Hello everyone, or anyone who is still reading this,
I know it's been a long time since I've posted. I guess I've been busy! Since before my lasts posts (which don't really count, as they're rants), I have interviewed for a PhD position-- which I figure went OK but I learned my chances of getting the position are now 1/30. I do have a couple of backup plans. There's another Italian PhD program I applied for, and there's one in Scotland that the head of my course sent along to me, and I'm currently in the midst of applying (application due in July).
I've also been working on my thesis experiment-- got a ton of participants through the university-wide emailing list, and I'm optmistic my study will get some good power from all of them. I'm also 7000 words through the write-up-- I have most sections complete except for the discussion, which is partially finished. I also finished putting together my powerpoint for a talk I'm giving at the upcoming Experimental Psychological society conference. Haven't practiced it yet, but I got 3 weeks! I also also found a house to live in next month (closer to the psych building, too, which is a bonus!), learned more MATLAB (I'm getting pretty good at the basics), and have prepared for my Scotland hiking trip which sets off later this morning.
I figured, I'll try to get something written today, and then promise to write about my trip next week. I should have a lot to say about it! On Saturday, we're going to hike the tallest peak in the UK (which isn't saying much but it's still cool, as I've never hiked a real mountain before, small or otherwise), then Sunday and Monday we'll be on the Isle of Skye. Adventure awaits. I can feel it! The brisk morning air gives me the feeling it's very close.
Hmmm maybe I won't say much about what's been going on in my life recently. See, the only people who read this blog are people I do actually talk to on occassion, and I'd like something to say other than "Did you read that in my blog?" for a change. See, it works both ways, dear friends and family. Blogging makes you feel isolated in the big wide web if there's no communication. So we'll leave it at that! Now you know if you (or I) ever call, we'll have a lot to talk about-- and none of this "Oh, nothing much has been going on" from your end! Something's been happening! I'm feeling nostalgic for Ohio so even something as mundane as shopping or chilling is of interest. And of course, whenever people get together for conversation, it becomes that much more interesting.
Interaction! That's what I crave this early in the morning.
Right now I'm washing my bedding (it's been a while cos I haven't gone away for more than a day to give my sheets a chance to dry in the open air, cos I don't have a dryer), and I turned the heat on with my clothes over the radiator to try to finish drying some things I washed two days ago (which are still damp) to bring them with me to Scotland.
I am waiting for the grocery store to open. I don't think it does until 7AM. Need to buy a couple of bananas for the road. Although this upcoming trip was very cheap (80 pounds for 4 days/5 nights) and MOSTLY inclusive (transportation, breakfast, hostels, dinner one night), I am still required to provide my own lunch and dinner on most days. Not that bananas will hold me over, but I'm trying to pack light.
I figure I'll buy sandwiches/eat out when I can-- it's just easier since we're restricted on the luggage and I don't want half of mine to be food. Besides, pub dinners are great. They provide the ultimate post-hike comfort food! They're one thing I really love about England, especially the English countryside. No matter how small the village, no matter how expansive the wilderness, you know there's always a pub closeby serving chips and soup and dinner pies.
Mmm! And on that note, I'm going to go have some breakfast.
I'll be back Tuesday night!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Who even knew that Han shot first?
Okay, this rant has been coming for a long time, and I just saw the DVD version of the first Star Wars episode the other day so all the content is fresh in my mind. Now, there are a couple of things I would like to say about this movie...
First of all, let's get all this "Han shot first" business out of the way. So I see college kids running around in their "Han shot first" t-shirts, and I've had discussions with more than one Star Wars nerd about all this hoo-hah. So apparently, in the original version of Star Wars, Han Solo killed this little green man-- not in self-defense as it appears in the other films (when the green man shoots his weapon at him first)-- but as a badass who just wants to get a troublesome bounty hunter out of the picture (when Han shoots first). Er... right. Maybe people don't remember, but right before this little standoff takes place, the little green man makes it very clear that he intends to kill Han Solo. I think he says something along the lines of "I'm going to kill you now." Han was, in fact, provoked, and had reason to believe his life was in danger. Therefore, it doesn't matter if he shot first or second, you understand he intended to shoot regardless, to save his own skin.
But no, some people aren't satisfied. "He's still more of a badass if he shoots first," they say. "It's a matter of principle, Lucas shouldn't have messed with the shot." Granted, Lucas did make a lot of alterations to his earlier films. My biggest beef is with the CGI creatures in place of the puppets, which obviously took so much mroe work, and looked so much cooler than the computer-generated graphics. Which brings me to my next point...
I REMEMBER watching Star Wars with the puppet characters intact. It was part of my childhood. I've always had an appreciation for intricate puppetry, such as that created by Jim Henson. So I was upset to discover watching the DVD version that all those amazing creations were cut from the film. These people who go on about "Han shot first"-- most of you weren't even BORN when Han shot first. You probably watched the new version without even being aware of that little change. You still loved the movies. It didn't change your opinion of Han Solo, who is STILL a badass. You should have no personal grievance with the change. You only learned post-hoc, as the scientists say. It doesn't COUNT!
I also realized that everyone I talk to about this has the same arguments, almost the same problems with it, word for word. It seems to me that some old obnoxious geek who saw Star Wars in theaters and watched the old version of the movie on some video format before VHS so religiously, that when the special edition VHS did come out, he actually noticed the change. I can't imagine more than one lone obsessive psycho would have noticed... I seriously DOUBT IT. Then he got online and logged into some Star Wars fandom-based late-1990s chatroom forums and whined "BUT HAN SHOT FIRST IN THE ORIGINAL" and everyone else probably said ".......so?" and he whined some more "BUT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND...?" and then went on to point out all these meaningless things about it changing the character. Then everyone else probably said, "Hey!... You're right!... If I had known Han actually shot first, I would have thought he was so much MORE badass!" after which they'd go on to alter their memories and say "Wow, come to think of it, the movie is so dumb with that change. It's like everyone who's been criticizing me for liking a kids movie is right-- it is a kids movie if Han shot second! Wow, what I would give to see the original movie. I would love it SO much more I betcha cos it's for grown-ups and I'm a grown-up, and now I have an argument when normal people say 'But Stars Wars is for kids'. Nope! Only the newer versions are! I would have been an even MORE OBSESSIVE FAN of the original, just like this guy who pointed out the change in the first place."
After all that, you're not considered a REAL fan unless you agree. So the devoted fans have to prove their loyalty to the franchise and go about spewing their secondary source to whoever will listen. "Oh, Han shot first-- isn't that great? Isn't George Lucas LAME for editing that out?" I would like to point out to ALL of you that you did not learn this on your own. Someone else told you and convinced you of its importance. That is ALWAYS the case, because you can't GET the original version anymore! Form your own opinions people! Just because one psycho fan took it personally, doesn't mean you all have to, to prove your love for Star Wars! There are other ways to do this!
So yes, my final points are: 1) Han was shooting in self defense whether he shot first or not. 2) You are not fooling anyone- nobody thinks the problem you've made with the newer versions of the film is your own. You have taken somebody else's problem with it and adopted it as your own in an effort to prove your devotion/knowledge of the story.
Why isn't anybody miffed about the CGI characters? REALLY? They are a much bigger change to the movies, are much more obviously inserted, and they disregard the hard work of excellent puppet-makers. I'm still mad about CGI Yoda in episodes 1-3.
Oh my God... I just realized they may have turned Yoda to CGI in episode 5 as well! I'm going to have to google this and find out...
Okay good, they didn't replace Yoda puppet! GOOD. Because that would have sucked BALLS.
All right, my Han Solo rant is over. I have one more rant, so stay tuned.
First of all, let's get all this "Han shot first" business out of the way. So I see college kids running around in their "Han shot first" t-shirts, and I've had discussions with more than one Star Wars nerd about all this hoo-hah. So apparently, in the original version of Star Wars, Han Solo killed this little green man-- not in self-defense as it appears in the other films (when the green man shoots his weapon at him first)-- but as a badass who just wants to get a troublesome bounty hunter out of the picture (when Han shoots first). Er... right. Maybe people don't remember, but right before this little standoff takes place, the little green man makes it very clear that he intends to kill Han Solo. I think he says something along the lines of "I'm going to kill you now." Han was, in fact, provoked, and had reason to believe his life was in danger. Therefore, it doesn't matter if he shot first or second, you understand he intended to shoot regardless, to save his own skin.
But no, some people aren't satisfied. "He's still more of a badass if he shoots first," they say. "It's a matter of principle, Lucas shouldn't have messed with the shot." Granted, Lucas did make a lot of alterations to his earlier films. My biggest beef is with the CGI creatures in place of the puppets, which obviously took so much mroe work, and looked so much cooler than the computer-generated graphics. Which brings me to my next point...
I REMEMBER watching Star Wars with the puppet characters intact. It was part of my childhood. I've always had an appreciation for intricate puppetry, such as that created by Jim Henson. So I was upset to discover watching the DVD version that all those amazing creations were cut from the film. These people who go on about "Han shot first"-- most of you weren't even BORN when Han shot first. You probably watched the new version without even being aware of that little change. You still loved the movies. It didn't change your opinion of Han Solo, who is STILL a badass. You should have no personal grievance with the change. You only learned post-hoc, as the scientists say. It doesn't COUNT!
I also realized that everyone I talk to about this has the same arguments, almost the same problems with it, word for word. It seems to me that some old obnoxious geek who saw Star Wars in theaters and watched the old version of the movie on some video format before VHS so religiously, that when the special edition VHS did come out, he actually noticed the change. I can't imagine more than one lone obsessive psycho would have noticed... I seriously DOUBT IT. Then he got online and logged into some Star Wars fandom-based late-1990s chatroom forums and whined "BUT HAN SHOT FIRST IN THE ORIGINAL" and everyone else probably said ".......so?" and he whined some more "BUT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND...?" and then went on to point out all these meaningless things about it changing the character. Then everyone else probably said, "Hey!... You're right!... If I had known Han actually shot first, I would have thought he was so much MORE badass!" after which they'd go on to alter their memories and say "Wow, come to think of it, the movie is so dumb with that change. It's like everyone who's been criticizing me for liking a kids movie is right-- it is a kids movie if Han shot second! Wow, what I would give to see the original movie. I would love it SO much more I betcha cos it's for grown-ups and I'm a grown-up, and now I have an argument when normal people say 'But Stars Wars is for kids'. Nope! Only the newer versions are! I would have been an even MORE OBSESSIVE FAN of the original, just like this guy who pointed out the change in the first place."
After all that, you're not considered a REAL fan unless you agree. So the devoted fans have to prove their loyalty to the franchise and go about spewing their secondary source to whoever will listen. "Oh, Han shot first-- isn't that great? Isn't George Lucas LAME for editing that out?" I would like to point out to ALL of you that you did not learn this on your own. Someone else told you and convinced you of its importance. That is ALWAYS the case, because you can't GET the original version anymore! Form your own opinions people! Just because one psycho fan took it personally, doesn't mean you all have to, to prove your love for Star Wars! There are other ways to do this!
So yes, my final points are: 1) Han was shooting in self defense whether he shot first or not. 2) You are not fooling anyone- nobody thinks the problem you've made with the newer versions of the film is your own. You have taken somebody else's problem with it and adopted it as your own in an effort to prove your devotion/knowledge of the story.
Why isn't anybody miffed about the CGI characters? REALLY? They are a much bigger change to the movies, are much more obviously inserted, and they disregard the hard work of excellent puppet-makers. I'm still mad about CGI Yoda in episodes 1-3.
Oh my God... I just realized they may have turned Yoda to CGI in episode 5 as well! I'm going to have to google this and find out...
Okay good, they didn't replace Yoda puppet! GOOD. Because that would have sucked BALLS.
All right, my Han Solo rant is over. I have one more rant, so stay tuned.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Finally!
Blogger has punished me because I wasn't updating frequently enough! But now it's back on line!
Actually, apparently it was a problem with internet explorer 9. If you've downloaded it, you won't be able to publish blogger posts without tinkering with some things. If you hit the tool button in the top right of the screen (the gear), click F12 developer tools, then make Browser Mode "IE9 compatability mode" and voila. I'm not really that high tech to have figured it out myself, I learned it from google.
Thanks google, you are my friend.
Well, let's see now... what have I been up to? Well, still running 3 hours a week, 1 hr MWF, which means today is my running day... I do hope it stops raining before noon-ish, but otherwise I will have to just go in my stupid rain jacket which bounces around all uncomfortably and makes an irritating noise when it swishes against itself while I run.
I've written another few hundred words to my thesis. It's at 6600 words now, and I've got the intro and methods rough drafts complete. I've also been working on my powerpoint for EPS in July, and I've got a basic skeleton for that... will work on it later today though cos I've been neglecting it. I have a meeting with my adviser on Thursday, so I want something good to show him by then. Tomorrow I have my last participant for exp.2 coming in, so we can finally analyze the finished data. I still need a couple of people for exp.1 though, so hopefully I can pick up a few sometime soon...
As for learning MATLAB, it's going slow... they're trying to get psychtoolbox installed on a PC in an accessible cubicle for me, so I don't have to go around asking people to unlock lab doors like an untrustworthy 3 year old. I seriously don't have any privelages as a masters student. No departmental funds for conferences, no keys, no MATLAB. I'm surprised my badge scans to get me through the MSB security gate (it didn't at first). What a crappy set up. I'm paying so much for this damn degree and I'm considered the "one-year temporary student" that no one bothers with and will forget quickly.
OK, rant over. Something else I've been doing is researching high-frequency questions students are asked during PhD interviews, because I have one on Friday! The Sapienza interview is going to be at 1:30 on Skype, and hopefully I will be able to get a quiet room in the library to do it. I can't imagine my bedroom would be very professionally pleasing to potential advisers. Anyway, I've jotted down some answers to the hardest questions they might ask, and I will probably do what I've done before-- tape my prepared answers to the edges of my computer! I can read right off them if I get nervous enough, and it still looks like I'm gazing into the camera.
Actually, I shouldn't get too nervous this time because I have beta blockers to help me! I'm getting a little anxious right now thinking about my upcoming interview, but hopefully propranolol should do the trick in keeping me collected.
In other news, I've just been enjoying a leisurely weekend... watching Muppet Christmas Carol (which makes me yearn for Christmas-time), reading "Disney's America" (the only recreational reading I have right now, borrowed from Jana who's doing her thesis on Disney art), and generally getting reading for a busy day tomorrow. I have a meeting with a lecturer at 10AM concerning another PhD application (I have to write a proposal for that one too), and I'm running my last subject at 11:30. Then, I suppose, I will try to be a good little student and finally play with the MATLAB problems my adviser sent me for practice.
Then Wednesday will be spent writing more thesis and especially fleshing out my powerpoint, in prep. for my meeting w adviser on Thurs. Then, before and after my meeting on Thurs, I will practice interviewing strategies for Friday's big Skype call... On Friday morning before the interview, I will be in lab getting the eyetracker working with MATLAB.
Oy, I hope it all works out!
Beta blockers, do me good!
Actually, apparently it was a problem with internet explorer 9. If you've downloaded it, you won't be able to publish blogger posts without tinkering with some things. If you hit the tool button in the top right of the screen (the gear), click F12 developer tools, then make Browser Mode "IE9 compatability mode" and voila. I'm not really that high tech to have figured it out myself, I learned it from google.
Thanks google, you are my friend.
Well, let's see now... what have I been up to? Well, still running 3 hours a week, 1 hr MWF, which means today is my running day... I do hope it stops raining before noon-ish, but otherwise I will have to just go in my stupid rain jacket which bounces around all uncomfortably and makes an irritating noise when it swishes against itself while I run.
I've written another few hundred words to my thesis. It's at 6600 words now, and I've got the intro and methods rough drafts complete. I've also been working on my powerpoint for EPS in July, and I've got a basic skeleton for that... will work on it later today though cos I've been neglecting it. I have a meeting with my adviser on Thursday, so I want something good to show him by then. Tomorrow I have my last participant for exp.2 coming in, so we can finally analyze the finished data. I still need a couple of people for exp.1 though, so hopefully I can pick up a few sometime soon...
As for learning MATLAB, it's going slow... they're trying to get psychtoolbox installed on a PC in an accessible cubicle for me, so I don't have to go around asking people to unlock lab doors like an untrustworthy 3 year old. I seriously don't have any privelages as a masters student. No departmental funds for conferences, no keys, no MATLAB. I'm surprised my badge scans to get me through the MSB security gate (it didn't at first). What a crappy set up. I'm paying so much for this damn degree and I'm considered the "one-year temporary student" that no one bothers with and will forget quickly.
OK, rant over. Something else I've been doing is researching high-frequency questions students are asked during PhD interviews, because I have one on Friday! The Sapienza interview is going to be at 1:30 on Skype, and hopefully I will be able to get a quiet room in the library to do it. I can't imagine my bedroom would be very professionally pleasing to potential advisers. Anyway, I've jotted down some answers to the hardest questions they might ask, and I will probably do what I've done before-- tape my prepared answers to the edges of my computer! I can read right off them if I get nervous enough, and it still looks like I'm gazing into the camera.
Actually, I shouldn't get too nervous this time because I have beta blockers to help me! I'm getting a little anxious right now thinking about my upcoming interview, but hopefully propranolol should do the trick in keeping me collected.
In other news, I've just been enjoying a leisurely weekend... watching Muppet Christmas Carol (which makes me yearn for Christmas-time), reading "Disney's America" (the only recreational reading I have right now, borrowed from Jana who's doing her thesis on Disney art), and generally getting reading for a busy day tomorrow. I have a meeting with a lecturer at 10AM concerning another PhD application (I have to write a proposal for that one too), and I'm running my last subject at 11:30. Then, I suppose, I will try to be a good little student and finally play with the MATLAB problems my adviser sent me for practice.
Then Wednesday will be spent writing more thesis and especially fleshing out my powerpoint, in prep. for my meeting w adviser on Thurs. Then, before and after my meeting on Thurs, I will practice interviewing strategies for Friday's big Skype call... On Friday morning before the interview, I will be in lab getting the eyetracker working with MATLAB.
Oy, I hope it all works out!
Beta blockers, do me good!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Did too! Did not! Did too! Did not! Did TOOOO! (2 day old post-- I finally figured out how to publish again!)
I've realized I will sometimes take a side I don't agree on just for the sake of argument. For example, I often take the side of the Christians in a religious debate, even though I'm an atheist. I feel like I should stand up for them since I know a thing or two about evangelism and creationism, and it really isn't a bad system. I just don't believe it. I feel like... if I don't stand up for them in this country of lost faith, who will?
