Just got back from Del's friend Marina's wedding in Catalunya. I've never been to a Spanish wedding before, let alone a Catalan one. It was amazing fun. Marina got married in an oak grove outside a hermitage (an old, simple church, as far as I could tell) and everyone just stood around in the woods. To get there we had to take a train from Barcelona to her town (Moliet) and then borrow her car and drive for an hour into the mountains, through a bunch of crazy hairpin turns. We actually managed to be 15 min late for the wedding, but luckily it was a small one so the bride waited!
Afterwards we went to the reception, which started with a few hours of cava and "pica pica" (tapas) - we stood around outside while waiters brought more and more food, plus stations with risotto and a good bit of a pig. At about 3pm we went in for lunch, which was five courses and took us till about 7.30 or 8pm to get through. The whole time they would stop once in a while and do something - speeches (in Catalan, so we foreigners couldn't follow) or a song, or a gift for the couple. There was also a game where there was a giant locked chest full of money for the bride and groom, and every table was given a key. Each table gave the bride and groom a task to win their key, leading to something I've never seen before at a wedding - the bride and groom being handed a baby and a bag of nappies, and clearing off a table at their wedding in order to change a baby's diaper! At first I didnt' realize about the game and thought maybe this was an extension of the constant references to babies at the (very Catholic) wedding - I though, wow, they really take this fertility stuff seriously here!
Once we finally managed to gorge our way through the four or five hours of food, there was dancing and an open bar. There was no DJ - five people from the groom's family just kept randomly selecting songs, meaning that you would get two verses into a traditional salsa tune with everyone doing the moves, and suddenly the music would switch to Abba. Gave it a very unique vibe...
The reception was held at a huge stone house in the countryside, with the party being held at a sort of hall attached to the side. However, they had rented the whole house for the guests, so everyone who wanted could stay over. The only trouble was, there were no assigned rooms, so you just had to go find a bed and try to claim it. Unfortunately that meant that we ended up in a giant room with Del's friends Cristina, Paco and Pablo, but then four or five other people also ended up sleeping all over the floor. No big deal, until about 5am when an enormously drunk man who nobody seemed to know crashed heavily up the stairs, stomped around on the echoing stone floor for twenty minutes or so, stepped on a few people, dropped his shoes on the floor once or twice, then crashed down and started snoring the most epic snores I have ever heard in my life. It was insane. There was no way I could sleep after that, so I ended up on a tiny loveseat in the entrance hall three floors down - and you could still distantly hear the snores echoing past three flights of stone floors!
The next morning there was a pig's leg, trotters and all, for breakfast, plus bread and Nutella. Sadly, Cristina and Paco had a flight back to the south of Spain to catch, so we had to leave early. It was too bad, because apparently the house also had a small building with a swimming pool! It was an amazing place for a wedding.
We've been in Barcelona for the last five days, except for the weekend where we went to the wedding. We've been staying on a Nordic folk boat in the Port Olimpic harbour. We leave today, but I'm hoping to see a few of the Barcelona sights before we go....
Monday, 5 September 2011
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Post more, you say? All right then!
Uh oh, somebody asked about an aspect of my research in the comments! That's all it takes for me to ramble on for an hour.
Aside: A few months ago, Rebecca called at the last minute and asked if we would like to go see Josh Ritter in concert in Milford (home of our infamous beach walk). No idea why Josh was playing a 6pm gig at a tiny little venue in a tiny little Connecticut town, but we had seen him in NYC previously and loved it, so Ayelet and I agreed to accompany her. The gig itself was awesome in the way only a tiny-venue small-town gig can be, and afterwards we hung around outside until Josh and bandmates came out to sign autographs. We strategically waited until the queue had dispersed, and lo and behold, Josh came over to chat to us.
"What do you do?" he asked me. So I told him. "Oh wow, my parents are both neuroscientists.... what kind of work do you do?" he asked. Wrong question! The lucky man got to hear a monologue about attention-emotion interactions as they related to motivationally-relevant stimuli for quite some time. Have to say he looked interested, though. (Although possibly drunk). He said it sounded very cool and gave me a big ol' hug and a kiss on the hand (just for doing such awesome research, I guess!)
