I will now tell you a tale of great excitement and danger—all of it true—about my adventure in the Lake District. Let me begin on the quiet evening of my departure…
I packed for the Hiking Society’s first weekend journey quickly and efficiently—my bag was full of warm clothing and little else, because we’d been told it might snow where we were going. The Lake District is very close to Scotland, and judging from the pictures I could find online, full of craggy peaks and hills, and of course, lakes. We would be staying in a youth hostel in a village called Buttermere, which is situated right in the middle of the wilderness.
We met up in our usual spot at the university on Friday evening, and 14 of our group chose to ride in the minibus, while the remaining four took a car. Seeing as I had an unfavorable opinion of the minibus, I chose to ride in the car, which was NOT driven by the last nightmarish driver, of course (he’s since disappeared without a trace). My company was Ashley, the club prez; Annie, the officer whom I mentioned was Hagatha Twisty at the murder mystery party and Poison Ivy for Halloween; and Alex, the driver. Okay, maybe I should say more about Alex since the title of Driver is not very informative: Alex is a very tall Hiking Society regular, who has been with the club since at least the previous year, considering he and the officers are all on friendly terms. He’s into Reel Big Fish, the surfing society (though he seems grittier than your typical surfer type), and counts bacon as one of the food groups.
We piled our things into the car and had a very smooth four-and-a-half hour drive to Buttermere. It grew dark before we arrived, but I could make out the great silhouettes of the jagged hills that encased us on all sides as we took a steep, winding road up through the river valley. The car seemed to struggle a little bit on the steeper bits, but we made it okay to our destination. It was already quite chilly by this time, but the snow had not yet fallen.
The hostel was surprisingly nice for, well—a hostel. The rooms were warm; the sheets, duvet covers and pillowcases were all freshly washed; and breakfast was included in the cost of our stay. I had a peaceful first night, and woke up bright and early Saturday morning to prepare for the hike. My attire included a long-sleeve-t, a t-shirt over top, Jana’s amazingly warm fleece hoodie, my winter coat, two layers of gloves, and earmuffs on top—and a pair of tights, a pair of leggings, and a pair of jeans, with two pairs of socks and my hiking shoes on the bottom. These layers, I would later find, were all necessary to keep me warm throughout the proceeding adventure. My hiking shoes, which I had purchased for 10 pounds at a discount sporting goods store, were the most worrisome part of my kit—they were not properly waterproof, which I feared would be my downfall. But I persevered and had the brilliant idea of duct-taping over the cloth parts of my shoes, which proved to be 100% effective—very, very lucky for me—because, as it turns out, it had snowed the previous night.
Breakfast was buffet style, and I didn’t hesitate to load up on the carbohydrates. The journey was supposed to be roughly 10 miles up and down snowy, icy, mountainous hills and cliffs, and we knew it would be difficult going. From the hostel, the peaks loomed over us impressively, and they stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. We took off around 9:30AM and expected to return around 4PM. Little did we know, not everything would go as planned…
We started out our usual cheery selves—there is a good-sized Chinese population among our ranks, who were particularly giddy and prone to snowball fights, though that might have been because they had all become friends very quickly, as tends to happen in a chummy society like ours. The sky was clear, the wind was not sharp, and we all headed down a path that would take us around a large lake and into the peaks.
Almost at once, and perhaps ominously, one member of our group slipped and fell flat on his back as we made our way down the icy road. Though we were repeatedly reminded to watch out for slippery patches, they were often quite inevitable. I was relieved that my cheap hiking trainers at least had fair traction, and I would like to let you all know now that I only slipped twice—which was a pretty miraculous achievement, as you will see later on. In fact, one of the girls was so prone to imbalance that she clung to Annie’s arm for a good part of the journey—mostly on account of her poor choice of footwear, which was only a pair of street shoes.
Once we crossed the Bridge of Treachery (I call it that because everything is symbolic on a hike such as this), the road became much more treacherous (see?). Our path took us up a long row of flat rocks, which we used as steps to climb up and up and up— these were unevenly spaced, and sometimes you needed to make a wide lunge for the next one, and they were all, of course, covered in about an inch of snow. We snaked our way, single file, for a long time—many of our group had to take short breaks, and we were all very sweaty by the time we reached a more level ground.
At this point, though very high up, we were still only about halfway to the peak. The ground became increasingly icy, as we traversed over frozen creeks and streams that fell into the valley from whence we came. We toed carefully around these streams, but one patch of ice was particularly tricky—if you were not careful in stepping over it, you would likely slip and fall straight over the edge of the cliff. As I trod around the patch and continued on, I heard a scrambling sound and a girl's gasp behind me. I turned around to see that one guy had slipped, and was hanging precariously down the cliff side!
He clung to a couple of small bushes on either side of the icy bank, and said in a collected, somewhat cheerful voice, “I’m fine, but I might need some help getting back up here.”
I made a motion to grab for his hand, but the others behind him beat me to it, and they pulled him back up to safety. We continued along until we reached a small, frozen lake that sat at the foot of the steepest climb yet. We took a short break here, and soldiered on. At first the climb was only very snowy and rocky, but it quickly became more challenging as the incline steepened. Our single file snaking became more hectic— we were advised to leave a meter between each other so that if somebody toppled backwards, they wouldn’t bring the whole society down with them. The path was icy, and it became near vertical the closer we got to the top. We all made comments about giving the Mountaineering Society a run for their money as we used large boulders to hoist ourselves through a crevice. After the crevice, the top was in sight, and we hurried to reach the relative plateau of the summit. Those ahead of me let out cries of achievement and I rushed to join them. We burst onto the top of the peak and could see out over the whole of the Lake District from our location. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and I will try to tag pictures on facebook as soon as others' put them up.
The club president informed us that we had climbed 807 meters up—that’s 2,647 feet, people. Let me spell that out for you: two-thousand, six-hundred and forty-seven feet. And that wasn’t even the beginning, as we would find out!
We spent most of the afternoon tramping up and down more hill-like areas at the top of the mountains. We crossed over about three more peaks, some with steep-ish inclines, but nothing compared to our first hurdle. But as the time grew later, after around 3 o’clock, the officers were becoming uneasy—we were not making as good time as we’d hoped, and we wouldn’t be able to follow our originally-planned descent path for fear of the sun setting before we hit the valley below. Our downward journey, of course, would be near impossible in the dark.
This is where it got really interesting: one member of our group, Scott, who’d been leading the way most of the time, knew these hills quite well. He proposed taking a shortcut down, and after the president consulted his map, decided a strategic shortcut would be best. We started our descent merrily, and went up and over a couple of the lower peaks. We followed a trail of markers set for hikers such as ourselves.
We emerged over a particular peak to see a zigzagging path of snow leading down to the next lower point. Those at the head of the group tried to follow the path of snow, since the grassy slopes on either side were too steep to walk down—but as they plunged ahead, they found it unbearably slippery. Every one of us lost our balance here. Many fell down and decided to sledge the rest of the way on their bums. I decided to step sideways down the hill, as I was in jeans and did not want to get wet. I made it without falling, but many of our number struggled to keep up at this point. Most were laughing and having a lot of fun careening down the snowy embankment, but that was before they hit the bottom—when the road got most challenging!
I was one of the first down, and as I looked over the last big peak, I could see far, far below a long stone wall that weaved all the way down the mountain. I should mention that the sun was approaching the horizon by now, and the rest of the way looked incredibly steep. Once we had all gathered at the bottom of the snow path, the club prez and Mountain Man Scott surveyed the ledge down, and determined that we needed to reach the stone wall, as it was a direct route to the valley.
“Okay, everyone,” the prez announced, “Be very careful here. One wrong move could have you tumbling into the abyss.”
Okay, he didn’t actually say that last bit, but that was the risk, and he did seriously warn us to take the next bit very carefully.
We were on a grassy patch of the peak, the leeward side, if you will. Amish went first—he was the fastest, as he is training to climb to Everest base camp, and he is in very good shape for scaling cliffs.
We were, of course, climbing down a cliff-like wall of grass. I am not even joking. Amish had to lay flat on his belly to pull himself along the weeds and onto a ledge of boulders, down which he nimbly climbed until he reached the next bit of level ground, several meters below. There was one girl in front of me, who lay on her belly as well, but she was having particularly greater trouble than Amish.
“What do I hold on to?” she fretted, turning in my direction. I looked for a handhold for her and caught sight of a rock in the middle of the grassy cliff face.
