Statistically Significant

Another week in the life of Hoxie.

It was a great week, in fact. Stealing the show was my week at work. On Monday, I was given an assignment: figure out if it would be feasible to predict individuals’ blood types in three blood groups based on available (limited) genetic information. I knew virtually nothing about blood on Monday, but after reading about 20 journal articles covering the molecular basis, genetics, and immunology of blood groups, I was able to put together a pretty comprehensive report about prediction feasibility for a meeting on Friday. This was a neat project for a few reasons:

1. Deadline. Needing to know my stuff at Friday’s meeting kept me motivated without overwhelming me. If I had been given more time, I’m sure I would have used it, but forcing me to do it in a week kept me on top of things. The meeting went great, by the way.
2. Research. Because my master’s degree didn’t entail a thesis, I didn’t read many journal articles while I was at BU. However, reading and digesting articles is a skill I need to acquire sooner or later, and like most skills, I think that 99% of it is practice. This project gave me some great exposure to finding and understanding journal articles. Granted, I think that articles about blood are slightly more approachable than articles about statistical techniques or algorithms, but it’s a step in the right direction.
3. Competence. When I started going to project meetings, I’d often get worried when I didn’t know the details of a complicated laboratory procedure or ongoing experiment. Then I realized that, if I had an advanced degree in the field and 10 years experience doing this stuff, I’d feel pretty comfortable talking about it too. Even after only a week of research, I was feeling pretty comfortable with the basics of blood. It felt good to know something about a topic that was previously a mystery.   

I also read a great book this week that I’d highly recommend to all of my 20-something and 30-something readers: I Will Teach You To Be Rich. The book is full of down-to-earth, easily digested, often humorous personal finance writing. I used to read the IWTYTBR blog frequently, but it had been a few years since I had given personal finance a lot of thought, and I decided to update my finances before heading to grad school. Based on his blog a few years ago, I started using credit responsibly, maxing out my Roth IRA whenever possible with a low-cost index fund, and keeping intermediate-term money in a high-yield ING Direct savings account. Since reading the book, I’ve opened a Charles Schwab High Yield Checking Account to replace my current checking account and I’ve applied for a great cash-back credit card to save money and boost my credit rating further. I’ll also be using low-cost Vanguard lifecycle funds to automatically take care of asset allocation, enrolling in a 401k at work (this option just became available to me), and automating my entire financial setup using websites like Mint and direct deposit so that I don’t have to give personal finance much thought for a while. The benefits of taking action now far exceed the time it would take you to pick up the book and get your financial situation under control, so check it out.

I’m also reading one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read: Good Calories, Bad Calories. But that’s a post for another time.

Another week in the life of Hoxie.

I decided to try something new for 2010, so I enrolled in a class down at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education: Improv Comedy. Every Tuesday night for the next few months, I’ll be heading down to Harvard Square to work with three other students and two teachers (excellent teacher:student ratio if I ever heard one) on my improv skills. Why improv comedy? Well, Ryan and Colin always looked like they were having fun on “Whose Line Is It Anyway,” plus I thought it would be a good way to meet some people and improve my conversation skills. Our first lesson was great… we learned the ground rules and then hit the ground running with a few games designed to get us thinking quickly and working with other people. Really looking forward to doing this.

The other activity I’ve been spending a fair amount of time with lately is the guitar. I’ve played for at least 45 minutes every day but one this month, and believe it or not, practice makes perfect. My basic open chords are sounding pretty good, including the transitions between them, and I’m getting much better at picking and strumming. Barre chords are the next major hurdle, but once I build up a little more hand strength and coordination, the sky’s the limit. Rock on!

It was a busy week at work… I found out on Tuesday that I’d be giving a 30 minute presentation at a department meeting on Wednesday afternoon, so a couple of days were consumed with making slides and perfecting the delivery. Things went well there, and I made it back to my desk just in time to see the completion of an R program that I submitted more than a month ago. I’m juggling a couple of projects right now (including processing the 10GB of text files that were generated by this little 35-day computing adventure), but they’re all interesting and I’m still enjoying my time at Biogen Idec.

Speaking of enjoying work, the Drug Discovery group had its New Year’s party on Friday evening. After a quick bus ride across the river and an even quicker elevator ride up 50 floors (my ears actually popped), we were greeted with a spectacular view of Boston and Cambridge from the Top of the Hub. Despite living 10 minutes away for 4 years, I had never been to the top before. It was very nice… I actually knew enough people there to have some interesting conversations, and the food was delicious: hors d’oeuvres and red wine, a couple different pasta dishes, steak, and chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert. I tried everything at least once and wasn’t disappointed.

Saturday was a balmy 45 degrees, so I took the bike out for a spin around the city. I had almost forgotten how good it feels to ride a bike in nice weather instead of just putting your head down and pedaling until you get there, but it was wonderful. I wasn’t the only one who noticed the sunshine and warmer temperatures; the Newbury Street area was crawling with shoppers, joggers, and dog owners. I know that spring isn’t for another couple of months, but it was a nice taste of things to come