Bavaria Tomorrow!

Or so I hope!

Sonja was supposed to return to her German home on Saturday morning, and she left before I even woke up-- I've been spending the night at Jana's place these past couple of days since my roommates all went home for Christmas. Well that night, Jana and I were up in her room, when all of a sudden we heard Sonja's voice calling to us up the stairs. We rushed downstairs, dreading what news she would give us-- turns out, her flight had been cancelled!

She told us, very upset, about how horrible her day had been-- the plane was at first delayed five minutes, then 20 minutes, then everyone was told to get off the jet. Sonja had to wait in line all by herself for 5 hours to change her flight, all the time on the phone with her parents, who were waiting for her at the Munich airport with her siblings and cousins and other relatives. They could hardly believe the flight would not arrive, and Sonja even said there was no reason why the plane could not make it to Germany-- the airline informed them that it would be the plane's flight back to England that would be the problem, since apparently London is expecting "bad weather".

So now she will be flying out on Monday, and should arrive an hour after Jana and I land in Munich. Hopefully, all of our flights will be fine this time, but we've researched train tickets, just in case.

In fact, I am going to find the number to Eurostar trains for good measure. Nothing is going to stop our journey, nothing! Sonja even lit the magic candle in the local church, to encourage God to be on our side this time around. Sonja thinks of everything!

We will persevere!

Farewell my friends-- hopefully the next time you hear from me, it will be from Germany!

Christmas time!

This week has been both productive and relaxing... the first half was spent polishing off my essays, which are now both finished. Well, I still have to add page numbers and other bits and pieces to make them APA style, as well as a title page, figures, and references. But my references are already stored in RefWorks, a program that writes your bibliography for you in dozens of formats-- how convenient! And my figures are already stored in "My Pictures", so I just have to click buttons for both of those and voila-- fini!

On Tuesday night, we had our last Hiking Society pub quiz before the the holidays. We go to a place called The Old Horse which has amazing bread and butter pudding, and is eccentrically decorated with hundreds of teapots hanging from the ceiling. Last time I talked about The Old Horse, it was decked out in Halloween decor. Now, there are Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling, wreaths on every door, and a huge display of santa and his reindeer right outside in the beer garden, which can be seen out the back windows. It's a cozy little joint, and has a regular pub quiz every Tuesday night-- and this time we were determined to win!

So Alex had asked us to research Wikipedia pages over the weekend, which I had completely forgotten about. I'm sure he was only half joking, seeing as he wanted to win as much as the rest of us! But when he brought it up again that night, I remembered I had looked up the page on Kate Middleton, and I generously boasted that I could now answer any question about the royal couple. However, one did not arise... There was one question I should have known, which was "Which CD came out in America in 2000 with the highest record sales?" I knew that answer, I just didn't know I knew it-- cos you see, I said "There's no way it could have been No Strings Attached by N*Sync, they weren't as famous as Britney Spears, so I'm going to say Britney Spears." So that's what we put, and it turned out to be No Strings Attached and I kicked myself for it.

But-- we won!

Well, we didn't win the whole thing. See, the quiz board is set up like bingo, so you win if you get a row of answers, four corners, or the highest number. We got two rows and four corners, and won 4 cans of Carlsburg beer! Yippee! And, although we did not score the highest in the pub, we scored our personal highest! Go team!

On Wednesday, I basically lazed around while Jana was busy in class. I had the compulsion to write a Christmas humor tale, which was going to be a normal story with a female narrator like me, and it was going to be about my car breaking down and Santa appearing out of nowhere to jump start it before disappearing as mysteriously as he'd come... but I ended up going with a story from a pine marten's perspective, though I only wrote a page before I got distracted by a Youtube video of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.

Well, those little pine martens are hard to relate to. I made it so that they speak funny English, cos being non-human, it's hard for them to learn. Here's what I wrote before I abandoned it:

*
Pine Marten Christmas
*

Did you knows that pine martens er native to Englandness? Yes, you would think we was more exoticer than that, though I kin assure you that we er relatively elusiveth creatures, like the platypus or Sasquatch, so that makes up fer us livin’ in such a ordinary places. Picture a weasel has big cuter eyes, has fluffy tufty browner fur, has the cutest face you ever sawed, and you have a pine marten. We tends to pop around on our shorteth stubbly legs with seriously adorabley looks on our faces, pretendin’ we don’t want no foodstuffs from humans, which causes ‘em to take one greatest interest in us.