But I also like to argue for less heroic reasons. Sometimes it seems that argument is the only way you'll hear what a person truly thinks about a subject, and I get kind of a rush throwing "what ifs" at them and see how they retaliate. See how much they know their stuff. And there's something about a debate that adds passion to a dull conversation.
I don't consider myself to be especially argumentative, I mean, not generally. Generally I try to be agreeable. But when a particularly interesting topic comes up, I like to fire away with the hard questions... really probe for information.
But I also like to argue for less heroic reasons. Sometimes it seems that argument is the only way you'll hear what a person truly thinks about a subject, and I get kind of a rush throwing "what ifs" at them and see how they retaliate. See how much they know their stuff. And there's something about a debate that adds passion to a dull conversation.
I don't consider myself to be especially argumentative, I mean, not generally. Generally I try to be agreeable. But when a particularly interesting topic comes up, I like to fire away with the hard questions... really probe for information.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Welp (3 day old post-- I finally figured out how to publish again!)
Welp, can't do it... I decided I'd eat a chicken sandwich for lunch today, got to the restaurant, and thought the veggie one looked more appetizing. Went to the grocery store intending to buy meat products, and bought ingredients to make bean burritos for a week of dinners.
Oh well! Guess it's just not my time!
Oh well! Guess it's just not my time!
Hunger!
What I feel, and also the name of the second book in a YA series I'm going to buy sometime. Why did I agree to meet my adviser's PhD student at 12 noon? I had no choice but to eat an early lunch and now I'm hungry again... nowhere near dinner time...
I'm supposed to be working on MATLAB now but I don't feel like it... my brain's not on it today. I dragged myself through one chapter (chapter 7-- halfway through!) but the solutions to the problems in the back cut off at the second question and there were 5, and what's the use in doing them if you don't know whether you're right or not... And from my limited skills, it's more likely that I'm not going to be right, although I did a pretty good job of solving question one by myself... sometimes there's a lot of code they ask you to type out, and I'm so lazy I don't want to go through all that for one question.
I met the PhD student so I could solve the MATLAB problems my adviser gave to me, but the code calls functions from something called 'psychtoolbox' which uses shortcut code to bring up a video screen or whatnot, and the school computers don't have psychtoolbox downloaded on them.
Woooow I'm even boring myself with this post...
So my accomplishments so far today? Sent the intro to my thesis to my adviser for editing, got my adviser's PhD student to agree to participate in my study and one more person lined up to participate on Monday, got a technician lined up to download psychtoolbox on a school computer, filled a prescription, got through one more chapter of MATLAB for Behavioral Scientists... I'm so booooring.
OK but you know what isn't boring? Two things that happened this week: 1) Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe theatre in London, and 2) International Book Club.
1--> On tuesday, Jana, Hannah and I took a coach with Museum Studies to see us some Shakespeare at the famous Globe. We got the cheap student tickets (£5!) which allowed us to stand right next to the stage. Granted, after 3 hours of standing there I was getting pretty achy, but it was worth it since I was so close to the action I got shoved by the actors coming up and down the stairs a few times.
It was a really nice day... the Globe is right next to the Millennium Bridge that leads across the water to St Paul's. It's a really nice area with lots of restaurants around, and we went to this Greek place that served meze mostly. We each had souvlaki, which is a really yummy grilled flatbread wrap. Mine was made with halloumi, which tastes good enough but the texture (it squeaks against your teeth when you chew) is not something I care for. Jana and Hannah had chicken, and I was jealous.
I've been thinking about going back to meat. I know I've said this a few times before with no real conviction, but really... I have no reason to be a vegetarian, and I have no idea why I decided to just stop eating meat in the first place. Supposedly because I heard it was 'good for you' but a nutrition documentary I watched a few months ago said otherwise. But I don't cook... and it's just so much easier to stick grapes in my mouth than grill a chicken.
2---> Yesterday, Stephen, Laura and I had our first ever international book club meeting! We talked about The Knife of Never Letting Go and other YA novels, and then basically just chatted about life, all of us wishing, I'm sure, that we could be sitting around a table at Yours Truly eating sweet potato fries and tango sauce. I miss my book club.
Er... yeah... who am I kidding? I'm not doing any more work today... I'm gonna get out of this computer lab and wander around town, perhaps bug Jana.
Later!
I'm supposed to be working on MATLAB now but I don't feel like it... my brain's not on it today. I dragged myself through one chapter (chapter 7-- halfway through!) but the solutions to the problems in the back cut off at the second question and there were 5, and what's the use in doing them if you don't know whether you're right or not... And from my limited skills, it's more likely that I'm not going to be right, although I did a pretty good job of solving question one by myself... sometimes there's a lot of code they ask you to type out, and I'm so lazy I don't want to go through all that for one question.
I met the PhD student so I could solve the MATLAB problems my adviser gave to me, but the code calls functions from something called 'psychtoolbox' which uses shortcut code to bring up a video screen or whatnot, and the school computers don't have psychtoolbox downloaded on them.
Woooow I'm even boring myself with this post...
So my accomplishments so far today? Sent the intro to my thesis to my adviser for editing, got my adviser's PhD student to agree to participate in my study and one more person lined up to participate on Monday, got a technician lined up to download psychtoolbox on a school computer, filled a prescription, got through one more chapter of MATLAB for Behavioral Scientists... I'm so booooring.
OK but you know what isn't boring? Two things that happened this week: 1) Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe theatre in London, and 2) International Book Club.
1--> On tuesday, Jana, Hannah and I took a coach with Museum Studies to see us some Shakespeare at the famous Globe. We got the cheap student tickets (£5!) which allowed us to stand right next to the stage. Granted, after 3 hours of standing there I was getting pretty achy, but it was worth it since I was so close to the action I got shoved by the actors coming up and down the stairs a few times.
It was a really nice day... the Globe is right next to the Millennium Bridge that leads across the water to St Paul's. It's a really nice area with lots of restaurants around, and we went to this Greek place that served meze mostly. We each had souvlaki, which is a really yummy grilled flatbread wrap. Mine was made with halloumi, which tastes good enough but the texture (it squeaks against your teeth when you chew) is not something I care for. Jana and Hannah had chicken, and I was jealous.
I've been thinking about going back to meat. I know I've said this a few times before with no real conviction, but really... I have no reason to be a vegetarian, and I have no idea why I decided to just stop eating meat in the first place. Supposedly because I heard it was 'good for you' but a nutrition documentary I watched a few months ago said otherwise. But I don't cook... and it's just so much easier to stick grapes in my mouth than grill a chicken.
2---> Yesterday, Stephen, Laura and I had our first ever international book club meeting! We talked about The Knife of Never Letting Go and other YA novels, and then basically just chatted about life, all of us wishing, I'm sure, that we could be sitting around a table at Yours Truly eating sweet potato fries and tango sauce. I miss my book club.
Er... yeah... who am I kidding? I'm not doing any more work today... I'm gonna get out of this computer lab and wander around town, perhaps bug Jana.
Later!
Monday, May 16, 2011
Monday!
Okay, so I know I haven't updated in years... I haven't been THAT busy but things just happen to take up my time and the days are just flying by...
So I think you all already heard my plans to finish my degree early. Well, whether or not I come back to Ohio early (or at all) is still up for debate depending on a few things: 1) whether I get all my work done early, 2) whether I learn MATLAB fast enough, and 3) whether I get into that PhD program.
I'm finished with my application for the PhD program but waiting on a final opinion from the autism specialists who reviewed my project proposal before I send it in. I am really banking on getting this position, I just know it will be amazing. I'm getting to think point where I really do have to stop and think "Why am I doing what I'm doing?" and right now I don't have any good reason, just "Scientific curiosity." I feel like if I had a goal, such as "rehabilitation" or "education" I would be more inspired to do my work.
Yes, speaking of inspiration, I finally sat down and starting compiling information on Feature Integration Theory and Guided Search theory of visual search. I was a little burnt out about my thesis topic since I've been working on this 'visual search' thing going on 9 months now and it kind of turned into something I wasn't expecting, ie, very psychophysics-heavy and not really related to neuropsychology anymore.
BUT I found renewed energy to get writing when I realized the head of the PhD program I'm applying for did a very similar study about 10 years ago. So not only might we have something more to talk about during the interview (if he's still interested in this stuff), but it also seems to me to be a sign that I'm on the right track! Do I believe in signs? Not when it comes down to it, no. But the thought eases my mind. And now I know my project is relevant to the program in some way.
OK, so now I have all the info I need to write a basic background of FIT and guided search. My goal is to write at least 500 words on those theories and their evolution to today. Then I will go on to discuss dual-task paradigms of visual search, which include attentional blink paradigms, and finally, hemispheric asymmetries of attention. That will be the literature review for my thesis, and I will segue into my study after that.
The thesis will have to be 6-8000 words, and I have two months to complete it. That should roughly equate to 1000 words a week at least, to be on the safe side, then revisions and such. I can do it! I CAN!
Since my last post, I did all that other stuff I gotta do. I turned in my coursework for the final term, and completed that stats exam (which was completely ridiculous btw). Yes, there is another thing that I like more about the USA-- the proper course structure! The program I'm doing now is considered a "taught" course, though it's mostly research. But the classes we DID have were a complete joke. Stats classes were taught by a random group of lecturers, whoever happened to be there that day it seemed. They taught whatever random subject they knew, or really basic stuff. Actually, one professor tried to teach us something he didn't know, and ended up blundering through book definitions. The HOC tried to re-lecture on the same material, but he didn't know it either. So guess what shows up on the exam?
I swear to god, I hope these guys are the ones who mark it, so they won't know what the hell is right or wrong because I sure didn't at some points. But generally, with the limited information I was given and the large amount of information I was able to teach myself in the three hour exam period, I think I did relatively well.
Now I just have to concentate on getting the last few participants for my study and writing my thesis. I sent a message out to the hiking club begging for participants, and got one so far! So it's a good start. And tomorrow, I'm going to the doctor to see if I can get some beta blockers for my Sapienza interview in June and the EPS presentation in July. I'm gonna rock it.
AND I'm starting to learn MATLAB. I actually was able to create some working contingencies from the book problems! I am going to work on that more tomorrow between my doctor appt in the morning and my hiking club participant in the afternoon. Then, I will write some more of my thesis intro.
I'm a procrastinator, but I've got everything under control. I'm organized. I'm an organized lazy bum.
I realized though...
As much as I care about making my thesis amazing and getting into this PhD program in Rome, I don't have to stress about it. Whatever happens will happen. I will just try my hardest and see what that gets me. I realize that good things will happen one way or another. If I don't get this PhD program, I'll try to find a job teaching at a community college. I have other options.
I've realized... I don't really have to worry about anything... I used to worry about having to pay back my student loans, but not anymore. There are options that will make it possible. If I work in public service, I'll have them forgiven after 15 years of Income Based Repayment. I don't even need a lot of money. I can live off so little and still buy everything I need or want. I'm not worried about money...
Life is good! Even an academic can keep it simple!
So I think you all already heard my plans to finish my degree early. Well, whether or not I come back to Ohio early (or at all) is still up for debate depending on a few things: 1) whether I get all my work done early, 2) whether I learn MATLAB fast enough, and 3) whether I get into that PhD program.
I'm finished with my application for the PhD program but waiting on a final opinion from the autism specialists who reviewed my project proposal before I send it in. I am really banking on getting this position, I just know it will be amazing. I'm getting to think point where I really do have to stop and think "Why am I doing what I'm doing?" and right now I don't have any good reason, just "Scientific curiosity." I feel like if I had a goal, such as "rehabilitation" or "education" I would be more inspired to do my work.
Yes, speaking of inspiration, I finally sat down and starting compiling information on Feature Integration Theory and Guided Search theory of visual search. I was a little burnt out about my thesis topic since I've been working on this 'visual search' thing going on 9 months now and it kind of turned into something I wasn't expecting, ie, very psychophysics-heavy and not really related to neuropsychology anymore.
BUT I found renewed energy to get writing when I realized the head of the PhD program I'm applying for did a very similar study about 10 years ago. So not only might we have something more to talk about during the interview (if he's still interested in this stuff), but it also seems to me to be a sign that I'm on the right track! Do I believe in signs? Not when it comes down to it, no. But the thought eases my mind. And now I know my project is relevant to the program in some way.
OK, so now I have all the info I need to write a basic background of FIT and guided search. My goal is to write at least 500 words on those theories and their evolution to today. Then I will go on to discuss dual-task paradigms of visual search, which include attentional blink paradigms, and finally, hemispheric asymmetries of attention. That will be the literature review for my thesis, and I will segue into my study after that.
The thesis will have to be 6-8000 words, and I have two months to complete it. That should roughly equate to 1000 words a week at least, to be on the safe side, then revisions and such. I can do it! I CAN!
Since my last post, I did all that other stuff I gotta do. I turned in my coursework for the final term, and completed that stats exam (which was completely ridiculous btw). Yes, there is another thing that I like more about the USA-- the proper course structure! The program I'm doing now is considered a "taught" course, though it's mostly research. But the classes we DID have were a complete joke. Stats classes were taught by a random group of lecturers, whoever happened to be there that day it seemed. They taught whatever random subject they knew, or really basic stuff. Actually, one professor tried to teach us something he didn't know, and ended up blundering through book definitions. The HOC tried to re-lecture on the same material, but he didn't know it either. So guess what shows up on the exam?
I swear to god, I hope these guys are the ones who mark it, so they won't know what the hell is right or wrong because I sure didn't at some points. But generally, with the limited information I was given and the large amount of information I was able to teach myself in the three hour exam period, I think I did relatively well.
Now I just have to concentate on getting the last few participants for my study and writing my thesis. I sent a message out to the hiking club begging for participants, and got one so far! So it's a good start. And tomorrow, I'm going to the doctor to see if I can get some beta blockers for my Sapienza interview in June and the EPS presentation in July. I'm gonna rock it.
AND I'm starting to learn MATLAB. I actually was able to create some working contingencies from the book problems! I am going to work on that more tomorrow between my doctor appt in the morning and my hiking club participant in the afternoon. Then, I will write some more of my thesis intro.
I'm a procrastinator, but I've got everything under control. I'm organized. I'm an organized lazy bum.
I realized though...
As much as I care about making my thesis amazing and getting into this PhD program in Rome, I don't have to stress about it. Whatever happens will happen. I will just try my hardest and see what that gets me. I realize that good things will happen one way or another. If I don't get this PhD program, I'll try to find a job teaching at a community college. I have other options.
I've realized... I don't really have to worry about anything... I used to worry about having to pay back my student loans, but not anymore. There are options that will make it possible. If I work in public service, I'll have them forgiven after 15 years of Income Based Repayment. I don't even need a lot of money. I can live off so little and still buy everything I need or want. I'm not worried about money...
Life is good! Even an academic can keep it simple!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Short Post
Hello everyone,
I know it's been a while, but I've been busy-- still busy, in fact-- just updating to say that Jana and I have switched our phones because hers was not working on her computer. So if anyone wants to call me, My phone number is 330-548-2571. So there is just a 1 at the end instead of a 3.
All righty-- I'll post a real entry sometime later!
I know it's been a while, but I've been busy-- still busy, in fact-- just updating to say that Jana and I have switched our phones because hers was not working on her computer. So if anyone wants to call me, My phone number is 330-548-2571. So there is just a 1 at the end instead of a 3.
All righty-- I'll post a real entry sometime later!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
All Those Other Things I Said I'd Write About...
...and one more thing... The Knife of Never Letting Go-- I know I already said this, but let me say it again... Thanks a lot, Jana! As if I don't have enough to think about, you give me this book I can't put down. Begh! So good! Book club possibility? It's a YA novel that takes place in some distant future where people of Earth have settled on another planet, and the aliens sent out this germ to kill the humans but it only killed the women and made the men able to read each others' minds. And it's really good!
At any rate, I've put it down long enough to update this thing as promised. I'll start with the stuff the least amount of people know about and then filter into the things the satellite friends may not know but may want to know-- and I assure you, you will know, in time.
So first off-- the flight back. My dad took me to the airport, where I found out my flight had been canceled, but no biggie. They scheduled me for the next flight to Minneapolis instead of NYC and told me the plane would arrive about an hour later than expected in Heathrow. Me, ever the timely planner, had scheduled my train ticket to Leicester to be 3 hours after landing. I thought I'd give myself some "just in case" time and also time to have a nice long lunch. Well, I used up most of my "just in case time" for this flight, so I didn't have any time for lunch when I landed, unfortunately.
Nevertheless, The flight out wasn't as bad as it could have been. I hate the piddly regional jets though, so I guess if I have to go through with them, it's better to do it before than after the long 8-hour international flight. When we took off, there was a lot of turbulence, and I felt slightly queasy, and my hands started to tingle cos all the blood was rushing to my core, but I controlled my breathing and drank some club soda and didn't puke thank god.
We landed smoothly enough, and before I knew it I was on the Boeing 767 out of Minneapolis-- quite a fancy airport, by the way. I wa surprised. It had this real-sized mall right there with all the terminals branching off on all sides. Anyway, my seat mate was this annoyingly chatty girl from Bristol, who basically decided we were best friends right then and there.
"Have you ever been to Bristol?" she asked.
"No."
"Oooo! You have to go! There's this posh bar and all sorts of cool stuff, you could crash at my place and I could take you to all the best places."
"Er, yeah, that sounds nice," I said in a weak attempt to shut her up.
"I was just in Seattle visiting my uncle-- I loooved it, it was so beautiful, we went all over the Olympic Peninsula, too-- I love musicals! I love Wicked!"
"I saw Wicked on the West End," this American woman to my left piped up. She leaned over me to chat with my seat mate, and was obviously very impressed by the fact that a real British person was sitting right there chittering like a squirrel.
"I've seen Wicked," I offered. She ignored me.
"Oh, you saw it on the West End, cooool!" my seat mate enthused. She started tapping off West End shows she'd seen. "...but Wicked is my favorite! The woman who wrote it is an American, you know."
"No," I corrected her. "It was a man, Steven Schwartz, he wrote the music to some Disney movies, too..."
They stared blankly at me and I just sat back and ignored them while they went on and on about really nothing.
"I saw Les Mis when it first came out in 1985," the woman piped up. I jumped back into the conversation at that.
"Really?" I said, obviously impressed. "That's so cool. Did you see the 20th anniversary concert last year?"
"I saw it on PBS," she said.
"Yeah, it was great-- but you know, Joe Jonas as Marius..." I trailed off with an uneasy look on my face. She didn't say anything in response so I added, "...not so good."
