6 June 2006: First Day of Classes

First Off, Sorry about not posting on time yesterday about yesterday's events. While I would have loved to post on time, the internet problems in our living area has been problematic. But, ahhh, they have remedied the situation and we now have internet access in our apartments, which is where I am not, typing this blog. Anyways - on with the story at hand.

Yesterday was our first day in some time to sleep in. We had time at 10 o'clock to read a pre-reading for our first Intro to Biostatistics Class, but it was short, so I had already read it. In lieu of the assigned reading time, I went to the School of Public Health Cafeteria to buy some breakfast. While there is interesting medicinal research being done all over this area, I was doing research of my own. I formed a hypothesis that the cost of the food in the cafeteria would be expensive. My method was a complete trial, making broad purchases from varying areas of the cafeteria, and check out at the register. After talking the cashier into charging me the student price, despite my 'visitor' ID, I was off to a table to properly analyze the purchase. What did I learn? I learned that unpackaged food, such as eggs, sausage, and fruit, are relatively unexpensive at about 40 cents an ounce. Packaged food however, such as pretzels and water, are much more expensive, at about 2.00 a bottle or bag. The conclusion - purchase things not in packaging and drink water from the water fountain (even if Boston water isn't that great, supposedly). While there is more testing to be done to formulate a proper conclusion, this is a good start to some interesting research.

After breakfast, I returned to the classroom for our first meeting of Intro to Biostatistics. The instructor is very engaging. In light that every student has a varying level of mathematical background, he does well to keep us all on the same page, speeding up and slowing down through the course of the material when appropriate. The class was only about an hour today, which was refreshing, as in the future it will be 2 hours daily.

After class, we had a period for lunch so I ran to a local food court to grab some "old faithful." For those that don't know this language, the translation for "old faithful" is Subway (Eat Fresh!). Being a medical area (with a Medical, Public Health, Dental, Pharmacy, and other Health Science Schools along with 3 hospitals and multiple labs and research institutes) there are a fair amount of cafeterias, snack bars, and food courts in which you can eat. Still unfamiliar with the area, I just went to Subway!

After lunch, an Epidemiologist from Channing Labs with a dual appointment at Harvard School of Public Health shared an overview lecture with us about the profession of epidemiology. She is currently working on the Nurses Womens' Health Study, which is an observational study that has been following nurses for the past 30 years. She specifically is studying Breast Cancer and possible exposures, outcomes, and correlations for the diesease. Her lecture was very informative, providing a very strong overview of the different studys and processes epidemiologists may go through to look at the causes of a disease or the presence of a disease in a population.

After the lecuture we had an introduction to STATA, the statistical software that we will most likely use when working on our projects. The teacher was pretty interesting and tried to make learning the software package engaging. The software is complex but fairly intuitive. While you can use only commands, you can also use the variety of drop-down lists and menus to also request the computation of data.

Since we've had internet troubles in our Apartments, we, the students, hung out in the Micro Lab for a while, just working on the internet and researching our projects. Earlier in the day, my research partner and I, met with our Graduate Student advisor to get an overview for the project. The project is about looking for possible Genetic Determinants for Alcoholism. A study was done, called the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism in which more than 1900 participants were surveyed and their chromosomes were mapped in attempt to find some linkage. Participants that make up the study were people diagnosed with Alcoholism using various diagnostic methods, and at least 3 of their family members were also added to the database. The Study is currently very popular, and multiple researchers are try to find, or "not find" a link for Alcoholism in the genes of these people.

After doing some internet research, I went back to the apartment to make a grocery list. A group of us walked over to the local stop and shop and I picked up some milk, cereal, pop tarts, cookies, frozen pizza, mac/cheese, Ramen, fruit, and juice. We don't currently have a microwave (while we have thought of purchasing one) so it is hard to pick things that can be quickly made on the stove. It is interesting to think that not too long ago, the rule would have been reversed. It would have been much easier to only buy things for the stove or oven. The microwave has truly become a staple for the American Kitchen.

After buying groceries and putting them in my fridge, a group of five of us sought out to find a nice place to dine. We decided to go to Chinatown, so we grabbed the "T" and headed off to the Boylston stop, which is only about 7 stops up the line that we are on. After getting off the T, in a somewhat dingy stop, we walked about 2 block through the theatre district to China Town. With the Lonely Planet book as our guide, we sought out a restaurant that served Thai Food. However, the restaurant listed, was no longer in business (or had changed their name) so we went to another one in the book, Pho Pasteur.

Pho is basically vietnamese soup. I choose chicken pho (chicken noodle soup). It had a bunch of broth, which I seasoned with various sauces, noodles, chicken, and herbs. You are also supposed to add these leaves and sprouts to the soup. I was a little uninterested in the leaves and sprouts but the "pho excitement" of one of my colleagues encouraged me to try it. It did modify the flavor and enrich the "pho experience." I'll have to try it again in the future.

After dinner we returned home and had another brief stop at the Shop and Stop. Living without a car, or a basket of some sorts, really limits the amount of groceries you can purchase in one trip. We needed to buy some gallon water jugs, and we just couldn't manage to carry them on our last trip. We returned home with our groceries, and after a night of shopping, and great food, I quickly made my check in with "friends and family calls" and retired for the evening.

Future Pho!