“Try that rock,” I suggested, pointing toward it. But instead of testing the rock to see if it was safe, the girl threw all her weight on it at once, and it instantly uprooted, and the girl and the rock went sliding down the cliff. The girl gave a shriek, Amish scrambled to grab her hand, and he helped her ungracefully down. I scaled the wall, weaved through the boulders, and continued to the next level down. Mountain Man Scott advised me to continue toward the stone wall, still so very far below.
I clambered down weeds peeking out of the snow, over rocks and down a steep and treacherous path. I looked back a few times to see if Scott was following, and as he kept nodding me on, I did not look back again for a long time. I methodically stooped and jumped, grabbing onto rocks and weeds—I imagined myself very adventurous at this point, and felt like a mountaineer as I moved deftly down, finding foot- and hand-holds swiftly and efficiently, thankful of my many childhood tree-climbing experiences. Before I knew it, I had lost the others, and I went over a small hill to look back for the group. The rest were like ants on the cliff face, most of them still at the top of the peak.
“Hey!” someone shouted. “Stay there!” I didn’t need telling—I hadn’t realized how far I’d gone. A couple minutes later, Scott emerged onto my hill.
“Thought we’d lost you,” he said. “You took that hill fast.”
A feeling of accomplishment swelled within me—yes, I had beaten that hill on which so many continued to struggle. I was like a mighty chimpanzee.
But dusk was approaching and we still had a long way to go. The club prez had told the youth hostel we’d be back by 4PM, but it was already four by this time. One girl had slipped on the dangerous cliff and hurt her leg, and others were ill-equipt to make the journey any faster. The prez made a split decision— three officers would remain with the struggling or injured members of the group and take the mountain at a slower pace, while a few of us carried on swiftly ahead with one officer, to try to keep the hostel from sending rescue crew out looking for us.
Our small group, we messengers, plunged onward and reached the stone wall. From there, we followed an uneven path, buried in snow, with hidden rocks jutting dangerously up from the hillside. We walked along a patch of trees and scaled one final slope, before we reached flat ground at last. The ground in front of us stretched out toward a farm, and as we hurried through the twilight, the snow reflecting a cold glow from the moon, we saw the dark outlines of dozens of sheep.
“The Sheep of Safe Journey,” I breathed aloud.
One sheep that had escaped onto our path was leading the way, before it ran into a fence and stopped.
“Here’s the Guide Sheep now, come to show us the way home,” I added, before it became startled and charged past up in the opposite direction, with insanity in its eyes.
We sauntered on until we reached The Cows to Hinder our Journey, which looked menacing and flicked their ears angrily as we passed. We found the road, and walked until we hit the hostel. We arrived back at around 5:30PM and well after dark. The hostel workers confided that they were starting to grow worried, but we assured them we were all fine. 20 minutes later, the rest of the group made it back.
“Is everyone okay?” Annie asked the prez quickly, as the group trudged, exhausted, up the stairs to their rooms.
“One girl fell and hit her knee,” Ashley responded. “It’ll make a pretty big bruise, but she’s okay. We’re all okay.”
That night, the officers made us heaping plates of macaroni and cheese, and we stuffed ourselves silly before calling it an early day. But that wasn’t the end of our adventure, as we would find out this (Sunday) morning.
It had snowed a little more overnight, but it was only about an inch deep on the road. The youth hostel workers warned, however, that the roads would be icy on the way out.
We started out okay. The minibus took the lead, with Mountain Man Scott driving, and the car followed behind. All of a sudden, we came to an incline, and the minibus slowed—the tires skidded, the wheels spun, but the bus started to inch its way down toward us. Without further ado, we leapt from the car and charged toward the minibus to push.
“Get out of the bus and help us!” we shouted at the people inside. Some of them were taking pictures.
The bus continued to slip, and Amish barged out the back door. The rest followed suit and 17 people nudged the minibus over the hill… but that was only the first one. We had to push the minibus up at least three more, all with increasing difficulty as our energy was slowly draining after each attempt.
Cars began to queue behind us. We finally got the minibus up the last large hill, and we decided to let Scott take it alone until he reached the main road, which would not be covered in ice. He revved the minibus and sped it up the road while the rest of the crew followed behind on foot. Scott let the momentum take the bus up and over a few more hills, a slightly less dangerous tactic without having a crowd of students in the back to worry about. Alex’s car had experienced similar trouble (Ashley, Annie and I heaved it over several hills, as well), so I also got out and walked so that Alex could drive at his own risk.
As the vehicles sped out of sight, we wondered about their luck. We came around a bend in the road a little while later to find Alex’s car stopped in the middle of the road.
“Everything okay?” Annie asked.
“Yeah, but I slid sideways,” Alex said. “See, those are my tracks.” He brandished his arm at tire tracks that led off the road, and there was a ditch carved into the muddy shoulder that had obviously been dug by spinning tires.
“I would have screamed like a little girl if I’d been in the car when that happened,” I said, matter-of-factly. So from then on I was more appreciative of the picturesque farm scenery as we walked the few more miles to the next town, where there was a cozy pub. We stopped there to have lunch, and then drove on home without any further trouble.
Thus concludes post #50! I know it was very long, but I hope it was exciting for you. That was definitely out longest and most challenging hike so far, and I was really proud of my achievement at the end. I actually very much enjoyed scaling those cliffs and pushing that minibus up those hills—and what kind of adventure would it have been if there were no effort involved, no danger?
I think this experience was one amazing adventure, and I hope our next weekend hike is just as exciting! Now I'm off to bed, after a thrilling and exhausting weekend!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Murder Mystery Night
So yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I decided to celebrate by going to a party put on by a girl I know from the Hiking Society. She is raising money to do a charity hike up Mt Kilimanjaro, and last week she sent out an e-mail advertising a home-cooked pasta bake dinner and cake for dessert, plus a murder mystery game afterwards to top it all off, for a fee of 7 pounds. I thought it sounded like fun, and it was for charity, so I figured I would skip Jana's elaborately-planned Thanksgiving dinner to join in the game.
I was supposed to come as an old-time film director, so I donned a white blouse, put my hair back and carefully traced a pencil moustache under my nose in eyeliner. I get to the party only to find out there is no pasta bake, and no cake-- just a table full of white bread sandwiches stuffed with grated cheddar cheese, and a mound of cookies. I thought at first these were just pre-dinner snacks, but then the host quickly explained that too many people had decided to show up and she didn't have enough pasta bake for everybody. This was very disappointing, considering I had come hungry, and she hadn't warned us ahead of time that there would not be a real meal! I stuffed my face with cold sandwiches and eyed the Brits to see if they'd say anything. They didn't comment, so I kept my scathing thoughts to myself.
Loaded with cookies and white bread (bugh), we eventually started the game-- which turned out to be a lot of fun! Most of us had never done a murder mystery before, so it was a great new experience-- we each got a little character booklet with lines we were supposed to say to each other, and we all got into our roles.
There was one girl dressed up like Lara Croft who was supposed to be an adventurer called "Emily Airhead" (Amelia Earhart, get it), and she played her part with ditzy gusto. Another girl had brought in a feathered fan, and she was playing the part of "Fanny Shaker", a can-can dancer. The girl who dressed up as Poison Ivy on the Halloween hike was there, and she had dressed up as "Hagatha Twisty", the tweed-clad, scarf-wearing, crime novelist. There was a prince, a widow, an inventor, and of course, me. I think we all did our characters justice, and we had a lot of fun accusing each other and discovering who the REAL killer was in the end.
If nothing else, the party inspired me to look into having my own murder mystery party sometime-- you can get the materials online, and when I came around to Jana's house after the party to drop off her blouse, I told Tom and Sonja how much fun it would be if we could all play the game together-- Jana hid in her room until I climbed upstairs, and I can't recall if I suggested the party to her-- I think I immediately jumped into expressing my grief over the nasty food.
Jana took pity on me and said we could have Thanksgiving lunch together the next day to finish off her leftovers, which we did earlier today, which was amazing. She'd made turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and of course her famous FUDGE-- and I got a taste of what I had missed the night before. She and her roommates had done the table up nice and fancy for their Thanksgiving feast, and had put everything onto porcelain platters, and drank sparkling wine together. You can see pictures on Jana's facebook, if you are her friend!
When I mixed my turkey with the cranberries and gravy, I got a sudden mental image of watching the Macy's parade, then sitting at home with the family, eating the same dinner with cheerful background noise in a big, warm house.
I do miss home-- I seem to talk about it a lot-- but! I will be going back sooner than you think! Yes! I am coming home for spring break, sometime in the month of April. So clear your schedules, start planning some Yours Truly outings, bake some pies, make pancakes-- I'm comin' home!
