money for eating bread

Got $5 for tasting bread today. And last week I got $5 for tasting yogurt. Not quite as lucrative as being in peoples' behavioural psych experiments, but much more fun.

There seems to be a pretty big Food Science department here, and occasionally they do consumer testing. This is the best deal ever as it takes less than half an hour, and all you have to do for your cash is make a few comments about whatever product they've come up with this week. They have a gorgeous consumer testing lab, as well. My Masters supervisor would be drooling. It is a little L-shaped room with about ten little computer desks set along the inside wall of the L. Each one has a little sliding door, behind which is a kitchen. Each also has a wall-mounted computer screen and a keyboard. They're clearly running E-Prime (I'd recognise that font anywhere!), so you just go in, type in the subject number they give you, and someone slides your little pot of yogurt or whatever through the hatch. You taste it, answer the questions, have a drink of water and they take it away and give you the next one. This would have been SO useful for the Consumer Psychology lab!

Busy week this week. I counted up my TAing hours and found I've almost worked all my hours for one of my TA-ships (I have two half TAs instead of one full one). I've done 65 out of 70 hours, with one assignment still to be handed in and the final exam to be marked. Ideally, the prof would then just pay me for the extra hours worked, but that ain't likely... he will probably just do the rest of the marking himself. Either way not so bad, I guess.

Also am making a poster for Guelph's "Neuroscience Day". Sounds pretty silly, but the keynote speaker sounds interesting, and at least it's something accomplished...