She stared blankly at me for a second, then turned back to my seat mate and they were at it again.
I sighed and plugged in my headphones to watch Due Date which wasn't so bad, but it wasn't really good either. I tried to go to sleep after that, and I dozed in and out of sleep for a bit, but it was so cold I had to wrap myself up in my winter coat and that flimsy little Delta Airlines blanket and I was still freezing my ass off.
"Sorry for the cold," a flight attendant said after a couple of hours. "It's only in your seat area. Something's wrong with the temperature control right here."
Great, thanks. Just my luck.
I read The Stand for a little bit. The superflu had killed everyone it was going to kill and now all the main characters were about to start their respective journeys into the wildnerness of a post-apocalyptic world.
We hit the ground soon enough, with a great banging "KA-BLUMP-A-BLUMP" cos the pilot didn't know how to land, I guess. A couple people felt they had to raise their voices and someone laughed behind me. Thrill seeker. Everything went smoothly after that, though. Got through customs OK, picked up my bag (one of the first ones out), hopped the next hour-long tube train to St. Pancras, and had a couple minutes there to hit the bathroom and brush my teeth before heading to the East Midlands platform.
Got to Leicester with no problem and met Jana at the station. She was carrying a child's wheely backpack.
"It's for my library books," she explained. "But I thought you could squeeze your laptop in here." We squished it in as good as we could, but the bag wouldn't zip all the way. She clattered with it up London road.
"Ugh, it's too short," Jana said, indicating the wheely bag's handle as she stooped to hold on to it.
"Why'd you get such a small bag?" I asked.
"I didn't know it would be so short!"
"That's a little kid's bag."
"Well..."
"You know those baby strollers you see five year old's wheeling around, the pretend strollers you wouldn't actually want to put a real baby in? Well, that's the wheely bag equivalent."
"Whatever!"
Jana and I bickered amiably all the way back to my house, where we dropped my stuff off and I spent a couple of hours getting unpacked and cleaned up. I'd been up since 8AM the previous morning, and I was bent on staying up until a decent bedtime hour in England so that I could get back into the time zone.
Jana asked me to come over, so I picked up some curry on the way there and we ate dinner with some homemade French cider she'd bought down at a world market. I drank some and made a face.
"Blegh," was my verdict.
"I know," Jana said, swirling the alcohol expertly. "See how it has that cloudy color? It's still fermenting, that's why it's bitter." She had taken a wine tasting class a couple of years ago.
"Why'd you buy it?" I asked.
"Well, the sample I tasted was just fine," she said. "But the guy gave me the reject bottle-- I bet that's why it was so cheap."
We finished off the bottle and went up to Jana's room to watch some Youtube. I fell asleep almost instantly, but forced myself awake again.
"I was sleeping," I said.
"I know," she said. I fell asleep again for a couple of minutes, then shook myself awake. I glanced at my watch. "Nine-thirty," I said. "Okay, I'm going home."
"All right, see ya."
I went back home and fell asleep until 8AM the following morning. Too tired, went back to sleep. My alarm woke me at 10. Still tired. I finally woke up for reals at 12:30-ish. Yep. 14 hours of sleep.
I turned on my phone.
"Wake up sleepy!" a text buzzed as soon as it was on. Jana had sent it about 15 minutes earlier.
I texted her back. "Awake now."
"Wow, you're up late. Let's go to the city centre!"
We had decided to find the De Montfort University library, which was apparently open and staffed even though it was the day of the royal wedding (a national holiday, indeed).
We found William on our way there, lounging in Victoria Park after his run, and we picked him up for the journey. It was a really nice day, and we just walked around lazily. Jana looked at some Art of Walt Disney books at the library for her thesis, and then we traipsed back to the good university.
Blah dee blah, this is going longer than I thought, as usual... Skip ahead to today, since last night was just hanging at Jana's place again (also as usual), and here I am. I've been back in England for 2 days. Woke up at 10:20 this morning. Slowly getting back into the right time zone.
Oh yeah, and this whole time, I've been furiously e-mailing the Head of my Course (HOC, remember?), my adviser, and the people with the PhD program in Rome. So the HOC said I can actually finish my Master's thesis early because I told him the PhD program wants it finished by July 31. So now I'm freaking out (also also as usual) about getting everything finished in time!
Because I still need to run a few more subjects, write my thesis, send in my application for the PhD program (which asks for pages and pages of new material as it is, including a project proposal), get ready for BPS, write my talk for EPS, and all that on top of my coursework I still haven't sent in (I have one paper with NO reference list right now), and I have a stats exam on the 9th. OY! All this in 3 months. I have 3 months to finish everything now.
OK so I have a meeting with my adviser about all the things I have to do, on May 3.
The BPS conference is May 4-6.
The stats exam is on May 9.
My coursework is due May 12.
My application is due May 31.
I don't remember which days the EPS conference takes place (sometime in July).
And I'm to finish my 6-8000 words thesis and have it defended by July 31.
Three months. I can do it. I can! I caaaannn!!!
Now might be a good time to get into the project idea I have for the PhD program. Let me tell you, it's a good one. I e-mailed the professor in charge of the program and asked him if it was an appropriate topic and he said it was swell. Listen to this:
Emotional biological motion and Autistic Spectrum Disorders.
OK back up... let's see. So at one point in the past, a lab got some dancers and actors together and asked them to go through the motions of different emotions in front of a camera. For example, the researcher said, "Gimme anger!" and the body-conscious professionals balled their hands into fists and stomped forward with big, over-exaggerated movements. "Gimme fear!" They raised their palms and jumped backwards. Etc. There were six different emotions filmed, and at one point, the researchers put little reflective dots on these dancing/acting bodies and turned off the lights, and all you could see were the dots of light making the motions, and you could see the impression of a body there.
These are called point light displays. Now a lot of researchers use these films of point light displays for all different experiments, and I want to use them for this:
SO autistic individuals have a hard time decoding emotion from movements. They are not very conscious of their own body movements, either. They have a hard time with social things in general, and emotional motion is one of them, and that includes facial expressions as well as whole body movements.
Well, the project I came up with has to do with scanning autistic brains while they watch point light displays versus full light displays, and they will have to say what emotion is being expressed. I would also give them scenarios they will have to figure out the ending to based on these movements.
"A man witnesses a robbery," I would say. "He reacts like this:" (I'll show the video of either fear or anger here). "Do you think the man decided to help the victim, or run away?"
I will also ask Theory of Mind questions, such as:
"A man goes to work and leaves his dog home alone. The dog breaks an expensive vase while the man is gone. The man comes home from work and he looks like this:" (I'll show the video of either anger or calm here.) "Do you think the man knows his vase is broken?"
Etc. That is how the study will pan out. I will go through these scenarios, and I'm going to add into the project idea that I'd like to use fMRI to see what's going on in the ASD brain while all of this is happening. And I would like to know if people with ASD are better at inferring emotion from point light displays or full light displays, or if they are better at the emotional scenarios or theory of mind scenarios. I might add in a normal control to the mix. I might suggest that point light displays could be used to teach emotional biological motion to people with ASD.
Anyway, that's it. I don't know how that one came into my brain but that's that. Obviously this is just an idea-- the prof said it wouldn't necessarily be what I'm gonna do for my PhD cos I'd have to discuss it with whoever my tutor would be and it would have to fit into their research as well. At this point, I just don't care... as I've said before, I just want to study Cognitive Neuroscience and learn fMRI. And if I can do that, no matter what subject I'm studying, I don't care-- I'll do it. And this program pays well... REALLY well for a graduate program. I'd be lucky to get it, and I really really hope I do!
Okay, now I said I'd discuss other things... like the Creation Museum. Wow, I don't know, I'm kinda burning out my typing fingers, but let's have a go...
So my mom and I decided to take a short trip south on Easter weekend. We drove through Amish country on Friday and stayed in a hotel in Kentucky that gave us discount Creation Museum tickets for the next day. It rained all weekend, but it wasn't too bad as we were driving to the museum on Saturday morning. We got there and it's this big fancy building with dinosaur statues standing outside.
The first thing we did was go see a planetarium show. It wasn't a real planetarium, but a digital one, but the show was still impressive for its visual effects. You could see Earth, all the planets and their trajectories around the sun, and then it zoomed out in the wider universe into other star systems and galaxies. The narrator wasn't preachy, he just said things like, "Look at what God has created!" in between saying things I had learned in my college astronomy class. However, he did stress the fact that "The Big Bang could not have happened, because..." and he went off about the universe not really expanding, and young stars being next to old stars, etc. Some things that didn't really make sense, but I guess make sense to the Creationists, so there you have it.
We left the planetarium and there was this herptologist outside in khaki carrying a snake around his arm.
"Come see me show later!" he was telling the crowd. "Here, take this." He handed me the snake and it was the coolest thing ever. That was when I decided that one day, I will own a Ball Python (which is what that particular snake was), and I will hold it and feel its strong muscle wrap around my arm-- so cool! It just coils and bobs like the empty-eyed little coiling monster that it is.
The museum itself was quite impressive. It's set up like a natural history museum, and they spared no expense creating lavish fake gardens, archaeological dig sites, anamatronic dinosaurs, all sorts of great things. A big part of the museum was the role of dinosaurs in the bible.
Dinosaurs were called dragons in the early years of Earth (no older than 6000 years). They roamed the garden of Eden in the time of Adam and ate vegetation until the fall of man. All animals were vegetarian in the garden of Eden, and nothing died, and there were no thorns on plants, or diseases or mutations. My mother piped up questions throughout the whole exhibit: "But if everyone was immortal, the Earth would have been overpopulated long before now!... But if the dinosaurs were taken aboard Noah's Ark, how did they become extinct all at once?" I tried to be helpful and answer her questions the way a Creationist might. If there were any atheists there that day, I wouldn't be counted among them!
I think the reason immortal people wouldn't have overpopulated is hinted at in the long lifespans of those who came after Adam. His sons all lived close to 1000 years, and each of them only had one kid or so in their lifetimes. I think 1 kid every 1000 years could keep a population down, even if you were immortal.
As for the dinos, they never did say.
But yes, it is true-- dinosaurs were taken aboard the Ark. And here's something I never knew but probably should have-- only Noah's family was saved. So I guess we are all descendents of Noah. Not like that did any good, though-- I would hate to see the state of the world if the rotten people of ages past hadn't died, seeing as we good folks are pretty terrible as it is. Guess we're in for another flood soon?
It was also interesting that all the periods of history-- Triassic, Jurassic, Precambrian, etc-- are all referred to simply as sediment layers by the Creationists. During the flood, different kind of sediment settled at different times-- floating forests were turned into coal, etc-- and all the layers we attribute to diffeent "periods" are actually just various layers of Earth that settled at different times over the course of a one year global flood. That's the thing-- the Creationists compacted all of anthropological and geological history into a short period to fit it all into 6000 years. Pangaea became the continents in a year. The last ice age lasted only a hundred years or so. Neanderthal and Homo erectus were just nomadic humans cut off from their cultures.
All of the world's 6000 year history is catalogued in a 20ft. map-- very detailed in its descriptions and timelines, and such a cool cool thing-- my mom bought a copy for my dad, and when we got home we just sat there and read as much as we could as we spread the map through the hallway.
By the time we left the Creation Museum, it was raining pretty hard... we tried to head further south, but we were just following the storm, and when tornado warnings started blaring over the radio, we just turned around and drovce back home. I didn't mind though-- I liked spending Sunday at my parents' house-- one more day I got to spend with the whole fam before I left that Wednesday.
I spent a couple more days with my friends, we went to Chagrin Falls one last time, and I had a good ol' fashioned all-American pancake breakfast with Matt at a quaint diner by his house before heading home to finish packing.
I was sad to leave, and I would like to be able to go back as soon as possible. And hopefully, now that I will finish my thesis in July, perhaps I will be able to go back mucher sooner than I'd first thought! Of course I might stick around to try to learn MATLAB if I don't have the time before July 31, but I hope I can get some practice in before then. I guess we'll see. We'll just see!
Okay, I've been writing this thing way too long now.. but it's done! That's making up for 2 weeks of silence I guess!
At any rate, I've put it down long enough to update this thing as promised. I'll start with the stuff the least amount of people know about and then filter into the things the satellite friends may not know but may want to know-- and I assure you, you will know, in time.
So first off-- the flight back. My dad took me to the airport, where I found out my flight had been canceled, but no biggie. They scheduled me for the next flight to Minneapolis instead of NYC and told me the plane would arrive about an hour later than expected in Heathrow. Me, ever the timely planner, had scheduled my train ticket to Leicester to be 3 hours after landing. I thought I'd give myself some "just in case" time and also time to have a nice long lunch. Well, I used up most of my "just in case time" for this flight, so I didn't have any time for lunch when I landed, unfortunately.
Nevertheless, The flight out wasn't as bad as it could have been. I hate the piddly regional jets though, so I guess if I have to go through with them, it's better to do it before than after the long 8-hour international flight. When we took off, there was a lot of turbulence, and I felt slightly queasy, and my hands started to tingle cos all the blood was rushing to my core, but I controlled my breathing and drank some club soda and didn't puke thank god.
We landed smoothly enough, and before I knew it I was on the Boeing 767 out of Minneapolis-- quite a fancy airport, by the way. I wa surprised. It had this real-sized mall right there with all the terminals branching off on all sides. Anyway, my seat mate was this annoyingly chatty girl from Bristol, who basically decided we were best friends right then and there.
"Have you ever been to Bristol?" she asked.
"No."
"Oooo! You have to go! There's this posh bar and all sorts of cool stuff, you could crash at my place and I could take you to all the best places."
"Er, yeah, that sounds nice," I said in a weak attempt to shut her up.
"I was just in Seattle visiting my uncle-- I loooved it, it was so beautiful, we went all over the Olympic Peninsula, too-- I love musicals! I love Wicked!"
"I saw Wicked on the West End," this American woman to my left piped up. She leaned over me to chat with my seat mate, and was obviously very impressed by the fact that a real British person was sitting right there chittering like a squirrel.
"I've seen Wicked," I offered. She ignored me.
"Oh, you saw it on the West End, cooool!" my seat mate enthused. She started tapping off West End shows she'd seen. "...but Wicked is my favorite! The woman who wrote it is an American, you know."
"No," I corrected her. "It was a man, Steven Schwartz, he wrote the music to some Disney movies, too..."
They stared blankly at me and I just sat back and ignored them while they went on and on about really nothing.
"I saw Les Mis when it first came out in 1985," the woman piped up. I jumped back into the conversation at that.
"Really?" I said, obviously impressed. "That's so cool. Did you see the 20th anniversary concert last year?"
"I saw it on PBS," she said.
"Yeah, it was great-- but you know, Joe Jonas as Marius..." I trailed off with an uneasy look on my face. She didn't say anything in response so I added, "...not so good."
She stared blankly at me for a second, then turned back to my seat mate and they were at it again.
I sighed and plugged in my headphones to watch Due Date which wasn't so bad, but it wasn't really good either. I tried to go to sleep after that, and I dozed in and out of sleep for a bit, but it was so cold I had to wrap myself up in my winter coat and that flimsy little Delta Airlines blanket and I was still freezing my ass off.
"Sorry for the cold," a flight attendant said after a couple of hours. "It's only in your seat area. Something's wrong with the temperature control right here."
Great, thanks. Just my luck.
I read The Stand for a little bit. The superflu had killed everyone it was going to kill and now all the main characters were about to start their respective journeys into the wildnerness of a post-apocalyptic world.
We hit the ground soon enough, with a great banging "KA-BLUMP-A-BLUMP" cos the pilot didn't know how to land, I guess. A couple people felt they had to raise their voices and someone laughed behind me. Thrill seeker. Everything went smoothly after that, though. Got through customs OK, picked up my bag (one of the first ones out), hopped the next hour-long tube train to St. Pancras, and had a couple minutes there to hit the bathroom and brush my teeth before heading to the East Midlands platform.
Got to Leicester with no problem and met Jana at the station. She was carrying a child's wheely backpack.
"It's for my library books," she explained. "But I thought you could squeeze your laptop in here." We squished it in as good as we could, but the bag wouldn't zip all the way. She clattered with it up London road.
"Ugh, it's too short," Jana said, indicating the wheely bag's handle as she stooped to hold on to it.
"Why'd you get such a small bag?" I asked.
"I didn't know it would be so short!"
"That's a little kid's bag."
"Well..."
"You know those baby strollers you see five year old's wheeling around, the pretend strollers you wouldn't actually want to put a real baby in? Well, that's the wheely bag equivalent."
"Whatever!"
Jana and I bickered amiably all the way back to my house, where we dropped my stuff off and I spent a couple of hours getting unpacked and cleaned up. I'd been up since 8AM the previous morning, and I was bent on staying up until a decent bedtime hour in England so that I could get back into the time zone.
Jana asked me to come over, so I picked up some curry on the way there and we ate dinner with some homemade French cider she'd bought down at a world market. I drank some and made a face.
"Blegh," was my verdict.
"I know," Jana said, swirling the alcohol expertly. "See how it has that cloudy color? It's still fermenting, that's why it's bitter." She had taken a wine tasting class a couple of years ago.
"Why'd you buy it?" I asked.
"Well, the sample I tasted was just fine," she said. "But the guy gave me the reject bottle-- I bet that's why it was so cheap."
We finished off the bottle and went up to Jana's room to watch some Youtube. I fell asleep almost instantly, but forced myself awake again.
"I was sleeping," I said.
"I know," she said. I fell asleep again for a couple of minutes, then shook myself awake. I glanced at my watch. "Nine-thirty," I said. "Okay, I'm going home."
"All right, see ya."
I went back home and fell asleep until 8AM the following morning. Too tired, went back to sleep. My alarm woke me at 10. Still tired. I finally woke up for reals at 12:30-ish. Yep. 14 hours of sleep.
I turned on my phone.
"Wake up sleepy!" a text buzzed as soon as it was on. Jana had sent it about 15 minutes earlier.
I texted her back. "Awake now."
"Wow, you're up late. Let's go to the city centre!"
We had decided to find the De Montfort University library, which was apparently open and staffed even though it was the day of the royal wedding (a national holiday, indeed).
We found William on our way there, lounging in Victoria Park after his run, and we picked him up for the journey. It was a really nice day, and we just walked around lazily. Jana looked at some Art of Walt Disney books at the library for her thesis, and then we traipsed back to the good university.
Blah dee blah, this is going longer than I thought, as usual... Skip ahead to today, since last night was just hanging at Jana's place again (also as usual), and here I am. I've been back in England for 2 days. Woke up at 10:20 this morning. Slowly getting back into the right time zone.
