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!