School Update

So here's how my quarter is looking. I have adolescent literature. Basically I read young adult books and then have essay quizzes on them and I have to write a couple lit research papers. It's an okay class. The lectures are very disorganized and hard to take notes on, but other than that its fine. Then I have a psych elective about eating disorders. So far I'm not a huge fan. The lectures are so-so and she doesn't post slides, and there's no book. So if you miss a lecture you're screwed. And what kind of quarter would it be if I didn't have some neuro class. My clinical neuropsychology and assessment class is neutral. The prof is really good, but so far all the material has been review from my other 3 neuro classes. It should get better. I have 3 more weeks of hockey left... maybe a few more if we make playoffs.

Food Comology

Some of you might know that I don't cook much down here. However, Sunday's I'm usually fed a large, tasty meal at my aunt's house. Just about every Sunday I leave her house with some food for weeknight dinners and a food coma of some degree. Last weekend I ended up with an unusual food coma. So, because I'm a nerd, this is what I've come up with:

There are 3 types of food comas. (And I have experienced them all.) Here's my definition of a food coma- after eating, you feel like doing nothing but sitting/sleeping off the meal you just finished. In one word, the feeling is something along the lines of "uuugghh."

1. Early Onset Food Coma: This is the kind that hits while you're still eating your meal. You know as a result of finishing the meal that you'll suffer that much more. However, as is usually my case, the food is just too good to let a little fullness stop you from finishing. The main reason this type is separate from (2) is that it occurs before the meal is over. Dessert is included as the "meal" if it is being served.

2. Standard Food Coma: This has to be the most common of the three types. Basically, you eat the meal and sometime shortly after finishing the meal (usually less the 30 minutes and frequently within 5 minutes of finishing) you reach food coma state.

3. Late Onset Food Coma: I experienced this for the first time last weekend. This type refers to finishing a meal and feeling fine, continuing about the night, and then wham! It hits you. You feel like the meal is digested and is in the past, and then the food coma sneaks up on you. (My example- I ate dinner and had a brownie, then I watched a little basketball and an episode of Grey's, then on my drive home I regretted have that extra meatball and spoonful of mashed potatoes.)

So that's that.

It's Winter

I haven't given up on this. I was just lazy last quarter. However, so much has happened since my last post. I'm sure most of you know I'm playing hockey on the UCSD ice hockey team. That was most of my life outside of school last quarter and its quite fun (and sometimes painful too). My roommates are also great, which has made being at the house that much more enjoyable. I also turned 22 since my last post.

My Christmas break has been lots of fun so far. I've seen my family, gone out with friends... a lot, had some wine, had some more wine... that's been most of it. One highlight had to be the record-setting 13 hours of my life. Rachel and I successfully, meaning neither of us fell asleep, watch all 5 Harry Potter's in a row. We started around 3pm and finished close to 4am. According to IMDB it's 749 minutes for all five. There was only one brief food break too. Becca joined us for the third movie. Everyone else missed out. We even had a had a drinking theme (that we didnt drink to) for each movie.

The January Mammoth trip was also a good one this year. Though it ended up being just Katie and I who went, we had a great time. The drive up was good, and the first 2 days on the mountain were nice, even though the snow kinda sucked. But then Thursday night the blizzard rolled in. So, we had to put chains on in heavy snow (we tried the night before but it failed) and then we drove to the mountain to get some powder runs in. It was crazy up there. It was a blizzard for sure.. white out conditions with most of the mountain closed. On the drive home we were escorted down sherwin grade by a CHP and had the chains on until about 10-15 min before Bishop. Thankfully 395 wasn't closed. And when the snow stopped, it was rainy/windy the rest of the drive. It was fun.

It's like a Drug...

Hockey. Lately I've been going through hockey withdrawal. UCSD hockey tryouts are Oct 2nd. Lets hope I get a little bit of ice time between now and then. (I also suffer from snow withdrawal.)

In the Lab

So here's what I have actually been doing all summer: Cognitive Neuroscience!! The first week was boring as hell, but its gotten better since. I worked with rats everyday until monday (they died for science). We did a maternal deprivation study, where we filmed the pups and dam (mother rat) interaction and maternal behavior following periods of pup/dam isolations. I filmed, defined behavior, scored the behavior on a computer, interpreted, graphed, found significance... for all the mother and 8 pups. Then we did some odor habituation tests on the pups over the next couple days. Odor habituation is learning. We compared the maternal deprivation, sham, and HI (brain damaged) data and found significance. Yay!! That's basically what I have been up to this summer.

What Work

I watch videos of rats and record certain behaviors all day (except for lunch). Exciting...

Neuro-what?!

I've just spent the past 2 weeks in Novato visiting friends. This was my summer vacation. It consisted of golf, drinking, golf, a pool party, games, poker, watching movies, the gnome dance!! and watching fireworks from a boat on the bay on the 4th. And sleep. On Monday the work part of my summer will begin. I got the research position at USC. I will start out doing neurobehavioral analysis and progress to an animal model of maternal deprivation for neonates. (sounds pretty cool) Anyways, once that gets started hopefully I can post some cooler stuff. Until then.. its flippin hot here.