Anyway, so attentional bias in parents. Attentional bias to a stimulus just means that that particular class of stimulus attracts your attention, and is difficult to disengage attention from. Interesting research has shown, for example, that very anxious people show a much stronger attentional bias to threat than non-anxious people. When faced with a threatening image (in the lab they use angry faces or scary animals - in the real world it could be your boss!) these people notice it more quickly than others and have trouble tearing their attention away in order to do something else. Also, people struggling with a substance dependence show attentional bias to their drug of choice. An alcoholic, for example, has difficulty not paying attention to a bottle of booze when it's in sight (or they know it is there). This is theorized to be one of the reasons that it is so hard to stop using drugs: your brain is sensitized to the very sight of them, and you just can't ignore them if you know they're available.
We test this in the lab by showing two pictures simultaneously very briefly (~ 250-500ms). One of the pictures is then replaced by a probe (like a *) and the participant's job is to report where they saw the probe. If, for example, there was a rose on the right and a scary dog on the left of the screen, and the probe replaced the scary dog, you would expect an anxious person to be quicker to respond to the probe than if it had replaced the rose. This is because their attention would already have been in that location. If the probe replaced the rose, they would have to disengage their attention from the rose location and move it to where the probe is. (We think of attention as being like a spotlight that can be moved around, even if the eyes stay in the same place).
Previous research has shown that non-parents (they used undergrads) show attentional bias to infant faces using this task. That is, they are quicker to report a probe that replaces an infant face than an adult face, which we take to mean that they were paying attention to the infant. The lab here at the Child Study Centre is interested in parenting research, so they would like to know if parents show the same effect, and if so, is it stronger than the effect in non-parents? If this is the case, it would then be interesting to look at individual differences in parents: for example, do poorly-attached parents show less bias to infant faces? Do substance-dependent parents or depressed parents show the same effect? Certain groups of parents have been shown to spend less time interacting with their infants in general, so it would be interesting to see if this extends to subconscious attentional effects and the brain areas that produce them.
Of course I have a whole host of plans to extend this more into my area of research, but that will have to wait until we have explored the basic effect more thoroughly!
Man, you are right that I should blog more often though. Although things are deathly quiet right now, I had an exciting few months what with a conference where I had to present, all kinds of excitement with customs, a visit from Del, a quick trip to the Vermont border... maybe I will try to catch up on relating everything this week.
Aside: A few months ago, Rebecca called at the last minute and asked if we would like to go see Josh Ritter in concert in Milford (home of our infamous beach walk). No idea why Josh was playing a 6pm gig at a tiny little venue in a tiny little Connecticut town, but we had seen him in NYC previously and loved it, so Ayelet and I agreed to accompany her. The gig itself was awesome in the way only a tiny-venue small-town gig can be, and afterwards we hung around outside until Josh and bandmates came out to sign autographs. We strategically waited until the queue had dispersed, and lo and behold, Josh came over to chat to us.
"What do you do?" he asked me. So I told him. "Oh wow, my parents are both neuroscientists.... what kind of work do you do?" he asked. Wrong question! The lucky man got to hear a monologue about attention-emotion interactions as they related to motivationally-relevant stimuli for quite some time. Have to say he looked interested, though. (Although possibly drunk). He said it sounded very cool and gave me a big ol' hug and a kiss on the hand (just for doing such awesome research, I guess!)
Anyway, so attentional bias in parents. Attentional bias to a stimulus just means that that particular class of stimulus attracts your attention, and is difficult to disengage attention from. Interesting research has shown, for example, that very anxious people show a much stronger attentional bias to threat than non-anxious people. When faced with a threatening image (in the lab they use angry faces or scary animals - in the real world it could be your boss!) these people notice it more quickly than others and have trouble tearing their attention away in order to do something else. Also, people struggling with a substance dependence show attentional bias to their drug of choice. An alcoholic, for example, has difficulty not paying attention to a bottle of booze when it's in sight (or they know it is there). This is theorized to be one of the reasons that it is so hard to stop using drugs: your brain is sensitized to the very sight of them, and you just can't ignore them if you know they're available.
We test this in the lab by showing two pictures simultaneously very briefly (~ 250-500ms). One of the pictures is then replaced by a probe (like a *) and the participant's job is to report where they saw the probe. If, for example, there was a rose on the right and a scary dog on the left of the screen, and the probe replaced the scary dog, you would expect an anxious person to be quicker to respond to the probe than if it had replaced the rose. This is because their attention would already have been in that location. If the probe replaced the rose, they would have to disengage their attention from the rose location and move it to where the probe is. (We think of attention as being like a spotlight that can be moved around, even if the eyes stay in the same place).
