EPSP Generator

Off the Wall: One Energetic Ember

2012-02-18T19:52:00.000-06:00

This is going to be a two part post. Much like a recent Cell paper I read, I will talk about what the title of this post alludes to first, but only for a little bit. Then I will suddenly switch gears and completely ignore the title and talk about something else with little or no warning. (For anyone who is curious, this is the paper to which I am referring).

Recently I gave into my childhood instincts, and I adopted a cat from a shelter in Portland. Her name is Ember, and she is a 1 and 1/2 year old black and white medium hair cat. She was found as a stray and taken in by a family who had too many cats and brought her to the shelter.

This picture was taken when she was still feeling a little sick, and so she looks much smaller than she currently is. Wait, she was sick? Let me back up the story. Imagine me, lifelong cat owner, at a shelter of cats. First question, how do I keep from adopting them all? Oh right, I am in graduate school. Okay, second question, how do you choose a cat from a shelter? If you think you can make a rational decision based on a matching of personalities, then forget about it. Or, as a New Yorker would say, "fahgettaboudit!!" Tangentially, Portlanders have no equivalent saying, mostly because Portlanders are too nice to tell people to forget about something, fearing that they may later regret that decision.

So when I got Ember, her name was Spark. However, her personality did not match her name, in any way. Imagine a spark. Shocking, isn't it? Loud, sometimes painful, and most of all rapid. However, Ember was as mellow as could be. I could plop her on my lap and she'd just sit there and pur. I thought this was the perfect cat for me, since she wouldn't tear apart my 450 sq ft. apartment, and probably also wouldn't mind being alone for most of the day.

A few days after getting her I saw her sneeze for the first time rather violently. A few days after that her eating grew less and less regular. Then the eyes and nose started to fill with a gunky liquid, and she started having to breathe through her mouth. Around this time I brought her to the vet. Then a few days later I brought her to another vet because she looked worse off. Then I brought her back a few days later yet again. Finally, after five different treatment plans (two different anti-biotics and three different forms of drug administration), one dose of an appetite stimulant, subcutaneous fluid injection, and lots of snot wiping, she started to get better. Then everything changed.

Turns out that when a cat is sick, like a human, they are lethargic and display abnormal personality traits (or simply a lack thereof). After weeks of getting Ember better, she was. And now, instead of resembling the Ember I had named her after in personality, she went back to the Spark.

What does 2 AM mean to you? Does it mean sleeping and comfy dreaming? If so, you are not Ember. To her, 2 AM is synonymous with track team tryouts. As she sprints around my apartment at 100 mph, leaps and bounds across my bed, playfully bites my arm, walks on my head, and meows for more food, I cannot help but wonder what happened to that sweet, sleepy cat I had seen at the shelter. When she looks like this:

It means that your fingers are about to get pounced upon. Interestingly, you can time the pounce precisely because her pupils will generally dilate evern further to Puss in Boots size.

No Joke.

She can play with a piece of string for hours. She loves ferociously attacks a poof ball that resembles a bird. And if my windows were not made of glass, she would already lept out of my apartment in a futile attempt to get lunch from the nearby tree. Yet when she pounces on your hand she only rarely play bites, usually she only gets freaked out that she actually caught you, and will start licking your hand. Also, her claws are never out. I have only once every been scratched by Ember so far, and it was when I was trying to pill her. Giving a cat a pill, as any cat owner will tell you, is a herculean effort, especially to a female cat, who tend to be less inclined to being handled than their male counterparts.

Sigh... Cats...

So remember when you were a kid? What did you want to be? (This is where I abruptly shift gears in the post). I wanted to be a psychologist (after wanting to be an astronaut, a astrophysicist, and then the person who says "T-Minus 10...9" at shuttle launches). In hind sight, all my future dreams had a common theme, science. In fact, I remember once in 5th grade, we were making a model of a river and its delta using sand and water. I was going about it very intently and precisely, and I recall my classmates mocking me by saying "what, are you going to be a scientist when you grow up?" Yes, childhood bullies, I am.

The point is, while I am in graduate school to become a scientist, my profession frequently gets confused with two other professions, namely neurosurgery and neurology. In order to explain what I do, let me use the following anecdotal metaphor.

Let's say there is this friend of yours, Tom Cruise. Tom goes to the doctor because he has a massive headache. He's noticed that his vision is sometimes blurry, sometimes he sees vivid hallucinations, and he's had a sudden change in personality (not related to Xenu). The doctor realizes the problem might require a specialist, and as such sends Tom over to Neurology. Here, in neurology, the doctor (M.D. or M.D./PhD) takes a brain scan and discovers that Tom has a brain tumor. The doctor decides that the best course of treatment is to attempt to remove the tumor surgically. So Tom wanders over to the neurosurgeon (M.D.) who, after consulting with the neurologist, determines what kind of surgery to do, where to operate, and how best to avoid neurological damage. The surgery is a complete success! Yay! Tom starts to recover, the tumor is bengin, and all is good. He goes to some physical therapy sessions and pretty soon is himself again, making impossible movies and saying factually incorrect statements about mental health.

But wait, where does my profession fit in? Well you see, we have done all the foundational work that led to the neurologist knowing how to do a brain scan, how to interpret the results, and how to diagnose the disease. Neuroscientists (PhD or M.D./PhD or M.S.) researched the neurological impact of tumors that led to the initial worry of the primary care doctor in recognizing the symptoms. And we are currently researching therapies that will make the job of the neurosurgeon either unnecessary, or at least much less invasive and complicated. We are developing imaging techniques that will allow doctors to differentiate a malignant from a bengin tumor without the need for a biopsy (in the case of, say, breast cancer). What's more, neuroscientists are investigating the neurological cause of chronic pathologies like substance abuse, parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and huntington's (among so many others). Furthermore, if you step out of the medical realm, neuroscientists are interested in understanding how the brain works. What is memory? How, precisely, are motor actions encoded and planned? How do neurons encode thought and transmit sensation? And even the ultimate question, what is consciousness?

Will we answer all these questions and more in this century? Maybe, but I'm not putting money on it.

Then again, I'm generally not a betting man.

Life: A Novella

2011-11-06T19:40:00.004-06:00

I seem to be going in spurts of blogging, followed by phases of distraction and neglect. In fact, since my last blog I have done many interesting and exciting things such as:

Moving clear across the US
Spending a full month at my family cabin in Canada
Starting a Neuroscience PhD graduate program in Portland, Oregon
Gone hiking and biking all around my new home
Visited home and went to the MN State Fair where I ate more food than one person should be able to legally consume (I hope that statement doesn't piss off too many Tea Party-ers reading this blog)
Met tons of new friends and strengthened bonds with old friends while exploring Portland
(Almost) got a cat - but I will soon! When I get back from Christmas break
Have been learning how to live in an apartment by myself
Have also learned more about Neuroscience than I thought there was to learn, and have also learned that there is so much left to learn that there is no way my generation, or the next, or probably even the next, will be able to claim a full understand of how the brain truly works.