So that concludes blog post #49. I should put some virtual confetti on blog post #50, to mark the momentous occassion. Of course, my next entry will be on Sunday night, when I will have another adventure to tell: my weekend hike in the Lake District. The Lake District is very close to Scotland, and it's breathtakingly beautiful all year round. There is supposed to be a blizzard on Sunday, but I hope we miss it. Otherwise, it should be around freezing but sunny the rest of the time. Now I am off to get my last few things together for the long journey-- I bid you adieu, fair readers-- see you on Sunday!
I was supposed to come as an old-time film director, so I donned a white blouse, put my hair back and carefully traced a pencil moustache under my nose in eyeliner. I get to the party only to find out there is no pasta bake, and no cake-- just a table full of white bread sandwiches stuffed with grated cheddar cheese, and a mound of cookies. I thought at first these were just pre-dinner snacks, but then the host quickly explained that too many people had decided to show up and she didn't have enough pasta bake for everybody. This was very disappointing, considering I had come hungry, and she hadn't warned us ahead of time that there would not be a real meal! I stuffed my face with cold sandwiches and eyed the Brits to see if they'd say anything. They didn't comment, so I kept my scathing thoughts to myself.
Loaded with cookies and white bread (bugh), we eventually started the game-- which turned out to be a lot of fun! Most of us had never done a murder mystery before, so it was a great new experience-- we each got a little character booklet with lines we were supposed to say to each other, and we all got into our roles.
There was one girl dressed up like Lara Croft who was supposed to be an adventurer called "Emily Airhead" (Amelia Earhart, get it), and she played her part with ditzy gusto. Another girl had brought in a feathered fan, and she was playing the part of "Fanny Shaker", a can-can dancer. The girl who dressed up as Poison Ivy on the Halloween hike was there, and she had dressed up as "Hagatha Twisty", the tweed-clad, scarf-wearing, crime novelist. There was a prince, a widow, an inventor, and of course, me. I think we all did our characters justice, and we had a lot of fun accusing each other and discovering who the REAL killer was in the end.
If nothing else, the party inspired me to look into having my own murder mystery party sometime-- you can get the materials online, and when I came around to Jana's house after the party to drop off her blouse, I told Tom and Sonja how much fun it would be if we could all play the game together-- Jana hid in her room until I climbed upstairs, and I can't recall if I suggested the party to her-- I think I immediately jumped into expressing my grief over the nasty food.
Jana took pity on me and said we could have Thanksgiving lunch together the next day to finish off her leftovers, which we did earlier today, which was amazing. She'd made turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and of course her famous FUDGE-- and I got a taste of what I had missed the night before. She and her roommates had done the table up nice and fancy for their Thanksgiving feast, and had put everything onto porcelain platters, and drank sparkling wine together. You can see pictures on Jana's facebook, if you are her friend!
When I mixed my turkey with the cranberries and gravy, I got a sudden mental image of watching the Macy's parade, then sitting at home with the family, eating the same dinner with cheerful background noise in a big, warm house.
I do miss home-- I seem to talk about it a lot-- but! I will be going back sooner than you think! Yes! I am coming home for spring break, sometime in the month of April. So clear your schedules, start planning some Yours Truly outings, bake some pies, make pancakes-- I'm comin' home!
So that concludes blog post #49. I should put some virtual confetti on blog post #50, to mark the momentous occassion. Of course, my next entry will be on Sunday night, when I will have another adventure to tell: my weekend hike in the Lake District. The Lake District is very close to Scotland, and it's breathtakingly beautiful all year round. There is supposed to be a blizzard on Sunday, but I hope we miss it. Otherwise, it should be around freezing but sunny the rest of the time. Now I am off to get my last few things together for the long journey-- I bid you adieu, fair readers-- see you on Sunday!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Oxford Adventure
So it's been nearly a week since I've posted anything here, and there is one reason for that:
MATLAB.
MATLAB is short for Matrix Laboratory, a computer programming language that is used mostly by mathematicians and engineers, but is sometimes used in psychology to create visual computer tasks. Such as the task I will be using in my experiment.
Do I have to learn MATLAB? No.
Do I want to learn MATLAB? Yes, for 2 reasons: 1) it looks good on a CV, and, more importantly, 2) I want to be less dependent on my adviser in designing the different experiments for my thesis project.
After a week of intense study from a MATLAB book written specifically for psychologists, I have learned very few things. I know the basics: the ideas behind matrixes, contingencies, indices, vectorizing, "for" and "while" loops,"if" and "switch" statements, and input-output. The most complicated thing I can do now is write code to password-protect something. But can I create my own code out of thin air? Not a chance.
My biggest problem, is that I don't have the ability to parse things into tiny, simple steps. So, for example, if someone asked me: "How do you walk up a flight of stairs?" I might answer, "Well, you put one foot in front of the other and go up until you reach the top". My answer was made up of 2 directions: 1) put one foot in front of the other, and 2) go up until you reach the top.
Really, a complicated task like going up a flight of stairs is more accurately described by a lot more directions: 1) pick one foot up, 2) move foot above the first step, 3) place foot on first step, 4) pull rest of body up to first step, etc. etc.
This, I cannot do! Not for experimental tasks, anyway, and not in programming code. I always skip steps, and I always find ways to mess up the loops/statements/etc. You must have great precision and patience in writing code, and I have neither, naturally. I'm a hit-or-miss type person. I blunder through things. Here's a cooking example: I cut apples like a ninja on crack, and I can never figure out how to time the use of the kettle, microwave, and oven to systematically have all parts of dinner ready at once. So, my explosive style is what hinders my programming ability. If I could only learn how to leave out unnecessary items, and put all the necessary items into a perfectly logical order, I can master MATLAB. And also cook better.
My adviser wants me to have a visual task programmed in MATLAB by the end of this week. So I have five days to translate my task design (which I wrote out in great detail in English this morning) into MATLAB language. My adviser gave me a few bits of code to start with, and everything else I have to come up with out of my meager store of programming knowledge. I will make a most valiant effort, but if I do not succeed, I am wholly prepared to let my adviser write the program for me. I've resigned myself to knowing that I at least came up with the English version all on my own, if nothing else.
So! Now that I've got you all up to date on my academic ventures, let's relax a little and move on to my "Funday" of the week. This Funday happened yesterday, and yesterday I went to Oxford with Jana and Sonja. Remember how I told you we were having trouble finding direct routes/cheap tickets to Oxford? Well, Jana solved that problem for us, when she learned that her Museum Studies program had booked a personal coach to Oxford for students and their friends. Well, actually, I believe the coach was just for the students, but friends (such as myself and Sonja) bought seats before all the Museum Studies students could dredge up the 10 quid fee, and we successfully infiltrated an exclusive field trip.
Oxford is the most unique city in England, and you can see some great photos from my previous Oxford aventure, here. I felt it was unnecessary to take more pics since I took so many good ones last time, and everything was in bloom then, so the gardens were prettier, anyway-- but, as Oxford is so rightly named "The City of Dreaming Spires", those mighty old spires are awe-inspiring at all times of the year, and I must say my memories could never be more wondrous than the actual thing. Here is a city out of a fairy tale-- which actually gave birth to several fairy tales, in fact, among them His Dark Materials, Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Lord of the Ring.
The coach took us right outside the Pitt Rivers museum, which is this excellently decorated natural history museum, with real dinosaur footprints stamping the front lawn of the building. We broke off from the group here, and made our way to the Botanic Gardens where we found Lyra's bench for reals this time. Jana had written out detailed directions from The Amber Spyglass, and we followed them until we reached a bench in the newer section of the garden, close to a small bridge, and sitting under a young tree.
Let me explain, for those of you who haven't read the books: at the most heart-wrenching part of the final novel, the main character, Lyra, vows to sit on a bench in Oxford's Botanic Gardens-- for a reason I will not divulge here, in case you would like to read the series sometime. Anyway, the last time we were here, we picked a random bench we thought was most likely the one which Lyra would have picked; against the wall, in front of this huge, awesome "Whomping Willow"-esque pine tree. But upon re-reading the books, we found we were much mistaken in our location of the bench, and we decided to follow the directions this time around. But we still have beaming pictures of ourselves sitting on this random bench that is not Lyra's, which I still think should have been Lyra's, because it's in a much cooler place.
After the Botanic Gardens, we went to a bumbling cafe for an overpriced and mediocre meal-- not to mention they got Jana's drink order wrong three times-- but this actually did NOT foreshadow the rest of the day-- which was simply amazing! We went to Alice's Shop, and looked at all the Alice in Wonderland -themed goodies. These included Cheshire Cat pillows, Queen of Hearts clocks, teacups and tea sets, every edition of the book you could imagine, an assortment of jewelry, and barley sugar candies (the real Alice's favorite snack from that very shop, before it was called Alice's Shop, of course). I got myself a pair of silver Alice earrings, to complement the march hares I'd purchased on another visit.