Previous research has shown that non-parents (they used undergrads) show attentional bias to infant faces using this task. That is, they are quicker to report a probe that replaces an infant face than an adult face, which we take to mean that they were paying attention to the infant. The lab here at the Child Study Centre is interested in parenting research, so they would like to know if parents show the same effect, and if so, is it stronger than the effect in non-parents? If this is the case, it would then be interesting to look at individual differences in parents: for example, do poorly-attached parents show less bias to infant faces? Do substance-dependent parents or depressed parents show the same effect? Certain groups of parents have been shown to spend less time interacting with their infants in general, so it would be interesting to see if this extends to subconscious attentional effects and the brain areas that produce them.
Of course I have a whole host of plans to extend this more into my area of research, but that will have to wait until we have explored the basic effect more thoroughly!
Man, you are right that I should blog more often though. Although things are deathly quiet right now, I had an exciting few months what with a conference where I had to present, all kinds of excitement with customs, a visit from Del, a quick trip to the Vermont border... maybe I will try to catch up on relating everything this week.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Summer in the city
Oh man, summer on the East Coast kills me. I've had two miserable summers in Guelph, so this time I wangled an escape by staying in New Haven. But nope, it's just as gross weather-wise... although I'm definitely still much happier than I was in Guelph :)
I took a six-week sublet of a tiny little studio that is very close to work (and the gym), and MAN what a great idea. Not having the psychological barrier of having to wait for the shuttle or walk for 40 min makes it so easy to pop into work (or the gym) anytime I think of it. I'm getting a lot more done suddenly.
It also doesn't hurt in terms of productivity that both Helena and Rebecca are away visiting family. I have to say that it is very, very boring around here without them - but it is definitely an incentive to spend weekends in the lab. Not only is it air-conditioned, but what else am I going to be doing all by myself?!
The downside is getting enough sleep. It is SUPER hot and humid here (week-long 35C+ heat waves with 80-90% humidity) and my body just can't take it. My place does have a window A/C unit, but I am paying for my own electricity (and cheap, so don't want to run it much) and also too much A/C tends to make my throat hurt. In lieu of A/C at night, I keep the windows open (I have a corner unit, so it's a pretty good cross-draft) but that means the blinds are open over the windows so it's also really light in here. So, I've been waking up very early in the morning as soon as the sun is up.
Overall, though, the upsides of the move outweigh the downsides (I would have been dying in the heat on Nash St as well, and no A/C there!) If I was living in New Haven long term, Howe Street might be the place to be. True, it borders on the dodgy side of town (so far walking home have seen one car accident, one cyclist get hit by a car and two arrests) but the police are very active in patrolling this area and the headquarters of Yale security are here. And yeah, a lot more gymming and working are being done.
Anyway, two more weeks before I head out. I've finally finished data collection (!!!) - it took months longer than I had hoped, but that's research for you. The results are looking interesting. We should definitely be able to get a paper out of this one. There's a slight possibility we could even get two. I've started a new project with Helena too, to do with attentional bias to infant faces in parents. We've got it off the ground, and she will do the data collection while I will do the analysis from wherever I happen to be. It's been an interesting and fairly productive year, and to be honest it's also been a complete holiday. Being away from Guelph = no sitting through a million talks about rats (I've been to an equivalent number of talks, but on much more interesting topics), no students constantly wanting something, and no time being taken up by annoying departmental things. I just do my work quietly and then go home. This must be what having a sabbatical is like! Love it.
I had sort of planned to do some travel around the US with my last few weeks, but that was before Rebecca had to go home because of her mom's illness. I still could go by myself, of course, but summer is always tight money-wise, so am thinking maybe it's best just to sit tight unless something interesting comes up, and save my money for the UK trip in two weeks.
I took a six-week sublet of a tiny little studio that is very close to work (and the gym), and MAN what a great idea. Not having the psychological barrier of having to wait for the shuttle or walk for 40 min makes it so easy to pop into work (or the gym) anytime I think of it. I'm getting a lot more done suddenly.
