capable of differentiating into a specific type of cell. The children of blast cells eventually become differentiated cells, which are basically a mature cell that will not change its function during its lifetime. Blast cells can also create more blast cells, and when stem cells split they create a new copy of themselves (so that there is one blast cells and one stem cell). Originally it was assumed that tumors were only made of mature cells, and that stem cells did not exist in a tumor as stem cells are less likely to mutate. There was speculation that a tumor cell might incur a change that turned it into a tumor stem cell, however.

So, at this talk he described a study showing that tumor stem cells did indeed exist. A group apparently split apart tumor cells the same way that regular cells were split apart, using antigens. Tumor initiating cells appear to be a small minority, which is a property of stem cells. This makes sense, as other cells would be unable to split enough times to form a proper tumor, although personally I'm not sure that limit would still be in place in a tumor cell. When an experiment was done with the separated cells, however, it was found that the cells they thought were stem cells could create a tumor in a mouse if only 200 of them were implanted whereas 20,000 of the others failed to form a tumor when implanted. Usually researchers implant 100,000's of cells to get a tumor growing, so it is interesting that only 200 of a specific type would be necessary. This experiment is why many agree that tumors do have stem cells.

One implication from the existence and ability of tumor stem cells involves metastasis, which is when a tumor migrates to another part of the body or tissue to become cancer. If only tumor stem cells are capable of growing a tumor, would only tumor stem cells be involved in metastasis? If so, could we stop metastasis by killing the stem cells?

There are still many things that are not known though. For instance, no one is sure if regular stem cells are likely to become tumor stem cells. Since stem cells don't replicate often and the majority of mutations are going to occur due to replication (or at least be spread by it), it seems unlikely. Most people currently assume that progenitor cells are the ones that become tumor stem cells, as they are only slightly different from stem cells to begin with.

There are treatments out there (he named "Gleevac") that can kill off all of the tumor except the stem cells. So once you stop with the treatment, the tumor is just replenished from the stem cells. Companies would like to make a treatment to kill the tumor stem cells, but no one can figure out how to do that without killing the healthy stem cells as well (which would probably kill you in the end, as the body is constantly killing and replenishing cells). The reason the current treatment doesn't work is that it ruins a cell's DNA, and cells that split frequently end up dying because they can't fix their genes in time to split. However, stem cells don't replicate frequently, so they are able to repair the damage before splitting.

So if we can research tumors in a similar way to regular cell growths, and figure out how to get rid of those stem cells, we've cured cancer! Which of course is easier said than done.

Global Climate Crisis

I saw Al Gore give a talk at Google on Friday, April 7th, and even got to shake his hand afterwards. It was a great talk about the state of the climate changes and global warming. I was incredibly impressed with the fact that his talk concentrated on the facts, and was not political. There were of course political jokes here and there, and slight pokes at the current administration, but I do not feel that they detracted from the point he was trying to get across. The Q&A session afterwards had more of a political agenda due to the questions that were asked, but overall I think it was very well done.

Below is a summary of what he talked about, including quick facts. All of this information will be in the movie coming out this year entitled An Inconvenient Truth, which I recommend seeing and plan to see myself.

• He calls it the "climate crisis" because "global warming" doesn't truly encompass the issues, and makes it sound less like a local problem
  
• The word "crisis" is written as a combination of 2 characters in Chinese, one for "danger" and one for "opportunity" -- this tidbit of information is a good summary of the talk
  
• There are a lot of global places that are showing signs of global warming: Mt. Kilamanjaro is out of glaciers, and Glacier National Park is out of glaciers, for 2 examples.
  
• You can compare the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by checking the amount in glaciers (they save the gas in pockets of air) and comparing it to numbers taken over the past 40-some years. The amount of CO2 has never gone over 300 ppmv (parts per million), but is now at 400 ppmv. 45 more years of following the same increase trend as the past 40 (there was a graph) would be catastrophic due to the large amout that would then be in the air. We are talking exponential growth here.
  
• The actual temperature of the ocean is higher than predicted by an actual computer monitor taking only natural causes in to account. A computer model that predicted the increase based on human interference from 30 years ago has accurately predicted the temperature up until now. That model shows it to continue to increase at a rate that will probably kill off most of the sea life in our lifetimes.
  