We explored Christchurch Meadow, where cows grazed with their young, and I saw some shaggy bulls for the first time, with their long, twisted, menacing horns. After that, we walked all along the main streets, popping in and out of festive shops, already decked out for Christmas, selling ornaments, wool blankets, advent calendars, and many trinkety gifts. We passed several bakeries with their pastries displayed beautifully in the windows, and clothes shops where all the dummies were wrapped in warm sweaters and scarves. There was a shop that sold quills and stuffed owls, there was a toyshop that sold murder mysteries and gadgets.
We walked by a fudge shop, and the rich, sweet aromas wafted toward us from a block away-- but we didn't stop, because we were headed for the famous Blackwell's Bookshop, which has a unique collection of new and used books, cheap paperbacks on tables and rare first editions behind glass, bestsellers and classics, on any subject you can think of. We found a poster in Blackwell's advertising a "Rupert Bear" exhibit at the Bodleian Library, so of course, Jana and I being faithful Rupert fans, had to check it out.
Afterwards, we went to my very favorite tea shop in the whole world (so far) called The Rose and had a perfectly wonderful tea party, with scones and the most delicious tea you will ever drink. This time I made sure to ask where they get their tea, and they told me it was at the covered market right up the street at a shop called Cardew's, and I found it so quickly it must have been kismet. The shop was small and busy, and huge containers of tea leaves lined the back wall. There was not one inch to spare, as the whole rest of the place was taken up with different kinds of pots and trays and strainers and spoons and all other tea-related things. I got myself a hefty and excellently-priced bag of vanilla tea, and a nifty little strainer to go along with it.
To top off a brilliant day, we ended at the Ashmolean Museum, another natural history museum-- smaller than any national museum, but its structure, style, and richness of artefacts were on par with any of the giants. Of course, we had to make a stop at the Near East exhibit, as my dad has instilled in me a wondrous curiosity for ancient Mesopotamia. And that, my friends, is Oxford.... The City of Dreaming Spires... a city out of a fairy tale!
MATLAB.
MATLAB is short for Matrix Laboratory, a computer programming language that is used mostly by mathematicians and engineers, but is sometimes used in psychology to create visual computer tasks. Such as the task I will be using in my experiment.
Do I have to learn MATLAB? No.
Do I want to learn MATLAB? Yes, for 2 reasons: 1) it looks good on a CV, and, more importantly, 2) I want to be less dependent on my adviser in designing the different experiments for my thesis project.
After a week of intense study from a MATLAB book written specifically for psychologists, I have learned very few things. I know the basics: the ideas behind matrixes, contingencies, indices, vectorizing, "for" and "while" loops,"if" and "switch" statements, and input-output. The most complicated thing I can do now is write code to password-protect something. But can I create my own code out of thin air? Not a chance.
My biggest problem, is that I don't have the ability to parse things into tiny, simple steps. So, for example, if someone asked me: "How do you walk up a flight of stairs?" I might answer, "Well, you put one foot in front of the other and go up until you reach the top". My answer was made up of 2 directions: 1) put one foot in front of the other, and 2) go up until you reach the top.
Really, a complicated task like going up a flight of stairs is more accurately described by a lot more directions: 1) pick one foot up, 2) move foot above the first step, 3) place foot on first step, 4) pull rest of body up to first step, etc. etc.
This, I cannot do! Not for experimental tasks, anyway, and not in programming code. I always skip steps, and I always find ways to mess up the loops/statements/etc. You must have great precision and patience in writing code, and I have neither, naturally. I'm a hit-or-miss type person. I blunder through things. Here's a cooking example: I cut apples like a ninja on crack, and I can never figure out how to time the use of the kettle, microwave, and oven to systematically have all parts of dinner ready at once. So, my explosive style is what hinders my programming ability. If I could only learn how to leave out unnecessary items, and put all the necessary items into a perfectly logical order, I can master MATLAB. And also cook better.
My adviser wants me to have a visual task programmed in MATLAB by the end of this week. So I have five days to translate my task design (which I wrote out in great detail in English this morning) into MATLAB language. My adviser gave me a few bits of code to start with, and everything else I have to come up with out of my meager store of programming knowledge. I will make a most valiant effort, but if I do not succeed, I am wholly prepared to let my adviser write the program for me. I've resigned myself to knowing that I at least came up with the English version all on my own, if nothing else.
So! Now that I've got you all up to date on my academic ventures, let's relax a little and move on to my "Funday" of the week. This Funday happened yesterday, and yesterday I went to Oxford with Jana and Sonja. Remember how I told you we were having trouble finding direct routes/cheap tickets to Oxford? Well, Jana solved that problem for us, when she learned that her Museum Studies program had booked a personal coach to Oxford for students and their friends. Well, actually, I believe the coach was just for the students, but friends (such as myself and Sonja) bought seats before all the Museum Studies students could dredge up the 10 quid fee, and we successfully infiltrated an exclusive field trip.
Oxford is the most unique city in England, and you can see some great photos from my previous Oxford aventure, here. I felt it was unnecessary to take more pics since I took so many good ones last time, and everything was in bloom then, so the gardens were prettier, anyway-- but, as Oxford is so rightly named "The City of Dreaming Spires", those mighty old spires are awe-inspiring at all times of the year, and I must say my memories could never be more wondrous than the actual thing. Here is a city out of a fairy tale-- which actually gave birth to several fairy tales, in fact, among them His Dark Materials, Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Lord of the Ring.
The coach took us right outside the Pitt Rivers museum, which is this excellently decorated natural history museum, with real dinosaur footprints stamping the front lawn of the building. We broke off from the group here, and made our way to the Botanic Gardens where we found Lyra's bench for reals this time. Jana had written out detailed directions from The Amber Spyglass, and we followed them until we reached a bench in the newer section of the garden, close to a small bridge, and sitting under a young tree.
Let me explain, for those of you who haven't read the books: at the most heart-wrenching part of the final novel, the main character, Lyra, vows to sit on a bench in Oxford's Botanic Gardens-- for a reason I will not divulge here, in case you would like to read the series sometime. Anyway, the last time we were here, we picked a random bench we thought was most likely the one which Lyra would have picked; against the wall, in front of this huge, awesome "Whomping Willow"-esque pine tree. But upon re-reading the books, we found we were much mistaken in our location of the bench, and we decided to follow the directions this time around. But we still have beaming pictures of ourselves sitting on this random bench that is not Lyra's, which I still think should have been Lyra's, because it's in a much cooler place.
After the Botanic Gardens, we went to a bumbling cafe for an overpriced and mediocre meal-- not to mention they got Jana's drink order wrong three times-- but this actually did NOT foreshadow the rest of the day-- which was simply amazing! We went to Alice's Shop, and looked at all the Alice in Wonderland -themed goodies. These included Cheshire Cat pillows, Queen of Hearts clocks, teacups and tea sets, every edition of the book you could imagine, an assortment of jewelry, and barley sugar candies (the real Alice's favorite snack from that very shop, before it was called Alice's Shop, of course). I got myself a pair of silver Alice earrings, to complement the march hares I'd purchased on another visit.
We explored Christchurch Meadow, where cows grazed with their young, and I saw some shaggy bulls for the first time, with their long, twisted, menacing horns. After that, we walked all along the main streets, popping in and out of festive shops, already decked out for Christmas, selling ornaments, wool blankets, advent calendars, and many trinkety gifts. We passed several bakeries with their pastries displayed beautifully in the windows, and clothes shops where all the dummies were wrapped in warm sweaters and scarves. There was a shop that sold quills and stuffed owls, there was a toyshop that sold murder mysteries and gadgets.
We walked by a fudge shop, and the rich, sweet aromas wafted toward us from a block away-- but we didn't stop, because we were headed for the famous Blackwell's Bookshop, which has a unique collection of new and used books, cheap paperbacks on tables and rare first editions behind glass, bestsellers and classics, on any subject you can think of. We found a poster in Blackwell's advertising a "Rupert Bear" exhibit at the Bodleian Library, so of course, Jana and I being faithful Rupert fans, had to check it out.
Afterwards, we went to my very favorite tea shop in the whole world (so far) called The Rose and had a perfectly wonderful tea party, with scones and the most delicious tea you will ever drink. This time I made sure to ask where they get their tea, and they told me it was at the covered market right up the street at a shop called Cardew's, and I found it so quickly it must have been kismet. The shop was small and busy, and huge containers of tea leaves lined the back wall. There was not one inch to spare, as the whole rest of the place was taken up with different kinds of pots and trays and strainers and spoons and all other tea-related things. I got myself a hefty and excellently-priced bag of vanilla tea, and a nifty little strainer to go along with it.