It also doesn't hurt in terms of productivity that both Helena and Rebecca are away visiting family. I have to say that it is very, very boring around here without them - but it is definitely an incentive to spend weekends in the lab. Not only is it air-conditioned, but what else am I going to be doing all by myself?!
The downside is getting enough sleep. It is SUPER hot and humid here (week-long 35C+ heat waves with 80-90% humidity) and my body just can't take it. My place does have a window A/C unit, but I am paying for my own electricity (and cheap, so don't want to run it much) and also too much A/C tends to make my throat hurt. In lieu of A/C at night, I keep the windows open (I have a corner unit, so it's a pretty good cross-draft) but that means the blinds are open over the windows so it's also really light in here. So, I've been waking up very early in the morning as soon as the sun is up.
Overall, though, the upsides of the move outweigh the downsides (I would have been dying in the heat on Nash St as well, and no A/C there!) If I was living in New Haven long term, Howe Street might be the place to be. True, it borders on the dodgy side of town (so far walking home have seen one car accident, one cyclist get hit by a car and two arrests) but the police are very active in patrolling this area and the headquarters of Yale security are here. And yeah, a lot more gymming and working are being done.
Anyway, two more weeks before I head out. I've finally finished data collection (!!!) - it took months longer than I had hoped, but that's research for you. The results are looking interesting. We should definitely be able to get a paper out of this one. There's a slight possibility we could even get two. I've started a new project with Helena too, to do with attentional bias to infant faces in parents. We've got it off the ground, and she will do the data collection while I will do the analysis from wherever I happen to be. It's been an interesting and fairly productive year, and to be honest it's also been a complete holiday. Being away from Guelph = no sitting through a million talks about rats (I've been to an equivalent number of talks, but on much more interesting topics), no students constantly wanting something, and no time being taken up by annoying departmental things. I just do my work quietly and then go home. This must be what having a sabbatical is like! Love it.
I had sort of planned to do some travel around the US with my last few weeks, but that was before Rebecca had to go home because of her mom's illness. I still could go by myself, of course, but summer is always tight money-wise, so am thinking maybe it's best just to sit tight unless something interesting comes up, and save my money for the UK trip in two weeks.
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Reflections on a Pizza-Cone
Hmmmm. Just was looking through old photos of me on Facebook (sometimes I do this and wonder what someone who didn't know me would gather just based on these photos... which is less self-obsessed than it sounds because sometimes I do go through the photos of relative strangers and see what I can figure out about them. Oh social networking, life is so much easier now that I don't have to just casually peer through windows while out for a walk when I am curious about the lives of others).
Anyway, long asides aside, I saw the set of photos posted almost exactly a year ago, after I went to New York for the first time. In fact, I saw a picture of us with pizza cones, and only last weekend I saw that exact same shop (now closed, boo) because Helena and I hopped into the city on the weekend to check out the charity shops. And that is so weird. A year ago I spent 18 hours total in a car on a three-day weekend to head into NYC, and I had NO IDEA that 365 days later I could casually jump on a train and for 1.5 hours and $14 each way go to the city whenever I wanted. Amazing. Makes me wonder what this time next year will look like - barring disaster, it's not inconceivable that I could be finishing/finished and...??? Stuck in Guelph, off on a awesome postdoc, scampering off to Oxford? Who knows. Should be interesting to find out, though.
It also occurs to me that is it difficult to overstate how much happier I am this year. It's pretty tangible: 8 blog posts for all of 2010?! Yeah, that was not a good year. Couldn't even bring myself to write about it. Stuck in Guelph, very few people who genuinely cared about me in town, Ph.D. projects going incredibly slowly, being constantly abandoned by Guelph-based "friends"... awesome. Obviously nothing earthshattering or tragic, but it's pretty excellent to be living somewhere I enjoy (except for the stupid pollution - I have conjunctivitis to rival London, yuck. No contact lenses for me) and having ACTUAL care-about-me awesome friends, and fun work... it's amazing.
Yep, am really having a great time at work these days. Sad but true, Helena and I both spent the entire weekend in the lab (well, 1pm-6 or 7pm, anyway, both days). Got a couple of projects I'm keen to get moving, and some EEG data to analyze, and since both experiment design and data analysis are my idea of fun, had a pretty great weekend. Sad, but I gotta own my nerdiness since it sure ain't going away.