Alright, that's enough list making! As you can see though, I've clearly been busy and not had the time to sit down and blog about my life. However, this is somewhat ironic since it is also that business which leads to interesting blog posts. No one would want to read about how I say around all day, watched football and ate guacamole and chips (which may have been my day today, though I DID also clean my clothes and run some experiments in lab).

Me conquering a hike around Mt. Hood

Alright, now I am going to describe a bit what my life has been like these past few months while in graduate school.

I am currently rotating in a super awesome lab. Not only awesome scientifically, seeing as how my PI (principle investigator) is very established and doing really interesting work in a field of neuroscience where he is recognized as one of the true scientific "giants". Not the Andre type, but the Watson and Crick type (though maybe not quite as famously well known). The lab is also super awesome socially. I know, "what?! It's a science lab!" Yes, it is. But it is a cool science lab. It is a lab where after performing two successful experiments on my first day I was incentivized with promise of a Mirror Pond (an awesome local Portland beer made by Deschutes brewery) to perform a third. Of course, with beer on the line I quickly repeated my experiment a third time and promptly was handed some hoppy happy.

I've been in this lab for about three months now (whoa!) and I my project continues to be interesting, mostly because it is very challenging. Some days I can perform three or four or even five successful experiments. On those days I leave feeling like I just scored thirty points in the Super Bowl. But then some days I cannot even get ONE experiment to work! Arrrggggg. On those days I want to quit graduate school. Not really, I actually just want to keep trying harder and harder to get something done that day.

Hilariously, BOTH situations lead to me staying really late at lab, since on good days I want to keep rolling, but on bad days I want to keep trying. On average I am in the lab at least 10 hours a day, sometimes I stretch that though on until 12 or 13 hours. That may sound terrible, but I love it. I love science, and it boggles my mind that not everyone loves this. It's not even the excitement of "discovery" or "the unknown," or whatever other platitudes one frequently hears, that drive me. Oh no, for me science is about precision, careful thought, interesting questions and academic arguments. I love getting into the lab, sitting down and making something happen, asking a question and trying to answer that question myself using the tools at my disposal (which in this lab are powerful and numerous). I love learning, and I love knowing even more.

However, I am not a total lab geek who can't bring himself to be exposed to the elements. One of the reasons I chose to come to Portland (besides the amazing Neuroscience program at OHSU) was that I knew it would encourage me to get outside, enjoy the city and enjoy nature. And was I ever right! First of all, I live in a superb neighborhood called the Alphabet District. From my building I can walk less than a mile to not one, not two, not even just three but four different brewery restaurants. Two very hopping streets are in my neighborhood, called 21st and 23rd (or trendy-first and trendy-third). These streets offer so many different pubs with great happy hour prices, as well as shops and restaurants with fantastic items to offer. One of my favorites, NW Public House, is an old house that has been converted into a restaurant. On the top floor they have some 15 TVs for watching sports. It's not a dive, but it's also not uptight. It just feels comfortable to hang out there.

Also I have been very outdoorsy since moving here. It helps that the weather has been amazing these past few months, which I gather is not the standard operating procedure for Portland. But I have been on many long bike rides out of the city, as well as hikes through the many large and verdant parks that are within a short walking distance of my apartment. The largest US park contained within a major city's limits is in Portland and is called, quite appropriately, Forest Park. It is basically just a forest surrounded by the city. It elevates up some five of six hundred feet above the city and is covered with trees and hiking trails. There is also Washington Park which offers an "International Rose Test Garden" where they have people who plant and cultivate award winning roses. The city is, after all, called the Rose City. There's hipsters and occupiers, runners and bikers, museums and concert halls. Basically, I am really glad that I came to school here. Oh, and yeah I love my graduate program so far.

Portland!!

Alright, sorry that this post has been a hundred years long. I hope you guys got through it all!! Maybe if I can update more often I can also update with less information! What do you think?

Paul

Not to make this post a complete novel, here are some pictures:

Margaret Falls in BC, Canada

The stream that comes from Margaret Falls

A turkey vulture at the Oregon Audobon Society

A postcard-worthy picture of Mt. Hood

This is a picture I took on a laser-scanning confocal microscope of a brain slice I made. It shows two cells that I recorded electrical activity from while the cells were still alive (in red) as well many other brain cells in a region of the brain called the substania nigra pars compacta.

(Why Do?) I Just Keep Moving

2011-05-30T13:54:00.000-06:00

While walking around today, a thought occurred to me. In a few weeks when I leave the friendly confines of DC for my adventurous trip out west, it will be the 10th house move I have made in the past 6 years (since starting at Grinnell). That includes my trip to Spain, my summer house in Grinnell between my junior and senior year, and my move here in DC from Bethesda to Rockville. In addition to, of course, all the moves I made around campus year after year between dorms.

I was thinking about this, because I have started really packing again, and this feeling is all too familiar. I know which boxes and bins best hold which of my items. I know where the posters go and how I should pack my clothes. I know the timeline for moving out, and therefore what I can leave to do last so that my room still feels like a room for as long as possible. I know all of this, and I really don't want to. I don't particularly enjoy being a modern nomad of the species student perpetualense. But, hopefully this will be a more permanent move for me. I really hope that the first apartment I get in Portland will be a real keeper! We'll see though. I still don't have a definite place, but hopefully in June when I am at home I'll be able to hammer that situation down.

Even though most of my posts recently have been about my future life, I still and presently living in DC! And I don't meant to slight DC by focusing only on what is coming after I leave here. Last weekend I went down to the seafood market that is down there on the Potomac waterfront. It was really authentic and definitely smelled like a fish market, but it wasn't as big as I was expecting it to be. Of course, the main event was the showcase of crab, which is what the area is known for. According to this website, of the total US harvest of crab, one third of it comes from the Chesapeake Bay. Also, there are approximately 418 MILLION crabs living in The Bay. That is greater than the population of the US by many millions. Just look at these little guys! There are just piles and piles of them around the seafood market, all basically the same.

But of course there wasn't only crab. There was also eel, all sorts of fish, shrimp, and even some shark! I thought it was illegal to catch and sell shark, but apparently not. After wandering around the market for a while, my friends and I went over to a restaurant and got some crabcakes, which were as good as you'd expect them to be given where we were eating. We were enticed to this restaurant with the promise of a seafood buffet, our expectations turned out to be too high for this place. Had we known that the buffet would cost twice as much as advertised on the web, we probably would have just bought some crab from a stand and had them steam it for us on the spot. Oh right, I don't think I mentioned the other interesting point centering around all this. The crabs are all still very much alive. I took a video with my phone to display this point since pictures are not the best at capturing movement.

Well, I think that is all for now. I am going to go back to watching the Twins (hopefully) beat the Tigers while slowly packing up my room. Happy Memorial Day everyone.

Paul

Logistics

2011-05-08T19:42:00.002-06:00

I could use some UPS right about now. Not because I need to ship things, or because I need a guy to draw on a white board with a brown marker. No, I need logistics. Logistics should be able to help me ship books and winter clothes from here to Portland. And help me pack the rest of my items and drive to Minnesota with my Dad. And sell all the furniture I can't bring back with me. Then, finally, I am going to have to ship the rest of my stuff from Minnesota to Portland. Let me take this moment to recommend that if you, dearest reader, ever think of moving clear across the country, you seriously reconsider the motivating force behind that move. Anyhow, since the motivating force behind my move was stronger than the inconvenience, I am consequently moving myself and my stuff two thousand and eight hundred (2,800) miles. Otherwise known as fourteen million, seven hundred and eighty four thousand (14,784,000) feet. Otherwise known as really really far!