• In March 2004, Brazil had the first typhoon in South America; a very big sign of changing global climates and ocean temperature.
  
• We are having more flooding and more drought: the heavy rains cause flooding, but due to the rains all coming down at once the aquifers do not have time to refill, causing drought in the non-rain time.
  
• Glaciers:
  
  • We have lost 40% of the thickness of hte arctic glaciers
    
  • There is currently a higher temperature increase at the north pole than at the equator. If these glaciers melt, the ocean will be warmed a great deal because these glaciers currently reflect a majority of sunshine in the winter months. If this warming occurs, the therma-haline pump between Canada and Europe could stop working, which currently helps control the ocean temperature and warms Europe. Europe could be thrust in to an ice age if this happens, with high consequences to the rest of the planet as well.
    
  • Larsen Ice Shelf in Antartica disappeared. It is just completely gone, this huge piece of ice. The small melting areas tunneled to the bottom of the glacier, heating the water and causing the land based ice to fall.
    
  • Land based ice melting causes the ocean height to rise, because that water was not part of the ocean previously. Water based ice melting does not cause the ocean height to rise, because it was part of the ocean to begin with.
    
  • Greenland melting (which it has already begun to do visibly) will raise sea levels worldwide by 20 feet, as all of those glaciers are currently land based. Currently 50 cubed miles are lost a year from the Greenland glacier. If this melting is not stopped, all of the Netherlands (not to mention most of Florida and many other regions) will be entirely under water in our lifetime.
    
• Due to this warming, there is less frost on the ground during winter, and therefore invasive speacies come sooner. This is causing devastation to whole forests and other natural habitats.
  
• Coral has died in the Caribbean because of warming ocean temperatures.
  
• There will be more infectious diseases and mosquitos due to this warming, as they will be able to survive easier.
  

The year to fear is 2050...yes, if things keep going as they are, we will have a flooded and possibly uninhabitable planet by that time.

If you take nothing out of these bullet points, there are 2 things I want you to remember. First, 53% of the news puts global warming in doubt, whereas 0% of actual scientists doubt it. Big oil companies and others are literally paying people to act as specialists and claim that global warming is fake. Two, we are basically the one big country that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and it cannot succeed without us because we output much more CO2 than the other countries, even per person. The rest of the world understands the problem, and wants to fix it but for some reason we are too worried about what it will do to the economy. But by not following the Kyoto Protocol and decreasing our emissions, we are losing some of our economy. For instance, our car makers are suffering right now; if they made more fuel efficient cars they could sell them to other countries, but right now they can't because their cars are not up to the standards required!

There's no reason not to try to fix our mistakes and save the Earth. Otherwise, our children might be the last generation before we plunge back to the dark ages or become extinct. It really is that imminent, and something really does need to be done about it.

If you are unsure of terms or why I think something matters, just ask. I did a semester project on global warming when I was an undergraduate, I took a geology class where we discussed much of this, and I have a full year of college level chemistry behind me. I could write a post on each of those bullet points I think, but I will refrain from doing so for now. However, it really is a very important topic, and we really need to take care of our planet because IT'S THE ONLY ONE WE HAVE!

Please see his movie or research more on this topic (preferably not in the american news, as there are many lies there) if you are not already familiar with the key points. If we do what we are capable of doing with the technology we have now, we actually CAN get our CO2 levels down to that of 1970! It's only a matter of trying and making the government know that it should be a priority! Because really, what's the point of fighting terrorism and finding cures to diseases if we aren't even going to have a planet in 50 years?

Airlines -- United vs Delta

I've flown twice in the past month, each time being on different airlines. Usually there is at least a few months between flights, so I don't tend to notice much difference between the airplanes or the airlines. However, I've noticed recently that there are some big differences. All of these comparisons are in coach; I have flown United first-class before and did not have nearly as many problems as I have in coach.

United is the airline I have flown on the most. I always assumed that they were a better airline because they were slightly more expensive and I knew that my father preferred them. However, I found this past weekend that I was not very fond of their airplanes or their service. The flight was very uncomfortable in every aspect: the chairs were not proportioned correctly at all for my body size, giving me a headache; every setup they have for movie screens is horrible, they tend to either be too far away or right above you; the headsets they require you to use are uncomfortable; and they never have room for everyone's carry-on luggage.

