October

So Steph had to call and tell me what is going on with my family, as per the blog. Possibly something wrong there. I go through phases where I forget to check. I am so jealous of all those going to Scotland... if only silly old Ontario had Fall as well as Spring Reading Week! But alas. I am just counting down the time until Christmas. And my birthday! Although that will likely suck, because... Guelph. But maybe something nice will happen.

Sophie came to visit last weekend and I was SO VERY VERY excited to see her. Love having visitors (and have tested out the futon and know it is comfy, so sort of feel like I have a guest bedroom to offer) (even if only one duvet cover! But don't worry, the duvet cover is always offered to the guest). We had a lovely time doing not very much except chatting - it has been a LONG time. Katie the Newfie came over Saturday night for a bit of an impromptu girls night/craft night (she is attempting to knit a toque and I am making a sock monkey for Del's friend Pauline's baby Chloe) and on Sunday we just sort of wandered around Guelph. Discovered that what I thought was a bakery was a gorgeous upscale-food shop like the one that was down the road from me in Edinburgh. We had some 75% dark chocolate and I got chai masala and some smoked garlic (I am a sucker for spices in lovely tins). Sophie bought me something called Mayan Hot Chocolate: ingredients cocoa liquour, organic sugar, cocoa powder, chili peppers, ginger, orange peel, Madagascar vanilla and "a unique blend of spices". It is amazing! It may or may not be the same thing I had at the Hillside festival, but I love it. Too bad it's so bloody expensive... but since Sophie totally rocks, now I have some :)

Work's going well. I had a look at my data on Friday and it is looking good! very happy about that. This week I have to collect the rest of it (sigh) and then start on a write-up, I guess. I feel like this is a really big deal on one hand, but on the other need to keep thinking about the next thing...

My supervisor also went to a conference last week, so I took his class. I only had to talk to them for ten minutes or so and then meet with groups individually, so wasn't too scary. Felt like it was good experience, though. Oh, and it also wasn't too scary because I had to give a presentation to my Neuroscience class (that I am taking, not teaching) the week before, and TOTALLY STUFFED UP* the powerpoint - so after surviving that, ten minutes of talking to a bunch of fourth-years did not seem scary.

Apart from that, have been very much a homebody lately. It is boring, but on the other hand I am richer and thinner from the lack of alcohol (though the late-night visits to the Salsateria have persisted). I've been to a few gigs, though, because a friend hooked me up with his former roommate Melissa, on the basis that we both hate Guelph. She is doing an internship here and is a big ol' music geek (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) and keeps her ear to the ground about shows and then drags me along. It has been excellent. Last week we saw Ohbijou as well as the Hidden Cameras, because Melissa knows a band member. Yay for getting to hang with the band after the gig! makes me feel special.

Anyway, have done my yoga and had my tea, so off to bed before 11pm hits. Good lord, I am turning into Steph...


*[I made a beautiful, gorgeous powerpoint, emailed it to myself, saved it on my USB drive {or so I thought... dun dun dun} and then went to give the presentation. Two slides in, I realised that half of the slides were wrong - and suddenly came to understand that when I had backed it up to the desktop, I forgot to re-save on the drive... so all my three hours of careful edits were no longer there. However, I had already started talking and it was a bit late to ask to start fiddling about with my email... so I just gave the talk anyway, and had to draw my diagrams that should have been on the slides in living colour on the whiteboard, from memory. Ridiculous. I thought I screwed up bigtime, but after the talk was over, one of the profs told me it was impressive that I didn't need my slides to explain and could do it all from memory... so maybe I pulled it off!]

up and down, up and down

Today I get to learn how to make a wiki to manage a project. Our postdoc made one to write a grant, and I was pretty impressed with it. Everyone can contribute drafts, and you can see the old version too if you're so inclined. I've been told to write a review article on attentional effects in substance dependence with a colleague, and am nerdily excited about this new (to me) use of technology to collaborate. Grad school is fun!

I actually had a really good meeting with my supervisor yesterday that was quite motivating. He cleared up some of the mysteries (like "what exactly am I expected to know by the end of this?") and put forth a pretty good argument for having me switch into the new PSYC + NEURO designation they've just come up with. It's a collaborative program between a whole bunch of faculties and would basically make this into a full-on proper neuroscience degree, as far as I can tell. It will also involve a class that I will probably find pretty challenging given my background (hint: lacks biochemistry), but I think it will be worth it.

He also explicitly said that he's planning to ensure I learn management skills. This appears to translate into Convincing Undergraduate RAs That They Would LOVE To Run My Subjects For Free, so that sounds good to me.

On the minus side, I've been constantly tired for the last week and seem to be fighting something off. I have a bit of a cold, but lately I've been totally wiped and ready for bed by about 3pm. Mysterious. Trying to get sleep, drink fluids and be as supportive as I can to my poor embattled immune system...

Of course I did NOT do this last weekend, when I saw the Weakerthans (finally!!!) and also a great opening act called Bahamas. I was actually motivated to buy this guy's CD, despite the fact that I'm broke. Mark my words, this guy will be worth listening to... I went to the gig by myself, which I hate, but afterwards the neighbours invited me out, so that stopped me from completely feeling like a friendless loser. Er, but possibly contributed a smidgen to any germs I was incubating, as we stayed up till 3am drawing pictures with mustard on the arms of passed-out people.