Hey beloved best blocking group in the world!




I started work two weeks ago--working in Dr. Chaochun Wei's lab, if you want to look him up (although not super crazy interesting website). Just learned some data compression algorithms and C programming language last week, and this week will start downloading human genomes using the unbearably slow Chinese internet. Final goal is to create a program that can quickly find the overlapping regions of one thousand human genomes.

Food is crazy good and crazy cheap here: at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University cafeterias, I eat for about 20 RMB (= less than $4 USD) per day and it's delicious and filling food--dumplings and noodles in soup, mushroom and beef fried noodle, hot pot with enoki mushrooms and lamb.

In free time, I've been running around with the other Harvard kids to see Shanghai and buy cheap stuff. We went to Tianshan Tea City this weekend--bought about one pound of an amazing, sweet, resonant fruit tea, and also bought a clear glass teapot and six glass cups for 30 RMB (= less than $5 USD)--get excited for tea parties (and not the political kind), y'all!!! Also went to the South Bund Fabric Market and got a thick winter coat--think trenchcoat style except in hard wool with a thick inner layering for warmth--tailored for me for 460 RMB (= about $73 USD).

Am loving the sights and getting to know the undergraduates here and seeing how Chinese science is done--lab work is a little tough to swallow for now, but I'm positive that something good will come out of this. No chance to play ukulele, as I didn't bring it all the way to China (sadly!) but am doing a lot of singing at karaoke with the other Harvard classmates. Soon we will explore other parts of China, like Hangzhou next week--excited!

Take care everyone! If you see me on @college e-mail, please Google chat me--I already "talked" with Rachel and Val! Will post more later!