To top off a brilliant day, we ended at the Ashmolean Museum, another natural history museum-- smaller than any national museum, but its structure, style, and richness of artefacts were on par with any of the giants. Of course, we had to make a stop at the Near East exhibit, as my dad has instilled in me a wondrous curiosity for ancient Mesopotamia. And that, my friends, is Oxford.... The City of Dreaming Spires... a city out of a fairy tale!
Monday, November 15, 2010
Hiking at Rutland Water
It was nice.
We hiked somewhere between 10-11 miles around a huge reservoir that was positioned on top of an ancient town. One member of our group says an old church is still intact somewhere, submerged under the murky depths, since it used to be illegal to demolish churches. Now the reservoir is popular for sailing (even this far into the fall), and fishing-- fishermen are called anglers here, and they walk into the water up to their waists to do their sport.
All around the water are beautiful rolling hills, dotted with plentiful sheep and swans, but what made the biggest impression on me were the picturesque towns tucked neatly in the hill valleys. With the little brick houses poking into view, church spires easily the highest points around, it reminded me strongly of Sleepy Hollow. If you don't like the idea of Sleepy Hollow (I think it's very pretty in every movie, but that could just be me), think of your favorite storybook village, and you have the towns surrounding Rutland Water.
We walked through one such town, and it is as picturesque within as it is from far away. Ivy and flowers scale cobbled walls, pumpkins sit merrily on doorsteps, autumn wreaths hang festively from doorways. Some of the houses had thatched roofs, believe it or not, but those were the exception. Each house had a simple, yet charming name: The Cottage, Old Hall, etc. I imagined this place would be very homey around Christmas-time-- I imagined buying hot pies from stalls, decorating the town hall with strings of lights, sledding down the hillside, listening to carolers in the street, drinking cocoa in front of a crackling fire. Ahhh...
After our journey around the reservoir, we took a stroll around the nature reserve. Birdwatchers are popular; they come for the swans, geese, and other creatures that live near the water. The setting sun looked striking against the black silhouettes of trees, and it somehow enhanced the green of the hillside. After our walk, we went to a nearby pub where I ordered my usual plate of potato wedges and we all sat around wooden tables, warming ourselves up with cocoa and spirits.
I had a dream about the nature reserve 5 months ago. That chalks my deja vu experiences up to 2 in the past week, since I also dreamed about the Arcadia in Birmingham. However, when you remember your dreams as well as I do, you'd know you go through thousands of dream scenes, some of which are bound to have correlations in real life, whether you'd actually seen them before or not. So I could take this phenomenon in one of two ways: 1) as an indication that the mind is so sophisticated that it can construct new places in a dream as well as an architect could in real life, or 2) I'm psychic.
Either one would be really cool.
We hiked somewhere between 10-11 miles around a huge reservoir that was positioned on top of an ancient town. One member of our group says an old church is still intact somewhere, submerged under the murky depths, since it used to be illegal to demolish churches. Now the reservoir is popular for sailing (even this far into the fall), and fishing-- fishermen are called anglers here, and they walk into the water up to their waists to do their sport.
All around the water are beautiful rolling hills, dotted with plentiful sheep and swans, but what made the biggest impression on me were the picturesque towns tucked neatly in the hill valleys. With the little brick houses poking into view, church spires easily the highest points around, it reminded me strongly of Sleepy Hollow. If you don't like the idea of Sleepy Hollow (I think it's very pretty in every movie, but that could just be me), think of your favorite storybook village, and you have the towns surrounding Rutland Water.
We walked through one such town, and it is as picturesque within as it is from far away. Ivy and flowers scale cobbled walls, pumpkins sit merrily on doorsteps, autumn wreaths hang festively from doorways. Some of the houses had thatched roofs, believe it or not, but those were the exception. Each house had a simple, yet charming name: The Cottage, Old Hall, etc. I imagined this place would be very homey around Christmas-time-- I imagined buying hot pies from stalls, decorating the town hall with strings of lights, sledding down the hillside, listening to carolers in the street, drinking cocoa in front of a crackling fire. Ahhh...
After our journey around the reservoir, we took a stroll around the nature reserve. Birdwatchers are popular; they come for the swans, geese, and other creatures that live near the water. The setting sun looked striking against the black silhouettes of trees, and it somehow enhanced the green of the hillside. After our walk, we went to a nearby pub where I ordered my usual plate of potato wedges and we all sat around wooden tables, warming ourselves up with cocoa and spirits.
I had a dream about the nature reserve 5 months ago. That chalks my deja vu experiences up to 2 in the past week, since I also dreamed about the Arcadia in Birmingham. However, when you remember your dreams as well as I do, you'd know you go through thousands of dream scenes, some of which are bound to have correlations in real life, whether you'd actually seen them before or not. So I could take this phenomenon in one of two ways: 1) as an indication that the mind is so sophisticated that it can construct new places in a dream as well as an architect could in real life, or 2) I'm psychic.
Either one would be really cool.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Yann Tiersen is like Sex
On Tuesday night, Jana and I took a cushy trainride to Birmingham to see our favorite foreign composer-- Yann Tiersen. If you've never heard this name, I recommend you check him out. If you do a Youtube search for 'Rue des Cascades', the first search item that comes up is the version of the song that made me a fan from that point forward.
If you've never heard his name, I'm sure you're familiar with his work-- most notably, he composed the score for the film Amelie. But he has worked on several other French films and also has many stand-alone CDs, my favorites of which are Les Retrouvailles- a whimsical studio album made up mostly of pieces that haven't featured on other albums, and C'etait Ici- a 2 disk live concert recording of all Yann's best music (in case any of you want a starting point for your own Tiersen exploration!)
OK back to the concert. Going in we knew we would have a problem with time. The last train back to Leicester was scheduled for 10:20, and the concert started at 8. (Jana and I actually did pretty well leaving early together, considering a shouting match would typically have ensued from having to miss our dear Yann.)
Once we arrived in Birmingham, we found the venue was conveniently right around the corner from the train station. The Glee Club-- a generic club venue with a bar, a stage, a small amount of standing room and nothing else-- was inside an open-roofed Chinese mall, which looked like an Asian Downtown Disney. The setup was actually kind of strange, once I thought about it: to get to the club, we first had to pass under a Japanese archway, walk down a row of cozy-looking Asian restaurants, ascend some stairs and suddenly, we were surrounded by modern clubs and theaters, overlooking all the Asian stores (and an Italian restaurant).
The opening band was very fitting for a Tiersen concert-- made up of a guitarist and drummer, who occasionally played some kind of piano horn. The music had very lulling, rhythmically deep vocals and interesting meter, and it was all in English sung by Frenchmen, which sounds really cool as is. The audience pegged a stagehand as Tiersen early on (granted, he did look like an uglier, messier, version), but when Yann finally materialized on the stage (he seemed to come right out of nowhere), there was no mistaking him-- that powerful, casual swagger; that sleight, proportionate frame; that magical stage-presence radiating like an aura around him; this was a musical phenomenon.
It is peculiar to add, looking back, how small the venue was. Granted, he's no arena performer, but this place was tiny! I was so close to him I could have touch him if I'd reached out. It made me realize how selective his fanbase is. Do I wish he were mainstream? Some would argue that popularity changes an artist-- I say, if I could hear Yann Tiersen on the radio, I would be ecstatic.
He played music from his new album Dust Lanes, which I have never heard, but the music was so pleasant and wonderful I didn't care. Just before 10 o'clock (our premature cut-off time for the concert), he had all his bandmates leave the stage, and he stood alone with his violin.
He played Sur le Fil.
If you don't know what that means, go here.
Just him. Alone. With his violin. Shredding his bow.
My heart was beating so fast and hard, I could feel my pulse in my head and feet and everywhere in between; I could feel the music in my teeth; I liken his playing to foreplay, sex and orgasm-- he runs his hands along the neck and curves of his instrument so gently, then thrusts into the piece with his body, and ends abruptly on this amazing chord of notes--
And for a split second, there's silence afterwards, and you can see his face is still in the piece--
Then the applause, like the throbbing of hearts and genitalia (OK I'm done with the sex references here, but that's the takeaway message: Yann Tiersen's music is like sex)
Jana says my solitary shout of approval provoked the thanking smile the artist gave to the audience for sharing in his most intimate performance.
And then we left, back to Leicester much too soon. Jana and I promised to go to another of his concerts to finish the damn thing-- God knows he tours England plenty!