Lookit this one now—leapening over brushes and snufflin’ through the snows. Oh hey-ar—that’s me! I talks bout meself like that from time to time to perfectish my narrative making skill. I is, after all, a wee pine marten has little English practice. Any wayeth, see me stumpin’ fastly through the forest. I hurries because I see me fifter and I has a inkling to poke her with my nosey.

POKES!

“Hey Brilly, cut it out!” she chasties me squeaky. She has gooder speaking. She uses humanisms like ‘cut it out’ at many times.

“I kent cut it if I en’t got skizzers, Lulie,” I retort, smoothin’ the furs on my red-browny rump.

“It’s scissors, you dolt,” Lulie says in a longeth, smeary voice. She lickins snowflakes off a paws.

“Whys you lickin’, Lulie? You knows you gotta putten your foots back down.” I hop from me front to me back in playfully arches, flying snow all over her.

“Stoooop!” she whines. “You are supposed to be gathering berries! Mumarten said!”

“I knows what Mumarten says,” I says. “I gets berries from humanies.”

“You get bread crumbs and garbage from humanies.”

“Nuh-uh!” I protest. “Berries!”

“Old berries!”

“Yummy berries!” I digs around in me cheek pockets and pull out three bright redder berries.

Lulie gaspess, and I feel please.

“Oooh, Brilly! Where’d you get those?”

“I tolder yas, from the humanies! Thems young was out and has a whole bag full!”

*
Not The End
*

What I was going to have happen, was the berries were going to turn out to be poison, so when Brilly decides to eat one, it looks like the end, but Santa appears out of nowhere and squeezes her so she pukes, saving her life, then he disappears as mysteriously as he'd come. Christmas miracle!

I don't think I'll finish it though-- it's hard to write in pine marten English!

Anyway-- on Wednesday evening, Jana and I met up to go to the University Chamber Choir's caroling service put on by the Chaplaincy-- we were supposed to join in the singing at some parts but I hummed instead-- there's something about singing in a congregation that makes me nervous! The choir was excellent, by the way. There was a soloist at the very beginning who had such a pure, choiristic voice. Jana and I were disappointed they didn't sing "Carol of the Bells", but I figured it was too secular for a church service. Thet did sing a couple of familiar songs: "Noel"and "Oh Come All Ye Faithful". And, they had mistletoe available to bring home (Jana took a sprig), and hot mulled wine and spiced cider, for refreshments! It turned out to be quite nice. I met Annie there, who wished me a "Happy Christmas" before leaving, and me, being such an inarticulate grinch, just said "Sure!"

Why can't I say "Merry Christmas"? I'm such a Scrooge!

Well now, it's Thursday, and I have a few goals for today:

1) run the pilot of my study. Yes, I spent a good five hours on Tuesday with my adviser, watching him program the task. I seriously can't believe how much code goes into such a simple attention task. This is literally all it is: letters flash rapidly in the center of the screen. One of them is white, to distinguish it from the others (the target letter). There is a circle of Gabors (fuzzy roundish patches) surrounding the letter stream. One of them is at an angle to the others (the target Gabor). That's it! That's it-- well, basically-- and it took five hours of programming. And not from scratch, either. My adviser cut and pasted and changed bits and peices of code that were already written. And I just sat and watched in relative silence the entire time, while he muttered to himself "That goes there, oh but I can get rid of that-- we want that to be .08.." etc, until he'd remember I was there and say to me periodically, "I told you it would be boring! I mostly just talk myself through these things..." He seemed a little self conscious about it, but I persevered, and it was a learning experience, watching as he tested the code several times and worked the bugs out one by one until the task was perfect. Anyway, now I only have before 1PM today to run the task on a couple of guinea pigs (the lab is booked after that), so we'll see if it works successfully!

2) I also have to run myself. I haven't been for a jog in a few days, and I'm determined to squeeze in at least a couple of hours this week/weekend before I am off to Bavaria. Despite the dreary weather!

3) Lastly, I should try to stick the figures/APA format/references into my essays by the end of the day. My adviser generously agreed to look over my research proposal for me, and Jana claims she will look over my imagination survey write-up-- so I should get some feedback, as well, before I submit those! I feel pretty good about my work, and I'm confident I've done my best.

And that's that. Monday, I'm off to Bavaria for Christmas! I'll be sure to blog all about it, and hopefully Jana will remember to bring the camera. I can't wait to see that castle! Oh, and you guys be careful in Ohio with all your snow and 0 degree temps-- it's been drizzling rain here at about 40-ish degrees, so it hasn't been too bad for us. I think it will be different in Germany, though!

I will try to write another blog before then, but if I don't-- everyone have a happy Christmas!