So far, I have packed one box!!

Which means, there are just a few things left to pack!!

Oh right, it really means that there is a TON of stuff left to pack. Ugh. Maybe I could adopt the newest hipster trend of minimalism and sell all my worldly possessions in exchange for a feeling of inner peace. Which can apparently only be acquired through capitalism.

Anyhow. As we know, logistics also means a lot of planning. So, I have done my fair share of that already. Here, in list form, are my future plans.

June 9th: Start driving across the country with my Dad
June 11th: Hopefully arrive in Stillwater, Minnesota
June 26th: Fly to Seattle
June 25th - June 28th: Either drive to Portland (also known as the Rose City, or PDX) in order to seal the apartment deal, or hang out with Grinnell friends in the Seattle area
June 29th - July 28th: Relax at the cabin (this is going to be the best)
July 29th: Drive south
August 1st: Arrive in PDX and start my new life as a graduate student at OHSU! :-D

Of course, I will try to keep everyone updated as time starts to progress through this written series of events. I hope everything will go smoothly, and with some luck it will all go along smoothly!

What else... what else is going on today?... Oh right! Happy Mother's Day to all the fantastic Mothers out there! I love you, Mom!

:-)

Paul

5 Weeks Left?!

2011-04-23T15:47:00.000-06:00

It is hard to believe, but there are only 5 weeks left of my tenure at the NIH. At this time, I am starting to look evermore forward toward my new life in Portland. With this topic of conversation comes the constant recommendation from my friends that I model my future behavior off of the TV show Portlandia. While I already portray many of the symptoms of excessive liberalism (plaid shorts, bamboo t-shirts, bike commuting, liberal political beliefs), I would be considered a neocon among liberal Portlanders.* With this in my mind, I am going to ask for the following items for my birthday:

Organic air for breathing purposes
Fixed gear bike made in USA and ridden to my house so as to reduce carbon emissions from transit
Skinny jeans made from organic locally grown cotton
Paper-free books
Electric motor for my new car (thanks again, Nini!)
Nothing else because I am going to live a minimalist lifestyle which is more sustainable and more environmentally friendly.

* - Probably not really true

Of course, I am mostly kidding with all this. However, as they say (I don't know who exactly, so I'll just say that "they" say it), the best lies are based on a seed of truth.

There is one thing that I am not super pumped about, though. And for help explaining this, let me turn to a handy-dandy Google map of the area I want to live.

View Area of Portland for Paul in a larger map

See that line around where I want to live? Well, I am pretty stoked about that whole area in general. It has easy access to OHSU, it is relatively hopping and cool, and it has easy access to downtown shops, restaurants and bars. Woohoo!! Then this sequence of internal dialogue happened "Oh but WAIT. What is that place that is flagged on the map? Oh my goodness, is that baseball field?!?! YES!! There must be a minor league affiliate team in Portland! That is so great! I love MiLB games!" So then I went to wikipedia to look up this team. And this is what followed (in my head) "the Portland Beavers? Hilarious! That is so great. I cannot wait. *scroll down on the page* Wait, what is this? 'Hunt for new stadium and team sale 2009-2010?' NOOOOOOOOO."

They even used to be a minor league affiliate of the Twins! UGH. So now, instead of a minor league team, Portland is renovating that ball park for their soccer team, the Portland Timbers, which were recently promoted to Major League Soccer. I guess that is kinda cool. But come on, even minor league baseball is vastly superior ot major league soccer. Soccer in the U.S. is an utter joke. It's as exciting as watching a team of sloths who are watching paint dry. Oh well. I will undoubtedly go to a few games, change my attitude entirely, and become an avid Timbers fan. For now though, I am pissed I won't get to see minor league baseball games, which contribute such great things to the world as monkey cowboys.

Speaking of baseball, I recently went to a Twins game in Baltimore. It was fun!! I had never been to a Twins game in enemy territory before. It was kinda funny to be yelled at and heckled and asked "where are all these Twins fans coming from?!" :-) Plus, it was really nice when the Twins won. Hopefully now they will stop having the worst offense in baseball (as determined by total runs scored) and will turn things around for the better. Also, the players need to stop making out with each other so much. Recently Joe Mauer went down with the flu, followed promptly by Justin Morneau and Delmon Young. Seriously guys? Come on.

Lastly I leave you with a picture taken at the Twins game at Camden Yards on my brand spankin' new iPhone 4.

A new kind of post

2011-04-10T20:02:00.000-06:00

Well, these past few weeks of interviews gave me a very convenient topic to write about on this blog, however that is all over now! Which means I need to take a new tactic in writing this blog so that it might survive. I am now going to attempt what I like to call "a smattering of things that happen throughout my week or that occur to me that I think are at least mildly entertaining" or asotthtmworctomtItaalme for short.

This was a rather exciting week at work. First of all, we had a pipe burst in the lab that is partially above ours (a fish lab), though mostly above the lab next to ours. This meant a lot of work cleaning out a freezer that broke, mopping up water spills, and trying to offer a lending hand to the unfortunate lab that got totally drenched with water.

Then we got to deal with thinking non-stop about the budget shutdown and how it was going to affect our experiments. I was deemed "non-essential" which would have meant that I'd have been furloughed should the government have shut down (imagine trying to be a non-native English speaker and writing that sentence, oof-da!) We had an official meeting to discuss the situation, as well as email after email from various bosses such as Kathleen Sebelius (HHS secretary), Francis Collins (NIH director), and other NIAAA-specific people. It got really confusing after a while as to whether I was supposed to come in Monday morning to be officially furloughed, whether or not I'd get paid, or if I could even think about work. We wouldn't have been allowed to check our emails, and people with government PDAs would have had to leave them at work, powered down and untouched. While it would have been exciting to see all this play out and get caught up in the drama at Capitol Hill, I was rather relieved that congress finally got their act together and agreed on something.

Other interesting things going on in my life:

I was just sick. It was not fun.
I just finished watching The Wire, which is possibly the best TV show produced in the last history of ever.
In a similar vein, I also just finished reading one of the best fantasy novel series I've read since Lord of the Rings, seriously. It is called The Kingkiller Chronicle and is written by Patrick Rothfuss. It is SOOO GOOOD!!
Currently I am watching a TV series with my housemates called Battlestar Gallactica. It cannot really be called quality television, but it is still strangely addicting and fun to watch. Not quite sci-fi, but also not complete drama, the show manages to span both these genres remarkably well, bringing the best of sci-fi to a more mainstream audience. Also, the show had some consulting help from a scientist who worked at NASA for a while and know about space, and who gave them some great advice on how to make everything seem more real than other sci-fi shows. So all that put together makes for a fun and very entertaining show.

Well. I don't have any pictures this week, since nothing was really picture worthy. I guess next time I blog it should probably be more about OHSU and the big move I am going to have to orchestrate from here in DC out to Portland, Oregon. More on that next time!

