I'm back !! It's true, after my stint of some deadly man-flu which has plagued me since Thursday evening ! Unluckily for me, the annual Dance Club Valentine's ball was on Friday which I attended despite my death-like existence slowly slipping away from me. The evening went mostly well with the only hiccups occurring near the end of the evening but that's another story ! Food wise, it was quite nice but there was a 4:1 Sandwich to cake ratio meaning that there was an extreme surplus of sandwiches yet not enough cakes... Music was good though... GOOD. Yes.
Then on Saturday, we brought our cousin who's visiting to London. I was half-dead so my sister took him in the early afternoon but a swap-over had to take place at 16:30 because 1: She had a hair appointment at 17:30 and 2: I had booked the tickets for the London Eye with my card so I had to bring my own card and proof of identity so that we could board meaning I then went to London to enjoy where we went to the Covent Gardens where they were setting up the Baftas then to the London Eye where we enjoyed the wheel spin visiting before heading over to Big Ben to look before heading over to the Hare & Tortoise restaurant of delicious Chinese food where we ate... Japanese Udon. Nice
City Slicks
Then Sunday was spent saying bye to my cousin as he had to leave at 10:03 before going home and writing 1,500 words of a very difficult essay about causes of dyslexia. Tasty.
Today wasn't too bad, it begun at 08:30 when I realised that i didn't have to wake up until 10:00 so I went back to sleep. I then woke up at 09:17 but then realised that i didn't have to wake up until 10:00 so I went back to sleep. My alarm went off at 10:00 meaning I had to wake up. Had stats 12:00, then a part 2 exam brief at 13:00, then a stats tutorial at 14:00 where I discovered the magic of ANCOVAs, then a study at 15:00, then a lecture on Schizophrenia at 17:00 then Ballroom at 19:00, busy busy... !
Well, that's about it for a sound round-up ! Tomorrow is Neuroscience before tasting a bit of free time for the first time in a while so that's something to look forward to !
Sorry, no post today, I've just got home with a very bad cold like times so imma straight to bed with me. Good day though, just hope I'll get better for the Valentine's ball tomorrow...
Well ! I've missed a day !! Explanation: My cousin arrived in the country yesterday so the day was spent doing funstuff. He arrived safe and sound, we had some good pasta made by my sister before going to A and S's house for some pancakes which were GOOD. Then we went back home, chilled for a while before heading out after dinner to Claire's to celebrate her B'day ! We spent about 20 minutes trying to get a drinks fountain to work getting everything drinkable in the room in it to keep the liquid level up. It was quite vodka-times so I had to content myself with some orange juice before we all headed into town where we met my sister and then went to Sakura for a fine evening, getting home at about 1:40 which meant that I was too shattered to write anything ! I had a shower and slept on the couch (my cousin's got my room whilst he's here). I actually slept really well ! We have a comfortable couch.
We went to Oxford today so that G could see my cousin and for the latter to see the historic town of Oxford. So we arrived with an hour before my meeting (I'll explain) in which we visited his college with a historic tour narrated by G2. Then I had to go to my meeting with a prospective supervisor for next year in order to show him my project proposal. Seeing as this project is about 3D vision and necessitates a virtual lab which Reading Uni doesn't have, it happens in the Physiology department of the University of Oxford. So I was expecting a meeting with him which wouldn't last more than 20 minutes but I ended spending two hours in that place ! It was awesome though, the first hour being spent trying out the virtual reality headset, going round rooms and looking at cubes and stuff. Even going on a simulated roller-coaster (not for those prone to travel-sickness !). Then we spent the next hour preparing the project for next year which was really useful because we changed some stuff to make it even better, nice.
Well, it's late and I need my sleep ! More meetings tomorrow and lectures and salsa and more fun ! G'night !
LONG day, Monday, sadtimes day ! Tuesday, good day, Cousin day ! As usual, today was a veeery long day. Got up, barely had time for breakfast before pacing it to uni for stats at noon. After another lecture on qualitative research, I had the practical at two which, being about qualitative research, consisted of answer that can't be proved wrong so I sailed through it into the mini-project meeting where a good half-hour was spent de-confusing others about test conditions and experimental hypothesis. Then ! two hours before a fun lecture on Schizophrenia which basically glazed over what I had learnt in A-level ! Tango was to be learnt at Ballroom along with some Waltzing which went rather well ! Ticket sales are up for the Valentine's ball this Friday so it's all good.
I'm not going to write more now because I'm knackered and in the mood for a sleep. How convenient ! It's bed time !
Well ! Valentine's day has come and gone for another year but it shrank into insignificance with the news that today was also the Chinese New Year ! So a little 新年快乐 into this year of the Tiger which is my mum's sign so an extra good year in store for her !
Happy New Year to all the tigers out there !
Today, most of my day was spent writing an essay on object permanence and more specifically the A-not-B task which basically consists with an infant being presented with a toy which disappears into a well during several times. The kid is normally very confused at this point as to why it is here but we don't take that into account. We then put the toy in a second well and see if the infant goes for the first or second well. Younger infants (5-7 months) tend to go for the first well due to habituation, or maybe a damaged frontal lobe, or maybe due to attention inhibition, or maybe due to external factors such as poverty... But seeing as we are psychologists, we'll never agree so it's all a nice never-ending debate ! Older infants (8 months onwards) tend to go for the second well where the toy was last put due to their flawless object permanence that has developed and then everyone's happy. I concluded that many different aspects can cause failure in the task:
"To conclude, many theories are brought forward about why a child could possibly be less successful than another when carrying out the A-Not-B task and most vie for the position of best theory but it is my belief that several factors can lead to this, be they cognitive, neurophysiological or environmental, and that research supporting these theories prove that there is more than just one way to an erroneous result."