Oh yeah, and this whole time, I've been furiously e-mailing the Head of my Course (HOC, remember?), my adviser, and the people with the PhD program in Rome. So the HOC said I can actually finish my Master's thesis early because I told him the PhD program wants it finished by July 31. So now I'm freaking out (also also as usual) about getting everything finished in time!
Because I still need to run a few more subjects, write my thesis, send in my application for the PhD program (which asks for pages and pages of new material as it is, including a project proposal), get ready for BPS, write my talk for EPS, and all that on top of my coursework I still haven't sent in (I have one paper with NO reference list right now), and I have a stats exam on the 9th. OY! All this in 3 months. I have 3 months to finish everything now.
OK so I have a meeting with my adviser about all the things I have to do, on May 3.
The BPS conference is May 4-6.
The stats exam is on May 9.
My coursework is due May 12.
My application is due May 31.
I don't remember which days the EPS conference takes place (sometime in July).
And I'm to finish my 6-8000 words thesis and have it defended by July 31.
Three months. I can do it. I can! I caaaannn!!!
Now might be a good time to get into the project idea I have for the PhD program. Let me tell you, it's a good one. I e-mailed the professor in charge of the program and asked him if it was an appropriate topic and he said it was swell. Listen to this:
Emotional biological motion and Autistic Spectrum Disorders.
OK back up... let's see. So at one point in the past, a lab got some dancers and actors together and asked them to go through the motions of different emotions in front of a camera. For example, the researcher said, "Gimme anger!" and the body-conscious professionals balled their hands into fists and stomped forward with big, over-exaggerated movements. "Gimme fear!" They raised their palms and jumped backwards. Etc. There were six different emotions filmed, and at one point, the researchers put little reflective dots on these dancing/acting bodies and turned off the lights, and all you could see were the dots of light making the motions, and you could see the impression of a body there.
These are called point light displays. Now a lot of researchers use these films of point light displays for all different experiments, and I want to use them for this:
SO autistic individuals have a hard time decoding emotion from movements. They are not very conscious of their own body movements, either. They have a hard time with social things in general, and emotional motion is one of them, and that includes facial expressions as well as whole body movements.
Well, the project I came up with has to do with scanning autistic brains while they watch point light displays versus full light displays, and they will have to say what emotion is being expressed. I would also give them scenarios they will have to figure out the ending to based on these movements.
"A man witnesses a robbery," I would say. "He reacts like this:" (I'll show the video of either fear or anger here). "Do you think the man decided to help the victim, or run away?"
I will also ask Theory of Mind questions, such as:
"A man goes to work and leaves his dog home alone. The dog breaks an expensive vase while the man is gone. The man comes home from work and he looks like this:" (I'll show the video of either anger or calm here.) "Do you think the man knows his vase is broken?"
Etc. That is how the study will pan out. I will go through these scenarios, and I'm going to add into the project idea that I'd like to use fMRI to see what's going on in the ASD brain while all of this is happening. And I would like to know if people with ASD are better at inferring emotion from point light displays or full light displays, or if they are better at the emotional scenarios or theory of mind scenarios. I might add in a normal control to the mix. I might suggest that point light displays could be used to teach emotional biological motion to people with ASD.
Anyway, that's it. I don't know how that one came into my brain but that's that. Obviously this is just an idea-- the prof said it wouldn't necessarily be what I'm gonna do for my PhD cos I'd have to discuss it with whoever my tutor would be and it would have to fit into their research as well. At this point, I just don't care... as I've said before, I just want to study Cognitive Neuroscience and learn fMRI. And if I can do that, no matter what subject I'm studying, I don't care-- I'll do it. And this program pays well... REALLY well for a graduate program. I'd be lucky to get it, and I really really hope I do!
Okay, now I said I'd discuss other things... like the Creation Museum. Wow, I don't know, I'm kinda burning out my typing fingers, but let's have a go...
So my mom and I decided to take a short trip south on Easter weekend. We drove through Amish country on Friday and stayed in a hotel in Kentucky that gave us discount Creation Museum tickets for the next day. It rained all weekend, but it wasn't too bad as we were driving to the museum on Saturday morning. We got there and it's this big fancy building with dinosaur statues standing outside.
The first thing we did was go see a planetarium show. It wasn't a real planetarium, but a digital one, but the show was still impressive for its visual effects. You could see Earth, all the planets and their trajectories around the sun, and then it zoomed out in the wider universe into other star systems and galaxies. The narrator wasn't preachy, he just said things like, "Look at what God has created!" in between saying things I had learned in my college astronomy class. However, he did stress the fact that "The Big Bang could not have happened, because..." and he went off about the universe not really expanding, and young stars being next to old stars, etc. Some things that didn't really make sense, but I guess make sense to the Creationists, so there you have it.
We left the planetarium and there was this herptologist outside in khaki carrying a snake around his arm.
"Come see me show later!" he was telling the crowd. "Here, take this." He handed me the snake and it was the coolest thing ever. That was when I decided that one day, I will own a Ball Python (which is what that particular snake was), and I will hold it and feel its strong muscle wrap around my arm-- so cool! It just coils and bobs like the empty-eyed little coiling monster that it is.
The museum itself was quite impressive. It's set up like a natural history museum, and they spared no expense creating lavish fake gardens, archaeological dig sites, anamatronic dinosaurs, all sorts of great things. A big part of the museum was the role of dinosaurs in the bible.
Dinosaurs were called dragons in the early years of Earth (no older than 6000 years). They roamed the garden of Eden in the time of Adam and ate vegetation until the fall of man. All animals were vegetarian in the garden of Eden, and nothing died, and there were no thorns on plants, or diseases or mutations. My mother piped up questions throughout the whole exhibit: "But if everyone was immortal, the Earth would have been overpopulated long before now!... But if the dinosaurs were taken aboard Noah's Ark, how did they become extinct all at once?" I tried to be helpful and answer her questions the way a Creationist might. If there were any atheists there that day, I wouldn't be counted among them!
I think the reason immortal people wouldn't have overpopulated is hinted at in the long lifespans of those who came after Adam. His sons all lived close to 1000 years, and each of them only had one kid or so in their lifetimes. I think 1 kid every 1000 years could keep a population down, even if you were immortal.
As for the dinos, they never did say.
But yes, it is true-- dinosaurs were taken aboard the Ark. And here's something I never knew but probably should have-- only Noah's family was saved. So I guess we are all descendents of Noah. Not like that did any good, though-- I would hate to see the state of the world if the rotten people of ages past hadn't died, seeing as we good folks are pretty terrible as it is. Guess we're in for another flood soon?
It was also interesting that all the periods of history-- Triassic, Jurassic, Precambrian, etc-- are all referred to simply as sediment layers by the Creationists. During the flood, different kind of sediment settled at different times-- floating forests were turned into coal, etc-- and all the layers we attribute to diffeent "periods" are actually just various layers of Earth that settled at different times over the course of a one year global flood. That's the thing-- the Creationists compacted all of anthropological and geological history into a short period to fit it all into 6000 years. Pangaea became the continents in a year. The last ice age lasted only a hundred years or so. Neanderthal and Homo erectus were just nomadic humans cut off from their cultures.
All of the world's 6000 year history is catalogued in a 20ft. map-- very detailed in its descriptions and timelines, and such a cool cool thing-- my mom bought a copy for my dad, and when we got home we just sat there and read as much as we could as we spread the map through the hallway.
By the time we left the Creation Museum, it was raining pretty hard... we tried to head further south, but we were just following the storm, and when tornado warnings started blaring over the radio, we just turned around and drovce back home. I didn't mind though-- I liked spending Sunday at my parents' house-- one more day I got to spend with the whole fam before I left that Wednesday.
I spent a couple more days with my friends, we went to Chagrin Falls one last time, and I had a good ol' fashioned all-American pancake breakfast with Matt at a quaint diner by his house before heading home to finish packing.
I was sad to leave, and I would like to be able to go back as soon as possible. And hopefully, now that I will finish my thesis in July, perhaps I will be able to go back mucher sooner than I'd first thought! Of course I might stick around to try to learn MATLAB if I don't have the time before July 31, but I hope I can get some practice in before then. I guess we'll see. We'll just see!
Okay, I've been writing this thing way too long now.. but it's done! That's making up for 2 weeks of silence I guess!
Friday, April 29, 2011
April 30th? I think? No, April 29th, good
Yes, I have my dates mixed up...
It has been a while since I've updated, but I figure most of the people who read my blog were hanging out with me the last couple of weeks so they already know what's been going on in this life of mine. I don't really have time to update right now-- Jana and I are going downtown to see if a particular library is open, but our guess is that everything is closed today because the wedding makes today a national holiday... Is that right?
Anyway, I'm meeting her at 2, so I gotta get ready. Stay tuned for:
The Creation Museum
Other vacation things
The status of my PhD application (which is due 31 May, the date which may come amidst destruction according to some apocalyptic prophecies)
The status of my Master's degree program as of yesterday
The traveling part (which wasn't so bad as the getting-back-to-Leicsester bit tends to go)
What I did yesterday, and I guess today, now that I am awake.
Fnee :D
It has been a while since I've updated, but I figure most of the people who read my blog were hanging out with me the last couple of weeks so they already know what's been going on in this life of mine. I don't really have time to update right now-- Jana and I are going downtown to see if a particular library is open, but our guess is that everything is closed today because the wedding makes today a national holiday... Is that right?
Anyway, I'm meeting her at 2, so I gotta get ready. Stay tuned for:
The Creation Museum
Other vacation things
The status of my PhD application (which is due 31 May, the date which may come amidst destruction according to some apocalyptic prophecies)
The status of my Master's degree program as of yesterday
The traveling part (which wasn't so bad as the getting-back-to-Leicsester bit tends to go)
What I did yesterday, and I guess today, now that I am awake.
Fnee :D
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Mid-Vacation Update
OK, it's not mid-vacation yet (good because I want to drag this time out as long as I can). I have exactly 2 weeks left until I leave, so it's really the 1/3-Vacation Update.
As of today, I have my literature review rough draft finished, with most of my references made up for that (I have 105 so far)-- but I have a feeling there are one or two straggler references I forgot to log into refworks while I was browsing PsycInfo, so I'll have to double check whenever I decide to edit the monster.
I have 2/3 pages completed of my mock PhD proposal-- my background info and a little more than half of the experimental design. I don't know how I'm going to write up the timeline, but a prof I met with to help me design the thing said she'd look it over, so I'm not too worried about that anymore. I thik it is some of my best writing, so I feel good about it. The review, on the other hand... I don't know how I feel about the writing. It needs a lot of editing, but at least I gave it direction. The intro paragraph is weak but I hate writing intros... they always sound cliche or like an abstract or something.
And, I also have 2300 of 3000 words finished of my experimental write up. It just needs a Discussion section, then it's done. The biggest hurdle of this one is going to be finding enough references, though. I based the experiment off only a few studies so I need a strong intro with lots of background info on source memory. Unfortunately, I don't know the area well at all, so I'm kind of at that stage where I'm dipping into this huge pool of research with no idea where to start. I'll deal with that later though.
I was planning on working on essays today, but a tiredness just hit me and before I knew it, I was napping for almost 3 hours. I don't really know what came over me-- I went running this morning, but running hasn't made me tired in months and months. And I drank a lot afterwards, too.
Oh, so listen to this... last night, I was up until 3AM with a couple of friends from high school, sitting around at Denny's (I ate pancakes and hash browns mmmmm!) when we all decided we would go for a run at Sunny Lake the next day. Neither of the 2 guys runs really; Billy at least plays casual sports and is in better shape than Jason, who is quite large, and I was surprised he agreed to come running the next day at all.
Well, I got up this morning, drove to Sunny Lake, took a warm-up lap, and soon enough Billy showed up all alone.
"Jason's not coming," he said. "Has to babysit his neice."
A likely story.
I asked Billy if he'd been running before. He said he had run on the treadmills at the gym on KSU's campus, but couldn't remember for how long. I suggested we take one lap around Sunny Lake (which is 1.75 miles around) and see how he felt after that. He kept good pace and made some easy conversation, so I figured he was doing fine. I asked if he wanted to do another lap and he said, "Sure". By the last quarter of the second lap, I noticed him grab his side, so I said, "Looks like you have a stitch" and he agreed to walk it out for a bit. I still wanted to do one more lap, so I asked Billy if he wanted to leave at this point and let me finish up alone. He insisted he was fine, said the stitch was gone, and we ran one more time around. By the 1.5 mile mark, he said, "Okay, I have to walk" which was the first time he said anything. We were walking out the end of our lap, and I told Billy how impressed I was that he was able to run 5 miles when he wasn't a consistent runner, and I thought everything was fine... but, all of a sudden, he said:
"I have to stop."
I gave him a weird look because really, walking feels better after a run than standing still. And then it hit me.
"Are you nauseous?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said.
"Are you going to puke!?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said. And I turned away just in time.
I feel like I should have been flattered. A semi-fit male couldn't keep up with me without blowing chunks afterwards. Then again, I'm not that impressed anymore, either.
When I got home afterwards, my dad offered to take me out to lunch :D
So I showered and got cleaned up, and I ended up having some satisfactory trout at Ruby Tuesday. But I don't get much one-on-one time with my dad, so the outing was really nice! And now I'm watching him play a new Prince of Persia game... some of the games he plays, ha ha... I bet if he could suck it up and play a game starring Disney characters, he'd really enjoy Kingdom Hearts, which is the best video game ever. I swear, no other game has as good of a blend of story, fighting style, missions, etc. It's amazing!
Anyway, let me make this post incredibly long and talk about my vacation so far.
So the trip here was really nice-- I mean, it went so smoothly, and I wasn't rushed or stressed or sick or anything. I took the train from Leicester to London St. Pancras-- I just love that train station-- it's so beautiful up top, with the sun pooling through the huge arched windows... actually, here's a picture I stole of it:
OK anyway, so from St. Pancras, I took the tube to Heathrow, which takes about 50 minutes. I got to the airport, got my ticket, and had about 2 and a half hours to kill, so I decided to get some lunch and sit in a real airport restaurant, something I've actually never had the time to do before. It was really nice being able to lounge around instead of worrying I'm going to miss my flight-- which seems to happen more often than not.
I browsed the shops and picked up a bag of Crunchies (my mom's favorite candy bar-- and apparently, they exist in the USA, or so says my friend Matt, but I have yet to find them). Got on my plane, watched a couple of good movies: Black Swan and Tangled and before I knew it I was in NYC, with a 3-hour layover. That seemed to pass pretty quickly as well, since I had some good reading material, and soon we were boarding for Cleveland. I napped a bit, we landed, and I met my mother at the airport.
The very next day, my friends were getting together to celebrate one Borders employee's last day, which turned out just perfect. I saw everyone I'd been missing, and we had a great time.
On Saturday, I had lunch with Matt at an impressively vegan restaurant called Tommy's up in Lakewood, before heading off to Laura's place to go together to Stefani's show. Stefani was performing at a bar in Lakewood, and I was really excited to have my friends finally hear her music! However, I'd texted her earlier with something along the lines of:
make sure u warm up really well tonite cos I want u to impress my friends <3
No pressure. And granted, Stefani's voice was great on Saturday, but apparently the band hadn't had time to practice her songs much, so there was a strange key change in one song, and timing was off in another, but it was nothing Matt or Laura noticed (or at least they said they didn't notice, he he he).
I'd missed my friends a lot, and it was great getting together with them again. After the show, we stopped at Giant Eagle to pick up booze and a pie, and we had a great night as usual at Laura and Justin's place. Justin was there when we arrived, and I was actually pleasantly surprised that he was excited to see me-- I've always liked Justin, but we never got to hang out much in the past couple of years. He's a good friend-- they're all good friends-- and I'm so happy to have them :D
The next day, Laura had to leave early for work, but Justin, Matt, and I went out for brunch to this amazing authentic little American diner called "John's Diner", and we ate good old-fashioned comfort food. So good! Yes, one of the best parts about being home is going out every other day for delicious American eats! Bottomless coffee and all.
And I'm looking forward to Friday because that means-- Yours Truly! One of our "usual haunts" for a Friday night, with lots of memories of wonderful summer evenings. And the weather has been so summery lately, hopefully we'll get a good blast from the past. I can't wait! Laura and I even agreed to read a short story for the heck of it ;) Oo that reminds me, I need to e-mail Matt and see if he wants to join in on the reading. He's coming too, so that way we can all discuss good fiction.
Stephen, if you're out there-- let me just give you a shout out-- you are sorely missed! I won't go as far as ordering a wrap or a salad in your honor because I hate wraps and salads, but I'll be thinking of you. I've been missing your face in the past week, but we will meet again! Maybe if I pine you'll agree to hike the Appalachian Trail with me one day. Just throwing it out there.
I actually don't want to go back to England. I mean, I do because that's where the other half of me lives, but I am not going to enjoy coming back to a crappy house. My parents' house is just... so nice! And my bed is large and soft, and I'm going to have to abandon my cat again... :(
But! No point worrying about that now! My trip back is weeks away! Ho ho!
What I am worrying about constantly, and will be worrying about with increasing intensity over the coming months, is what I'm going to be doing next year. I applied for a PhD program in Rome, but now they're asking me to send a 3-page research proposal and I'm stuck because I would have to make something up cos I've never studied what they're offering before. I sent my CV already, and a motivation letter, and I've asked for a couple of recommendation letters. So all I have left to do is send my transcripts and this proposal... I don't really feel like I have much of a chance... I mean, it's just realistic-- they only have one fully-funded position for an international student, and my experience is in other things.
The thing IS though, I always hear of PhD students getting into programs that weren't in their 1st interest. Getting into your favorite topic is not always realistic, either-- you take what you can get. So maybe if I come up with a project convincing enough, I'll make it... but I just don't know where to begin. Should I e-mail the program coordinator and ask what projects they WANT their international student to do? Should I really be expected to pull a random project out of thin air and send it along hoping they will be interested in that? I feel like what you're supposed to do is work with the adviser to come up with something you BOTH want to do. That's the problem with the application process for any graduate school... how much of it is you trying to channel the adviser, and you actually communicating with the adviser? I don't know the etiquette-- will they be reluctant to give me any information because they're too busy or have someone else in mind, or... what?
If I don't get into a PhD program, I might be able to get a research position for a year or two... what I think would be great fun, would be teaching at a community college or a regional branch of a university. You only need a Masters degree to teach at those places, and they pay pretty well-- between 45-50,000 a year, mostly. I don't know how the interview process would work, and I know I'd be too late to start teaching at the usual time in the fall because I don't get my degree until September. But maybe if someone likes me enough, they'd let me start late? But I don't have any professional teaching experience..
