The Joys of the Second Week

I would rather not get into some of the conflicts mentioned in previous blog posts by other clustermates. While COSMOS is not perfect, I have found most of the classes and res life activities to be very enjoyable and successful.

I last posted Monday afternoon. Monday night we all played glow in the dark capture the flag. Wearing glow bracelets, we ran around the dark fields and had a great time trying to capture the glowing flag without being tagged.

I started off Tuesday with a run that appeared to circle the UCSD campus. We had a discovery lecture that morning from Dr. Larry Goldstein, a premier stem cell researcher. He made the case for expanded research of embryonic stem cells and explained how they will be used in the future. In our morning Science Comm class, we learned more about data analysis, culminating in an activity with M&M candies. I enjoyed that part. After lunch we worked on our lab 4 project. Calling it difficult would be an understatement, but I am sure we will all rise to the challenge. Following the end of classes/lab, we had a special presentation from the president of "Science Buddies." Science Buddies is an online resource for science fairs and presentations. We were shown many videos and pictures about the leading US Science Fairs, such as the Intel Talent Search and Siemens fair. Ronit, a UCSD COSMOS alum and two time winner of the Intel International Science Fair spoke to us about her ideas and encouraged us to consider participating. That night, after study time, all 150 of us piled into a lecture hall to watch a movie, Anchorman. It was a very funny movie, which provided a nice break from C programming.

Today I began my day with another run. We intended on heading to the cliffs overhanging the coast, but the access was cut off. Instead, we ended up running through the massive UCSD campus again. This morning, we had a few lectures. This afternoon, I am still trying to complete lab 4. It is frustrating, but I know it will work out.

Stay posted!

JR