Ho ho ho!

Christmas Hike in the Peak District

Or, The Peak District: Round II. If you will remember, the last time we visited the Peak District, we went to Edge Moor. This time we went to Chee Dale, a spot near Derby, particularly close to the Chatsworth House (which I'm still raving about 2 years later-- refer to my pictures labeled "Matlock Bath, Derbyshire Countryside and Chatsworth House" on facebook here).

Well, this time I got down and dirty in the forests and valleys of the Deryshire countryside, for reals. It recently snowed a few inches and even more recently melted, so this hike will be remembered for its sheer mud level. I don't know how I would have lasted with anything other than my new heavy-duty hiking boots. There was mud almost up to my knees by the end of the trip, but it was worth it! We battle all the elements in our Hiking Society, that's for sure.

This was our last hike before Christmas, so we all wore Santa hats for the occassion, and played Christmas music in the minibus there and back. Some people wore complete Christmassy outfits-- red and white scarves, festive sweaters, bauble earrings-- one guy zigzagged Christmas lights all over his rucksack, and pinned bits of holly to the pockets.

The hike went very smoothly, except for the part where I had to scale a bathroom stall like Spider-Man to unlock the door to the toilet (I had to go!)--though it was quite a lot of fun. At one point, we had to hop across stepping stones to get from one part of the river to another, and on the way back the rocks were actually submerged because of the flooding-- I was sure someone would fall into the water, but alas, this did not happen.

I must say though, because I was still feeling under the weather (still am today), and I couldn't breathe properly I suppose, this hike was particularly exhausting. I went over to Jana's house afterwards and nearly fell asleep watching Rupert and had to call it a night at around 9 o'clock. We did get a chance to finish It's a Wonderful Life, though, and the ending was just as sweet as the rest of it. A real warm, fuzzy ending. I especially liked that the movie didn't dwell on Mr Potter, or didn't even give him any kind of due for his thievery. The characters/cameras paid him no attention at all at the end, which just emphasizes the point that people are isolated who are that evil. The character was properly shunted into the background, and everything worked out for our hero in the end.

And as for today, I was able to hit my goal in EPR credits, and I completed my research proposal (at least the first draft), to boot! And tomorrow I will try to do the same for my survey write-up. My goal is to have those two out of the way before I go to Germany next week, so I have the whole rest of vacation to play!

Also today, I had a nice long conversation with my mum. She says she has sent me a Christmas stocking, which is SWEET! I couldn't ask for a better present. It is just what I need to feel connected to the family at Christmas! She's also signed up for a Skype account, so hopefully we'll be able to video chat soon.

Well, it's dinner time-- maybe I'll finish off that soup... yes, that sounds good. Soup and cheesy bread!

Night everyone!

It's a Wonderful Life

Some days you feel so good, you get into this state, this zone, where you’re just at peace with the world and your place in it. There’s usually some reason for it, so let me try and pinpoint exactly when it happened for me this last Friday…

Friday, December 10th: This morning I woke up admittedly crabby. Jana and I had not parted on a good note the night before; I’d been up all night, dry-mouthed, unable to breathe properly because of a cold; and I had four sets of experiments to attend in an attempt to squeeze in as many EPR credits as I could in one day, though I thought it would be a big waste of time, mostly because I wanted to work on my essays—get ‘em out of the way before I go to Germany…

But things don’t often work out the way you expect them to, and looking back on it now, I’m glad I got a break from my own research, after tirelessly preparing for those presentations for the past 10 days or so… and I actually enjoyed many of the studies I participated in today. One study had me pretending to be a used phone salesman, and I was asked to “research” the value of different cell phones before advising “clients” on which one to buy. I was allowed to deceive the clients about my confidence in my choices, to increase the chance that they would pick my phones. If “clients” end up going with my prices, I may actually win some real money.

Another study had me doing a reaction time test that apparently was supposed to correlate with my math skills—I had to take a very simple oral math test as well, and I’m sure I performed laughably… hopefully that’s good for the study, though.

But my favorite study of the day was very clever, and I fell right into the experimenter’s trap. It started out with unscrambling lists of anagrams (something I consider myself to be relatively good at), and as I was jotting down each real world next to the jumble, the experimenter commented, “You’re completing these much faster than most of the other participants,” which undoubtedly boosted my confidence. So when the experimenter stopped me in the middle to take a questionnaire, I answered positively to such statements as I enjoy this experiment, and I am good at this task, etc. Then, when she asked if I would like more challenging anagrams, I most happily answered, “Yes.” Of course, I received a surprise when I read the debriefing form after the task and on it was written, Some of you may have been told you were faster than others on the task. I had to laugh at this and ask accusingly if I really was any faster than anyone else, and the experimenter told me unabashedly, “No.” Well, she had me fooled, and I know I must have done everything she’d expected of me because of it. Well researcher, I hope your study goes as planned, and good luck on future projects.