It seems research assistant is the most likely position I'll get after my Masters, but I don't know how into that I am... it doesn't pay well AT ALL, but I would have a job, and it would be related, at least.
I don't know. My mom put this idea of teaching at the junior college level into my head and it's spread through my brain like a fungus... I feel like this is something I could really enjoy doing.
I guess... we'll see...
As of today, I have my literature review rough draft finished, with most of my references made up for that (I have 105 so far)-- but I have a feeling there are one or two straggler references I forgot to log into refworks while I was browsing PsycInfo, so I'll have to double check whenever I decide to edit the monster.
I have 2/3 pages completed of my mock PhD proposal-- my background info and a little more than half of the experimental design. I don't know how I'm going to write up the timeline, but a prof I met with to help me design the thing said she'd look it over, so I'm not too worried about that anymore. I thik it is some of my best writing, so I feel good about it. The review, on the other hand... I don't know how I feel about the writing. It needs a lot of editing, but at least I gave it direction. The intro paragraph is weak but I hate writing intros... they always sound cliche or like an abstract or something.
And, I also have 2300 of 3000 words finished of my experimental write up. It just needs a Discussion section, then it's done. The biggest hurdle of this one is going to be finding enough references, though. I based the experiment off only a few studies so I need a strong intro with lots of background info on source memory. Unfortunately, I don't know the area well at all, so I'm kind of at that stage where I'm dipping into this huge pool of research with no idea where to start. I'll deal with that later though.
I was planning on working on essays today, but a tiredness just hit me and before I knew it, I was napping for almost 3 hours. I don't really know what came over me-- I went running this morning, but running hasn't made me tired in months and months. And I drank a lot afterwards, too.
Oh, so listen to this... last night, I was up until 3AM with a couple of friends from high school, sitting around at Denny's (I ate pancakes and hash browns mmmmm!) when we all decided we would go for a run at Sunny Lake the next day. Neither of the 2 guys runs really; Billy at least plays casual sports and is in better shape than Jason, who is quite large, and I was surprised he agreed to come running the next day at all.
Well, I got up this morning, drove to Sunny Lake, took a warm-up lap, and soon enough Billy showed up all alone.
"Jason's not coming," he said. "Has to babysit his neice."
A likely story.
I asked Billy if he'd been running before. He said he had run on the treadmills at the gym on KSU's campus, but couldn't remember for how long. I suggested we take one lap around Sunny Lake (which is 1.75 miles around) and see how he felt after that. He kept good pace and made some easy conversation, so I figured he was doing fine. I asked if he wanted to do another lap and he said, "Sure". By the last quarter of the second lap, I noticed him grab his side, so I said, "Looks like you have a stitch" and he agreed to walk it out for a bit. I still wanted to do one more lap, so I asked Billy if he wanted to leave at this point and let me finish up alone. He insisted he was fine, said the stitch was gone, and we ran one more time around. By the 1.5 mile mark, he said, "Okay, I have to walk" which was the first time he said anything. We were walking out the end of our lap, and I told Billy how impressed I was that he was able to run 5 miles when he wasn't a consistent runner, and I thought everything was fine... but, all of a sudden, he said:
"I have to stop."
I gave him a weird look because really, walking feels better after a run than standing still. And then it hit me.
"Are you nauseous?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said.
"Are you going to puke!?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said. And I turned away just in time.
I feel like I should have been flattered. A semi-fit male couldn't keep up with me without blowing chunks afterwards. Then again, I'm not that impressed anymore, either.
When I got home afterwards, my dad offered to take me out to lunch :D
So I showered and got cleaned up, and I ended up having some satisfactory trout at Ruby Tuesday. But I don't get much one-on-one time with my dad, so the outing was really nice! And now I'm watching him play a new Prince of Persia game... some of the games he plays, ha ha... I bet if he could suck it up and play a game starring Disney characters, he'd really enjoy Kingdom Hearts, which is the best video game ever. I swear, no other game has as good of a blend of story, fighting style, missions, etc. It's amazing!
Anyway, let me make this post incredibly long and talk about my vacation so far.
So the trip here was really nice-- I mean, it went so smoothly, and I wasn't rushed or stressed or sick or anything. I took the train from Leicester to London St. Pancras-- I just love that train station-- it's so beautiful up top, with the sun pooling through the huge arched windows... actually, here's a picture I stole of it:
OK anyway, so from St. Pancras, I took the tube to Heathrow, which takes about 50 minutes. I got to the airport, got my ticket, and had about 2 and a half hours to kill, so I decided to get some lunch and sit in a real airport restaurant, something I've actually never had the time to do before. It was really nice being able to lounge around instead of worrying I'm going to miss my flight-- which seems to happen more often than not.
I browsed the shops and picked up a bag of Crunchies (my mom's favorite candy bar-- and apparently, they exist in the USA, or so says my friend Matt, but I have yet to find them). Got on my plane, watched a couple of good movies: Black Swan and Tangled and before I knew it I was in NYC, with a 3-hour layover. That seemed to pass pretty quickly as well, since I had some good reading material, and soon we were boarding for Cleveland. I napped a bit, we landed, and I met my mother at the airport.
The very next day, my friends were getting together to celebrate one Borders employee's last day, which turned out just perfect. I saw everyone I'd been missing, and we had a great time.
On Saturday, I had lunch with Matt at an impressively vegan restaurant called Tommy's up in Lakewood, before heading off to Laura's place to go together to Stefani's show. Stefani was performing at a bar in Lakewood, and I was really excited to have my friends finally hear her music! However, I'd texted her earlier with something along the lines of:
make sure u warm up really well tonite cos I want u to impress my friends <3
No pressure. And granted, Stefani's voice was great on Saturday, but apparently the band hadn't had time to practice her songs much, so there was a strange key change in one song, and timing was off in another, but it was nothing Matt or Laura noticed (or at least they said they didn't notice, he he he).
I'd missed my friends a lot, and it was great getting together with them again. After the show, we stopped at Giant Eagle to pick up booze and a pie, and we had a great night as usual at Laura and Justin's place. Justin was there when we arrived, and I was actually pleasantly surprised that he was excited to see me-- I've always liked Justin, but we never got to hang out much in the past couple of years. He's a good friend-- they're all good friends-- and I'm so happy to have them :D
The next day, Laura had to leave early for work, but Justin, Matt, and I went out for brunch to this amazing authentic little American diner called "John's Diner", and we ate good old-fashioned comfort food. So good! Yes, one of the best parts about being home is going out every other day for delicious American eats! Bottomless coffee and all.
And I'm looking forward to Friday because that means-- Yours Truly! One of our "usual haunts" for a Friday night, with lots of memories of wonderful summer evenings. And the weather has been so summery lately, hopefully we'll get a good blast from the past. I can't wait! Laura and I even agreed to read a short story for the heck of it ;) Oo that reminds me, I need to e-mail Matt and see if he wants to join in on the reading. He's coming too, so that way we can all discuss good fiction.
Stephen, if you're out there-- let me just give you a shout out-- you are sorely missed! I won't go as far as ordering a wrap or a salad in your honor because I hate wraps and salads, but I'll be thinking of you. I've been missing your face in the past week, but we will meet again! Maybe if I pine you'll agree to hike the Appalachian Trail with me one day. Just throwing it out there.
I actually don't want to go back to England. I mean, I do because that's where the other half of me lives, but I am not going to enjoy coming back to a crappy house. My parents' house is just... so nice! And my bed is large and soft, and I'm going to have to abandon my cat again... :(
But! No point worrying about that now! My trip back is weeks away! Ho ho!
What I am worrying about constantly, and will be worrying about with increasing intensity over the coming months, is what I'm going to be doing next year. I applied for a PhD program in Rome, but now they're asking me to send a 3-page research proposal and I'm stuck because I would have to make something up cos I've never studied what they're offering before. I sent my CV already, and a motivation letter, and I've asked for a couple of recommendation letters. So all I have left to do is send my transcripts and this proposal... I don't really feel like I have much of a chance... I mean, it's just realistic-- they only have one fully-funded position for an international student, and my experience is in other things.
The thing IS though, I always hear of PhD students getting into programs that weren't in their 1st interest. Getting into your favorite topic is not always realistic, either-- you take what you can get. So maybe if I come up with a project convincing enough, I'll make it... but I just don't know where to begin. Should I e-mail the program coordinator and ask what projects they WANT their international student to do? Should I really be expected to pull a random project out of thin air and send it along hoping they will be interested in that? I feel like what you're supposed to do is work with the adviser to come up with something you BOTH want to do. That's the problem with the application process for any graduate school... how much of it is you trying to channel the adviser, and you actually communicating with the adviser? I don't know the etiquette-- will they be reluctant to give me any information because they're too busy or have someone else in mind, or... what?
If I don't get into a PhD program, I might be able to get a research position for a year or two... what I think would be great fun, would be teaching at a community college or a regional branch of a university. You only need a Masters degree to teach at those places, and they pay pretty well-- between 45-50,000 a year, mostly. I don't know how the interview process would work, and I know I'd be too late to start teaching at the usual time in the fall because I don't get my degree until September. But maybe if someone likes me enough, they'd let me start late? But I don't have any professional teaching experience..
It seems research assistant is the most likely position I'll get after my Masters, but I don't know how into that I am... it doesn't pay well AT ALL, but I would have a job, and it would be related, at least.
I don't know. My mom put this idea of teaching at the junior college level into my head and it's spread through my brain like a fungus... I feel like this is something I could really enjoy doing.
I guess... we'll see...
Sunday, April 3, 2011
End of Term Rant + Update
Yes, I finished experimentation-- well, undergraduate experimentation-- for my thesis. I've come to the conclusion that undergrads are pretty useless subjects. It's pretty pathetic how even psychology students just don't care about research. So I ended up with 16 OK subjects out of about 25 who actually took part. About 5 of them didn't turn off their cell phones even when I repeatedly told them to turn the damn things off, and halfway through a block of trials I'd hear "My humps! My humps my humps my humps! My lovely lady lumps! Check it out!" or whatever equally ridiculous song is playing right now and people insist on making their ringtone.
And I swear to god... I had the most nightmarish subject one day, who had the WORST attitude... She sighed and scoffed and didn't pay attention the whole time, and ruined the data completely... so I insisted she come in and do the whole thing all over again or she wouldn't get her credits. Anyway, I felt a little better when Hannah told me she got stuck with the SAME girl, and had just as many problems with her. So... this chick wasn't just having an "off day", she's just unpleasant all the time.
But seriously... Don't sign up if you don't want to do in-lab participation! Do you KNOW how many online studies there are? I don't want to see your mean FACE.
And I gotta tell ya-- Friday was my last day in lab. I was expecting 5 people to show up. And guess what? Only 2 did. When my last participant was leaving I told her how happy I was she actually showed. Then she informed me the reason everyone else didn't come was because they had already gotten all the research participation credits they needed and were just using my study as a backup since the credit requirement deadline was that day.
Well, what the idiot undergrads didn't realize, was that even if you get all the credits you need, the system doesn't allow you to go OVER the requirement, no matter how many studies you take. So when I deduct TWO CREDITS from your total because you didn't show up, then you don't reach your requirement. SUCKS to be you. And two credits is a lot in the EPR world. The stupid heads didn't figure this out until after the fact, of course. Then they e-mailed me and said, "Please, isn't there a time I can come in to make it up?" I replied with a passive aggressive, "Nope. The experiment is over. Enjoy your break."
SUCKAS.
So is experimentation over? No. But I will not test undergrads for the rest of the year. I can't RELY on those losers to give me good data. I must have been insane to put my thesis in the hands of a few rotten brats who didn't want to be there.
So who will I test? Reliable subjects who come to me out of the goodness of their hearts. Postgraduates. Friends. It doesn't matter, because my experiment is psychophysical and anyone with a functioning brain can do it. But I will have to get that done in May when I get back to England because tomorrow--
I'm going home!
Yes, I'm all packe up and ready to go. Jana gave me a pile of books and clothes to bring back for her, and I hope my bag doesn't weigh too much with all of it. She's bringing a handy scale over today to double check. My room is cleaner than it's ever been because of all the organizing/packing. I have to make sure I don't forget anything important, after all.
I'm a little bit afraid about the state of my room in Ohio, though. My cat has taken it over and I'm sure it'll be just covered in litter, toys, puke spots my mother missed, and hair.
Mum, if you're reading this... how would you like to vaccuum/refresh my room today as a welcome home present? Lavah?
As far as term coursework goes... the only thing that we were actually graded on before spring break was a presentation on the random experiments we did. I'm sure I did great, except I forgot to explain half my methods out of fear. Nobody caught it except the HOC, who wrote on his review form "how did you measure error rates?"-- whoopsie. You would know, if I had told you.
I am going to be giving a real presentation at the Experimental Psychological Society in July on my thesis work. Before then, I hope to get some prescription stage fright medication, which Hannah says exists. I just don't know how I'll be able to do well without it. I've tried everything. I memorize my presentations, I practice them more than anyone I know, I have learned to speak clearly, loudly, slowly, without "ums" or "ers"... yet I can't control the quaver in my voice, my shaking hands, I can't calm my heart rate no matter how many deep breaths I take, no matter what I tell myself, no matter how much I consciously relax my muscles. I can't will myself to be unafraid. So I will go to the doctor in May and ask for a prescription, which should be free in this country.
It's the only thing I can think of. My fears are completely irrational. I even start to get nervous when I practice in front of Jana, or my friends. WHY? WHY? It doesn't make any sense. I don't drink caffeine anymore. I can comfortably speak up in class during a lecture. I just can't give a presentation.
The worst part is, I WANT people to listen to what I have to say! I know people like my research. After my presentation, I got loads of questions about source monitoring, and one person even asked me to e-mail them with more information. People like what I study, and I want to be able to explain it to them without FREAKING OUT. Drugs. I will try. Maybe I can get a prescription before BPS and try them out for my poster presentation in May. If they work at that time, then I'll be OK for EPS in July.
So what are my plans for when I get home?
1) Sleep. Will do this if my bed is not dusty. If it is, I will be cranky. Just warning you.
2) Get situated-- take a couple days to lounge, watch the tube, get into the right time zone.
3) Play with friends! Yippee hooraaaayy!
4) Work on essays. Yep. I have a lot to write, still. A lot. I haven't even started my mock studentship proposal. I am only halfway through my experiment write-up. And I still have about five straight days of work in editing/wrapping up my literature review (7300 words, yeah!). My goal is to get everything done before I come back April 27th. I hope to work on those essays every week, and I've made weekly goals for myself, I'm not gonna lie. I am serious about getting those done at home.
Oh yeah, 5) eat Papa John's pizza. This is a MUST, pizza is such CRAP here.
6) buy things that I can't get or are too expensive in the UK:
Need to replenish my Victoria's Secret stuff
Need to buy floss/toothbrush
Perhaps go to the dentist while I'm at it...
Go to Delia's, hell ya-- excited to see what new jeans they have
7) go to the Creationist Museum. I bet Mum and I can do that on our way down to North Carolina!
OK, that's really it. Otherwise, I'm excited to hang out with my cat... and my friends of course... I must visit Borders and Yours Truly a few times, and I've informed Laura my intentions to crash at her, Justin's, and Cthulhu's awesome apartment at least once. Parte!
And I swear to god... I had the most nightmarish subject one day, who had the WORST attitude... She sighed and scoffed and didn't pay attention the whole time, and ruined the data completely... so I insisted she come in and do the whole thing all over again or she wouldn't get her credits. Anyway, I felt a little better when Hannah told me she got stuck with the SAME girl, and had just as many problems with her. So... this chick wasn't just having an "off day", she's just unpleasant all the time.
But seriously... Don't sign up if you don't want to do in-lab participation! Do you KNOW how many online studies there are? I don't want to see your mean FACE.
And I gotta tell ya-- Friday was my last day in lab. I was expecting 5 people to show up. And guess what? Only 2 did. When my last participant was leaving I told her how happy I was she actually showed. Then she informed me the reason everyone else didn't come was because they had already gotten all the research participation credits they needed and were just using my study as a backup since the credit requirement deadline was that day.
Well, what the idiot undergrads didn't realize, was that even if you get all the credits you need, the system doesn't allow you to go OVER the requirement, no matter how many studies you take. So when I deduct TWO CREDITS from your total because you didn't show up, then you don't reach your requirement. SUCKS to be you. And two credits is a lot in the EPR world. The stupid heads didn't figure this out until after the fact, of course. Then they e-mailed me and said, "Please, isn't there a time I can come in to make it up?" I replied with a passive aggressive, "Nope. The experiment is over. Enjoy your break."
SUCKAS.
So is experimentation over? No. But I will not test undergrads for the rest of the year. I can't RELY on those losers to give me good data. I must have been insane to put my thesis in the hands of a few rotten brats who didn't want to be there.
So who will I test? Reliable subjects who come to me out of the goodness of their hearts. Postgraduates. Friends. It doesn't matter, because my experiment is psychophysical and anyone with a functioning brain can do it. But I will have to get that done in May when I get back to England because tomorrow--
I'm going home!
Yes, I'm all packe up and ready to go. Jana gave me a pile of books and clothes to bring back for her, and I hope my bag doesn't weigh too much with all of it. She's bringing a handy scale over today to double check. My room is cleaner than it's ever been because of all the organizing/packing. I have to make sure I don't forget anything important, after all.
I'm a little bit afraid about the state of my room in Ohio, though. My cat has taken it over and I'm sure it'll be just covered in litter, toys, puke spots my mother missed, and hair.
Mum, if you're reading this... how would you like to vaccuum/refresh my room today as a welcome home present? Lavah?
As far as term coursework goes... the only thing that we were actually graded on before spring break was a presentation on the random experiments we did. I'm sure I did great, except I forgot to explain half my methods out of fear. Nobody caught it except the HOC, who wrote on his review form "how did you measure error rates?"-- whoopsie. You would know, if I had told you.
I am going to be giving a real presentation at the Experimental Psychological Society in July on my thesis work. Before then, I hope to get some prescription stage fright medication, which Hannah says exists. I just don't know how I'll be able to do well without it. I've tried everything. I memorize my presentations, I practice them more than anyone I know, I have learned to speak clearly, loudly, slowly, without "ums" or "ers"... yet I can't control the quaver in my voice, my shaking hands, I can't calm my heart rate no matter how many deep breaths I take, no matter what I tell myself, no matter how much I consciously relax my muscles. I can't will myself to be unafraid. So I will go to the doctor in May and ask for a prescription, which should be free in this country.