I noticed a distinct difference between airplanes while flying United, as well. I flew on a Boeing 757 as well as an Airbus. The Boeing 757 was the most uncomfortable for 2 reasons:

1. The first reason relates to the seats themselves. It seems that the seats are meant for anyone about 5'6" in height or taller (they can extend up). However, if you are short and do not have a lot of body fat to push you out from the seat in the lower area, the headrest pushes your head forward in an incredibly uncomfortable fashion. Sitting up straight is impossible due to the headrest, and slouching is impossible due to the lack of legroom.
   
2. The second reason I disliked the Boeing was the fact that the underseat area for luggage was smaller for the aisle seat than for the other 2! I could not fit my bag easily under the seat, even though the same bag had fit fine on my earlier flights when I was in either the center or the window seats. This problem baffles me, and made my flight even more uncomfortable than it would have been in one of the other seats; ironically, I have always preferred the aisle.
   

The Airbus was only marginally better. The seat backs were still horribly painful to rest my head on, but slightly less so than on the Boeing. The aisle seat also seems to have the same size area for carry-on luggage as the other 2 seats. But everything else was about the same as the Boeing.

Delta Song was a MUCH better experience. I flew them last month, and was impressed by their planes and service and even more impressed after flying United this past weekend. They incorporate the movie screens into the backs of the seats, so that everyone has their own screen. This setup eliminates the problems of United's screen placement. Also, everyone can watch a different tv program or play a trivia game, making it less likely that you will be bored out of your mind. These screens actually make the provided entertainment entertaining as opposed to something to notice in the background. Their seats are also much more comfortable for those of us that are height-challenged. I was not forced to have my head at an awkward angle if I leaned back in my seat, which in itself makes me want to fly Delta Song from now on.

On a related note, they give you the small earbud headphones which do not pinch on your head as the other ones can, and they will always fit in your ear. I enjoy these much better, although I wonder if they are usable for people with hearing aids? Also, we did not have any trouble fitting our carry-on luggage on the plane. With United, they never had enough bin space for everyone.

The only problem with the Delta/Song acquisition is that Song is being phased out and soon everything will be just Delta. I hope they keep all the great things about Song instead of phasing those out with the name, because right now Song is the only airline I will actually put effort into getting tickets on. Previously I just picked the cheapest ticket, but if I can get a Delta Song ticket for a little more, I'd be willing to pay it (emphasis on "a little"...I'm still a poor grad student).

Too bad I signed up for United frequent flyer miles instead of Delta Song miles...maybe I should buy stock in Delta if they are going to keep the Song amenities.

Women in Computer Science

Visiting Google this past weekend for the Anita Borg Scholarship Retreat I had the chance to meet some great women in my field, as well as learning about some hard truths about being a woman in CS. There was some great discussion on academia vs. industry, that luckily was not overly pro-industry as might be expected.

One problem we see with academia is the path to tenure. As many people know, the path to tenure is arduous and coincides with the child bearing years. This problem of course affects women in all academic fields, not just CS. To succeed in her career, a women tends to need to make more sacrifices than their male counterparts. For instance, having a child is a very touchy subject. Deciding to have a family should be a personal decision, but many women feel that they cannot have a child and stay on top of their profession. As was stated recently in my department, there is no good time to have a child. Our culture expects our women to do the majority of child raising, but yet we do not construct our workplaces to make that possible. Something needs to give for the next generation of working mothers to be able to be successful.

One thing that needs to change is the path to tenure. Although it is extremely hard on women that choose to have a child (or children), it is also extremely hard on the men whose families have made the same decision. Many men seem to have stay-at-home wives to help them out though, but of course the women do not usually have that luxury. Should we sacrifice our careers for our families, or vice versa? Should both men and women have to sacrifice the younger years of their lives to ensure they have a job for the latter years (i.e. spend all their time working towards tenure)? If we truly value life as we claim to, the answer should be "no." Why get a PhD if you will still not have time for your family in the end?