Paul

IT'S DONE!!

2011-03-21T19:31:00.003-06:00

At some point last night (specifically after my dad called to see how I was doing) I realized something. This decision shouldn't be stressful! Sure, if I could I would go to every school that I got in at. Or I would pick and choose the best aspects of all programs to make an über program. But, really, this is a fortunate, fantastic and fun decision that I get to make. I don't have to make any decision, I get to make one!! So then after coming to this realization, I knew where I wanted to go.

I am going to be eating organic, free range chicken and drinking beer brewed from locally grown hops in Portland, Oregon next year while attending OHSU for my PhD in Neuroscience! Woohoo!! I am so excited!!!!

(it's the happiest image I could think of off-hand)

More to follow later....

The Final Round!

2011-03-17T20:10:00.001-06:00

MIT

The famous MIT dome. For those observant folks, you may have noticed something wrapped around the dome itself. Yes, it is a giant Ring of Power with elvish writing on it and everything. Not only are MIT students very motivated and hardworking, they are also quite nerdy.

For this final interview, I actually forgot my camera, so all the following pictures were taken from the internet where hundreds of people have already taken more pictures of the MIT campus than I ever could have (and better ones at that!) For example, these next two pictures are of the building I'd work in at MIT if I were to go there (building 46).

This one below here is the atrium where I spent all day last Friday learning about MIT, eating catered food, talking with professors and generally enjoying myself.

Actually, my would-be building is directly across the street from this funky and awesome looking building called the stata center, which was designed by Frank Gehry. This means I'd get to walk by that every day! Maybe a curse as much as a blessing... I bet once the novelty of the interesting shapes wore off it'd just be another building that would look vaguely like it was about to fall over.

Anyhow, enough with the photos I didn't take! Those aren't why anyone is reading this blog post, right? You're probably wondering about the Neuroscience program that I interviewed at! Well, so I am. I am wondering whether it'd be the right fit for me. Even though I interviewed, and I got a good enough feel for the program to realize that I'd like it there, I still don't know for sure whether or not I'd benefit most from going there, or to OHSU (update: those are the two schools I am still seriously considering attending). But I am getting way ahead of myself.

Let's begin with describing the program itself. The MIT Brain and Cognitive Science program is rather unique among programs I have applied to because it includes "cognitive sciences." This means that the BCS program incorporates psychology and neuroscience together, which opens up lots of different labs for me to possibly join. Also, MIT has a new molecular and cellular neuroscience (MCN) program that would allow me to join neuroscience labs in the biology and even the chemistry departments. This is because recently they realized that their cellular neuroscience was not as strong as their systems and cognitive neuroscience, so they have recently taken steps to fortify that area of the program. However, it means that either I would work in an extremely large lab of a nobel laureate, or the lab or a brand spakin' new hire. Both these options have advantages and disadvantages, but neither is really the ideal situation. Also, some of the students griped about the cellular neuroscience, complaining that it was the weakness of the program. Therefore, while cool, the influence of the BCS program does not ideally match my current interests. Though one's interests can evolve, and for systems neuroscience MIT is arguably the best.

The program also, apparently, doesn't have very good classes (according to the students). However, as a student in the BCS, I could take courses in the biology program, in almost any other program at MIT, or even from the neuroscience program at Harvard. This brings me to another great benefit of MIT, which is that there are tons of schools in the immediate area (BC, BU, MIT, Harvard, Brandeis, Tufts...), so there are always great speakers coming to the area to give talks and visit. Also, it means I would have a wealth of instant connections at my disposal.

The students at MIT are intelligent and extremely motivated, and I felt I could get along with them well (especially a good friend of mince from Granada who's in the Biology program!!) The area is nice (Cambridge, MA - home to the Car Talk guys), but extremely expensive to live in (a 1br costs around 1400, +/- 200 depending on location). However, it is very much an urban location, with terrible traffic and long distances to travel before getting into the wilderness. This is a downside for me since I love being in the outdoors, biking, hiking and seeing trees all the time (lots of trees).

Lastly, MIT overall is a place I want to be. There is so much cool technology and innovation going on there, I would love to just wander around the campus all the time. We toured the Media Lab, which seemed more like a play house than a place of work. Also, there is a nuclear reactor on campus! What!

(MIT nuclear reactor)

Every building at MIT has something cool and distinctive about it. The students are all interested in nerdy endeavors (I'd probably feel the most like a "jock" I ever have at MIT, even more than I did at Grinnell). Also, Boston is right across the river, which, surprisingly, is a city (like, a real city) that I don't think I'd mind living in. As long as I could stomach the rent.

So all in all, the program is good but not an ideal match. I like the school as a whole, and definitely would benefit career-wise from going there. However, I think I would benefit the most by doing a post-doc there. I am not 100% convinced that it is the place for me to obtain graduate training. A PI told me recently that graduate school is where you learn to be a scientist, and your post-doc is where you get recognized for your science (and where you make connections for getting a job). Of course, MIT would be really good at teaching me to be a scientist, but I don't think it'd be so much better than other schools. And I think I'd be very stressed and pressured to excel in the BCS program, which is not the lifestyle I am looking for. I think I just talked myself out of going there... we'll see. I am going to sleep on the decision a few more days and see where I am come Sunday. I need to decide by Tuesday (yes, 5 short days from now!) So this weekend expect a post about my decision process. Then sometime next week expect an actual decision post! Oh my goodness!!

much love,

Paul

Round IV - New Haven

2011-02-27T16:30:00.000-06:00

As I sit here in my living room on this ideal Sunday in late February, thoughts of baseball stir in my head. I am wearing my Kevin Slowey jersey that was my birthday present two year ago and am waiting in anticipation for the first spring training game of the season to start. Tonight's game with the Red Sox will feature Pavano pitching about two innings, followed by a multitude of relief pitchers, all vying for the many vacated bullpen spots. None of these thoughts, though, are conducive to pensive reflection on my recent visit to Yale University. However, I will do my best to kick my brain into gear and crank out some analysis.

So, as you know from above, I visited Yale last weekend. As you know, Yale is in New Haven, Connecticut, a city most easily accessed by train. It is a rather interesting environment downtown. On one hand you have a relatively modern looking city, with some tall buildings and restaurants and shops. You also have an element of disrepair and disorder, but it was not as bad as I had been expecting. Then, on the other hand, you have Yale. If you walk around the undergraduate campus it feels as thought you were walking around an old University in England. The buildings all look ancient and wise, as though countless thoughts had permeated the bricks and added a depth of understanding to the building.

The medical school campus was much less interesting, though definitely still beautiful. I didn't take any pictures, because after while I wanted to listen more to facts about the program and marvel less at the architecture. I think it is a fairly safe assumption that one doesn't tend to associate Yale with biological science PhD programs. Those tend to be the purview of large state universities. Yet, Yale has an impressive neuroscience program, with quite a number of impressive researchers on hand.

