Friday, January 6, 2012

Let the Will be done

I'm reading Garth Nix' "Keys to the Kingdom" novels. Starting from a month ago, now I just finished book II, "The Grim Tuesday". But I'm already a captive of author's talented imagination. Only not until I finished book I did I realize these novels were written right after the "Sabriel" trilogy, which are also my favorite (I read the Sabriel for 3 times). I couldn't help but contrast the two fantasy series. They were so different apart that I could not draw any similarity in style of writing with my scant experience in English literature.

I'm also writing a book chapter on my little genome browser for Current Protocol in Bioinformatics, who doesn't even provide me a latex template. It's like reorganizing the user manual, but I have to get myself grilled by dealing with a hundred figures. Though there has already been a manual, it could not decrease my pain a tiny bit. I'm just such at writing. And thinking about another book chapter to write right after this one, I just felt beaten and again marvel at Garth Nix's amazing productiveness in writing. Maybe I should start worshiping him instead of programming nerds.

January 6, 2012, temperature is 70F at 3pm in St. Louis. Step outdoor, and greet the sun bear.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Album "trip to Newport"

DSC_4640 by Xin Zhou
DSC_4640, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Click photo to view entire album of my trip to Newport, RI for BGI conference on June 6, 2011

Album "trip to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory"

DSC_4438 by Xin Zhou
DSC_4438, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Click photo to view album of my trip to CSHL for Biology of Genomes meeting on May 10, 2011

Album "trip to Boston" on Flickr

DSC_3940 by Xin Zhou
DSC_3940, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Click photo to view entire album on my trip to Boston on March 16, 2011 for VIZBI conference at Broad Institute

Sunday, December 11, 2011

St. Louis magpie

I'm sure I saw a magpie near I-70 in St. Peters on December 10th, 2011. It looked so similar as the kind of magpie found everywhere in China, but it is a different species, the Black-Billed Magpie.

According to following online resource, the magpie has not yet been reported in this region:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/black-billed_magpie/id

Forget the red bird, the Magpies are coming! Everything will be Black'n White then!