Another problem that affects women disproportionally to men is the question of responsibilities at work. Apparently women tend to be put on more committees in academia (in CS) because the committees need a certain number of women faculty, and the percentage of women faculty tends to be low. However, the time spent on these committees is not considered a valuable use of your time, and does not affect your path towards tenure except for adding on the amount of time per day you need to be on campus and doing work. Also, women are more likely to be given the larger classes to teach. These two facts combine to cause women to be more likely to burn out in academia than their male counterparts. At least in Computer Science where the number of women is low.

Meeting Famous People

While working on the abstract at my advisor's house, an old friend of hers stopped by. I knew who he was when I heard his name, because he is the author of the textbook I'm using in my independent study! I was also looking through some of his publications earlier in the semester to help with my research. He's an absolutely brilliant guy, but I still got to watch him play hide and seek with my advisor's son while we finished my abstract. Apparently he stops by to discuss papers on his way in and out of the country. But it was very weird to just suddenly be introduced to him, and just sit around and chat about research and related topics! In a way, it's a bit scary because I was constantly afraid of sounding like an idiot.

In a sense, this experience reminds me of the inaugural symposium I went to this past December for the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. There were many well known speakers, including five Nobel Laureates (yes, FIVE) in the morning. Seeing that many brilliant people sitting together and discussing the future of neuroscience, philosophy, and related fields was breath taking. One of the most amazing people to be so close to was James Watson, who you should all remember in reference to the double helix of DNA. Even though he's gotten much older, you can see how well his mind still works. Some of the talks were really amazing as well, both academically and overall. If you want to read about this event, you can go to their webpage.

I hope that one day I can accomplish great things and be able to speak intelligently with these people, or at least people of their academic caliber. If I can get through my PhD in a decent amount of time, I have confidence that I will be able to be a success.

Academic Papers Part Deux

So, here are some lessons I've learned from writing this paper and abstract:

• LaTeX is your friend. It really isn't that much more difficult than regular word processors to use, especially after you've learned it. I find that there are many things, especially equations and symbols, that I can do much easier than in Word. I really didn't want to learn it at first, but I picked it up in January and I'm extremely pleased that I did.
  
• Start early, and be prepared to throw away several drafts. I actually started writing this paper in January and February, but the current version looks barely anything like those versions. The first version tends to just be a way to get your thoughts down.
  
• Taking breaks is productive. During part of my paper reviewing with my instructor we pushed her son and his friend on the swings. It was a great stress relief, and helped keep us focus (as oxymoronic as that is). Taking an hour without reading it will also help you to see the errors in your paper.
  
• Shortening really is easier than writing it short to begin with. We have a 2 page abstract due, but we wrote most of the 10+ page paper first. Since writing more is usually easier than writing less, this approach let us organize our thoughts and be sure we had everything covered. Then we took the most important parts to make the abstract. I tried to just write the abstract before writing the paper, and I think this way was definitely easier.
  
• Always check the conference website multiple times. For instance, the deadline is usually extended. Also, if they have a template they want you to follow it is probably a good idea to follow it. It sucks when you've gotten it to a good length and then find out your font is too small.
  
• Previous work is almost more important than your own. I may be exaggerating a bit, but having a weak previous work section will kill you. Previous work mostly showed that you understand the field and acknowledge that you are not the only person involved in it. Eventually you may be able to mostly cite yourself, but as a grad student you need to prove that you understand that you are only a grad student, no matter how totally awesome you are.
  
• There will always be a word or phrase you overuse. Find it, and exterminate it. My advisor pointed out that I used the phrase "our system" too much, and then realized that she used the word "typically" too often. There will always be a word that comes quickly to mind as you revise, and even if you use it sparingly each time those usages add up. Always read over your paper looking for those words and phrases, and fix it before you submit!
  
• Be concise and precise, and you will go far. Writing blogs unfortunately can kill your conciseness, but when writing papers it is crucial! If you can say what you want to say in fewer words than planned, your audience might actually understand your point. But don't sacrifice necessary explanations for shortened length.
  