Fun times all round.
Now to lighten up the mood, some amusing pictures from the internet
Nice
The other day, I watched what is now one of my favorite films "Die Welle", or "The Wave"which I talked about a few days ago. What I didn't know, is that this actually happened in real life, in California, 1967. Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave.
This was carried out by a history teacher but has had many psychological implications about how we can ALL sucumb to authority however much we may deny it. A bit like Milgram's study where virtually all participants delivered fatal doses of electricity to a person when asked by a person in authority (the person wasn't being shocked, s/he was a confederate). Still, we psychologists thought we could go one better and test Primary School Children ! Wahey ! You've got to love psychology before the ethics era we live in now. They basically got children in a class to be told that those with Brown eyes were better than those with Blue eyes which lead to classwide persecution and ostracising of blue-eyed children. The teacher then went to explain that she was wrong and it was in fact the blue-eyed children who were superior which led to a complete reversal of scenario with brown-eyed children being belittled. Then they were all told it was an experiement and that eye colour in fact hasn't got an effect on your persona.
More reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott
Imagine carrying out a similar study nowadays ?! You'd get lynched by parents which is why some crucial aspects of psychology to do with stress and similar can now never be discovered due to ethical constraints... Unless you go to the Belgian Congo or something but then cross-cultural differences come into play and no-one's happy.
I've spoken to much ! I need sleep for a long, long week ahead !!
It's strange how, to a student, the weekend is no different to any other day of the week ! There's your desk, with work waiting to be completed, and when that's finished, there's always some research to be done. Never, do you feel the satisfaction of a job well done as the job never ends ! Still, holidays in 33 days ! Sun, Sea, Sand, Seashells and other things that start with 's'.
Valentine's day tomorrow ! And I wish a happy valentine's day to everyone who's lucky enough to have a second half. Mine's currently called food, it offers short-term gratification yet the long-term effects can be somewhat negative ! Nah, I could eat cake all day and I wouldn't get fat *thank you metabolism*. Even when I went on a hyper-carb diet last year because I'd gone under my limit I stagnated so I've decided to pick up some weights in order to put on some useful weight ! Then maybe for Valentines 2011, I'll have someone ! Exciting
This next week is going to be CRAZY ! My cousin's arriving on Tuesday for 5-odd days to visit us from the Alps and here's our plan : Tuesday, pick him up from train station, go out in the evening for C2's birthday. Wednesday, try and get up *hopefully at home* and train it to Oxford to visit stuff and so that G can see my cousin. I've also got a meeting with my project coordinator for next year in the Oxford University 3D Vision lab (I like saying that). Wednesday evening, formal dinner in St John's hall. Thursday, day at uni, meetings with other project coordinators and a lecture before salsa in the evening and then maybe going out. Friday, at home, doing fun stuff, maybe going to uni for some research dragging my cousin with me so he can have a taste of the library's psychology section. Saturday, London Town ! Then union in the evening with folk. Sunday, wake up, send my cousin home and furiously write an essay about Dyslexia. It's ALL planned out. Watch it go at a tangent all week -_-
I was going to say I'm off to have me some fun but it's past midnight and I'm shattered so I think I'll watch me a prison break before turning in .
Listening to a version of L'ItalianoVero in some random eastern language (I'm guessing Finnish?) is disturbing yet rather good in a weird, linguistic way !
Today was a dull day ! For a change. I tried to get my head round Vergence, Motion Parallax and Proprioception Conflict whilst fighting off a bad bout of Veridical Stereo. Hey, I might even write about it once I get my head round it. Might take another day though which isn't good because I also need to write an essay on attitudes and prepare my meetings with the lecturers (which is why I'm reading about perception). Why didn't I do Italian & French is anyone's guess... If anyone's got a spare time machine, email me. *Kicks self*
Right, this new facebook. It's not too bad and makes life easier for the navigation but my big pickle's with the news feed. It sucks. It never tells me what I want to know about my friends. It never tells me what I want to know about my important friends and tells me that someone I haven't talked to for 3 years "is bored". Thanks, I can now sleep safely knowing that they are bored. At least the old facebook analysed how much you went on a friend's page and subsequently posted more about them on the news feed. AND, there's the brilliant part where apparently NOTHING has happened to ANY of my friends EVER. Have a look:
Yes, it's in French. Get over it.
I wonder when facebook will petition it's membersto whether or not they want a new facebook ! I guess it would be too easy... And I've been "chosen" by youtube to try out the new navigation system which isn't too bad if not slightly bland. They've gone from (I'm taking a big step into computer techy talk territory which I normally find myself failing at) HTML to PHP script so it all runs off the same page... I think... I'm no computer freak !
Well, I need to get me some sleep and hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow morning not feeling like P. Diddy and feeling like someone with a day's worth of work ahead of them. Nice !