The program: The program itself, as I just mentioned, is very impressive. Every 5 years, neuroscience programs across the country with an NIH training grant have to reapply for the renewal of that grant. This year Yale just got their renewal and were very proud to get a perfect score, a relatively rare occurrence. -- At the point my friend Josh called and interrupted the post writing -- 40 minutes later... -- So what does it mean to get a perfect score on a grant renewal? Well, it means that other scientists who rated Yale's neuroscience training program think very highly of its abilities to train new scientists. As far as I can tell though, it is only a peer assessment of a program's success, and I don't know how it compares against other programs I am interested in. However, it still speaks very highly to Yale's program.

The researchers: Like I hinted at earlier, Yale has an impressive array of researchers, both new and established. There are people there doing just about everything, and doing it all at a very high level. Yet, the behavioral neuroscience (which is not the forte of the program) is not as interesting to me as at Michigan. The environment seemed very congenial and cooperative, which is really important to me. Especially at a place that hold a reputation like Yale's. It seems to me that big name institutions tend to attract people who are very into themselves, and therefore don't find benefit from collaborating with others. Yet, I didn't get that impression at all from Yale. In fact, the researchers all seemed very nice and friendly with each other.

The students: This was a very positive aspect of the trip for me. I liked the students, and in general found them all to be very fun to talk with. They were engaging, interesting, funny and highly intellectual. This isn't really very different from Michigan or OHSU though (the other two schools currently still in the running). The last parenthetical statement just gave me a great mental image of OHSU, Michigan and Yale as three bobsledders racing each other to the finish line (like in cool runnings).

Other life-related aspects: This is perhaps the largest downside of Yale. New Haven isn't exactly a place that I'd choose to call home for the next six years (or, God forbid, 7 years) of my life. Yale is beautiful, but the city is kinda dingy. There are great restaurant, it is true. But there are also great restaurants in Portland. New Haven is next to impossible to get to from anywhere not easily accessible via Amtrak. However, it is a nice sized city. It definitely didn't feel like a big city atmosphere like Seattle or Chicago. So while there are downsides, they aren't crippling and I imagine I'd be able to get over them and enjoy my time in graduate school.

Overall: I was really impressed by the program and the research. However, unlike OHSU, I didn't leave with a fluttery feeling in my stomach which indicated to me that I was dying to go there. At OHSU I went into my admissions committee interview scared as a bat out of heck that I'd fail it and not be accepted. I still haven't heard from Yale about the admissions decision, but I should be hearing this week. When that happens I might have a sudden burst of emotion! We'll have to see. I'll write a short update post when I know.

Finally, here are some fun anecdotes from the New Haven visit.

In one of the libraries with very old books we saw the original Audubon drawings. This is for those birders in the family (cough Dad cough).

We also went to see Yale play Penn in basketball. I don't want to say it was hilarious, but it was kind of funny that there was only one three-pointer in the whole first half. Yale lost, but only by a few points. It was actually a really exciting game towards the end when Yale almost came back from behind to win it. Apparently Yale played UConn earlier in the season and lost 130-30. Ouch. Possibly the best part of the game though was the pepband. Can you spot the violinist and acoustic guitarist in the top left corner? What other pepband but Yale's would have a violinist?!

Also, I got to see the tomb for Skulls and Bones (from the outside). It was pretty cool, but kinda underwhelming. Where were the human sacrifices? The red smoke rising from the building? The ominous music? The world leaders walking around?! Oh well. It was still interesting to see in person.

Alright, well my head hurst from too much screen time. Good night everyone! I hope you all enjoy the Oscars. My bet is for King's Speech to win best picture. It was SO GOOD!

love, paul

Round III - Part Bee (ha ha!)

2011-02-21T10:53:00.000-06:00

As promised, this is a post that focuses on the other school I visited last week in the middle of my marathon tour, Oregon Health and Science University (hereafter referred to as OHSU). Let me break down the important data for you and give you all the basic information before launching into the feelings and nuances.

OHSU is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It consists of a graduate school with biomedical-related PhD degrees, as well as a medical school for doctors, nurses, PAs, and dentists. In fact, my uncle got his DDS there! There are no undergraduates at the school. There is also a VA hospital (where my cousin works!) connected by a super long sky bridge. Another fact of relevance: Portland, Oregon is most likely the best city in the world. Check out the following evidence for proof:

More evidence to support Portland's case for best city. Mountains 1 hour away. Ocean 1 hour away. Shuswap lake i sonly a 10 hour drive away. The city sets the standard for bike acceptance. It is green year-round. It is never too humid nor too dry. The temperature gauge will not read below zero for as many days as in the frozen north. Nor will it read about 80 in the summer for that many days. Of course, there are downsides.... for example:

It RAINS. And is CLOUDY. A LOT.

However... Yet again:

Yet, I don't think I can select a particular program simply because I want to live in that city. The program itself has to have merit. Luckily, OHSU has quite outstanding academic credentials. Let me expand upon that point now:

Research: Since this is probably the most important point when evaluating a program, I will start my analysis here. The research at OHSU is interesting. The program takes great pride in the Vollum Institute, which is an institute founded in 1987 with external funding (I think?) that provides a very supportive environment for cutting edge research by new, as well as established, principle investigators (PIs). These people at the Vollum are doing very interesting research, often asking very basic scientific questions about how the brain works. Just about everyone in this institute uses a technique called electrophysiology, which allows the user to monitor brain cell activity as it happens, either in a brain slice or in a live and behaving model. This school is known for this technique, which could ultimately be incredibly useful in my career since e-phys is a versatile and powerful tool. Yet, OHSU does not only consist of the Vollum, there are in fact many other researchers spread all over the campus doing good research that I could get interested in. I apologize to any grammarians for that last sentence, and for all my sentences that end in prepositions.

Training: Maybe the next most important part of a program is the training it provides for the students. This aspect consists of classwork, training and practice in grant writing, career services and mentorship. OHSU seems to be very good in some of these aspects, such as coursework and mentorship, but I got the impression that students aren't pushed to write their own grants, nor is there much formal support for gaining teaching practice (there isn't even a TA requirement built into the program). Also, with no undergrads, there isn't really even a chance to go out and TA or guest lecture a course. There was some indication that it would possible to TA at Lewis and Clark College, but it seems like you had to really take the initiative to set that up yourself. The story is the same with grant writing and seeking outside funding. It can be done, and you'd be supported, but it is much more self-motivated.

Quality of Life / Students: Without a doubt, OHSU takes the cake in this category. As I have already alluded to above, living in Portland would be amazing. There are tons of micro-breweries where students study at (yes, they are able to get work done), there is excellent coffee in the area and great restaurants. Also, one of the largest book stores in the world is there, which would be great fun to browse when I don't want to think about science for a little while. The students at OHSU were really cool (including one person who was in tutorial with me at Grinnell!) and I felt super at ease talking and hanging out with them. I could definitely envision these people as my academic peers next year.

Overall: I got probably the best gut feeling from this program. I enjoyed my time there the most and came back star struck and raving about OHSU and Portland. Now, I am trying to piece apart how much of that was the city and quality of life, versus how much was the program. I think, maybe, it is impossible to piece the two apart, since they play into each other. It would be so awesome to be doing fun research, and then to take an afternoon break to go for a quick hike through the woods.

