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.

Post Finals

One year down, one to go. Finals were better than expected and my GPA went up .035 (yeah!!).

Bleh

I hate finals.

Disneyland!

Finally something to write about.. I went to Disneyland with my parents, katie, robert, and lauren. Katie had this genius idea of staying at the park until midnight. And of course I was up for it. So, we got into anaheim friday afternoon, hung out, had dinner with the rents then got a good nights sleep for the next day (not!!). Our day started around 7ish when my parents called our room to wake us up. Then it was breakfast and to the park. My dad was at a conference for the day, but katie, my mom, and i went to the park around 8. We did all the good/crowded rides before robert and lauren got there. Then we did all the good rides again... Usually I get my fill of the park quickly, this time though, we did the buzz lightyear ride... a lot. Not just a few times, but really, a lot. Robert got the high score of the day when the ride didnt stop (I got the unofficial high scored cause it stopped in front of a diamond and triangle which are worth lots of points). Then we ate lunch at ESPN Zone, which is fantastic. There was golf and hockey on the tv's. After lunch it was more time at the park. My dad joined us a little later in the day. And of course we took him on the buzz lightyear ride. And after a long/fun day my parents left, and then eventually robert and lauren too. But katie and I were there til midnight. We got on space mountain at 11:55. and were about the last people allowed in line. Needless to say, by the end of the ride and after a short walk to the hotel we both crashed in a matter of minutes. A 16 hour day at Disneyland has been added to my "once is enough" list. (watching all 4 Harry Potter's in one sitting is on the list too)

I think I may adopt robert's policy of once a month posting. It seems to work well.

Quick Recap

Here's the short version of my spring break. I came home last week, hung out with the smart bunch on Friday night. Saturday was golf and dinner at Patrick's. Then it was off to Mammoth with Katie for 4 days. Weather was great, including the storm that left over a foot of powder. I spent all day wednesday finding ungroomed powder runs. Then thursday was spent finding more powder. It was also windy enough to keep the snow remotely fresh all day. On the way home I had a slight mishap and had to buy a new battery for the car. Now its back to normal. I am off to San Diego to (hopefully) enjoy another quarter. And I did pass calc with a C last quarter. Yay for no more calculus!!