Later, I was walking home from the grocery store, when this feeling came over me—with my heavy bags cutting out the circulation in my fingers and my hair falling annoyingly over my eyes, a feeling of “dusk excitement” overcame me. I bet you’ve experienced it, yourself; it usually occurs on cool summer nights-- it wasn’t summery tonight by any means, but it was warmer than it’s been all week—and I felt that cool-not-cold breeze of nighttime energy flow through me and I knew I just had to run right then. I hurried home and changed into my running clothes and without so much as a warm-up, I was off, sprinting gaily into the night, lungs full of the crisp, clean air left behind from a mild winter’s day.

I always get into a certain state when I run. It seems so much harder to have unpleasant thoughts, it’s so much easier to feel inspired, giddy, emotional, but in a positive way. I suddenly become a more open and friendly person, nothing bothers or fazes me, and for a little while I am perfectly Tao.

This time though, the feeling stayed with me all the rest of the night. The “dusk excitement” hovered around me as if the very atmosphere was clinging to me, refilling my lungs with its clear, cool magic. I felt life could not be better tonight—there is no inner turmoil, no nagging feelings, no worry about schoolwork or the future. For now I am blissfully at peace with the world, and I hope all the rest of life is like this.

This evening I cooked Jana and myself some stir fry and we watched the first half of It’s a Wonderful Life (how fitting) before her internet stopped working. This was the first time I’d seen the movie, and it stopped right after George ran his car into his neighbor’s tree, about the stumble onto the bridge where he would have his confrontation with Clarence—the climax of the film, if you will, and thanks to Jana’s internet, George’s life will remain frozen in its disaster state until we can see the resolution tomorrow.

I realized, though, how amazing this movie is—I can see why it is a classic. It makes you think about the important things in life, like any good story can do. It fit in so well with the rest of the evening, and as I was walking home from Jana’s place, I was still in that dreamy state, living in the moment, feeling that life is good and happy. I hope tomorrow will present another Tao breeze, another spell of excitement weather!

Good night, every boday!

Everyone is Sick

Everyone around me is sick due to the weather... one of my roommates has not been in class, her coughs have been drifting up the stairs all week, and now I can feel a frog in my throat, and I hope HOPE HOPE I don't get full-blown sick my first week out of classes!

Yes, class is officially over for the term-- I completed two presentations earlier today and they seemed to go very well. I'm not too worried about those grades even though they were partially peer-assessed, and I'm also not too worried about my essays. I can see the end is near for those... I just need to rewrite a couple of paragraphs each, edit, ideally have someone else edit, and then turn in before Jan.11th.

Now I have to squeeze in as many research participation credits as I can next week-- I'm supposed to have 30, and I will have over 25 by the end of this week-- so close! The system will not beat me!

Oh, and my adviser just e-mailed me and said he would have to push back task programming until next week... I expected as much, I suppose! Of course, this is what I get for not being able to teach myself MATLAB, but I en't worried-- most people won't start their thesis projects until after the holidays anyway, so if I must follow suit, I'm not fussed.

So this weekend I'm going to Cheedale in the Peak District with the hiking society. Don't worry, now-- it's not going to be as dangerous as last time! Or so they tell me. It should be just a moderate, pleasant walk through the snow, and I've got some new hiking boots to do some good ol' fashioned tromping.

I discovered a new sport today! It's called 'Orienteering' and I think it's mostly based in the UK. It is a combination of hiking or running, and navigating. What you do, is you tromp around the wilderness with a topographic map that's marked with points you're supposed to follow-- there are big gaps of space between each point, and your job is to find the fastest, most efficient route to each point and ultimately to the finish. It sounds so cool! The university does not have an official orienteering team, but it has an affiliation with a city-wide group that I might think about joining in the spring... especially if we can work in teams-- Jana's good at reading topographic maps so she'd kick butt finding a route that doesn't take us over a waterfall, and I've got the speed and agility part down--

Yes, read how hardcore I am-- I ran 5 miles on the day Leicester frosted over. It was about 28 degrees outside, and you know what? It wasn't so bad! Even Amish the soon-to-be Everest climber was impressed by my perseverence. Nevertheless, I am still planning on getting that sports card after Christmas. Although I found I can run in sub-zero temps (er, celsius, that is), I cannot safely jog on ice, so I will still go for the treadmill during those harshest winter weeks. I've come to appreciate the idea of picking up yoga, pilates, or some other such thing, as well, which would be free if I have the sports card.