Anyway, long asides aside, I saw the set of photos posted almost exactly a year ago, after I went to New York for the first time. In fact, I saw a picture of us with pizza cones, and only last weekend I saw that exact same shop (now closed, boo) because Helena and I hopped into the city on the weekend to check out the charity shops. And that is so weird. A year ago I spent 18 hours total in a car on a three-day weekend to head into NYC, and I had NO IDEA that 365 days later I could casually jump on a train and for 1.5 hours and $14 each way go to the city whenever I wanted. Amazing. Makes me wonder what this time next year will look like - barring disaster, it's not inconceivable that I could be finishing/finished and...??? Stuck in Guelph, off on a awesome postdoc, scampering off to Oxford? Who knows. Should be interesting to find out, though.
It also occurs to me that is it difficult to overstate how much happier I am this year. It's pretty tangible: 8 blog posts for all of 2010?! Yeah, that was not a good year. Couldn't even bring myself to write about it. Stuck in Guelph, very few people who genuinely cared about me in town, Ph.D. projects going incredibly slowly, being constantly abandoned by Guelph-based "friends"... awesome. Obviously nothing earthshattering or tragic, but it's pretty excellent to be living somewhere I enjoy (except for the stupid pollution - I have conjunctivitis to rival London, yuck. No contact lenses for me) and having ACTUAL care-about-me awesome friends, and fun work... it's amazing.
Yep, am really having a great time at work these days. Sad but true, Helena and I both spent the entire weekend in the lab (well, 1pm-6 or 7pm, anyway, both days). Got a couple of projects I'm keen to get moving, and some EEG data to analyze, and since both experiment design and data analysis are my idea of fun, had a pretty great weekend. Sad, but I gotta own my nerdiness since it sure ain't going away.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
Asking Americans for Directions
So Helena and I tried to go to the beach today. There is a town called Milford a 10-min train ride from New Haven, which the Yale website advertises as having a beach. Furthermore, the internet told us that there is something called Silver Sands State Park in Milford, and that there are busses to the park from Milford even on weekends and holidays. Perfect! (It's something called Memorial Day long weekend down here... apparently in honour of veterans, although no one could explain to me how this differs from Veterans Day).
So, we hopped on the train, and as promised arrived in Milford in ten minutes. As we got off the train we heard gunshots. Turns out it was the Milford Memorial Day parade, and we all know Americans cannot have a parade without firing off guns as often as possible. We went down to where the parade was on the assumption that it was likely to be the centre of town, and therefore probably a good place to catch a bus.
Parade-watching Americans:
After watching the parade for a while, we asked a nearby woman how to get to the state park.
Woman: "Park?"
Helena: "Yes, there is a State Park in Milford?"
Woman: "Oh, the State Park. You can't walk there."
H: "Yes, ok, but we were told there's a bus...?"
W: "No, it's way too far. If you want water, you can go down to the harbour. Why don't you just go down to the harbour and then you can watch the rich people on their boats!"
Awesome. Very helpful. However, we thought maybe there might be something to see down by the harbour, so we headed down. But all we saw were rich people on their boats (and not even sailing - they had literally pulled lawnchairs up to their boats and were sitting beside their boats, drinking).
Then Helena spotted a Bird Sanctuary sign. Perfect! That would do nicely for a little walk and maybe a nice place to sit. There was a little road going in beside the giant Bird Sanctuary sign, and so we followed it into the trees.
Five minutes later we were looking at houses.
The "bird sanctuary" was about twenty metres deep, with a suburb on the far side.
Huh. America, hey? So, we headed back toward the harbour and stopped at a marina and asked a man sitting there how to find the beach.
Man: "Beach?"
Me: "Yes, we heard there is a beach near here. Maybe at the State Park?"
Man: "Oh, that's too far to walk."
Me: "Yes, THANK YOU, but apparently there is a bus."
Man: "Bus?"
Me: "A bus to the beach?"
Man: "Oh, the SHORE bus."
Me: "Yes! Probably the shore bus."
Man: "I think there is a bus stop somewhere in town." [sends us back exactly the way we came]
So, we trudged back to the centre of town and saw the original woman again. "Oh hi! Did you find the harbour? I could give you a ride to the park, but I won't because then you'd have to hitch-hike back, ha ha! Bye!"
Awesome.