So now, in blog time, I am trying to decide between OHSU (oh right, I also got an offer here! :-) and Michigan. Those are my top two choices, as far as this blog is concerned. Now, as far as real time is concerned, I just got back from Yale where I had a great time and was dazzled by their training program. Soooo, more on that later this week. Take care everyone! much love, paul.

Interviews - Round III: Part A

2011-02-17T13:55:00.000-06:00

I have a few days to breathe here now. Which means I can update you all on how my graduate school searches are going! Yay! So, this past week I went to three schools. First I went to Northwestern, then to Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland, OR, then to UW - Madison. In that order. Back - to back - to back! It was a hectic 10 days. For this post I am going to group my schools into two groups: the midwestern group and the west coast group. Those groups, as you will soon discover, could also be called the "don't like so much" and "love" groups.

Today I am just going to talk about the midwestern group. First Northwestern, then UW - Madison.

Northwestern

This was a unique interview experience, as I am sure you all can imagine. For you to understand why, let me only say that this interview happened in the wake of the "most epic blizzard of the decade." What does that mean for me? Well, for one my flight was cancelled. Twice. I was supposed to arrive on Wednesday evening, but instead I arrived Thursday evening. This means that I missed the entire first day of interviews and activities. Thankfully, I did not miss the Friday night outing to see Second City and get drinks at the top of one of the tallest buildings in Chi-town. See, look at this view!

Yet, that view didn't save the visit for me. Northwestern is a good Neuroscience program, but I just didn't like it very much myself. The program is pretty split between Evanston and Chicago campuses, with all the classes in Evanston, but most of the labs I'd join in Chicago. That would make that I would have to commute back and forth between the two campuses frequently in my first two years, which would be less than ideal. Also I was worried that it'd divide the class into Evanston and Chicago people. However, that might not be as bad since the class sizes are huge. Most schools have 8 - 12 people in the incoming group of students; Northwestern has around 20. That is a big difference since there are therefore about 130 students in the whole program, but still only ~150 labs. Most programs have a better student/lab ratio than that.

So like I said, Northwestern is definitely a good program with good research taking place there. However, I just decided it wasn't the program for me. Especially given how much I have liked other programs that I've been to.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

This analysis is a little harder to convey. The Neuroscience program at Madison is another good program, however it again is not quite right for me. The only reason I say that is that there isn't a critical mass of researchers at the school with whom I could see myself working. What do I mean by a critical mass of researchers? When I look at a school I am interested in making sure that there are enough quality PIs there whose labs I could join. The opposing strategy is to find a single researcher whose work you find very interesting and who is the only person you'd want to work with. That strategy can work for some people, but it is not what I am looking for. For this reasons I don't think Madison is right for me. There are only three people there who I could see myself working with, whereas at most schools there are more than six.

So to recap: I have now, based on my interviews, been able to rule out two programs that I would not have been able to rule out without visiting. In fact, on paper, I liked Northwestern more than OHSU. What is OHSU? Well... just wait for Part B where I launch into detail about the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland. To give you a preview: it was awesome.

Look for that this coming Sunday! Don't be late! Then, later next week, there should be coming a summary of my visit to Yale which is just now beginning. To give you a preview: I took the train here, which was a super nice break from flying everywhere.

Interviews - Round II: A Decision Emerges

2011-01-27T18:01:00.016-06:00

I'll cut to what I am sure everyone wants to know off the bat

I got accepted to the University of Washington Neurobiology and Behavior Program!

Now, indeed, I have options for where I go to graduate school next year. Though I loved Michigan, I now must decide if I would fit in better there, or UW. It's a choice that will hopefully, though unfortunately, get more complicated as I interview at more schools. While a variety of choices is great, it also renders me useless. If I cannot decide whether I want a snickers bar or a twix, if I cannot decide whether to go see the King's Speech or 127 Days, if I cannot even decide whether to wear my green or my blue shirt in the morning, how will I ever decide which graduate school to go to?! This is a life choice that should depend upon a multitude of complicated and interwoven factors like: quality of research, interest I have in that research, number and renown of faculty, quality of life at the program, quality of life in the city where I'll be for six years, how I get along with the graduate students, amount funding that the school is able to secure, track record for placing graduates into good postdoc positions. The list goes on! So many things to consider. Yet everyone I talk to will consistently tell me that "it comes down to a feeling." But how will I know when that feeling arrives?! And what is that feeling? I had some slight indigestion - is that the feeling?!?? I was nervous before my interviews at UM but not UW - what if that obscured the feeling!? AH!!! Feelings!

*Breathe* Okay I am calm now again. Let me work through UW for you and how I liked my visit and what I did while there.

Now, to quote President Obama, "let me be clear!" (He says that all the time). I interviewed just recently at the University of Washington. NOT Washington University. I flew up to Seattle, NOT St. Louis. Space Needle and NO Arch! Microbrews and NOT Budweiser! Mariners and NOT Cardinals!

Okay. Now that I have that cleared up. I arrived at SeaTac and was instantly struck by one thing in particular: people were standing on BOTH sides of the escalator. I was struck by this also in Detroit (actually, the airport for Ann Arbor/Detroit is in a city called ROMULUS - how cool is that?!), but for some reason I was really surprised by this ambi-side standing escalator behavior in Seattle. In DC you stand on the right and walk on the left. If you are caught standing on the left, you will be kicked out of the area and never allowed back. Seriously. Which is an example of why I am not sad to be leaving the DC area.

This post is going to be more organized than the last. I am going to have subheadings and everything. Thusly I can break down the different aspect of my visit to UW and go into detail about each independently of the others without getting too tangential.

Program:

Perhaps the most important part of the decision I will have to eventually make, it is also the part of the interview weekend that benefits the least from a personal experience. I learned most of what I would need to know about the program from the website and from looking up publications online. I learned that the program is impressively large (actually, the same size as UM, ~120 faculty). This is all fun and good, but what makes it great is that all the faculty are incredibly collaborative. I mean, they take collaboration to the extremes there. And they really, really make sure that the recruits (that's what we're called on these trips - I feel like I'm being drafted) all know and are given multitudes of examples detailing their collaborative endeavors.

The program overall is quite good, and I think quite amenable to my style of education. Though I did get the feeling that there is little room for deviation from the planned course of study. I don't know if this would be a huge issue, but it is something to consider as reflective of the broader feeling on the campus, maybe.

Faculty:

This, I think, is really the highlight of the program. At least, for me (I am sure many people would argue that my next point is in fact the highlight). As far as I can tell, the faculty at UW are at the forefront of using the song system in birds to model and study learning and memory. This is very unique, and after talking with some of the people there who conduct this research, I think it is really exciting. By studying how birds learn, memorize, repeat, rehearse and perfect a song that is taught to the by an adult bird, researchers can tap into an incredibly robust and unique form of learning and memory that, I think, could be a game-changer for how we understand how memories are represented in the brain, and how the brain recalls memories and uses them to guide future behavior.

Quality of Life:

This is probably what most people who say is the main attracting force for Seattle.

