Drinking tea til I puke

I've found that I have no restraint. None whatsoever. I am to the point where I am so addicted to tea that I thank god I drink the no-calorie, caffeine-free kind, which has a very short list of ill effects that include stained teeth and having to pee a lot.

I literally spent eight hours yesterday doing factor analysis on a junkload of data I had to bregrudgingly collect due to course requirements. It was that nasty, nasty survey data I told you about-- I know all data has some measure of subjectivity, but the unreliability of a survey(I don't care if it comes out to be statistically reliable, it is not really reliable) causes me a great deal of frustration. First of all, who's to say these snot-nosed undergrads aren't just clicking random answers just to get their experiment credit? (Filling out a survey shouldn't even merit experiment credit, seeing as survey research is not experimental!)

Maybe you would understand my lack of humor for this type of research if you understood that factor analysis shouldn't take eight hours. It shouldn't take one hour. With perfect data (perfect meaning a ridicuolously huge sample size, say 1000, everyone answering honestly and to the best of their abilities) it takes about 15 minutes. Numbers go in, statistics come out. East peazy lemon squeezy. However, here at the University of Leicester, just like everything else in England, PARSIMONY is a virtue, and that includes putting a limit on a seemingly arbitrary number of participation credit available to researchers... WHY are we limited? There is NO LIMIT to the number of undergrads who will participate in research. NO LIMIT on how many studies each undergrad may participate in. WHAT THE HELL-- why can't I have more than 30 participants in my gorram study? This is insanity, not to mention completely POINTLESS when survey research thrives on NUMBERS.

And I didn't even want to do survey research in the FIRST PLACE.

Okay, end of rant. But seriously, eight hours. Including at least one or two more hours today.

What.

Ever.

In the meantime, I ran my first batch of subjects for my reading study today. Everything went really smoothly, so I set up timeslots for the rest of the week, and all the data for that should be collected by the end of next week.

Also, I have been writing up a summary of all the articles I've found that relate to induced neglect, or more specifically, a phenomenon called 'attentional blink' where people will ignore -- for a span of about 300 milliseconds -- a stimulus in the right visual field if it was preceded by a stimulus in the left visual field. This window of 300ms is pretty large considering people are usually darn quick on the uptake... think of it in terms of that fun online reaction time test you've all done where you wait until a little dot flashes up on the screen and you slam your hand down as hard and fast as you can on your keyboard so you can prove to your friends you're faster than they are (then a screaming ghost pops out you scream like a girl.) Anyway-- if you waited 300ms to click the mouse, or hit the spacebar, or whatever, a message would appear on the screen that says something along the lines of, "Were you in a coma?" So yeah, 300ms is a long time for this task as well. Anyway-- I've taken such a long time with stupid factor analysis, that the really important task of writing up this summary for my adviser is taking way longer than I said it would take (but not longer than the arbitrary deadline, which is Wednesday(ish), and I will definitely have it done by then-- Wednesday, not ish.)

This summary is important, of course, because it relates to my thesis-- the mondo project-- The Big Kahuna.

Okay, so I bet you all want me to stop talking psychology. So let me get out of the zone, step away from the computer for a second to take a green tea-pee (see above), then I will tell you all about my lovely Sunday afternoon, my only playtime of the week, but definitely worth it.

...Aaaand 40 minutes later, I'm writing to you again. Why the wait, you ask? Well, just as I was getting up from the computer, my MagicJack rang and who happened to be on the other line but one Matthew, ancient surname Jur-ans. There is a fellow who understands that even though I am thousands of miles away, I am still just as accessible as ever, by phone. I'm not kidding you. If I didn't think strangers would find this blog and call me, I would post my number right now. It is, in fact, a local Ohio number, so you can call me any time for FREE! Oh, the magic... the magic, of MagicJack. (If you would like to join in on the magic, just e-mail me and I will send you a reply with my number.)