We didn't have a map (mistake!) but Helena remembered roughly the layout of the town and the direction of the park. She said it didn't look too far, and we were assuming that an American idea of "too far to walk" might differ from ours. So we started walking toward the park. It was boiling hot and uphill, and after a while Helena mentioned that on the map she saw, it looked like there were beaches BETWEEN the town centre and the park. So we took a sharp left in the direction they should be and kept walking.
Eventually we came across a man gardening. Helena stopped to ask directions.
H: "Hi, could you tell us how to find the beach?"
Man (strong non-American accent): "Yes, keep going straight for about another half a mile. At the end of this road you'll see the beach, but you have to go between the houses to get to it."
Directions! Actual directions!
Moral of the story: if you need to know how to get somewhere, find a non-American.
So, we thanked him profusely and trudged down the road. We were starting to lose faith when we noticed some reeds and other waterplants behind some of the houses. This seemed promising, but we were starting to think we might never find the elusive beach. And then, as we came around a corner - silver sand! There was a sand-covered path between the houses, as promised, and then a glorious silver beach off in both directions.
So, long story short, we found the beach and it was wonderful.
While sitting on the beach, we noticed that all the boats seemed to be going in one place along the shore, and surmised that this must be the harbour. We walked along the beach in its direction, and then cut through the residential area that abutted the shore. After a short walk, we found - the end of the road we were STANDING ON when we asked the first man how to get to the beach. ARGH.
But never mind. We found the beach! And next time, bus or no bus, we can get there the fast way.
Here is a handy map of our adventures:
Legend:
Red X: Talked to man at marina.
Red line: original path
Star: Talked to helpful non-American man
Smiley: Beach!
Blue line: route back to town
Blue dotted line: backtracked to check what we suspected... that the marina where we talked to the first man was just around the corner.
Please note that we were right beside the state park. Non-walkable, my foot.
So, we hopped on the train, and as promised arrived in Milford in ten minutes. As we got off the train we heard gunshots. Turns out it was the Milford Memorial Day parade, and we all know Americans cannot have a parade without firing off guns as often as possible. We went down to where the parade was on the assumption that it was likely to be the centre of town, and therefore probably a good place to catch a bus.
Parade-watching Americans:
After watching the parade for a while, we asked a nearby woman how to get to the state park.
Woman: "Park?"
Helena: "Yes, there is a State Park in Milford?"
Woman: "Oh, the State Park. You can't walk there."
H: "Yes, ok, but we were told there's a bus...?"
W: "No, it's way too far. If you want water, you can go down to the harbour. Why don't you just go down to the harbour and then you can watch the rich people on their boats!"
Awesome. Very helpful. However, we thought maybe there might be something to see down by the harbour, so we headed down. But all we saw were rich people on their boats (and not even sailing - they had literally pulled lawnchairs up to their boats and were sitting beside their boats, drinking).
Then Helena spotted a Bird Sanctuary sign. Perfect! That would do nicely for a little walk and maybe a nice place to sit. There was a little road going in beside the giant Bird Sanctuary sign, and so we followed it into the trees.
Five minutes later we were looking at houses.
The "bird sanctuary" was about twenty metres deep, with a suburb on the far side.
Huh. America, hey? So, we headed back toward the harbour and stopped at a marina and asked a man sitting there how to find the beach.
Man: "Beach?"
Me: "Yes, we heard there is a beach near here. Maybe at the State Park?"
Man: "Oh, that's too far to walk."
Me: "Yes, THANK YOU, but apparently there is a bus."
Man: "Bus?"
Me: "A bus to the beach?"
Man: "Oh, the SHORE bus."
Me: "Yes! Probably the shore bus."
Man: "I think there is a bus stop somewhere in town." [sends us back exactly the way we came]
So, we trudged back to the centre of town and saw the original woman again. "Oh hi! Did you find the harbour? I could give you a ride to the park, but I won't because then you'd have to hitch-hike back, ha ha! Bye!"
Awesome.
We didn't have a map (mistake!) but Helena remembered roughly the layout of the town and the direction of the park. She said it didn't look too far, and we were assuming that an American idea of "too far to walk" might differ from ours. So we started walking toward the park. It was boiling hot and uphill, and after a while Helena mentioned that on the map she saw, it looked like there were beaches BETWEEN the town centre and the park. So we took a sharp left in the direction they should be and kept walking.
