Week 2 (06/06 - 06/12)

Monday

- Spent most of the time reading the C++ book.

- 4:30pm: Attended a meeting with Nancy and Lawrence (this was the first time I met my mentor, Dr. Lawrence Rauchwerger).

- Continued reading the C++ book.

- Went to the Rec Center in the evening.

- Continued reading the C++ book.

Tuesday

- Received my first DMP Stipend check.

- Continued reading the C++ book, worked on the sequential implementation of the Nth Element algorithm.

- 3-6pm: Attended the USRG GRE Prep Seminar an took the GRE Practice Test.

- Olga took me to WalMart.

Wednesday

- Started reading the STL book.

- Had a meeting with Gabi regarding the algorithm implementation.

- Went to lunch with Ukrainian graduate students at the Rock Fish restaurant.

- Worked on my project.

- Hung out with CS guys in the evening.

Thursday

- Went to the Post Office and got a P.O. box.

- 11:30am-12:45pm: Attended the CS Brown Bag Lunch: Graduate Panel.

- Had a meeting with Gabi regarding the algorithm implementation.

- Straightened out things with the International Student Services (ISS). For some reason, they thought I was an international student and had to provide them with a proof of "special" health insurance.

- Read a paper to be discussed at the 4pm meeting.

- 4-6 pm: Attended Nancy's group meeting: listened to a presentation, participated in the discussion of a paper "Field D*: An Interpolation-based Path Planner and Replanner."

- Worked some more on my project.

- Yuri, one of the graduate students working on the STAPL project, explained me how to pass object types in C++, which helped me finish the first sequential implementation (same as the STL implementation) of the Nth Element algorithm. It now works on vectors and arrays. I only tested it on integers, but it is generic and it will work on other data structures. Tomorrow I will start implementing the bucket version, so that next week I can start working on the parallel implementation.

- Watched a movie ("Bladerunner") with the other CS summer research students.

Friday

- Started working on the sequential "bucket" implementation of the Nth Element algorithm.

- 3:30-4 pm: Attended the weekly CS Cookie Break.

- Started working on my Research Plan.

- Went ice skating in the Arctic Wolf Arena with Ukrainian and Russian graduate students.

Saturday

- Continued working on my Research Plan.

- 5:30pm: Andrew took us to the Mall, where we did some necessary and unnecessary shopping.

- 6:30-pretty late: Went to the Starlight 2005 music series concert: HELLS BELLS.

 

 

- Very late-very very late: played card games in our residence hall lounge.

Sunday

- Spent most of the day reading the STL book, learned some more Emacs commands.

- Went to the Rec Center in the evening.

- Continued working on my Research Plan.