20100223

Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Well, I can't see it quite yet. But here's what's left to do:

*Midterm for Adolescence course (due 02/24)
*Paper for Stats course (due 02/26)
*Annotated Bibliographies for Adolescence (due 03/01)
*Short Presentation for Adolescence (on 03/02)
*Paper for Stats (due ?)
*Annotated Bibliographies for Adolescence (due 03/08)
*Final Paper for Behavioral Genetics course (due 03/10)
*Final Presentation for Adolescence (on 03/16)
*Final Paper for Stats (due 03/19)

All those things along with the usual 4 readings for behavioral genetics and 5-6 readings for adolescence per week.

Let's just say that I was incredibly foolish to sign up for 3 classes with the quarter system. I am drowning here.

Back to work! Hope y'all are enjoying your Februaries!

20100211

As the Quarter Marches On...

My post-a-day thing is becoming more of a hit and miss operation! So I will combine a few of them here!

Media Wednesday -- I am scheduled to receive Ben Folds & WASO: Live in Perth in the next few days from Netflix (yes, I decided to sign up for it!). I am so excited. I think I've seen most of the concert in low quality on Youtube... but between it and Harold and Maude I think I am set for a fantastic Singles' Awareness Day!

Tasty Wednesday -- The Co-op had these amazing little Italian roasted tomatoes in their olive bar. I gave one a try and almost died from sheer delight. They are the most delicious thing I have eat in a while. I cannot wait for summer and cheap tomatoes... oh, you had best be believing I'll be roasting tomatoes! Anyway, for dinner tonight, I sauteed fresh onions, asparagus, red and green bell peppers and, at the end of the party, added in the tomatoes. I had that with some brown rice. Incredible. They may just become a staple here.

Written Wednesday -- This day is so hard... I am going to sneak my way out of it. Haha. I'm getting up at a 8 am for a research group meeting. Yeah, I need to start getting serious about thesis topics, by the way. Yikes.

20100208

Scholarly Sunday - Schiesse

Pardon my French, but that's the only title that comes to mind!

I am the discussion leader in about 10 hours on a paper about mouse models of autism. It was actually boring... and didn't really talk at all about autistic mice. It was just reporting on a development of a method.

I feel like my discussion questions suck... and now I am questioning if I even have a clue about what happened in this paper... and I am feeling all queasy and my heart's pounding and I can feel the rogue antibodies hacking away at my thyroid.

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Fortunately, it's not all on my shoulders. It is a discussion, not a presentation. But the group isn't very chatty so if my questions suck then all we'll hear is crickets.

I wish I could go back to a time and a place when I understood things and felt certain in what I thought. But now I don't know what I think and I have difficulty trusting my eyes and my brain.

I would really like this quarter to be over.

-Natalie

20100207

20100206

Paranoia

"I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy."
-JD Salinger

Brains

Hello!

I survived midterms! Wahoo! I did the best I could, so hopefully it was good enough. I had my behavioral genetics exam first thing. I finished in about an hour, faster than anyone else. So I went through the exam a number of times hoping information on MAO A would come back to me (it didn't) leaving after one person did. Then I had about 2 1/2 hours before my stats exam. I feel good about both exams (and did pretty well on the genetics one). The problem with the stats course is that I never know if I'm using quite the right language. I try to avoid causal language. I am a big fan of the term "may." May and many... do those words really mean anything? Anywho...

So, just a few minutes ago, I was zoning out whilst cleaning dishes, thinking about this guy I knew and stuff we did. Sort of good reminiscing stuff. Then I starting thinking about remembering... and then started remembering a conversation last quarter in my research issues course about event memory. Every time you remember something, the memory is changed. It gets tied into the current context and there are new neuronal connections. (Yes, this means that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn't real and will never be...) I am just amazed at how plastic our brains are.

My genetics professor told us a few lectures ago that the main point he wants us to get in this class is that it all boils down to biology. Every behavior is an expression of something going on in the brain. Now, I'm not a very "spiritual" person, but for some reason that idea is mind blowing to me. It really does all boil down to molecules, though I'll argue that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

During brown bag yesterday, I was distracted by my own thoughts and sat back and realized that we are really interesting primates. But that's what we are. And it is so cool! The amount of chance that was involved in homo the sap coming to be is almost spiritual in and of itself. And the way we learn, and communicate, and love, and work... is so amazing.

I feel like I am rambling! So I will leave you with this quote that I've been thinking about!

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
-Douglas Adams