Eventually we came across a man gardening. Helena stopped to ask directions.
H: "Hi, could you tell us how to find the beach?"
Man (strong non-American accent): "Yes, keep going straight for about another half a mile. At the end of this road you'll see the beach, but you have to go between the houses to get to it."
Directions! Actual directions!
Moral of the story: if you need to know how to get somewhere, find a non-American.
So, we thanked him profusely and trudged down the road. We were starting to lose faith when we noticed some reeds and other waterplants behind some of the houses. This seemed promising, but we were starting to think we might never find the elusive beach. And then, as we came around a corner - silver sand! There was a sand-covered path between the houses, as promised, and then a glorious silver beach off in both directions.
So, long story short, we found the beach and it was wonderful.
While sitting on the beach, we noticed that all the boats seemed to be going in one place along the shore, and surmised that this must be the harbour. We walked along the beach in its direction, and then cut through the residential area that abutted the shore. After a short walk, we found - the end of the road we were STANDING ON when we asked the first man how to get to the beach. ARGH.
But never mind. We found the beach! And next time, bus or no bus, we can get there the fast way.
Here is a handy map of our adventures:
Legend:
Red X: Talked to man at marina.
Red line: original path
Star: Talked to helpful non-American man
Smiley: Beach!
Blue line: route back to town
Blue dotted line: backtracked to check what we suspected... that the marina where we talked to the first man was just around the corner.
Please note that we were right beside the state park. Non-walkable, my foot.
Friday, 20 May 2011
Up in the air as usual
Oh my goodness, just checked the family blog and choked on my spaghetti squash. Good lord, dad. And also, naked gardening sounds very uncomfortable.
Also sad to hear about the Slave Lake fire. I donated a bit to the Red Cross 'cause there's not much else I can do. Scary stuff.
Ironically, it's been pouring here for a week. I really wondered if we were going to get floods. I walked home from work yesterday, umbrella in hand, and was soaked to the skin by the time I was halfway home. I think the rain was hitting so hard it was bouncing off the umbrella and drenching me. Even my socks were wet - boots were still waterproof, but the water was leaching down through my jeans. Yikes.
Still no word on my visa, and starting to do the hamster-wheel thing in my head. Can't make summer plans unless I know how long I can stay in the US, but there's nothing I can do about it. Doesn't stop me constantly worrying at the problem, though, and trying to think of some way I can control it. The girl from OISS (Office of International Students and Scholars) has consistently ignored my emails, and now is out for a "family emergency". Her bounceback message referred me to another person in the office. That person has refused point-blank to help me, and said the original girl will sort me out when she gets back. Whenever that is. In the meantime, Del has booked a flight to New York for the end of June, so if I can't get back into the country to meet him I will be mad.
(The deal is: my visa currently ends June 30. I have a conference in Winnipeg June 24-26. I could re-enter as a tourist July 1, but am worried they would be suspicious of someone whose J-1 visa ended the day before and refuse me entry. Or I could come back in the last days of my visa, but again am worried what the customs people would have to say about that. I can extend the visa till July 18, but that would require the cooperation of OISS no-show girl. ARGH.)
Despite all this, I've set up a summer sublet anyway for July and the first bit of August (allowed to stay in the country for 30 days after my visa ends apparently - may as well get some thesis-writing done). It's a studio, small but in a secure building, right beside Helena's building. It's pretty cheap if I take it for only the six weeks and it's very conveniently located. Luckily they didn't want any money up front. In some ways staying at my current place would make more sense, but still grouchy about being left out of the conversation about the new housemate. She has arrived, by the way. She said she'd move in Friday at 4pm, and showed up Saturday night at midnight instead. Scared me half to death, since my housemate had gone to Cape Cod and I was NOT expecting someone to unlock the door at midnight. Good times.
Things otherwise about the same. Still having a jolly old time hanging around the Child Study Centre and feel pretty lucky about the whole thing. (I suppose it's really more of a hobby anyway, since I'm certainly not getting paid!) I analyzed the EEG data from my original experiment, but it looks like we just don't have enough power (there might be effects, but it's hard to see because the data are noisy because we don't have enough participants). Need to run some more people, but having trouble getting them in. However, I've been liasing with the new RA at Guelph, who is running some experiments for me there, and have been developing a new one to run at Yale as well, so one way or another should get some good data this summer. May as well take advantage of working somewhere that encourages productivity - summers in Guelph tend to be just Asma and I hanging around the lab, staring morosely at our computers.