BUT that is a performance I will never forget, and I count myself lucky to have witnessed his genius, and with my very favorite instrument.
If you've never heard his name, I'm sure you're familiar with his work-- most notably, he composed the score for the film Amelie. But he has worked on several other French films and also has many stand-alone CDs, my favorites of which are Les Retrouvailles- a whimsical studio album made up mostly of pieces that haven't featured on other albums, and C'etait Ici- a 2 disk live concert recording of all Yann's best music (in case any of you want a starting point for your own Tiersen exploration!)
OK back to the concert. Going in we knew we would have a problem with time. The last train back to Leicester was scheduled for 10:20, and the concert started at 8. (Jana and I actually did pretty well leaving early together, considering a shouting match would typically have ensued from having to miss our dear Yann.)
Once we arrived in Birmingham, we found the venue was conveniently right around the corner from the train station. The Glee Club-- a generic club venue with a bar, a stage, a small amount of standing room and nothing else-- was inside an open-roofed Chinese mall, which looked like an Asian Downtown Disney. The setup was actually kind of strange, once I thought about it: to get to the club, we first had to pass under a Japanese archway, walk down a row of cozy-looking Asian restaurants, ascend some stairs and suddenly, we were surrounded by modern clubs and theaters, overlooking all the Asian stores (and an Italian restaurant).
The opening band was very fitting for a Tiersen concert-- made up of a guitarist and drummer, who occasionally played some kind of piano horn. The music had very lulling, rhythmically deep vocals and interesting meter, and it was all in English sung by Frenchmen, which sounds really cool as is. The audience pegged a stagehand as Tiersen early on (granted, he did look like an uglier, messier, version), but when Yann finally materialized on the stage (he seemed to come right out of nowhere), there was no mistaking him-- that powerful, casual swagger; that sleight, proportionate frame; that magical stage-presence radiating like an aura around him; this was a musical phenomenon.
It is peculiar to add, looking back, how small the venue was. Granted, he's no arena performer, but this place was tiny! I was so close to him I could have touch him if I'd reached out. It made me realize how selective his fanbase is. Do I wish he were mainstream? Some would argue that popularity changes an artist-- I say, if I could hear Yann Tiersen on the radio, I would be ecstatic.
He played music from his new album Dust Lanes, which I have never heard, but the music was so pleasant and wonderful I didn't care. Just before 10 o'clock (our premature cut-off time for the concert), he had all his bandmates leave the stage, and he stood alone with his violin.
He played Sur le Fil.
If you don't know what that means, go here.
Just him. Alone. With his violin. Shredding his bow.
My heart was beating so fast and hard, I could feel my pulse in my head and feet and everywhere in between; I could feel the music in my teeth; I liken his playing to foreplay, sex and orgasm-- he runs his hands along the neck and curves of his instrument so gently, then thrusts into the piece with his body, and ends abruptly on this amazing chord of notes--
And for a split second, there's silence afterwards, and you can see his face is still in the piece--
Then the applause, like the throbbing of hearts and genitalia (OK I'm done with the sex references here, but that's the takeaway message: Yann Tiersen's music is like sex)
Jana says my solitary shout of approval provoked the thanking smile the artist gave to the audience for sharing in his most intimate performance.
And then we left, back to Leicester much too soon. Jana and I promised to go to another of his concerts to finish the damn thing-- God knows he tours England plenty!
BUT that is a performance I will never forget, and I count myself lucky to have witnessed his genius, and with my very favorite instrument.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Bonfire Night
I'm wondering why I wrote that last post-- I'm keeping it up cos I've decided not to delete anything I write here. I always get rid of things and regret it afterwards (some of my DBZ paraphernalia, as laughable as that sounds, as well as my livejournal account, to name a couple). Anyway, my dreams are always vivid and random, but I seem to be going through a heck of a lot more of them nowadays-- I wonder if that means I've got a lot on my mind? I don't feel overwhelmed or anything, and I'm always well-rested, so maybe all the dreaming is a good thing-- I look forward to sleeping, at any rate.
Last night my dreams were full of randomness-- my dad was building a house all by himself, which was turning out to be a nightmare-- I was a spy and I had to swim through a dark marina to steal a sea-doo-- I was weaving in my old car through a parking lot and grazed a bumper in my haste to turn around, and decided to drive away instead of doing anything about it... You'd think my dreams would be of England or university or something relevant to my experiences here, but my brain decided that was too logical for me!
All through the daytime yesterday I was running data analysis for my reading study. I finally finished running it on Friday and I was excited to see the results. As you know, I had given students garbled passages to read last week, which were actually transcripts of audio from a patient with a language disorder. This week I gave students the normal passages. When I ran the tests on the data, I found (not unexpectedly) that they scored significantly worse in answering questions on the garbled passages than the normal passages. I also found (to my disappointment) that the patient scored pretty similarly to the garbled-passage condition, which just goes to show that nothing too interesting was going on in her head that I couldn't have gathered from her transcripts. What I mean to say is, she said exactly what she could understand, and answered the questions comparatively. I had hoped that she would score closer to the control condition, which would have meant she was comprehending more than she was generating, which would have been a really cool effect.
I've been looking for some theoretical support for my study, and found that there is a lot of debate among language scientists about how we process the written word. When we read, do we draw out the sound of the word first and access the meaning, after? Or, can we access the meaning of a word without the pronunciation of it in our heads? Several studies have found conflicting results. Mine, I guess, seems to show that meanings of words are accessed better if the phonological representation (pronunciation of the word) is accurate.
My study might still be useful, though. One previous study argued that their patient with aphasia was still able to understand meanings of words even though he could not pronounce those words. But, what the researchers didn't do, was compare their patient to controls... when my patient took the comprehension test, she scored about 70%, which seems like fair comprehension, considering she scored better than chance. However, when my controls were given the jumbled words (and those words could provide no semantic access to real words, unlike the words given to my patient), they scored almost the same. So that just goes to show that my test was probably too easy and people can guess the correct answers even if they were given nonsense to read, and it looks like phonological reps are quite important to the meanings of words... so I'm going to write up these issues and findings as a scientific poster and hopefully present it this spring at the BPS conference in London.
Okay, so I titled this post Bonfire Night for a reason, and that is because the 5th of November is a holiday here not unlike our 4th of July in practice. Here's a history lesson, Yanks-- on November 5th, sometime in the 1600s, a group of conspirators plotted to blow up the House of Lords, similar to today's Parliament, to bring down the Protestants and bring back Catholicism to the rulers of England. Guy Fawkes was in charge of guarding the explosives that had been strategically placed for their act of terrorism, but authorites caught him before he could do any damage, and he was maimed and tortured and had a public hanging and all that horrible stuff. Ever since, England has celebrated its amazing luck with fireworks, bonfires and barbeques every 5th of November.
This year it rained. Which sucked, because Jana and I didn't actually go see any fireworks on November 5th, but there was a big party in Abbey Park the day after with plenty of fire and sparks to make up for it, cos we went there-- and here's the story:
Around 5:45-ish, it was getting dark and chilly, and Jana, Tom (her roommate), and I made our way down to Abbey Park. We met a couple of Tom's friends on New Walk along the way, one of them another American who had this double-air about him of 1)amused bewilderment at anything English and 2)slight disdain for Leicester and superiority for naturally being an American. However, this attitude might have spurned from his being from New York, more than anything. The other Brit seemed to be as casual as Tom, which is probably why they're friends.
We hit the park and first thing we saw was a huge pile of wood, all stacked neatly into a boxy shape, and surrounded on all sides by a barrier. Just in front of the pile was a tall metal frame stamped with the visage of none other than Guy Fawkes himself, pointy 17th century-esque hat and all. There was a big TV screen right above a stage that everyone was crowding around, where BBC Leicester radio DJs hosted, and entertainers performed.
The first thing we did, of course, was run to the food stands-- Jana, Tom and I got some great crepes-- not your typical, teeny weeny, limp, thin, crepes-- but massive, thick, crispy pancakes that were each spread over its own round grill, batter dumped from enormous buckets, and filled with lots of goodies. Jana had hers filled with strawberries and cream, mine was filled with cheese, but you could get it loaded with fruit, or meat, or a combination of fruit and liqueur (as a side note, I finally bothered to look up the real spelling of liqueur).
