Week 1 (05/30 - 06/05)

Monday

- Checked out my dorms.

 

 

- Checked out the Student Recreation Center (the Rec) for the first time with my roommate and her friends. The Rec is very impressive. It has 4 swimming pools (one Olympic size, one for diving, an introductory pool, and an outdoors one), an indoors track, and pretty much everything one would desire.

 

 

- Went on a map-guided "campus tour", took lots of of pictures and found a building where I have to report for tomorrow's introductory breakfast.

 

 

- 6pm: Attended a barbeque organized by the RAs in our residence halls. Met other Computer Science summer research students at the barbeque.

- Went to the Rec Center again.
Tuesday

- 8am: Attended an introductory breakfast in the RICH building. Then our group went across the street to the H. R. Bright building to meet our mentors. My mentor, Dr. Lawrence Rauchwerger was not available due to a family emergency. His wife, Dr. Nancy Amato helped me and the other three students to settle in. I also met my graduate student mentors - Olga Tkachyshyn and Gabriel Tanase. Later in the day, I had a meeting with Nancy to confirm the student mentor match.

- We also obtained the University ID cards, paid the $10 property deposit and set up our CS accounts.

- Went to the Rec Center in the evenings.
Wednesday

- Started getting acquainted with the project by reading the following papers:

  • STAPL: An Adaptive, Generic Parallel C++ Library.

  • Efficient Parallel Containers with Shared Object View in STAPL.

- Went to the Rec Center in the evening.
Thursday

- 11:30am: Attended the first CS Brown Bag Lunch, where the Dept. Head, Valerie Taylor, gave a welcoming speech. At the end of the meeting, our coordinator, Beth Johnson, gave us the calendar of events for the rest of the summer and our office keys.

- Had a meeting with Nancy, Gabi, and Olga. My first assignment is to design a parallel nth_element algorithm (selection problem). Gabriel and Olga suggested it would be better to start with several sequential implementations of the algorithm to help me understand how it works.

- 3pm: Attended Nancy Amato's group meeting, where we listened to and discussed a presentation concerning protein folding.

- Went to the Rec Center in the evening.

- Tried some Texas-style spicy chicken wings. Could only finish 4 out of 10. Weak!!!
Friday

- In order to start implementing the sequential algorithm, I needed to get acquainted with the C++ programming language, C++ Standard Template Library
(STL) and Emacs editor.
- I made three trips to the library and checked out the following books:

  • Stroustrup, Bjarne. The C++ Programming Language. 3rd Ed. Addison-Wesley, 1997.

  • Stroustrup, Bjarne. The Design and Evolution of C++. Addison-Wesley, 2004.

  • Austern, Matthew H. Generic Programming and the STL: Using and Extending the C++ Standard Template Library. Addison-Wesley, 1998.

  • Cameron, Debra. GNU Emacs: Pocket Reference. O’Reilly, 1999.

- Nancy also gave me an algorithm book to help me learn algorithm specifications:

  • Cormen, Thomas H., Leiserson, Charles E., Rivest, Ronald L., Stein, Clifford. Introduction to Algorithms. 2nd ed. The MIT Press, 2001.

- 3:30pm: Attended the first Cookie Break. Came too late and found no cookies left :(

- 6pm: Attended the REU Pizza Party.

 

 

- Went to the Rec Center after the party.

- Fun night out!
Saturday

- Went to the Rec Center, laid out in the sun and got some serious sunburn. Stayed in my room most of the day, feeling sorry for myself and napping.

- Played card games out at Andrew's place in the evening.
Sunday

- Spent most of the day reading on my project at the dorms.

- 7pm: Went to the lake to walk Renny's two 120 lb dogs. Later on, Renny took me to the WalMart Supercenter to get some more food (I'm starting to like frozen dinners ... scary).