Spring in New Haven is insane - millions of flowers on all the trees and petals everywhere. And pollen. I didn't think I got spring allergies, but I'm allergic to this town. My eyes have been itchy and sore for a month. Sure is pretty though.
Also sad to hear about the Slave Lake fire. I donated a bit to the Red Cross 'cause there's not much else I can do. Scary stuff.
Ironically, it's been pouring here for a week. I really wondered if we were going to get floods. I walked home from work yesterday, umbrella in hand, and was soaked to the skin by the time I was halfway home. I think the rain was hitting so hard it was bouncing off the umbrella and drenching me. Even my socks were wet - boots were still waterproof, but the water was leaching down through my jeans. Yikes.
Still no word on my visa, and starting to do the hamster-wheel thing in my head. Can't make summer plans unless I know how long I can stay in the US, but there's nothing I can do about it. Doesn't stop me constantly worrying at the problem, though, and trying to think of some way I can control it. The girl from OISS (Office of International Students and Scholars) has consistently ignored my emails, and now is out for a "family emergency". Her bounceback message referred me to another person in the office. That person has refused point-blank to help me, and said the original girl will sort me out when she gets back. Whenever that is. In the meantime, Del has booked a flight to New York for the end of June, so if I can't get back into the country to meet him I will be mad.
(The deal is: my visa currently ends June 30. I have a conference in Winnipeg June 24-26. I could re-enter as a tourist July 1, but am worried they would be suspicious of someone whose J-1 visa ended the day before and refuse me entry. Or I could come back in the last days of my visa, but again am worried what the customs people would have to say about that. I can extend the visa till July 18, but that would require the cooperation of OISS no-show girl. ARGH.)
Despite all this, I've set up a summer sublet anyway for July and the first bit of August (allowed to stay in the country for 30 days after my visa ends apparently - may as well get some thesis-writing done). It's a studio, small but in a secure building, right beside Helena's building. It's pretty cheap if I take it for only the six weeks and it's very conveniently located. Luckily they didn't want any money up front. In some ways staying at my current place would make more sense, but still grouchy about being left out of the conversation about the new housemate. She has arrived, by the way. She said she'd move in Friday at 4pm, and showed up Saturday night at midnight instead. Scared me half to death, since my housemate had gone to Cape Cod and I was NOT expecting someone to unlock the door at midnight. Good times.
Things otherwise about the same. Still having a jolly old time hanging around the Child Study Centre and feel pretty lucky about the whole thing. (I suppose it's really more of a hobby anyway, since I'm certainly not getting paid!) I analyzed the EEG data from my original experiment, but it looks like we just don't have enough power (there might be effects, but it's hard to see because the data are noisy because we don't have enough participants). Need to run some more people, but having trouble getting them in. However, I've been liasing with the new RA at Guelph, who is running some experiments for me there, and have been developing a new one to run at Yale as well, so one way or another should get some good data this summer. May as well take advantage of working somewhere that encourages productivity - summers in Guelph tend to be just Asma and I hanging around the lab, staring morosely at our computers.
Spring in New Haven is insane - millions of flowers on all the trees and petals everywhere. And pollen. I didn't think I got spring allergies, but I'm allergic to this town. My eyes have been itchy and sore for a month. Sure is pretty though.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Rodent of Unusual Size
Yikes! Just ran across what I can only imagine is an opossum while walking home. Like a giant white rat with a horrible naked tail. It was scraping through some leaves by the sidewalk. We scared each other and ended up in a standoff, staring at each other with nobody making a move. Finally I moved my foot and it ran off into the bushes.
Okay, just looked them up and the title is a misnomer, as apparently they are marsupials. Weird. And apparently if I had "threatened or harmed" him, he might have "played possum" and secreted a foul-smelling liquid from his anal glands. Awesome.
Learn something new every day.
Okay, just looked them up and the title is a misnomer, as apparently they are marsupials. Weird. And apparently if I had "threatened or harmed" him, he might have "played possum" and secreted a foul-smelling liquid from his anal glands. Awesome.
Learn something new every day.
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