every time i've moved to a new city, i am reminded of how difficult it can be to make new friends. friends of the sort that you'll want to keep around forever.
i had a lunch date today with two of my fellow psych grad students, both of whom i had a class with last semester. then i ended up in one of those afternoons where you wander around and window-shop and chat, and forget to even think of looking at your watch, and all of a sudden it's past dinner time. oops! seems i have managed to find a few more precious and wonderful like-minded lady friends.
29.1.08
25.1.08
friday afternoon
calculating expected cell frequencies by hand, on the 12th floor of robarts library.
(i.e. reading blogs and intending to work on my stats assignment)
(i.e. reading blogs and intending to work on my stats assignment)
24.1.08
competing perspectives
i am reading a deliciously well-written book about the brain right now. i first really took note of Jeff Hawkins when he lectured at the Congregation of All Neuroscientists in san diego this past fall. at the conference, he discussed the framework outlined in On Intelligence, which I impulse-bought a couple of weeks ago when picking up the text for my research ethics course. in his prologue, he raises several excellent points. among them:
setting up camp on the fringes between disciplines has always appealed to me. serving as a bridge. a hybrid.
... I refused to study the problem of intelligence as others have before me. I believe the best way to solve this problem is to use the detailed biology of the brain as a constraint and as a guide, yet think about intelligence as a computational problem--a position somewhere between biology and computer science. Many biologists tend to reject or ignore the idea of thinking of the brain in computational terms, and computer scientists often don't believe they have anything to learn from biology.
setting up camp on the fringes between disciplines has always appealed to me. serving as a bridge. a hybrid.
23.1.08
yikes
i just came across mention of the company 23andMe on blogTO. if you don't mind swabbing your cheek for a little skin and saliva, they will sequence your genome for the not unreasonable price of $999 USD. so, you can now spend money to figure out whether you have certain versions of certain genes, and whether these certain versions of the genes predispose you to developing certain disorders, cancers, or colours of hair.
interesting. despite my initial shock and trepidation, i can see this pushing the envelope a little further for personalized medicine. once people realize that they can gain access to their genome, the medical community will need to read up and take this information into account when diagnosing and treating.
in the mean time, i'll be interested to hear about the sorts of people who seek out this information just for the sake of it. bring on the genetic interpretation blogs and wikis!
interesting. despite my initial shock and trepidation, i can see this pushing the envelope a little further for personalized medicine. once people realize that they can gain access to their genome, the medical community will need to read up and take this information into account when diagnosing and treating.
in the mean time, i'll be interested to hear about the sorts of people who seek out this information just for the sake of it. bring on the genetic interpretation blogs and wikis!
22.1.08
fresh life
basking in the glow of that 100th post was so delightful that i had to keep on doing it for 5 months. i mean, the Roundness of that number is supremely satisfying. now i will have to quickly work my way up to 200. or 1000.
so... for any loyal family members who still have an honorary slot for me on their blogroll, i am back. i'm no longer in vancouver, but rather sitting in one of my favourite toronto starbucks, in the most hidden corner, watching the snow pound down on the roof of the U of T bookstore. i don't come to this starbucks very much anymore, now that i'm working out of a lab at the scarborough campus. i was thinking earlier this afternoon that i've been coming to this starbucks for almost 4 years. i remember writing the manuscript containing my honours thesis data here in the fall of 2004, sitting across from my (now ex-) boyfriend [ed. note: that paper was subsequently published in april 2006]. i have read textbooks and journal articles here for 4 different courses. i've had coffee with at least 8 of my friends and colleagues. i've had a few moments of inspiration, each of which spurred a jog back down the street to my former lab. i wrote several sections of my Master's thesis here. i attempted to put together the first and second incarnations of a manuscript describing my Master's data here. neither of those were completed, but the third version of this paper was recently submitted [and, unfortunately, rejected on the first round]. i think that i've actually sat at each and every table here, at various points in time.
it's kind of too bad that i've done all of these things in this starbucks and not in an independently owned establishment. i've recently started frequenting a Much Cooler, Independent, Fair-Trade Serving Coffee Place in a different neighbourhood. they serve you coffee at your table, bring you glasses of water without your having to ask, and have shelves full of books lining the walls instead of vaguely ugly wallpaper sent from corporate offices in the states. i like the new coffee place a lot. in fact, i would say that it is my new toronto-location crush. i feel that i shouldn't go there too often, for fear that we might tire of each other early in the relationship. i'm restricting myself to one afternoon a week. perhaps in another four years i'll write a similar post and talk about the inspirations i had and papers i finished while sitting at the little table in the back with the wobbly chair. i'm looking forward to getting to know Much Cooler Coffee Place over the course of my PhD.
yes, i'm well into my PhD in my new lab with my new supervisor in the new department. it has made me so happy to return to a more traditional academic environment, in which all of the grad students regularly convene at seminars and colloquia. i've TA'd for the first time in 3 years, and managed to inspire a couple of undergrads to apply to come and work with me on my science. i took a course about food. i danced in a show. i love my new PhD life here, but appreciate the old Master's one now that it's over.
so... for any loyal family members who still have an honorary slot for me on their blogroll, i am back. i'm no longer in vancouver, but rather sitting in one of my favourite toronto starbucks, in the most hidden corner, watching the snow pound down on the roof of the U of T bookstore. i don't come to this starbucks very much anymore, now that i'm working out of a lab at the scarborough campus. i was thinking earlier this afternoon that i've been coming to this starbucks for almost 4 years. i remember writing the manuscript containing my honours thesis data here in the fall of 2004, sitting across from my (now ex-) boyfriend [ed. note: that paper was subsequently published in april 2006]. i have read textbooks and journal articles here for 4 different courses. i've had coffee with at least 8 of my friends and colleagues. i've had a few moments of inspiration, each of which spurred a jog back down the street to my former lab. i wrote several sections of my Master's thesis here. i attempted to put together the first and second incarnations of a manuscript describing my Master's data here. neither of those were completed, but the third version of this paper was recently submitted [and, unfortunately, rejected on the first round]. i think that i've actually sat at each and every table here, at various points in time.
it's kind of too bad that i've done all of these things in this starbucks and not in an independently owned establishment. i've recently started frequenting a Much Cooler, Independent, Fair-Trade Serving Coffee Place in a different neighbourhood. they serve you coffee at your table, bring you glasses of water without your having to ask, and have shelves full of books lining the walls instead of vaguely ugly wallpaper sent from corporate offices in the states. i like the new coffee place a lot. in fact, i would say that it is my new toronto-location crush. i feel that i shouldn't go there too often, for fear that we might tire of each other early in the relationship. i'm restricting myself to one afternoon a week. perhaps in another four years i'll write a similar post and talk about the inspirations i had and papers i finished while sitting at the little table in the back with the wobbly chair. i'm looking forward to getting to know Much Cooler Coffee Place over the course of my PhD.
yes, i'm well into my PhD in my new lab with my new supervisor in the new department. it has made me so happy to return to a more traditional academic environment, in which all of the grad students regularly convene at seminars and colloquia. i've TA'd for the first time in 3 years, and managed to inspire a couple of undergrads to apply to come and work with me on my science. i took a course about food. i danced in a show. i love my new PhD life here, but appreciate the old Master's one now that it's over.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)