And for me in particular, there is also this:

These are important factors to consider. I am going to be at this school for the next 5 - 7 (hopefully closer to 5) years of my life. I don't want to move somewhere that I hate and be miserable while also trying to trudge through graduate school, an already notoriously difficult part of a PhD's life. That is why, surprisingly, I am hesitant about UW. Don't get me wrong! Seattle is wonderful. It is hip and trendy, fun, cool, and has a great vibe. There are coffee shops galore, lots of brainy activities and tons of progressive businesses. While there, I went on a tour of the Theo chocolate factory, the first fair trade and organic choclate factory in the U.S. I also went on a tour of the Allen Brain Institute, which was founded by Paul Allen from Microsoft and is an incredible tool used every day by scientists like myself. All of which is ultra-exciting. What's more, Seattle offers tons of outdoor activities, and it is super close to our family cabin in Shuswap (the above picture). Also, I have family in and near the area. What could be better?

Well, the thing is, this is wonderful if you like big cities. I have never really lived in a big city, and I don't know how I'd adjust to it. St. Anthony park in St. Paul can hardly be called "big city," Stillwater certainly isn't, Grinnell is the furtherest thing from it, and Rockville, MD is a suburb of DC, which is the least big city of the big cities! Now, as far as big cities go, Seattle would probably be the easiest for me to live in. However, it is far from home, about 500,000 people too big for me, and lacks good sports teams (sorry, Seattle fans).

Student life:

Last, but not least, this category is maybe the hardest to discuss. All I can say is that I think I would most likely fit in well at UW. However, I was not convinced of this fact. I cannot describe why, especially given that everyone I met was super nice and friendly. It was just.... a feeling. Yeah, I said it. A feeling. But how important is that? Also, I am good at fitting in. I don't really clash with anyone, as long as particular areas of discourse can be avoided if necessary.

Overall I give the program a good grade. I could go here, and I would certainly be enthralled by the research. I would more than likely have a good time in Seattle, and almost assuredly I could find people in the program I would be comfortable having as friends. It is hard, because currently I am caught between UM, which is a good program with a great life, and UW which is a great program with a good life. Don't get me wrong, the caliber and strength of both programs is phenomenal, but slightly different. There are lots of similarities between the two, but also lots of differences. For me, right now, it is like trying to pick who I love more between these two guys:

How can anyone be expected to make that choice? How?

P.S. - On an unrelated note, I just re-discovered this picture and wanted to share it, because it is fantastic:

love you, Dad!

Graduate School Interviews - Round I

2011-01-22T13:37:00.012-06:00

Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome back to the EPSP Generator ring of champions! Over the next few months we have a series of match-ups that are sure to get your blood pumping and your adrenaline flowing! In this corner we had the 170 pound mid-weight originally from St. Paul, Minnesota! He went to undergraduate at a small private liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere Iowa! He now works in the big-leagues at the National Institutes of Health. Is he out of is league? Or is he coming into his own?!

Tonight*, he faces off first against The University of Michigan! A Research 1 University with a 40,000 strong student body from the Big 10 that promises to deliver a knock-out blow at the first opportunity. Who will win in this dramatic match-up!? (* - not actually tonight, I interviewed at Michigan last week)

Yeah, my money is on those crazy fans also. Did you know that their football stadium is the largest in the country? It hold 109,000 and is regularly filled to 113,000! Go Big 10 sports!

Anyhow, this has not been the traditional start to a blog post. But I had to get people interested once again in my old and tired blog, which has not seen a post in about 8 months. As many of you who will be reading this post already know, I am currently in the process of applying to graduate school for a PhD in Neuroscience. The applications were done and submitted in mid December. Then began the waiting game for interviews. The waiting game was cut short by the University of Michigan, which informed me that they wanted me to come interview at their school. Then a small flood gate opened and I got interviews at University of Washington (in Seattle), University of Wisconsin - Madison, Oregon Health and Sciences University (Portland, OR), Northwestern, Minnesota, Yale and MIT. I am still waiting to hear from Stanford and University of California - San Diego. Though, at this point, I don't think I am getting an interview at those schools.

For those of you unfamiliar with this process, all these interviews might sound like a rather costly endeavor. However, it is actually practically free for me. The schools pay for airfare, hotel, food and just about everything else. The process of interviewing is really more of us evaluating the program, than the program evaluating us. I've even heard that the program pretty much knows who they want to admit when they bring people in for interviews, they just want to verify that their decisions were correct.

So last week I went to U Michigan. I am trying to enter each interview incredibly neutral so as not to have expectations that might influence my overall impression. By the time I left Ann Arbor, I was incredibly impressed and overall very, very positive about their Neuro program, the whole school, and the city itself. There are over 120 faculty connected to the Neuroscience PhD program. This means that I would have almost limitless opportunities for what research I would want to conduct and which lab I would join. The program takes very good care of its students, giving them a desk and central hub to work in their first two years before they go off into their own labs. Also, it pays for students to go to a conference the first two years before they leave the program's budget and join a lab, at which point it is up to the principle investigator (PI) to send or not send students to a conference. The students were really nice and got along well. The facilities were really great, and one of the buildings was super new with awesome lab space.

Also, the city itself is really nice.

Though, of course I visited in the winter, so the view I got was the following:

Which is not all that bad. I love winter, and having four seasons is always good. That way the year is broken up into defined segments. Also it gives you something to talk about with strangers when you want to be polite but not personal. What's more, Ann Arbor is in the Midwest! One of my goals is to hopefully come back to the middle of the country for graduate school, unless of course I fall in love with a school on the coast.

So all in all, I really liked Michigan. The interviews all went really well, and I was interested in the research of many different Professors there, which is always a good sign, since it might not work out if there is only one person of interest at a certain program. What is their funding suddenly is gone? What if they don't get tenure and leave? What if you don't get along with them at all and cannot stand each other? All these possibilities have happened, so it is important to find a place where there are enough people doing research that is interesting. Also, going to Michigan football and hockey games would be a blast. So great!

You may be wondering who won in the end. Did the young upstart from the NIH deliver a convincing enough blow to defeat Michigan and gain acceptance into their illustrious program?

Well...

Maybe I'll be in Ann Arbor next year!

Overall program score: very good - I could see myself here

(also, the above picture is an accurate representation of my physique)

Cherry Blossoms with no Cherries

2010-04-11T15:09:00.007-06:00

Recently, summer has hit the DC area. This may seem somewhat sudden, especially since not too long ago (in blog history) I was posting about how much snow we got. Don't be surprised, though, when I say that last week the temperature peaked at 92 degrees! I was tempted to even start up my A/C again, though I resisted the impulse. I have had my windows wide open though, which has been delightful. My room was starting to get kind of ... musty. Airing it out for the past week or so was a much needed fix.

As many of you know, the DC spring (which the temperature is getting back to now - mid 70s) brings an annual event that people will flock from around the world to witness. This is, of course, the cherry blossoms and the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. As a side note, I'd like to make the following point. Cherry blossom trees do not actually produce a cherry fruit. Their Japanese name is Sakura and as best I can tell the reason we call them "cherry blossoms" is due to the pink color of their blossoms. Though it is worth noting that some trees are pink, but other related species have whiter-looking blossoms. See wikipedia for more information.

