This morning Dr. Godbole lectured about probability distributions in a genetic context. He talked mostly about the probability of inheriting certain traits from parents, and how to figure it out mathematically. He gave us a couple of homework problems to do and to find examples of Simpson's paradox online. We had lunch and then I went back to the dorm to read Harry Potter and climb a tree for a few minutes. Then we all went back to class to listen to Dr. Zavada's lecture. He talked with us about our futures and what we plan to do with them.

On thursday morning, Dr.Miller went over the homework. Apparently, the reason certain questions were hard to find was because the database had been reformatted recently. After the lecture Everyone cracked down hard on the homework assingments we had, because they were starting to build up. Then Dr. Yampolsky came in and assigned us a group project to prove that our ancestors came from Africa. It took us a while to coordinate the project, but once we got that worked out it went smoothly. lunch. Then we went to the the quantitative biology conference at the Carneige hotel. They talked about what teaching methods were the most effective in the classroom. Then we went to Fun Expedition to play Putt-putt. The course was indoor, and half under black lights. Emily, Amanda, Lauren, and I found some glow in the dark paint that was still wet. So, we used it in a similar fashion to war paint. We emerged from the course with flourescent green and red paint all over our faces. Then we went to TCBY and got ice cream. We came back and I went to bed.

Dr. Miller showed us how to use the Ncbi database on Wednesday morning. It is a database of different genes and what they correspond to in different species. He gave us homework involving the website he introduced to us. Dr. Yampolsky asked us to read our Evolutionary Dynamics books through chapter 4. We ate lunch at the culp center. Later we all got on the database and looked up the homework. Some of the questions were difficult to find. I had to wait until the next day to compare answerswith everyone else.

Yestrday after lunch, Dr. Helfgott reviewed algebra concepts. We ate dinner and then went to Leanna's to decorate for the surprise party for joe's Birthday while Joe, Jeremy, Stefan and Wes were climbing. We ate cake and had lots of fun. Then we almost got lost on the way back to the dorms.
Tuesday:
Dr. Miller lectured this morning on the composition and mapping of genes. Lunch. I walked around campus and got a Tri- Cities phone book to see if there were any churches nearby. Dr. Karsai and Dr. Schmickl talked to us this afternoon about their research. Dr. Karsai's topic sounded intriguing. Computer time. This afternoon we are going to have a raquetball tournament in the mini-dome. Should be fun.

This morning we ate at Mcdonald's for breakfast. Then in class Dr. Miller lectured on cell's structures.afterwards we went through some parts of the intro to Maple. The computer program is really neat, it looks like it can compute anything. I hope we get more time to go through it. I'm off to lunch now!

I forgot to post on Friday, so I'm going to summarize what I can remember. In the morning everyone came over to our room to have a pancake breakfast. During breakfast, we watched the Freedom Writers, which is a very good movie. It was very emotionally moving, and I almost cried several times...We then ate lunch and Rendez-voued at the buiding where the lattice conference was taking place. The first talk was given by a graduate student on a formula of probability in different games she had derived. The second talk was about Chebechev polynomials and their useful properties. I liked this lecture a lot, because the speaker explained his subject material before jumping into it. This way people who didn't know what Chebechev polynomials were (us) could follow along easily.

Day4:
This morning Dr. Yampolsky went over the homework from last night. Then he gave us examples of how biology and mathematical reasoning have been used together to result in breakthroughs in the biological field. After lunch we went to see Harry Potter. It was wicked.We got back and ate dinner and played a couple games of volleyball. Then we retired to Amanda and Elizabeth's room to play cards for the rest of the evening. Phase ten is a very long card game...