We made our way across the field to watch the lighting of the biggest bonfire I'd ever seen. The barriers were a good long ways away from the fire itself, but the heat coming from the flames was enough to make us finally turn our back to shield our scorching faces... we warmed up very nicely for a good half hour, before the fire died down and what was once a heaping pile of wood was reduced to ashes. Jana proposed the idea to hop the fence and do a "fire walk", but none were stupid enough. As we made our way back across the field for the fireworks, a streaker bounded across an empty plain that had been blocked off for the display, and I missed him, unfortunately, and only saw the aftermath of three cops charging after him behind a building. But Tom and his friends saw the guy, and that turned out to be better fun than all the entertainers of the night, who were quite mediocre for a 10,000-man crowd. I mentioned to Jana, of course, that Stefani could have done this place well.
The fireworks were very pretty, but the show was much too short. Really, the bonfire and crepe made the night spectacular. The boys decided to hit the pub before going home, but I went back to my place to read some Harry Potter-- which is like a whole new book when you read the British-English version. Here's a new word for all of you: scarper. It means basically the same thing as scamper although it suggests more of the "hurrying quickly away" quality of the word and less of the "panicked or mindless running" quality. Here's another term I learned from Harry Potter: "Get out of it". This phrase basically means "Go away" but in a less-direct sort of manner.
So next time your annoying little brother/sister/cat intrudes on you, you can say in a severe tone, "Get out of it," and watch them scarper.
Last night my dreams were full of randomness-- my dad was building a house all by himself, which was turning out to be a nightmare-- I was a spy and I had to swim through a dark marina to steal a sea-doo-- I was weaving in my old car through a parking lot and grazed a bumper in my haste to turn around, and decided to drive away instead of doing anything about it... You'd think my dreams would be of England or university or something relevant to my experiences here, but my brain decided that was too logical for me!
All through the daytime yesterday I was running data analysis for my reading study. I finally finished running it on Friday and I was excited to see the results. As you know, I had given students garbled passages to read last week, which were actually transcripts of audio from a patient with a language disorder. This week I gave students the normal passages. When I ran the tests on the data, I found (not unexpectedly) that they scored significantly worse in answering questions on the garbled passages than the normal passages. I also found (to my disappointment) that the patient scored pretty similarly to the garbled-passage condition, which just goes to show that nothing too interesting was going on in her head that I couldn't have gathered from her transcripts. What I mean to say is, she said exactly what she could understand, and answered the questions comparatively. I had hoped that she would score closer to the control condition, which would have meant she was comprehending more than she was generating, which would have been a really cool effect.
I've been looking for some theoretical support for my study, and found that there is a lot of debate among language scientists about how we process the written word. When we read, do we draw out the sound of the word first and access the meaning, after? Or, can we access the meaning of a word without the pronunciation of it in our heads? Several studies have found conflicting results. Mine, I guess, seems to show that meanings of words are accessed better if the phonological representation (pronunciation of the word) is accurate.
My study might still be useful, though. One previous study argued that their patient with aphasia was still able to understand meanings of words even though he could not pronounce those words. But, what the researchers didn't do, was compare their patient to controls... when my patient took the comprehension test, she scored about 70%, which seems like fair comprehension, considering she scored better than chance. However, when my controls were given the jumbled words (and those words could provide no semantic access to real words, unlike the words given to my patient), they scored almost the same. So that just goes to show that my test was probably too easy and people can guess the correct answers even if they were given nonsense to read, and it looks like phonological reps are quite important to the meanings of words... so I'm going to write up these issues and findings as a scientific poster and hopefully present it this spring at the BPS conference in London.
Okay, so I titled this post Bonfire Night for a reason, and that is because the 5th of November is a holiday here not unlike our 4th of July in practice. Here's a history lesson, Yanks-- on November 5th, sometime in the 1600s, a group of conspirators plotted to blow up the House of Lords, similar to today's Parliament, to bring down the Protestants and bring back Catholicism to the rulers of England. Guy Fawkes was in charge of guarding the explosives that had been strategically placed for their act of terrorism, but authorites caught him before he could do any damage, and he was maimed and tortured and had a public hanging and all that horrible stuff. Ever since, England has celebrated its amazing luck with fireworks, bonfires and barbeques every 5th of November.
This year it rained. Which sucked, because Jana and I didn't actually go see any fireworks on November 5th, but there was a big party in Abbey Park the day after with plenty of fire and sparks to make up for it, cos we went there-- and here's the story:
Around 5:45-ish, it was getting dark and chilly, and Jana, Tom (her roommate), and I made our way down to Abbey Park. We met a couple of Tom's friends on New Walk along the way, one of them another American who had this double-air about him of 1)amused bewilderment at anything English and 2)slight disdain for Leicester and superiority for naturally being an American. However, this attitude might have spurned from his being from New York, more than anything. The other Brit seemed to be as casual as Tom, which is probably why they're friends.
We hit the park and first thing we saw was a huge pile of wood, all stacked neatly into a boxy shape, and surrounded on all sides by a barrier. Just in front of the pile was a tall metal frame stamped with the visage of none other than Guy Fawkes himself, pointy 17th century-esque hat and all. There was a big TV screen right above a stage that everyone was crowding around, where BBC Leicester radio DJs hosted, and entertainers performed.
The first thing we did, of course, was run to the food stands-- Jana, Tom and I got some great crepes-- not your typical, teeny weeny, limp, thin, crepes-- but massive, thick, crispy pancakes that were each spread over its own round grill, batter dumped from enormous buckets, and filled with lots of goodies. Jana had hers filled with strawberries and cream, mine was filled with cheese, but you could get it loaded with fruit, or meat, or a combination of fruit and liqueur (as a side note, I finally bothered to look up the real spelling of liqueur).
We made our way across the field to watch the lighting of the biggest bonfire I'd ever seen. The barriers were a good long ways away from the fire itself, but the heat coming from the flames was enough to make us finally turn our back to shield our scorching faces... we warmed up very nicely for a good half hour, before the fire died down and what was once a heaping pile of wood was reduced to ashes. Jana proposed the idea to hop the fence and do a "fire walk", but none were stupid enough. As we made our way back across the field for the fireworks, a streaker bounded across an empty plain that had been blocked off for the display, and I missed him, unfortunately, and only saw the aftermath of three cops charging after him behind a building. But Tom and his friends saw the guy, and that turned out to be better fun than all the entertainers of the night, who were quite mediocre for a 10,000-man crowd. I mentioned to Jana, of course, that Stefani could have done this place well.
The fireworks were very pretty, but the show was much too short. Really, the bonfire and crepe made the night spectacular. The boys decided to hit the pub before going home, but I went back to my place to read some Harry Potter-- which is like a whole new book when you read the British-English version. Here's a new word for all of you: scarper. It means basically the same thing as scamper although it suggests more of the "hurrying quickly away" quality of the word and less of the "panicked or mindless running" quality. Here's another term I learned from Harry Potter: "Get out of it". This phrase basically means "Go away" but in a less-direct sort of manner.
So next time your annoying little brother/sister/cat intrudes on you, you can say in a severe tone, "Get out of it," and watch them scarper.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Read this weirdo dream
So here goes: I find myself at the end of some kind of demonstration-- if I dreamed the demonstration itself, I'll never know, because I can't remember. Anyway, I have just demonstrated something, and I have the vaguest idea that this happened to be my ability to fly. I am surrounded by kids around 10 years old, and all the girls are dressed up in long, heavy, old-fashioned dresses, reminiscent of those American Girl dolls. I myself am dressed up, but strange looks indicate that I may have picked a rather eccentric-looking dress (I don't ever look at myself to find out what I'm wearing). Jana is there, and I ask her how I look.
She says something along the lines of, "I wouldn't have picked that one," and I reply, "Well, I like it- it's different."
I start to fly off when suddenly, one of the girls in the nicer dresses, who I can tell is a snob and a bully among her peers, grabs hold of the end of my dress and says in an innocent voice, "Your dress is so lovely. Will you take me for a ride?"
I pull my dress out of her hands and say, "I don't think so, you're rotten to the core."
She sneers as I fly away, but I feel triumphant that I have seen through her act, which I thought I wouldn't have spotted when I was that age, which is why I was bullied so often then. I can feel a sudden weight and I realize another girl has grabbed hold of my feet- her dress is a little too big for her, she looks a little bit plain and a little sloppy, kind of tomboyish- this girl reminds me of me at that age, and I hoist her up into a piggy back.
"I love your dress," she says, a little enviously as we fly. "I wish I looked like you."
We fly through a community of treehouses not unlike Myst, and I drop her off on a boardwalk connecting the treehouses.
"I look so weird," she says, sucking in to show her scrawny frame, ribs exposed, and she's looking down at her awkwardly big feet.
"You'll grow up," I assure her. And in a somewhat motherly way, I say, "Just remember to eat lots of fruit and veggies and you'll turn out fine."
And that's the end...