It's the only thing I can think of. My fears are completely irrational. I even start to get nervous when I practice in front of Jana, or my friends. WHY? WHY? It doesn't make any sense. I don't drink caffeine anymore. I can comfortably speak up in class during a lecture. I just can't give a presentation.
The worst part is, I WANT people to listen to what I have to say! I know people like my research. After my presentation, I got loads of questions about source monitoring, and one person even asked me to e-mail them with more information. People like what I study, and I want to be able to explain it to them without FREAKING OUT. Drugs. I will try. Maybe I can get a prescription before BPS and try them out for my poster presentation in May. If they work at that time, then I'll be OK for EPS in July.
So what are my plans for when I get home?
1) Sleep. Will do this if my bed is not dusty. If it is, I will be cranky. Just warning you.
2) Get situated-- take a couple days to lounge, watch the tube, get into the right time zone.
3) Play with friends! Yippee hooraaaayy!
4) Work on essays. Yep. I have a lot to write, still. A lot. I haven't even started my mock studentship proposal. I am only halfway through my experiment write-up. And I still have about five straight days of work in editing/wrapping up my literature review (7300 words, yeah!). My goal is to get everything done before I come back April 27th. I hope to work on those essays every week, and I've made weekly goals for myself, I'm not gonna lie. I am serious about getting those done at home.
Oh yeah, 5) eat Papa John's pizza. This is a MUST, pizza is such CRAP here.
6) buy things that I can't get or are too expensive in the UK:
Need to replenish my Victoria's Secret stuff
Need to buy floss/toothbrush
Perhaps go to the dentist while I'm at it...
Go to Delia's, hell ya-- excited to see what new jeans they have
7) go to the Creationist Museum. I bet Mum and I can do that on our way down to North Carolina!
OK, that's really it. Otherwise, I'm excited to hang out with my cat... and my friends of course... I must visit Borders and Yours Truly a few times, and I've informed Laura my intentions to crash at her, Justin's, and Cthulhu's awesome apartment at least once. Parte!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
London Synaesthesia Adventure Part 2
So Saturday morning I woke up early, while Hannah (much like Jana) slept in to get her full 10 hours. I dressed in my conference attire and headed down to the university for registration. I found out when I got there how small the conference was-- there might have been 50 people total in attendance. We mingled for a few minutes eating tea and pastries (croissants mmmm) and looking at the small number of posters that had been set up around the room.
First of all, I noticed that the posters had not been very well-cared for, and I'm willing to bet most of them were transported with 2 rubberbands tied around them. Also, while most posters had small grammatical or spelling mistakes, others were the result of huge printing errors, in which people had to tape in pictures of graphs or whole blocks of text. I guess even making a poster for a small conference is pretty impressive, though. Most single-lecture-theater conferences simply have all-day powerpoint presentations.
I have been to a similar conference before-- you have your huge gatherings like MPA, which is held in a hotel, several rooms are used at once, and an entire ballroom area is reserved for posters. And then you have your tight-knit, single-subject conferences where the whole thing takes place in one room and everyone knows each other. The Synaesthesia conference was the latter.
Pretty soon, we were ushered into the lecture theater where the presentations were to be given, and as I situated myself, I saw Hannah (finally up), come into the room. She spotted me and quickly took the seat to my left.
"You missed pastries!" I said.
"Ugh." She made a face. "I can't eat until about 4 hours after I wake up."
We turned to the front of the room and the presentations began.
As you may already know, someone is considered a synaesthete when they confuse at least one sensory modality with another. The most common type of synaesthesia is grapheme-color, in which the subject will see each letter of the alphabet as having a specific color attributed to it, no matter what the actual color of the letter is. Most often, A is red, but it can be different depending on the synaesthete. The synaesthete sees these colors very consistently, and tested many times over, they have about a 99% accuracy in indicating which color goes with which letter across a number of tests. This shows that some people really do attribute different colors each letter. Some synaesthetes claim that they can actually see the synaesthetic color, while others say they only imagine the color in their mind's eye, but for all of them, the same color appears every time, and sometimes if a letter is presented as the "wrong" color, the synaesthete will be irritated by it.
Most of the studies were about grapheme-color synaesthesia, but as the presentations went on, we started to suspect something funny going on...
First of all, most of the synaesthesia scientists were synaesthetes, themselves. They spoke of their own experiences and many people used those experiences as the basis for their research question. One person even treated herself as a case subject. Only one presenter admitted that her being a synaesthete might actually bias her judgment, and she wasn't even a scientist-- she was from an English department. Kind of gives psychologists a bad rap, eh?
Second, many of the studies had striking methodological errors. This might be expected from a small conference such as this, but coupled with the synaesthete's high fantasy proneness and flair for the dramatic, it seemed that every presentation ended with, "As you can see, I've discovered this new and amazing thing that will alter the course of future synaesthesia research forever", as they ignored their messy, confirmatory designs.
One study looked at fMRI data from eight synaesthetes.
"Look at the brain areas that light up in all of these subjects," the experimenter said, pointing at pictures of brains that were all in a neat little row. "The brain areas that activate during synaesthetic experience are bilateral insula, left anterior cingulate cortex, right superior frontal gyrus, and left caudate tail. These areas have been found to be involved in emotion. Therefore, emotion plays a key role in synaesthesia." Whatever the hell that means.
OK, maybe you've noticed the big error here? If not, let me point it out to you. The researchers never directly measured emotion. Obvious now? They should have had synaesthetes look at emotional words, or watch an emotional movie, or they should have at least tried to make them laugh or something while their brains were being scanned. But nope-- they just let the synaesthetes do their normal, unemotional synaesthetic thing, and just because a few brain areas lit up that are sometimes involved in emotion, they decided their scans gave some kind of conclusive evidence for an integral role of emotion in synaesthesia. I bet you didn't know this, but the anterior cingulate cortex is also used in visual mental imagery. In fact, a lot of those brain areas are used for other things besides emotion. Nice try though.
One presenter (another person from an English department), looked at "synaesthetic metaphor" in WWI poetry.
"These poets claimed that being on the battlefield mixed up their senses, so that they could see the sounds of explosions and gunshots, could taste the fear in the air, feel the hurt color of blood," she said. "This was expressed in popular poetry of the time, which indicates the possibility of a universal capacity for synaesthetic expression." She went on to say that many of these poets were synaesthetes, and since people liked their poetry, were able to understand the synaestheic experience-- and perhaps we all have a propensity for synaesthesia in some form or another!
Or else, synaesthetic metaphor is not really synaesthetic. Oops. Yeah, I write "synaesthetic metaphor" all the time, and I don't claim to be synaesthetic on any level. You know why I do it though? Because in writing, it's good to involve all the senses. You don't need to be a WWI poet to understand that. And you don't have to be a synaesthete, either.
Another study claimed that there's this exciting new type of synaesthesia called "swimming-style synaesthesia" that nobody's heard of before! The evidence for this is that the experimenter is a swimmer and a synaesthete, and hey-- she saw different colors for each of the different swimming styles. Too bad she already had other forms of synaesthesia. Also, that type of synaesthesia was probably learned through expertise, and could probably be seen in expert synaesthete racecar drivers as well, or what have you.
Another study posited that normal people can learn synaesthesia through hundreds of repeated learning trials. Sorry fellas, but that's associative learning. Again, nice try.
But the most grossly-flawed study (the one which made Hannah decide not to go to the conference at all on day 2, on principle) is as follows:
The study looked at 13 grapheme-color synaesthetes using a color-priming paradigm. This means that subjects had to look at a computer screen, and a letter (the prime) would flash onto the screen. After a delay, that same letter (the probe) would appear again. The letters were sometimes colored synaesthetically. The experimenter had to ask each synaesthete what their specific letter-colors were to make letters the synaesthetic color.
So, for example: say subject 1 saw the letter A as red. So the different categories of trials are as follows:
1) Prime (red) Probe (red) -- synaesthetically congruent*
2) Prime (blue) Probe (blue) -- print congruent, but not synaesthetically congruent
3) Prime (red) Probe (blue) -- incongruent
4) Prime (blue) Probe (red) -- incongruent
The experimenters found that synaesthetes were faster at identifying the probe when both prime and probe letters appeared as the synaesthetic color (category 1), than in any other condition. This, they said, not only proves that synaesthesia exists, but that greater mental imagery makes synaesthetes faster than controls on this task.
OK first, they studied expectancies (i.e., expecting the probe to be the same color as the prime), not imagery. COmpletely different internal processes. But that's not the worst thing. Hannah caught this: the experimenters never masked their primes! Masking, for those of you who don't know, involves presenting a picture (such as a circle of TV white noise) on the screen in between the prime and the probe. Without a mask, the after-image of the prime will remain for hundreds of milliseconds (and in a reaction time task like this, milliseconds are everything).
So no matter what their conclusions were, their study was complete crap from the get-go. No mask means no way of knowing whether results came from the long exposure to the prime or not.
Boy, did we tear the presenters apart. But it was unfair of them to put their "Synaesthetic AA meeting" under the guise of an academic conference.
Not only that, but they never convinced me that synaesthesia actually exists. While they claimed that synaesthesia leads to heightened imagery, creativity, fantasy proneness, and memory-- maybe synaesthesia is a symptom of a combination of all those things. In my opinion, synaesthesia seems likely to result from some mild form of OCD. In effect, a symptom... not a "disorder" in itself.
But the conference wasn't a complete loss. It was a good test of our methodological knowledge, and showed that we have actually learned something from our Masters course, yippee hooray. Also, it was admittedly cool hearing the synaesthetes' personal experiences, even though a scientific conference is not the place for them.
There were a couple of big names there as well that nobody would have heard of before, though one of them wrote my undergraduate Cogntive Neuroscience textbook though, so that is pretty cool.
Okay, done with conference rant-- may update more later, but I'm going to practice my presentation some more now.
First of all, I noticed that the posters had not been very well-cared for, and I'm willing to bet most of them were transported with 2 rubberbands tied around them. Also, while most posters had small grammatical or spelling mistakes, others were the result of huge printing errors, in which people had to tape in pictures of graphs or whole blocks of text. I guess even making a poster for a small conference is pretty impressive, though. Most single-lecture-theater conferences simply have all-day powerpoint presentations.
I have been to a similar conference before-- you have your huge gatherings like MPA, which is held in a hotel, several rooms are used at once, and an entire ballroom area is reserved for posters. And then you have your tight-knit, single-subject conferences where the whole thing takes place in one room and everyone knows each other. The Synaesthesia conference was the latter.
Pretty soon, we were ushered into the lecture theater where the presentations were to be given, and as I situated myself, I saw Hannah (finally up), come into the room. She spotted me and quickly took the seat to my left.
"You missed pastries!" I said.
"Ugh." She made a face. "I can't eat until about 4 hours after I wake up."
We turned to the front of the room and the presentations began.
As you may already know, someone is considered a synaesthete when they confuse at least one sensory modality with another. The most common type of synaesthesia is grapheme-color, in which the subject will see each letter of the alphabet as having a specific color attributed to it, no matter what the actual color of the letter is. Most often, A is red, but it can be different depending on the synaesthete. The synaesthete sees these colors very consistently, and tested many times over, they have about a 99% accuracy in indicating which color goes with which letter across a number of tests. This shows that some people really do attribute different colors each letter. Some synaesthetes claim that they can actually see the synaesthetic color, while others say they only imagine the color in their mind's eye, but for all of them, the same color appears every time, and sometimes if a letter is presented as the "wrong" color, the synaesthete will be irritated by it.
Most of the studies were about grapheme-color synaesthesia, but as the presentations went on, we started to suspect something funny going on...
First of all, most of the synaesthesia scientists were synaesthetes, themselves. They spoke of their own experiences and many people used those experiences as the basis for their research question. One person even treated herself as a case subject. Only one presenter admitted that her being a synaesthete might actually bias her judgment, and she wasn't even a scientist-- she was from an English department. Kind of gives psychologists a bad rap, eh?
Second, many of the studies had striking methodological errors. This might be expected from a small conference such as this, but coupled with the synaesthete's high fantasy proneness and flair for the dramatic, it seemed that every presentation ended with, "As you can see, I've discovered this new and amazing thing that will alter the course of future synaesthesia research forever", as they ignored their messy, confirmatory designs.
One study looked at fMRI data from eight synaesthetes.
"Look at the brain areas that light up in all of these subjects," the experimenter said, pointing at pictures of brains that were all in a neat little row. "The brain areas that activate during synaesthetic experience are bilateral insula, left anterior cingulate cortex, right superior frontal gyrus, and left caudate tail. These areas have been found to be involved in emotion. Therefore, emotion plays a key role in synaesthesia." Whatever the hell that means.
OK, maybe you've noticed the big error here? If not, let me point it out to you. The researchers never directly measured emotion. Obvious now? They should have had synaesthetes look at emotional words, or watch an emotional movie, or they should have at least tried to make them laugh or something while their brains were being scanned. But nope-- they just let the synaesthetes do their normal, unemotional synaesthetic thing, and just because a few brain areas lit up that are sometimes involved in emotion, they decided their scans gave some kind of conclusive evidence for an integral role of emotion in synaesthesia. I bet you didn't know this, but the anterior cingulate cortex is also used in visual mental imagery. In fact, a lot of those brain areas are used for other things besides emotion. Nice try though.
One presenter (another person from an English department), looked at "synaesthetic metaphor" in WWI poetry.
"These poets claimed that being on the battlefield mixed up their senses, so that they could see the sounds of explosions and gunshots, could taste the fear in the air, feel the hurt color of blood," she said. "This was expressed in popular poetry of the time, which indicates the possibility of a universal capacity for synaesthetic expression." She went on to say that many of these poets were synaesthetes, and since people liked their poetry, were able to understand the synaestheic experience-- and perhaps we all have a propensity for synaesthesia in some form or another!
Or else, synaesthetic metaphor is not really synaesthetic. Oops. Yeah, I write "synaesthetic metaphor" all the time, and I don't claim to be synaesthetic on any level. You know why I do it though? Because in writing, it's good to involve all the senses. You don't need to be a WWI poet to understand that. And you don't have to be a synaesthete, either.
Another study claimed that there's this exciting new type of synaesthesia called "swimming-style synaesthesia" that nobody's heard of before! The evidence for this is that the experimenter is a swimmer and a synaesthete, and hey-- she saw different colors for each of the different swimming styles. Too bad she already had other forms of synaesthesia. Also, that type of synaesthesia was probably learned through expertise, and could probably be seen in expert synaesthete racecar drivers as well, or what have you.
Another study posited that normal people can learn synaesthesia through hundreds of repeated learning trials. Sorry fellas, but that's associative learning. Again, nice try.
But the most grossly-flawed study (the one which made Hannah decide not to go to the conference at all on day 2, on principle) is as follows:
The study looked at 13 grapheme-color synaesthetes using a color-priming paradigm. This means that subjects had to look at a computer screen, and a letter (the prime) would flash onto the screen. After a delay, that same letter (the probe) would appear again. The letters were sometimes colored synaesthetically. The experimenter had to ask each synaesthete what their specific letter-colors were to make letters the synaesthetic color.
So, for example: say subject 1 saw the letter A as red. So the different categories of trials are as follows:
1) Prime (red) Probe (red) -- synaesthetically congruent*
2) Prime (blue) Probe (blue) -- print congruent, but not synaesthetically congruent
3) Prime (red) Probe (blue) -- incongruent
4) Prime (blue) Probe (red) -- incongruent
The experimenters found that synaesthetes were faster at identifying the probe when both prime and probe letters appeared as the synaesthetic color (category 1), than in any other condition. This, they said, not only proves that synaesthesia exists, but that greater mental imagery makes synaesthetes faster than controls on this task.
OK first, they studied expectancies (i.e., expecting the probe to be the same color as the prime), not imagery. COmpletely different internal processes. But that's not the worst thing. Hannah caught this: the experimenters never masked their primes! Masking, for those of you who don't know, involves presenting a picture (such as a circle of TV white noise) on the screen in between the prime and the probe. Without a mask, the after-image of the prime will remain for hundreds of milliseconds (and in a reaction time task like this, milliseconds are everything).
So no matter what their conclusions were, their study was complete crap from the get-go. No mask means no way of knowing whether results came from the long exposure to the prime or not.
Boy, did we tear the presenters apart. But it was unfair of them to put their "Synaesthetic AA meeting" under the guise of an academic conference.
Not only that, but they never convinced me that synaesthesia actually exists. While they claimed that synaesthesia leads to heightened imagery, creativity, fantasy proneness, and memory-- maybe synaesthesia is a symptom of a combination of all those things. In my opinion, synaesthesia seems likely to result from some mild form of OCD. In effect, a symptom... not a "disorder" in itself.
But the conference wasn't a complete loss. It was a good test of our methodological knowledge, and showed that we have actually learned something from our Masters course, yippee hooray. Also, it was admittedly cool hearing the synaesthetes' personal experiences, even though a scientific conference is not the place for them.
There were a couple of big names there as well that nobody would have heard of before, though one of them wrote my undergraduate Cogntive Neuroscience textbook though, so that is pretty cool.
Okay, done with conference rant-- may update more later, but I'm going to practice my presentation some more now.
London Synaesthesia Adventure
Wow, so it's been over a week... but what with lab work and class on Monday, more lab work on Tuesday, on top of preparing for Thursday's presentation, I have some very good excuses as to why I did not update earlier. So let's see, where shall I begin...
Friday: In the morning, I packed my favorite heavy duty backpack for a 3-day London Synaesthesia conference. If you remember, Hannah (a friend/classmate) found the conference advertized on facebook a while back and thought it sounded interesting, so we registered, reserved a hotel room and bought train tickets, and it seems in no time at all, it was time to go.
Jana, in an uncharacteristic energy, agreed to accompany me to the train station that afternoon. I would be traveling alone, and Hannah would meet me later that evening because she had some last-minute lab work to do. I figured I would get situated at the hotel and go to a lecture that evening that would be given by the keynote speaker at the conference, then meet Hannah back in London for a show.
So, with my bag full of conference clothing and bedtime reading (Sensory Deception by Slade and Bentall), we tramped the 20 minute walk to the station. Everything went smoothly here-- I bid Jana goodbye and got on the train with no trouble.
As I said, Hannah and I were interested in seeing a West End show (if you don't know, London's West End is kind of like Broadway, except apparently not as good), so I spent most of the train journey calling ticket bookers who didn't think the play we wanted to go to existed. After texting Hannah the problem, she did her own research and found some relativey unexpensive tickets to Chicago instead, so we bought the tickets and that was that. Looking forward to a great show later that night, I spent the rest of my train journey in happy peace.