Since Matt called, he was graced with the knowledge of what I'm going to write next:

It all started at noon yesterday, when Jana, her German roommate Sonja (who lives in BAVARIA where Neuschwannstein Castle is basically in her BACKYARD) and I went to have some pie at a Leicester pie shop called Urban Pie. Pie, pie pie. Well, there is good news and bad news about Urban Pie: the bad news is, England doesn't know how to make a berry pie. The good news is, they make THE BEST of any other kind of pie. Cheesey pies, lamb and rosemary, chicken and asparagus, steak and kidney, minced beef and potato, stilton, cottage, etc etc-- they have so many choices-- my favorite of the two I have tried so far is the vegetable pie; a creamy, flaky pot pie bursting with peas, carrots, broccoli, sweetcorn, and loads of other stuff all piled together and wrapped in delicious, perfect crust and stamped with an edible Urban Pie logo. Comfort food, my friends. Sonja opted for the sizzling wild mushroom and asparagus pie, and drizzled it with gravy to die for. Jana, as per her weirdo nature, sulked over the absence of sweet pies and had a pre-packaged muffin.

Sonja, who had never tried pie before of any kind, found it delightful.

Next, we browsed the modern shops of Highcross Mall. There's a fancy bookstore that has replaced Borders here, called Waterstone-- a sleek, easily-navigable powerhouse chain, whose coffee supplier is Costa Coffee, and they have almost nonexistent bargain and toy sections, as expected of a proper bookstore. Books range from around 5.99-8.99 for paperbacks, no real massmarket section to be found, and 10.99-12.99 for hardcovers. Not too shabby. Some of the largest scifi hardcovers go up to about 17.99 but they go down again very quickly. Books come out in paperback much quicker here, and there are many new releases you can find in paperback here that will only be available in hardcover for at least another year in the states.

We browsed clothing stores and shoe shops. I found a casual pair of autumn boots that could also be worn on the dry days of winter. I also found myself a waterproof jacket and accompanying thermal sweater for a bargain total of 35 pounds, for the Hiking Society. The other day, I found hiking shoes for TEN POUNDS. What a deal for the casual fell-walker.

It was turning out to be such a great day that I decided I was going to make the family (a.k.a. Jana and her roommates) some good old-fashioned American pancakes. So I found a simple recipe online, gathered the ingredients from the next-door grocery store, and soon had the kitchen filling with good smells. The maple syrup alone cost almost as much as the rest of the ingredients combined, but boy was it worth it. Can't have pancakes without maple syrup. When I brought all my materials to the cashier, she asked me, "Are you Canadian?" The answer to that is yes-- when I am in pancake mode, I am Canadian.

There were a few things I thought might set off the taste or the overall quality of the pancakes-- such as the fact that we didn't have a mixing bowl (I used a large pyrex-esque measuring cup that barely housed my batter); the stove used an old-fashioned gas burner, thus I feared only a ring of the batter would actually turn into pancake, or they would cook unevenly; and the eggs were warm (they don't chill them in the grocery store here). But despite all that, the pancakes turned out perfect. Better than perfect-- spectacular. I hate to gloat (actually, I love to gloat), but I made better-than-perfect pancakes. They were better-than-perfectly golden, fluffy, moist and buttery. We sprinkled blueberries and banana slices over them and drizzled maple syrup over the whole thing, and I made enough for everyone to have a good stack and feel cozy and satisfied afterwards. Pancakes. A palate-pleaser.

So yesterday was heavenly, after a week of non-stop busywork and a wasted Saturday of factor analysis. I am going to go to sleep soon, cos I have to wake up bright and early to administer some nonsense (literally) to unsuspecting subjects. That will go until about 1PM, I'll eat my lunch at home as I did today, and then it's back to that article summary for my adviser. Three articles left to go. Maybe I'll hack one more off tonight before I go to bed, for good measure. The evening is wasted if you close your eyes before midnight, right?