I may post more later-- but I am off to a seminar now!

Ta ta!

Christmas Fair

There was a small Christmas fair on Queens Road, today-- I bought a homemade gingerbread man for myself, and I got my mum a couple of presents, which I will ship with Stefani's tomorrow or Tuesday. Jana gave me the idea for Stefani's present-- she's so good at picking em out! I'll try to find a festive box to ship them in and hope they arrive home by Christmas. Now I have to think hard about what to get my dad-- can't go wrong with a fancy chocolate bar or some such thing. He might want to try English chocolate, which does taste quite a bit different from American choco.

The fair was cute-- people were selling homemade mince pies, there were rows of wrapped-up Christmas trees for sale, and groups of kids entertained on a small stage. Sonja was unimpressed-- the Germans have their Kris Kringle fairs, which are much more elaborate than this little thing... can't wait to see the real deal! I am, of course, going to Bavaria for Christmas.

Right now I'm sitting nice and cozy in Jana's house, waiting until it's time to go see the fair's Christmas lights, which will turn on at 4pm. I don't really know what they're going to do though, cos there have been lights up already for about 2 weeks now, up and down the road, but maybe there will be some kind of show, or music or something.

Well, I'm off to suit up and join in the festivities!

Not So Short, but Sweet

Let's see if I can write something short and sweet for a change...

Well, it's the week before the end of term-- for me, that is. The prof says we started class a week early, so we're ending a week early as well. On our last class this Thursday, we will each present two powerpoints: one on our psychometric scale development, and the other on our thesis research proposal. I finished making those earlier this week and I've been rehearsing them since, and they seem to be pretty good.

The only other examinations for this term are two papers on the same topics as the powerpoints. I am almost finished with both of those, and I must say I've found a love for writing introductions. In case you are unfamiliar with the process of scientific writing, the introduction always encompasses a literature review, which flows into the purpose of the study. My favorite part about the write-up, then, is researching interesting articles and making them all fit nicely around one coherent frame of thought. Just yesterday, I was learning about role-play addiction for my imagination survey write-up-- and the number one reason the role-players give for their excessive game-playing is "I want to escape from reality"-- usually due to unpleasant life experiences, or profound social awkwardness/anxiety. Though I am not partial to conducting survey research or personality research myself, reading about these things is always interesting-- so today, I delved into the motives of addicted RPG-ers.

As far as my thesis project goes, I've been refining it over the week and sharing ideas with my adviser. At first he asked me to try to design the task in MATLAB myself, but I told him I was not comfortable doing it on my own, and that it would be much better if I could watch him program the task. He doesn't seem to get it though-- the last time we talked, he told me to meet him next week after he's written the task by himself-- so how am I supposed to learn? I've asked repeatedly if I could be there when he programs, and he has not responded to the most recent e-mail in which I told him, candidly, that I would really like to be there when he writes the code, unless he is not comfortable with me looking over his shoulder as he does so. In which case he should suck it up.

Today, Jana, Sonja, and I are going to the city centre to do some winter clothes shopping. I need a good pair of gloves and perhaps I will stop by Blacks sporting goods to find a strong, waterproof pair of hiking boots, and a pair of waterproof pants. Oo, regular old winter boots might also be nice to have, since it seems the snow doesn't want to melt around here! Yes, surprisingly, there has been a small layer of well-packed snow and ice on the sidewalks for the whole week now. I didn't think it could happen in England, but they say it's supposed to be the coldest winter in a thousand years, so... there it is.

I'm feeling cheery and in the Christmas spirit after watching "Muppet Christmas Carol"-- of course, Michael Caine is the best Ebenezer Scrooge, as anybody who has seen the movie will agree. I happened to glance down at the date on my phone earlier today and couldn't believe it was already December 4th. I love the city centre at Christmas-time-- there are always streetcorner booths selling warm chestnuts, and there's an ice-skating rink somewhere closeby. I love seeing the festive decorations in shop windows, and the dummies dressed up in sweaters and scarves, looking so cozy. Hopefully after today's excursion, I'll look just like those dummies (ho ho!)

I will miss the family for Christmas, of course. Nothing beats a feast, a stocking and a tree. Hang up some of my ornaments for me, Mum, and remember to get Obi some Christmas catnip. :)