Last night I met Sonja's dad, who is an English teacher in his native Germany, and I said it would be cool if Jana and I could come to his classroom and talk to the kids in English. He thought this was an excellent idea and said we can do just that when we come for Christmas-- and I'm thinking my dream may have spawned from that idea somehow!
I love meeting people from other countries, especially if they have a lot of questions about the English language or America, because I am quite knowledgable on those subjects, and peoples' perception of English is interesting to me anyhow. For example, Sonja's dad asked if Jana and I could explain the difference between the words "cry" "shout" and "scream", and asked if we ever used the word "teeter-totter" in place of "seesaw". It may sound funny, but it was a lot of fun explaining!
She says something along the lines of, "I wouldn't have picked that one," and I reply, "Well, I like it- it's different."
I start to fly off when suddenly, one of the girls in the nicer dresses, who I can tell is a snob and a bully among her peers, grabs hold of the end of my dress and says in an innocent voice, "Your dress is so lovely. Will you take me for a ride?"
I pull my dress out of her hands and say, "I don't think so, you're rotten to the core."
She sneers as I fly away, but I feel triumphant that I have seen through her act, which I thought I wouldn't have spotted when I was that age, which is why I was bullied so often then. I can feel a sudden weight and I realize another girl has grabbed hold of my feet- her dress is a little too big for her, she looks a little bit plain and a little sloppy, kind of tomboyish- this girl reminds me of me at that age, and I hoist her up into a piggy back.
"I love your dress," she says, a little enviously as we fly. "I wish I looked like you."
We fly through a community of treehouses not unlike Myst, and I drop her off on a boardwalk connecting the treehouses.
"I look so weird," she says, sucking in to show her scrawny frame, ribs exposed, and she's looking down at her awkwardly big feet.
"You'll grow up," I assure her. And in a somewhat motherly way, I say, "Just remember to eat lots of fruit and veggies and you'll turn out fine."
And that's the end...
Last night I met Sonja's dad, who is an English teacher in his native Germany, and I said it would be cool if Jana and I could come to his classroom and talk to the kids in English. He thought this was an excellent idea and said we can do just that when we come for Christmas-- and I'm thinking my dream may have spawned from that idea somehow!
I love meeting people from other countries, especially if they have a lot of questions about the English language or America, because I am quite knowledgable on those subjects, and peoples' perception of English is interesting to me anyhow. For example, Sonja's dad asked if Jana and I could explain the difference between the words "cry" "shout" and "scream", and asked if we ever used the word "teeter-totter" in place of "seesaw". It may sound funny, but it was a lot of fun explaining!
Monday, November 1, 2010
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" --Albert Einstein
Okay, I know three posts in two days is a little excessive, but stuff has happened so I have to write this!
So last night, having finished that rationale in about 2 hours, I walked up and down Clarendon Park Road, checking in every grocery store and off-license (that's liquor store) I could find for that coveted pumpkin or orange spice/liquer/flavoring syrup for the party and Jana's house. And what do you know? Every place thinks I'm crazy. Or can't understand my accent, I don't know which. "Orange... liquer? Pumpkin... spice?" (shakes head with fearful look in eye) "No... we don't have that..." Oh well, so we just had our good ol' fashioned hot buttered rum with Bailey's, and everything turned out peachy.
I was also going up and down the road looking for a nice pizza joint, but finding they were all incredibly expensive I foraged the grocery store for a ready-made plain pizza and I just loaded it with fresh veggies-- UM-- best idea of my life! It cost a grand total of 2pounds 40p and it lasted me through three meals. So I'm going to stock up on the ready-made pizza pie and veggies galore and have myself some delicious and cheap dinners until I get sick of em!
We had a good turnout with the trick-or-treaters last night. Jana and Sonja put up decorations to flag the kids down and we had a couple of good crowds come by. Jana dressed up as Hermione again, filled a bowl with chocolate and waited for the monsters to flock. And, there was enough left over for me to have about half the bowl! Yippee! So that was Hallowe'en weekend, and it was all amazing fun.
Today, it was back to work, and I ran the control condition for my reading study. At first I thought it wasn't necessary-- I thought, of course college students would be able to score 100% on a reading test that was at about a 3rd grade level, right? Um... let me put it this way. I will never underestimate the stupidity of undergraduates again. You might be thinking what Becky pointed out when I told her the news: "Maybe the students were just hurrying through the experiment, not really reading the passages?" Nope. Every other participant was reading the whole thing out loud, and it didn't help their scores one bit.
Well, it has only been one day. Maybe it was just a reject batch, and the rest will score in the above-retarded range. I'll tell you at the end of the week!
Oo, also! I settled at last on a critical literature review topic: The relationship between visual imagery and perception!
There has been much debate, you see, whether people use the same neural mechanisms for visual imagery and actual vision vision, a.k.a. visual perception. I came across a wicked discussion article on the topic, but it was only four and a half pages long and was written 10 years ago, and the author's conclusion was that both overlap to a certain neural degree, but the extent is uncertain, and specific brain regions have not been agreed upon. I figured-- I should see if any discoveries have been made since then, and I can expand greatly on the relevant literature.
What was cool about the article was that the author drew from neuropsychological evidence for parts of her argument, and she looked at articles that had studied imaginal neglect and visual imagery in cortical blindness (where the brain regions for visual perception had been completely wiped out). These are all really cool things, but it is also interesting to note that the author is not only the same person who contributed to my favorite "rotating barbell" experiment which jump-started my interest in neglect, but she is also one professor I targeted to be my adviser for a PhD program at Carnegie Mellon University-- I was, of course, rejected.
Nevertheless, I have to say that by the time I'm finished, she will be begging me to be her grad student!
Hell yeah!
So last night, having finished that rationale in about 2 hours, I walked up and down Clarendon Park Road, checking in every grocery store and off-license (that's liquor store) I could find for that coveted pumpkin or orange spice/liquer/flavoring syrup for the party and Jana's house. And what do you know? Every place thinks I'm crazy. Or can't understand my accent, I don't know which. "Orange... liquer? Pumpkin... spice?" (shakes head with fearful look in eye) "No... we don't have that..." Oh well, so we just had our good ol' fashioned hot buttered rum with Bailey's, and everything turned out peachy.
I was also going up and down the road looking for a nice pizza joint, but finding they were all incredibly expensive I foraged the grocery store for a ready-made plain pizza and I just loaded it with fresh veggies-- UM-- best idea of my life! It cost a grand total of 2pounds 40p and it lasted me through three meals. So I'm going to stock up on the ready-made pizza pie and veggies galore and have myself some delicious and cheap dinners until I get sick of em!
We had a good turnout with the trick-or-treaters last night. Jana and Sonja put up decorations to flag the kids down and we had a couple of good crowds come by. Jana dressed up as Hermione again, filled a bowl with chocolate and waited for the monsters to flock. And, there was enough left over for me to have about half the bowl! Yippee! So that was Hallowe'en weekend, and it was all amazing fun.
Today, it was back to work, and I ran the control condition for my reading study. At first I thought it wasn't necessary-- I thought, of course college students would be able to score 100% on a reading test that was at about a 3rd grade level, right? Um... let me put it this way. I will never underestimate the stupidity of undergraduates again. You might be thinking what Becky pointed out when I told her the news: "Maybe the students were just hurrying through the experiment, not really reading the passages?" Nope. Every other participant was reading the whole thing out loud, and it didn't help their scores one bit.
Well, it has only been one day. Maybe it was just a reject batch, and the rest will score in the above-retarded range. I'll tell you at the end of the week!
Oo, also! I settled at last on a critical literature review topic: The relationship between visual imagery and perception!
There has been much debate, you see, whether people use the same neural mechanisms for visual imagery and actual vision vision, a.k.a. visual perception. I came across a wicked discussion article on the topic, but it was only four and a half pages long and was written 10 years ago, and the author's conclusion was that both overlap to a certain neural degree, but the extent is uncertain, and specific brain regions have not been agreed upon. I figured-- I should see if any discoveries have been made since then, and I can expand greatly on the relevant literature.
What was cool about the article was that the author drew from neuropsychological evidence for parts of her argument, and she looked at articles that had studied imaginal neglect and visual imagery in cortical blindness (where the brain regions for visual perception had been completely wiped out). These are all really cool things, but it is also interesting to note that the author is not only the same person who contributed to my favorite "rotating barbell" experiment which jump-started my interest in neglect, but she is also one professor I targeted to be my adviser for a PhD program at Carnegie Mellon University-- I was, of course, rejected.
Nevertheless, I have to say that by the time I'm finished, she will be begging me to be her grad student!
Hell yeah!
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