Of Bicycles, Biographies and Bits

Just a short post today.  I've manged to catch up where my illness cut me off.  Now I'm scrabbling to gain purchase on the rocky slope of Spring Quarter.  Part of that involved plowing through a three hundred page book in just about seven hours.  How much of it will stick only next week will tell.  That's the nature of the quarter system.  On one hand, you get to take a lot of really cool classes.  On the other, you don't really get to soak in the topic the class immerses you in.  I enjoyed the semester system the one year I did it.  I really developed a deep understanding of the subjects and got a chance to see independent research all the way through.  For better or worse, I'm on the quarter system here at UCLA.  Next year will really burn because I'm intending to take a series of advanced statistics class so I'll know how to run and interpret experiments.  Plus, I'll have to take qualifying exams and develop a thesis project.  Looks like a busy summer is ahead of me as I front load all this and try to get ahead.  Oh, I also have to find gainful employment too.

On the plus side, looks like I'll be in the PhD program for at least one more year.