I arrived at St Pancras and decided to spend much of the afternoon getting acquainted with the underground. I found the theatre we were going to that night (I thought it wouod be smart to find it in the daytime first), then headed off to East London, which was where the conference was going to be held.
This is where things got weird...
So I exited the train station and saw a sign pointing right that said University of East London. Since my hotel was close to the university, I headed off in that direction. I walked. And walked. The sidewalks were enormous, the buildings towered above me-- the air was hazy and warm, and I felt kind of like I was in a dream. I soon passed a small branch of the campus (about the size of a fast food restaurant), but figured the rest of the university would be further along. I walked some more. After about a half hour, I came to a ring road, and like a mirage in the desert, a McDonalds was positioned right in the middle of it all. A man was sweeping up outside.
"Excuse me," I said. "Can you tell me the way to the University of East London?" The man pointe down the road I had just come. "No way," I said. "I just came from that direction. The sign was pointing this way."
"The university is in that direction," he said. "I am 100% sure." That was when I realized the sign I had passed must have been indicating the small branch of the university, and the rest of it was somewhere else. So, dejected, I started the long journey back towards the train station, while a couple of ambulances whizzed by (foreshadowing what was to come-- but don't worry now, it had nothing to do with me -- but I will tell all in a bit).
So I made my way back to the train station, wound my way down confusing roads, and started to see more and more students with backpacks (I knew I had to be getting close). Finally, after a few more wrong turns, and about an hour and a half later than I expected, I found the main campus of the University of East London. OK, one place down... now for the hotel.
I knew the hotel would be further down the same road, so I kept walking. But as I reached the next block, I could see a crowd of people stuck on my side of a police barrier that stretched from one end of the street to the other, and about 10 blocks or so were completely empty save for the odd police car. I approached the barrier and flagged down the nearest officer.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"There's been a serious incident here," the policeman informed me. "Nobody's getting through here."
"I need to get to my hotel," I said. "It's right down this road."
"You'll have to go around, I'm afraid," the officer said, indicating a residential road off to the left. So I started to walk, and soon found myself weaving through slums and back alleys, trying to stay parallel with the road I had to get to. Every now and then I looked down a rightward facing road only to see my road was still blocked off, and people were gossiping all around me.
"They won't let anyone through."
"What happened?"
"I don't know."
I walked for about 10 blocks and suddenly found that stretched across the entire neighborhood, was more police tape. I followed it until I reached my destination road again, which was still blocked off. I turned around and headed one more block down, but it turned into a dead end. There was a guy walking his dog.
"Is the road still blocked?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. "Do you know what happened?"
"Someone was shot," he said. He walked with me toward the road I needed to get to, and was stopped by a neighbor.
"Man, did you hear someone was murdered?" the neighbor said. I gawked.
"Nuh uh," I interrupted. The guy turned to me.
"Yeah, the whole neighborhood is waiting to get out but the road is blocked from here to Sainsbury's."
I walked back to the police tape and flagged a female officer. I could see my hotel from where I stood.
"Excuse me," I said. "My hotel is right there. Can't I get through?"
"Yeah, let us through!" someone in the crowd piped up.
"Unfortunately no," she said. "The incident happened right across the street from that hotel. It's still a crime scene, so until we get it cleared up, nobody's allowed on this road, not even the buses are running here right now." (The English and their dependable bus system.)
I saw a couple of policemen hop the tape with a k9 unit and my imagination suddenly decided to tell me perhaps the killer had escaped and they were now searching for him through the back alleys I'd just traversed.
"Are we in danger here?" I asked.
"You're safe on that side of the tape," the female officer informed me.
I had been fervently texting Jana and Hannah this whole time, updating them on the situation, texting things like: i saw the ambulances shoot past as i was walking in the wrong direction... what if i had gone in the right direction!?!
Jana texted back: ya, u woulda been a witness, u would b stuck w the police for hours
Hannah, ever the scientist, texted things like: it was probably a directed murder. dont worry. also our hotel should b the safest place in the world tonight. the chances of a murder happening twice in the same place are astronomically low.
I backtracked through the alleys toward the university. Hannah called me then.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm trying to find the university. I think I can still make the keynote lecture before the show."
"I called my brother," she said. "He's looking up different hotels for us now."
"The police said the road should be OK again by this evening," I told her.
"Oh," she said. "I thought you might not want to stay there anymore after what happened."
"No, that would be a big hassle. Besides, I'm brave."
"Why don't you just come meet me at St Pancras?" she said.
"OK sounds good. I've been wandering around enough as it is without having to find the building where the lecture is being held." It was also getting dark at this point.
"All right, see you soon."
"See you."
As I walked back toward the train station, I came to a crossroads and didn't know which way to turn.
"Excuse me," I said for the third time that day, this time to a young, well-dressed black dude. "Is the train station that way or that way?" I asked, indicated each road in turn.
"It's that way," he said, pointing left. "I'm heading that way if you want to follow me!"
As it turns out, this guy was really chatty.
"I'm a maths teacher at one of the schools here," he said. "I'm originally from Guyana."
"Cool, I have a friend from Guyana!" I said, thinking of Chantal, a girl who was part of my friend group the time I'd studied abroad. Guyana, if you don't know, is the only native English speaking country in South America, a tiny country up on the northeastern coast.
"Maybe we could go out sometime," the man said.
"I don't live here," I told him. "I'm only in Stratford for a conference. I'm leaving in a few days."
"Oh, well... that's too bad," he said. "It was nice meeting you." By this time we were outside the train station. We shook hands and parted ways, never to see each other again.
Soon enough, I was at St. Pancras again. I changed into my nice clothes in one of the station bathrooms, only for Hannah to emerge from the crowd of women.
"You know, people don't dress up for shows here," she said as I powdered my nose.
"Oh well," I said, "I've been walking in bad shoes all day I needed an excuse to get into my Clarks anyway." Comfy Clarks.
We hauled our luggage through the underground and made our way to the West End. The show was great. The singing was good, and the dancing was excellent. The fake American accents were laughable, but easily overlooked. We had a generally good time the rest of the night, took a taxi from the Statford Station to our hotel around 12AM, and went to bed, eager for the next day's conference.
But the conference, I will save for another post-- now I must go practice my presentation a couple of times. Stay tuned for more in a bit!
Friday: In the morning, I packed my favorite heavy duty backpack for a 3-day London Synaesthesia conference. If you remember, Hannah (a friend/classmate) found the conference advertized on facebook a while back and thought it sounded interesting, so we registered, reserved a hotel room and bought train tickets, and it seems in no time at all, it was time to go.
Jana, in an uncharacteristic energy, agreed to accompany me to the train station that afternoon. I would be traveling alone, and Hannah would meet me later that evening because she had some last-minute lab work to do. I figured I would get situated at the hotel and go to a lecture that evening that would be given by the keynote speaker at the conference, then meet Hannah back in London for a show.
So, with my bag full of conference clothing and bedtime reading (Sensory Deception by Slade and Bentall), we tramped the 20 minute walk to the station. Everything went smoothly here-- I bid Jana goodbye and got on the train with no trouble.
As I said, Hannah and I were interested in seeing a West End show (if you don't know, London's West End is kind of like Broadway, except apparently not as good), so I spent most of the train journey calling ticket bookers who didn't think the play we wanted to go to existed. After texting Hannah the problem, she did her own research and found some relativey unexpensive tickets to Chicago instead, so we bought the tickets and that was that. Looking forward to a great show later that night, I spent the rest of my train journey in happy peace.
I arrived at St Pancras and decided to spend much of the afternoon getting acquainted with the underground. I found the theatre we were going to that night (I thought it wouod be smart to find it in the daytime first), then headed off to East London, which was where the conference was going to be held.
This is where things got weird...
So I exited the train station and saw a sign pointing right that said University of East London. Since my hotel was close to the university, I headed off in that direction. I walked. And walked. The sidewalks were enormous, the buildings towered above me-- the air was hazy and warm, and I felt kind of like I was in a dream. I soon passed a small branch of the campus (about the size of a fast food restaurant), but figured the rest of the university would be further along. I walked some more. After about a half hour, I came to a ring road, and like a mirage in the desert, a McDonalds was positioned right in the middle of it all. A man was sweeping up outside.
"Excuse me," I said. "Can you tell me the way to the University of East London?" The man pointe down the road I had just come. "No way," I said. "I just came from that direction. The sign was pointing this way."
"The university is in that direction," he said. "I am 100% sure." That was when I realized the sign I had passed must have been indicating the small branch of the university, and the rest of it was somewhere else. So, dejected, I started the long journey back towards the train station, while a couple of ambulances whizzed by (foreshadowing what was to come-- but don't worry now, it had nothing to do with me -- but I will tell all in a bit).
So I made my way back to the train station, wound my way down confusing roads, and started to see more and more students with backpacks (I knew I had to be getting close). Finally, after a few more wrong turns, and about an hour and a half later than I expected, I found the main campus of the University of East London. OK, one place down... now for the hotel.
I knew the hotel would be further down the same road, so I kept walking. But as I reached the next block, I could see a crowd of people stuck on my side of a police barrier that stretched from one end of the street to the other, and about 10 blocks or so were completely empty save for the odd police car. I approached the barrier and flagged down the nearest officer.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"There's been a serious incident here," the policeman informed me. "Nobody's getting through here."
"I need to get to my hotel," I said. "It's right down this road."
"You'll have to go around, I'm afraid," the officer said, indicating a residential road off to the left. So I started to walk, and soon found myself weaving through slums and back alleys, trying to stay parallel with the road I had to get to. Every now and then I looked down a rightward facing road only to see my road was still blocked off, and people were gossiping all around me.
"They won't let anyone through."
"What happened?"
"I don't know."
I walked for about 10 blocks and suddenly found that stretched across the entire neighborhood, was more police tape. I followed it until I reached my destination road again, which was still blocked off. I turned around and headed one more block down, but it turned into a dead end. There was a guy walking his dog.
"Is the road still blocked?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. "Do you know what happened?"
"Someone was shot," he said. He walked with me toward the road I needed to get to, and was stopped by a neighbor.
"Man, did you hear someone was murdered?" the neighbor said. I gawked.
"Nuh uh," I interrupted. The guy turned to me.
"Yeah, the whole neighborhood is waiting to get out but the road is blocked from here to Sainsbury's."
I walked back to the police tape and flagged a female officer. I could see my hotel from where I stood.
"Excuse me," I said. "My hotel is right there. Can't I get through?"
"Yeah, let us through!" someone in the crowd piped up.
"Unfortunately no," she said. "The incident happened right across the street from that hotel. It's still a crime scene, so until we get it cleared up, nobody's allowed on this road, not even the buses are running here right now." (The English and their dependable bus system.)
I saw a couple of policemen hop the tape with a k9 unit and my imagination suddenly decided to tell me perhaps the killer had escaped and they were now searching for him through the back alleys I'd just traversed.
"Are we in danger here?" I asked.
"You're safe on that side of the tape," the female officer informed me.
I had been fervently texting Jana and Hannah this whole time, updating them on the situation, texting things like: i saw the ambulances shoot past as i was walking in the wrong direction... what if i had gone in the right direction!?!
Jana texted back: ya, u woulda been a witness, u would b stuck w the police for hours
Hannah, ever the scientist, texted things like: it was probably a directed murder. dont worry. also our hotel should b the safest place in the world tonight. the chances of a murder happening twice in the same place are astronomically low.
I backtracked through the alleys toward the university. Hannah called me then.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm trying to find the university. I think I can still make the keynote lecture before the show."
"I called my brother," she said. "He's looking up different hotels for us now."
"The police said the road should be OK again by this evening," I told her.
"Oh," she said. "I thought you might not want to stay there anymore after what happened."
"No, that would be a big hassle. Besides, I'm brave."
"Why don't you just come meet me at St Pancras?" she said.
"OK sounds good. I've been wandering around enough as it is without having to find the building where the lecture is being held." It was also getting dark at this point.
"All right, see you soon."
"See you."
As I walked back toward the train station, I came to a crossroads and didn't know which way to turn.
"Excuse me," I said for the third time that day, this time to a young, well-dressed black dude. "Is the train station that way or that way?" I asked, indicated each road in turn.
"It's that way," he said, pointing left. "I'm heading that way if you want to follow me!"
As it turns out, this guy was really chatty.
"I'm a maths teacher at one of the schools here," he said. "I'm originally from Guyana."
"Cool, I have a friend from Guyana!" I said, thinking of Chantal, a girl who was part of my friend group the time I'd studied abroad. Guyana, if you don't know, is the only native English speaking country in South America, a tiny country up on the northeastern coast.
"Maybe we could go out sometime," the man said.
"I don't live here," I told him. "I'm only in Stratford for a conference. I'm leaving in a few days."
"Oh, well... that's too bad," he said. "It was nice meeting you." By this time we were outside the train station. We shook hands and parted ways, never to see each other again.
Soon enough, I was at St. Pancras again. I changed into my nice clothes in one of the station bathrooms, only for Hannah to emerge from the crowd of women.
"You know, people don't dress up for shows here," she said as I powdered my nose.
"Oh well," I said, "I've been walking in bad shoes all day I needed an excuse to get into my Clarks anyway." Comfy Clarks.
We hauled our luggage through the underground and made our way to the West End. The show was great. The singing was good, and the dancing was excellent. The fake American accents were laughable, but easily overlooked. We had a generally good time the rest of the night, took a taxi from the Statford Station to our hotel around 12AM, and went to bed, eager for the next day's conference.
But the conference, I will save for another post-- now I must go practice my presentation a couple of times. Stay tuned for more in a bit!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Hiking Hills in the Peak District
OK, this is going to be a short post (as usual-- ha ha ha). Yesterday, the hiking club went to the Peak District, our favorite hiking haunt, mostly because it's so huge, you can take 10 or more day-hikes and still not cover the whole area-- which is basically what we've been doing. Yesterday, we conquered Chrome Hill and Parkhouse Hill-- two jagged mossy crags that have to be scaled like the true hardcore hikers we are. Look at the picture if you don't believe me:
This picture was expertly taken yesterday by a member of our hiking club, as we stood atop the second hill of the day. The first hill is the more distant one in the shot-- you can click the image to make it bigger.
The Peak District is just beautiful. Descriptions can't do it justice. As we walked, I imagined medieval knights and poets having adventures in this land, laying on the hillside, watching over the quiet world. And I just love the small brick villages tucked in hill valleys, and their old pubs with names like "The Black Sheep" and "Coach and Horses", the high churches, and the farms that go for miles and miles all around with crumbling stone barriers around their land. Sheep dot the hills everywhere, and horses and cows can usually be spotted closer to the farmhouse. It's springtime now, and the countryside is only becoming more vibrantly green-- some of the sheep have lambs, and they hop playfully at their mother's side on long, awkward legs, and bleat with annoying regularity.
There's nothing like a good hike on a sunny day, followed by a stop at the pub before returning home. Siiighh-- I wish Leicester were in the country! But it's a good thing the country is never too far off, wherever you are in England!
This picture was expertly taken yesterday by a member of our hiking club, as we stood atop the second hill of the day. The first hill is the more distant one in the shot-- you can click the image to make it bigger.
The Peak District is just beautiful. Descriptions can't do it justice. As we walked, I imagined medieval knights and poets having adventures in this land, laying on the hillside, watching over the quiet world. And I just love the small brick villages tucked in hill valleys, and their old pubs with names like "The Black Sheep" and "Coach and Horses", the high churches, and the farms that go for miles and miles all around with crumbling stone barriers around their land. Sheep dot the hills everywhere, and horses and cows can usually be spotted closer to the farmhouse. It's springtime now, and the countryside is only becoming more vibrantly green-- some of the sheep have lambs, and they hop playfully at their mother's side on long, awkward legs, and bleat with annoying regularity.
There's nothing like a good hike on a sunny day, followed by a stop at the pub before returning home. Siiighh-- I wish Leicester were in the country! But it's a good thing the country is never too far off, wherever you are in England!
2 Weeks til End of Term Update
OK, so here's what I set out to accomplish at the beginning of term:
1) Write a 6-8000 word critical literature review
2) Write a nearly perfect PhD studentship proposal (Kevin assures us this will be the hardest thing we do on the course, and I believe him)
3) Create an experimental study different from the thesis and write a 3000 word article
4) Create a professional webpage, other goodies for a portfolio
On top of those things, I have to:
5) Conduct the pilot and final experiments for my thesis
6) Design a scientific poster for the BPS conference in May (since I foolishly signed up to do it)
As of right now, I have written 7,300 words of my critical literature review, which has turned into "The relationship between perception, imagery, and hallucinations: with a special focus on visual deprivation"-- it went from being a follow-up to an article on the relationship between imagery and perception, to a mostly hallucination-centred work that integrates the role of visual imagery into visual deprivation-induced hallucinations-- which I pride myself in thinking is a completey new angle on the topic. I have about one full day's worth of work to put into references (I have more than 100 now), and I need to flesh out a couple of paragraphs here and there, do some extensive revision, and then I'm done. Probably 5 full days worth of work left on that.
As for the studentship proposal? As you know, I met with someone about this, and have since created a detailed outline for "The role of visual imagery in AMD hallucinations", AMD being age-related macular degeneration. I am going to express the importance of discovering the role of imagery in hallucinations, and then create an imagery therapy for hallucinating patients with AMD. So I have a specific topic to cover, and I have outlined sessions of interviews/questionnaires and diaries for patients to fill out on my "program" before and after imagery therapy. I have decided to include at least one psychometric measure of imagery in AMD hallucinations, as well. I also found an article that actually describes a structure for imagery therapy for phantom limb pain, which is similar in nature to hallucinations, and I can use much of this structure for my imagery therapy for hallucinating patients.
The problem is, the people who conduct imagery therapy for phantom limb pain are clinical psychologists. This brings me back to the question... do I really want to be a clinical psychologist? If it's the only way to do this study, then yes. I will do what I have to do to run the experiments I want to run. But really, the people who are studying AMD hallucinations are mostly ophthalmologists, then clinicians, then finally experimentalists. Since ophthalmology is out (need a medical degree), I still have the couple of options I always had... but the chances of my becoming a clinician are almost nil, considering I have no relevant experience... I have only studied one patient in my time, and that was not for therapy purposes. But who knows, maybe it'll happen...
Anyway! So I have some ideas for the proposal but nothing in paragraph form yet. This has turned out to be the most difficult project so far. Moving on.