• When playing freeze tag, be sure to be frozen near where your advisor is frozen so you can discuss the paper she's editing while you wait for the kids to unfreeze you. Sure, this probably doesn't apply to most of you, but I find this advise very useful. It's also good to make sure that if your advisor trips over a hole and falls that she's OK, even if her kid jumps on her afterwards as if it was planned.
  

OK, that's all for now. The abstract will be done later today, and I may have a 3rd part to go along with the 2nd one after we're done. But hopefully not.

Academic Papers

Academic papers are interesting to write. I'm in the process of writing my first academic paper on my work in graduate school (I had a paper published last fall from my undergrad work), and it's been busy. I have an abstract due on Monday for a conference in Switzerland this summer that is perfect for the type of work I'm doing. So, we were writing the paper first and now we're going to pull the abstract out of it (2 page maximum). We still have a small amount of work to do on the project itself, but we have enough results so far to have a mostly finished paper. The goal is to have the project done by the end of the school year, so the final paper will be ready in time for the conference if necessary. If my abstract is accepted, I'll either be asked to submit a final paper or a poster. If not a paper then we'll try to publish the paper elsewhere.

So my last week or so has been finding references, writing, re-writing, and doing runs to get results. Writing an academic paper is definitely an art form, and I'm glad I have a good advisor to help me with it. As she puts it, you have to learn many skills in grad school and how to write scientifically is one of them. I am not quite up to par yet, but we have been keeping my original organization as well as a lot of my wording so it's not too bad. I really can't wait until I'm good enough to be able to chug out a paper much easier. Granted, writing research papers is never quick, but the first few are definitely harder to do than the later ones.

Writing this paper has made me feel like a real graduate student; I've been staying up until about 1AM an then getting up around 7AM, whereas I used to go to bed around 12AM and get up around 8AM. I feel energized, and am happy about my progress. I'm not sure how long this schedule will last, but now that it's light out in the morning I find it easy to get up, so it might last at least a few months.

I've learned some good things about paper writing and the life of an academic this week, but since I'll be truly done writing tomorrow (at least for the current deadline) I'll wait and write about that in a few days to make sure I don't leave out anything good. I should be up rather late tonight finishing up this abstract, so we'll see what sorts of insights lack of sleep provides.

Let the good times roll!

So, I think the best way to start off a new blog (besides the mandatory welcome, of course) is with good news. So here's mine:

I am now a recipient of the Google Anita Borg Scholarship for 2006-2007, for $10,000!!!!

Yep, that's rather good news I would say. Apparently it gets broken up between the two semesters which is disappointing, but it's great anyway. Funding is rather tight for me, so every little bit helps. I applied to a bunch of fellowships and should be hearing from them soon, so hopefully I will get something that will cover my funding for a year or two as well. Let the good times roll!

Also, Google is going to pay for me to go to the Grace Hopper Convention next October, which is fabulous! I've been really wanting to go and funding was going to be the only thing holding me back, then viola! I have funding. Once again....let the good times roll!

On the same note of good times rolling, I am also going to be attending a retreat for all of the scholarship finalists next weekend (April 6 - 9) in beautiful sunny CA, hosted by....you'll never guess....oh, you did guess! Yep....Google! Once again, let the good times roll...only this time they'll roll with sunny beautiful days, an all expense paid trip, and free food. I do love food.

So, despite the long day of theory homework and research I've been experiencing (and tend to experience a lot this semester), I'm in an extremely good mood. Hopefully my luck will continue with my other funding endeavors of the year....

The usual "welcome" message

I've decided to start a blog, but not one directly about my personal life. I will incorporate my experiences and opinions, as the vast majority of bloggers do, but I would like to focus on ideas in my field of Computer Science. I enjoy politics, music, and many other topics as well, so if I find something of interest I'll post it here.

The part of the blog that will actually be personal in some sense will be about my experiences in grad school, as I'm currently a graduate student. Set backs and successes in my research (without giving away details of my research, of course) and other research I encounter will be saved here, mostly for my own use, although I'm sure someone else will find it interesting as well.

I have a personal "this is how my day went" blog elsewhere, which will not be linked to or hinted at besides this one paragraph. That blog will house the personal details of life, whereas this blog gives me a chance to discuss other interesting topics.

Hopefully I'll be modifying the template soon if I have time, and posting at least often enough to keep it interesting.