Good Times Cruise and Bioinformatics Seminar

Last night we had a cruise sponsored by the CCF alumni association. It was apparently for residents and employees of CCF as well as the medical students. They had a small ship called the "Good Times" that took us for a two and a half hour ride up what I think was the Cuyahoga River. The scenery was basically just piles of dirt or rocks and other urban landscape, but the cruise itself was fun. I think almost all of the medical students came, and they served us dinner, gave out prizes, and played music. One of the students in my class won some passes on Lolly the Trolley. Lolly is something that cannot be described; it has to be experienced to fully appreciate it. We got a tour on it last spring during the second look weekend.

Today we had a seminar on bioinformatics instead of a PSS. We are going to be working on bioinformatics all week. (Bioinformatics is the use of computers to analyze problems in biology like protein and nucleic acid structures, relationships, etc.) I think it would have been a lot more effective and useful if the speaker had gone over some sample searches with us and had us do them in class with her and the tutors available to help us instead of just presenting a powerpoint lecture with us listening passively. It seems like the best way to learn how to use these databases is to actually spend time using them. For the rest of the week, we are going to be working in small groups on problem sets though, so we'll have the chance to try it ourselves. These groups are not the same as the PSS groups we've been working in so far, although some of my PSS group members are also in my bioinformatics group.