IAP in Review Week One

IAP in Review Week One A couple of days ago, I was working on an entry talking about all the things I was planning on doing during IAPand then I got distracted by, well, IAP. Oops. :) So, heres a quick recap of what Ive done so far during the first week of MITs Independent Activities Period. On Monday, I had Orientation at the Broad Institute for my UROP there which, among other things, means that I now have a Broad email address! Right now Im working on identifying the genetic basis of various tuberculosis strains antibiotic resistance using computational methodswhich is basically a fancy way of saying Im using computer scripts (which Im working on writing!) to compare a bunch of genetic sequences. For three hours a day, Monday through Friday, Im taking 6.189 a crash course in Python programming. So far weve gone through functions, conditionals, for and while loops, lists/tuples, and various other things. Im enjoying it quite a lot, because although Id previously taught myself a bit of Python, it really makes a difference when Im learning it alongside fifty or so other people. Plus the projects weve been working on have all been really interesting: so far Ive coded a hangman program, a primitive login system, the game of nims, and a Pig Latin converter (in addition other, less interesting things). On Tuesday and Thursday nights, Ive been taking jiu-jitsu lessons as a PE class. Im really quite glad I decided to take jiu-jitsu, as Ive been trying to pick up a martial art for quite some time there really is no time like IAP for doing those things you never seem to find time for during the term! Finally, on Friday, my friends JR 11, Jesse 11, and I worked together to fun Athens, a live-action roleplaying game we wrote (with Susan 11) over last summer. Ill be blogging about Athens (and what live-action roleplaying is) more in-depth later on. And heres a look at what Ill be doing for the next three weeks: More UROPing! More jiu-jitsu! More Python! Yay! Teaching a truffles-making class with Laboratory for Chocolate Science, one of MITs moreunique student groups. Mm, chocolate. Teaching an introductory LaTeX class with Jess 09. (Hopefully) playing in Thebes, a ten-day-long immersive roleplaying game put on by the Assassins Guild. Beginning a very casual and very short campaign of Dungeons Dragons with a few friends. Attending UPOP, a one-week, for-credit, internship strategies class designed for sophomores majoring in engineering. Going on a week-long retreat with LeaderShape And, of course, blogging. Is there anything in particular you want to hear about? Just let me know!