I have finished the "random experiment" I was to do for the course, which had to be different from my thesis experiment. I ended up comparing the difference in source monitoring errors (remembering words as pictures and vice versa) in fantasy-prone versus non-fantasy prone individuals. Prior literature has found that fantasy prone people do not confuse imaginings with reality. Confusing imaginings with reality, though, is more generally a clinical symptom-- it's more extreme than confusing words and pictures in memory. My experiment used the same design as an experiment conducted on hallucinating and non-hallucinating schizophrenics. Fantasy-prone people are both hallucination-prone and have more vivid imagery than normal (people who have more vivid imagery have also been found to make more source monitoring errors than normal), so I wanted to know if I would find a difference using fantasy-prone individuals and a more sensitive experimental design. Turns out, my fantasy prone group scored no differently than my non-fantasy prone group. Oh well!
Now I just need to show my results using statistics. I have the entire "Design and Methods" section finished, a couple paragraphs of intro, and an outline of the rest of the introduction, which I will hopefully write out today. All in all, I have about 1000 words written out of 3000 (without intro outline). Not too bad.
As for a webpage? Twitter? Press release? Other goodies? The only thing that seems to be panning out is the press release we are supposed to write on our research. We never did have to make a webpage or twitter... I wonder if we'll have to? At any rate, the press release, which we definitely DO have to write, only has to be a page or so long, and I probably won't think about it until the week before it's due.
My thesis: I am happy to report, the experimentation will be done on April 1st. I am cutting it so close, it's not even funny (April 1 is a Friday, there is no experimentation done on the weekends, and I go home on Monday)-- but I'll get it done! There's nothing that can stop me now. I have been analyzing the data as I go, and it looks REALLY good. I am so happy with it, after the "NULL SCARE" of a few weeks ago. Looks like I'm going to have an ACE thesis-- to be written over the summer months.
And the BPS poster, as you know, is finished-- my .pdf has been sent off to the conference admins for the contest, got it printed on Wednesday, and I have it sitting in my room right now. I am so proud of it!
So as you can see, even though I've been a complete lazybones this whole semester, I managed to get a lot done! I actually have no idea how I did it, considering I've been wasting whole weekends on things like a visual deprivation "study", watching ridiculous amounts of hours of TV with Jana on random days, re-reading Harry Potter for the millionth time, and all sorts of other things...
Nevertheless, I still have at least one entire paper to write (studentship proposal) as all I have now is the outline. "Random experiment" write-up should be a breeze, but I have to finish my powerpoint on it for a presentation in two weeks time. I HAVE written out the skeleton of the ppt, so at least there's that. I also have to prepare for a small group teaching session tomorrow, which I am mostly prepared for-- I just need to write out some questions to ask the class to get them engaged, etc. I DID have a 15-minute non-stop lecture prepared, but HOC said he did not want it done that way, so I had to completely restructure it, and now it's going to be dead easy.
So, for the next two weeks I will be running experiments, perfecting my powerpoint, and preparing for "mock interviews"-- we will have to role-play as interviewers and interviewees for a PhD position on the last day of class, which I hear is a pretty fun experience. Not too much else to do except read, write... and, oh yes-- go to conferences! I'm going to a Synaesthesia conference in London at the end of next week-- should be great fun! I will tell all upon my return.
OK, this has been a long enough post-- now-- on to post #2 of the day: HIKING hills in the Peak District!
1) Write a 6-8000 word critical literature review
2) Write a nearly perfect PhD studentship proposal (Kevin assures us this will be the hardest thing we do on the course, and I believe him)
3) Create an experimental study different from the thesis and write a 3000 word article
4) Create a professional webpage, other goodies for a portfolio
On top of those things, I have to:
5) Conduct the pilot and final experiments for my thesis
6) Design a scientific poster for the BPS conference in May (since I foolishly signed up to do it)
As of right now, I have written 7,300 words of my critical literature review, which has turned into "The relationship between perception, imagery, and hallucinations: with a special focus on visual deprivation"-- it went from being a follow-up to an article on the relationship between imagery and perception, to a mostly hallucination-centred work that integrates the role of visual imagery into visual deprivation-induced hallucinations-- which I pride myself in thinking is a completey new angle on the topic. I have about one full day's worth of work to put into references (I have more than 100 now), and I need to flesh out a couple of paragraphs here and there, do some extensive revision, and then I'm done. Probably 5 full days worth of work left on that.
As for the studentship proposal? As you know, I met with someone about this, and have since created a detailed outline for "The role of visual imagery in AMD hallucinations", AMD being age-related macular degeneration. I am going to express the importance of discovering the role of imagery in hallucinations, and then create an imagery therapy for hallucinating patients with AMD. So I have a specific topic to cover, and I have outlined sessions of interviews/questionnaires and diaries for patients to fill out on my "program" before and after imagery therapy. I have decided to include at least one psychometric measure of imagery in AMD hallucinations, as well. I also found an article that actually describes a structure for imagery therapy for phantom limb pain, which is similar in nature to hallucinations, and I can use much of this structure for my imagery therapy for hallucinating patients.
The problem is, the people who conduct imagery therapy for phantom limb pain are clinical psychologists. This brings me back to the question... do I really want to be a clinical psychologist? If it's the only way to do this study, then yes. I will do what I have to do to run the experiments I want to run. But really, the people who are studying AMD hallucinations are mostly ophthalmologists, then clinicians, then finally experimentalists. Since ophthalmology is out (need a medical degree), I still have the couple of options I always had... but the chances of my becoming a clinician are almost nil, considering I have no relevant experience... I have only studied one patient in my time, and that was not for therapy purposes. But who knows, maybe it'll happen...
Anyway! So I have some ideas for the proposal but nothing in paragraph form yet. This has turned out to be the most difficult project so far. Moving on.
I have finished the "random experiment" I was to do for the course, which had to be different from my thesis experiment. I ended up comparing the difference in source monitoring errors (remembering words as pictures and vice versa) in fantasy-prone versus non-fantasy prone individuals. Prior literature has found that fantasy prone people do not confuse imaginings with reality. Confusing imaginings with reality, though, is more generally a clinical symptom-- it's more extreme than confusing words and pictures in memory. My experiment used the same design as an experiment conducted on hallucinating and non-hallucinating schizophrenics. Fantasy-prone people are both hallucination-prone and have more vivid imagery than normal (people who have more vivid imagery have also been found to make more source monitoring errors than normal), so I wanted to know if I would find a difference using fantasy-prone individuals and a more sensitive experimental design. Turns out, my fantasy prone group scored no differently than my non-fantasy prone group. Oh well!
Now I just need to show my results using statistics. I have the entire "Design and Methods" section finished, a couple paragraphs of intro, and an outline of the rest of the introduction, which I will hopefully write out today. All in all, I have about 1000 words written out of 3000 (without intro outline). Not too bad.
As for a webpage? Twitter? Press release? Other goodies? The only thing that seems to be panning out is the press release we are supposed to write on our research. We never did have to make a webpage or twitter... I wonder if we'll have to? At any rate, the press release, which we definitely DO have to write, only has to be a page or so long, and I probably won't think about it until the week before it's due.
My thesis: I am happy to report, the experimentation will be done on April 1st. I am cutting it so close, it's not even funny (April 1 is a Friday, there is no experimentation done on the weekends, and I go home on Monday)-- but I'll get it done! There's nothing that can stop me now. I have been analyzing the data as I go, and it looks REALLY good. I am so happy with it, after the "NULL SCARE" of a few weeks ago. Looks like I'm going to have an ACE thesis-- to be written over the summer months.
And the BPS poster, as you know, is finished-- my .pdf has been sent off to the conference admins for the contest, got it printed on Wednesday, and I have it sitting in my room right now. I am so proud of it!
So as you can see, even though I've been a complete lazybones this whole semester, I managed to get a lot done! I actually have no idea how I did it, considering I've been wasting whole weekends on things like a visual deprivation "study", watching ridiculous amounts of hours of TV with Jana on random days, re-reading Harry Potter for the millionth time, and all sorts of other things...
Nevertheless, I still have at least one entire paper to write (studentship proposal) as all I have now is the outline. "Random experiment" write-up should be a breeze, but I have to finish my powerpoint on it for a presentation in two weeks time. I HAVE written out the skeleton of the ppt, so at least there's that. I also have to prepare for a small group teaching session tomorrow, which I am mostly prepared for-- I just need to write out some questions to ask the class to get them engaged, etc. I DID have a 15-minute non-stop lecture prepared, but HOC said he did not want it done that way, so I had to completely restructure it, and now it's going to be dead easy.
So, for the next two weeks I will be running experiments, perfecting my powerpoint, and preparing for "mock interviews"-- we will have to role-play as interviewers and interviewees for a PhD position on the last day of class, which I hear is a pretty fun experience. Not too much else to do except read, write... and, oh yes-- go to conferences! I'm going to a Synaesthesia conference in London at the end of next week-- should be great fun! I will tell all upon my return.
OK, this has been a long enough post-- now-- on to post #2 of the day: HIKING hills in the Peak District!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Day After the Day After the End of Blindfolding
Yeah, I know it's been a few days... but I've been busy! Some of you already know what went down but for those of you who don't, I will now post my weekend experience in great detail.
My Blindfolding Chronicles
Thursday night: Initiated the blindfolding! I had my welding mask covered with three layers of black paint to make them opaque, a sleep mask fitted securely over those, and an ace bandage wrapped around all of this to hold everything in place. I was a little concerned that the goggled would dig into my face, cut off my circulation and then make my eyes fall off. Really, they just gave me a headache, so I adjusted the goggles to be a little looser and didn't take them off for the rest of the weekend.
So Thursday night I basically just staggered around, bumped into things, and drank tea (I could drink tea blindfolded!), wondering how I was ever going to survive the next day.
Friday: I woke up early, around 6:45 because the goggles are kind of uncomfortable to sleep in. Jana didn't budge until 9, so I spent the morning exercising, making myself a bowl of cereal AND a cup of tea (neither of which I spilled). The pouring of the boiling tea water was heart-stopping, but did not end badly. After that, I went back upstairs to find Jana still asleep, so I listened to my iPod, hoping the hallucinations would come.
When Jana finally awoke, we watched a movie or two, then she had to go meet her museum group for a couple of hours. She plunked her piano in front of me and told me to stim on it, and I plinked a few keys for about 20 minutes before giving up (I can't play piano even with the use of my eyes). So I went back to listening to the iPod. At this point, I started to see lava lamp-esque swirls of light, some revolving light like a lighthouse beacon, and some small flashes of light in my peripheral vision. These were not as luminous as real light, but I have equated these visions to the after image you see when you turn off a bright light you've been staring at in a dark room. It was a greenish sort of glow that was neither bright nor bothersome.
Saturday: Jana and I ventured outside to the city centre! As I walked, I felt like I wasn't going anywhere, as if I were on a treadmill. I felt like I was going places very quickly because Jana would suddenly tell me "We're in Victoria Park" or some such thing and I'd be like "Wha, I thought we were still on Queens Road". Which made me somewhat disoriented. As we walked, Jana had to do her Amelie impression, but as there was nothing all that interesting to see, she decided to ramble off all the mundane things she could see in the park.
"There's a litter box attached to a tree, there's poop on the sidewalk, there's a huge rat right in front of you, there are kids playing soccer," she said, grasping me firmly by the arm and parading me down the park walk. "So far people aren't staring at you, they're so polite. Nope, there's a rude one, a starer, he just squinted and kept staring as he walked past." And of course, the ever helpful, "Oh, there's a big stick, but we're going around it" after which she promptly steered me strategically into the big stick. This experience followed by cries of: "Oooo puppies! Eeeee they're so cuuuute!" Etc etc.
Once we made it to New Walk, Jana whispered fervently in my ear, "I think that's your friend William, but I'm not sure. He's walking past right now!"
"William!" I shouted, turning around to face him, or at least I thought I did, because I couldn't see him and didn’t hear him. Believe it or not, it really was my friend William, and we all went down to the New Walk Museum to play in the bouncy castle. That was a lot of fun, but I did not hallucinate. I did, however, experience some uncontrolled mental images that just popped into my head, like what happens when you're about to fall asleep and quick mental images start to jump out before you actually dream. I "saw" the Arabic cafe Jana described to me, and I imagined the place where the bouncy castle was, as if it was set up like a science museum. These images, however, did not move into my visual field, so they were not hallucinations.
After New Walk, we went to Waterstone's bookstore. By this time, I was feeling slightly queasy, either from the elevator ride to the second floor of New Walk, or just from walking around with no real perspective of things. When we got back to Jana's house, as soon as I got inside, I saw a grid of the same greenish-colored lights in front of my eyes. The pattern was kind of like the grid in the game Battleship, and it persisted for only a few seconds.
Saturday night, Jana made pancakes and we watched movies and had a great time.
Sunday: I was getting antsy. I hadn't seen any complex hallucination and doubted I would. And it's true, I didn't. I kept the blindfold on anyway until 6PM. The strangest part was the half hour/ hour after I took the blindfold off. My eyes had gotten used to light deprivation, so when I was able to see again, everything looked really strange.
Everything was in weird contrast, and when I put my hand in front of my face, it was really sharp with a black glow around it, while everything else in the background seemed washed out. The room spun, and Jana said my eyes were dilating in and out. When we went downstairs, I was pouring water into the tea kettle, and the water seemed to jump haltingly up the side of the kettle instead of fluidly filling it. And for the same length of time, I saw black spots in my periphery. All of these things went away within the hour, and my vision returned to normal. The lines around my face from the goggles were not as bad as I'd suspected, and they went away pretty quickly, as well.
So I didn't experience the hallucinations I'd hoped for, but I did think the invasive imagery was a little strange. I think maybe some people get that strong imagery and perhaps mistake it for hallucinations. Then again, maybe some people really do actually see things like faces and animals and buildings, and I'm just unfortunate.
My Blindfolding Chronicles
Thursday night: Initiated the blindfolding! I had my welding mask covered with three layers of black paint to make them opaque, a sleep mask fitted securely over those, and an ace bandage wrapped around all of this to hold everything in place. I was a little concerned that the goggled would dig into my face, cut off my circulation and then make my eyes fall off. Really, they just gave me a headache, so I adjusted the goggles to be a little looser and didn't take them off for the rest of the weekend.
So Thursday night I basically just staggered around, bumped into things, and drank tea (I could drink tea blindfolded!), wondering how I was ever going to survive the next day.
Friday: I woke up early, around 6:45 because the goggles are kind of uncomfortable to sleep in. Jana didn't budge until 9, so I spent the morning exercising, making myself a bowl of cereal AND a cup of tea (neither of which I spilled). The pouring of the boiling tea water was heart-stopping, but did not end badly. After that, I went back upstairs to find Jana still asleep, so I listened to my iPod, hoping the hallucinations would come.
When Jana finally awoke, we watched a movie or two, then she had to go meet her museum group for a couple of hours. She plunked her piano in front of me and told me to stim on it, and I plinked a few keys for about 20 minutes before giving up (I can't play piano even with the use of my eyes). So I went back to listening to the iPod. At this point, I started to see lava lamp-esque swirls of light, some revolving light like a lighthouse beacon, and some small flashes of light in my peripheral vision. These were not as luminous as real light, but I have equated these visions to the after image you see when you turn off a bright light you've been staring at in a dark room. It was a greenish sort of glow that was neither bright nor bothersome.
Saturday: Jana and I ventured outside to the city centre! As I walked, I felt like I wasn't going anywhere, as if I were on a treadmill. I felt like I was going places very quickly because Jana would suddenly tell me "We're in Victoria Park" or some such thing and I'd be like "Wha, I thought we were still on Queens Road". Which made me somewhat disoriented. As we walked, Jana had to do her Amelie impression, but as there was nothing all that interesting to see, she decided to ramble off all the mundane things she could see in the park.
"There's a litter box attached to a tree, there's poop on the sidewalk, there's a huge rat right in front of you, there are kids playing soccer," she said, grasping me firmly by the arm and parading me down the park walk. "So far people aren't staring at you, they're so polite. Nope, there's a rude one, a starer, he just squinted and kept staring as he walked past." And of course, the ever helpful, "Oh, there's a big stick, but we're going around it" after which she promptly steered me strategically into the big stick. This experience followed by cries of: "Oooo puppies! Eeeee they're so cuuuute!" Etc etc.
Once we made it to New Walk, Jana whispered fervently in my ear, "I think that's your friend William, but I'm not sure. He's walking past right now!"
"William!" I shouted, turning around to face him, or at least I thought I did, because I couldn't see him and didn’t hear him. Believe it or not, it really was my friend William, and we all went down to the New Walk Museum to play in the bouncy castle. That was a lot of fun, but I did not hallucinate. I did, however, experience some uncontrolled mental images that just popped into my head, like what happens when you're about to fall asleep and quick mental images start to jump out before you actually dream. I "saw" the Arabic cafe Jana described to me, and I imagined the place where the bouncy castle was, as if it was set up like a science museum. These images, however, did not move into my visual field, so they were not hallucinations.
After New Walk, we went to Waterstone's bookstore. By this time, I was feeling slightly queasy, either from the elevator ride to the second floor of New Walk, or just from walking around with no real perspective of things. When we got back to Jana's house, as soon as I got inside, I saw a grid of the same greenish-colored lights in front of my eyes. The pattern was kind of like the grid in the game Battleship, and it persisted for only a few seconds.
Saturday night, Jana made pancakes and we watched movies and had a great time.
Sunday: I was getting antsy. I hadn't seen any complex hallucination and doubted I would. And it's true, I didn't. I kept the blindfold on anyway until 6PM. The strangest part was the half hour/ hour after I took the blindfold off. My eyes had gotten used to light deprivation, so when I was able to see again, everything looked really strange.
Everything was in weird contrast, and when I put my hand in front of my face, it was really sharp with a black glow around it, while everything else in the background seemed washed out. The room spun, and Jana said my eyes were dilating in and out. When we went downstairs, I was pouring water into the tea kettle, and the water seemed to jump haltingly up the side of the kettle instead of fluidly filling it. And for the same length of time, I saw black spots in my periphery. All of these things went away within the hour, and my vision returned to normal. The lines around my face from the goggles were not as bad as I'd suspected, and they went away pretty quickly, as well.
So I didn't experience the hallucinations I'd hoped for, but I did think the invasive imagery was a little strange. I think maybe some people get that strong imagery and perhaps mistake it for hallucinations. Then again, maybe some people really do actually see things like faces and animals and buildings, and I'm just unfortunate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)