But since talking about these trees is much less interesting than looking at them, here are just a few pictures I took around the tidal basin at the National Mall.

Soon, I'll get the rest of the pictures up on flickr. At least, the rest of the good ones...

Another reason that we went down to the national mall on that day is that it was also the National Kite Festival. So of course there were hundreds of kite enthusiasts on the mall, from little kids to "professionals" to kite duelers.

So maybe that picture doesn't convey the hundreds of kites I quoted above... but they were coming and going, believe me! They also had this whole kite dueling battle where one kite would actually try to cut the line of another kite and to be the last kite flying (a lot like Kite Runner). It was exciting for the first round, and the announce who seemed to live for this very day was entertaining, but after about 20 minutes the initial excitement, novelty really, wears off and you realize you're just watching some kites fly around. Which is fun, but not quite what I'd call a sport worthy of being announced.

Finally, here are some photos of my new bike. It is a Trek XO1 cyclocross bike. I am going to use it as both a commuter and a weekend road bike to go on long rides.

Hope you all are well!

Much love, Paul

A snowy conference, but a snowier MD

2010-02-10T10:56:00.006-06:00

I have a lot to report, let me tell you! I have so much to report, I should hire a journalist to do all my reporting for me, but then my blog might go inexplicably bankrupt, and I'd be forced to fire its only employee. Tragic.

Well, I blog to you today from the snow winter wonderland that is Bethesda, Maryland. Wait, what's that? Maryland is a snow winter wonderland? I must be mistaken. Maybe the past 9 months since graduation have all been a dream and I am still stuck in Iowa. Maybe I am actually living at home in Minnesota, stuck in the basement with no foreseeable job prospects, but am constructing this great life and exciting job for myself in my imagination with the weather the only remaining relic of my real predicament. Perhaps I am in an Alaskan hospital stuck in a coma, dreaming I am somewhere else, but constantly brought back to reality by the only real experience I know–SNOW. Hay un supermontón de NIEVE. There is so much of this snow I need to use two languages to describe it, because one just won't do!

You're probably thinking I am exaggerating, or have grown accustomed to the east coast already and am freaking out about nothing. HA. On last Friday it started to snow. 30 inches fell where I live. The Federal Government has been closed since then. Today there is a whiteout blizzard out there, with wind gusts up to 45 mph, and a projected 15 more inches of new snow to fall by tonight. That leaves a blizzard with 45 inches of snow. This is normal for Buffalo NY, or St. Paul MN, or even Anchorage AK. But not Maryland. Around here they freak out when there is 4 inches of snow. 25% of the plows in the region (which is about 60) are broken. Two things are really surprising about this statement. First off, WHAT? 25% of the fleet is broken?! Who's overseeing this? Second, 25% is only 60?! Since when is a snowplow fleet of 240 adequate for an entire state. Oh wait, I should ask, since when is a snowplow fleet of 180 adequate, since it seems 60 are always broken.

This is what it was like only two days ago

This is what it looks like today

I took many, many more photos, so if you are interested I am going to upload them all to my flickr account. Edit here is the link!!

Well, the second part of this post is actually the first part temporally. Strictly speaking, this post is traveling back in time as it moves forward in text, but the weather demanded precedence.

So, during the final week of January I took a vacation. Well, not really. I should say that NIH (your tax dollars) sponsored me to take a trip to Colorado so that I could go skiing! Haha, another joke. Kind of. I went to my first conference as a professional scientist, and it happened to be in the ski resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado! It was a week of enjoying the mountain air combined with brain research talks and posters. Including a poster of mine that I presented to a surprisingly receptive audience. The conference was called the Winter Conference on Brain Research.

I cannot quantify how much I learned at this conference, because that number would astronomical. I met tons of people, I listened to the presentation of a lot of very interesting science, and I got very motivated to love science again. I felt like I did watching Bill Nye the Science Guy as a young lad. Indeed, I haven't been quite as excited about science since then, until this conference. Science rules!

Also, yes, I presented a poster at the conference. This poster is basically a summary of all the data my PI and I have put together (with the help of collaborators) in the last 8 months that show that a certain animal model, on that is used to study addiction and other neurological disorders like Parkinson's disease, needs characterization before it can be used as widely as it has been. These mice express a protein in certain neurons that makes them fluoresce green when illuminated under the microscope. It is therefore possible to isolate certain cell types and investigate cell-specific changes in the brain under certain experimental conditions. I cannot get into our data too much, still, since we are really close to publishing (about 2 - 3 months I'd say). Hopefully soon though I'll be able to go into lots of detail and explain to you all what we found. Also, I'll have a physical publication with my name on it that I can show as a visual aide. I am really, really excited about that. I will definitely buy many, many copies of the journal that contains my first publication for all interested parties to have. I may even sign it if you want. Someday, it'll definitely be worth millions of dollars.

Anyhow, we were expecting some amount of harassment for our findings since our data insinuate that work done with these animals might need to be reinvestigated, and this makes some people really angry. Imagine someone telling you that the work you've done for the past 10 years might not be valid. You've been doing one thing, and telling the community of your peers all about this one thing, for 10 years. And now here comes this upstart lab telling you that, in fact, you've been an entirely different thing than you originally thought you were doing! That has got to be embarrassing and extremely frustrating. Fortunately though I got absolutely no flack! This may be because I intently talked at length with about 5 or 6 people who were simply interested in my findings, while retaining a larger crowd of people who simply looked at the poster and couldn't get a question in edge-wise.

Work aside, I also got to ski for two days. The first few days I was sidelined with a bad head cold that I am pretty sure now I got here at home. After that cleared up though, I went out and took a ski lesson. It was a great experience that taught me a lot about skiing, a lot which better skiers don't teach because they take it for granted. Things like who to turn, how to stop, and the all-important fact that you should keep turning as you go down a hill in order to control your speed. I never, ever knew that before.

For you skeptics out there, here is a picture to prove I was skiing

This photo was taken at approximately 10000 feet! The air is really, really thin up there. I got winded just eating a hotdog. Haha, not really. But kind of.

Anyhow, this is post is getting unwieldy, so I'll wrap it up. To finish, it may excite some of you that I met a neuroscience grad student at the conference from the U of Minnesota. She had really good things to say about the program and she definitely put it back on my radar. If I had to apply today to grad school, my list would be:

Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
University of Wisconsin, Madison
University of Texas, Austin
Northwestern
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Wash U, St. Louis
MIT

I'd say that's a pretty good list. Some easier to get into school, and some prestigious reach schools. Though I am going to keep looking and thinking.

Hope you all are well. Much love,

Paul

Visit home

2010-01-03T19:09:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year!

For many of you this will not be new news, but I just recently got home from what is likely the most eventful visit home I've experienced since starting college.

Let's recap.

I am scheduled to fly out of Washington-Reagan National Airport (DCA) on Saturday, December 19 at roughly noon. A few days before my scheduled departure, the forecasters begin predicting a heavy snow storm will hit the DC area, and that the snow will start Friday evening. My first reaction is "pshhhh!" East coast snow storms?! More like snow flurry tickles, not anything close to a true snow storm! I grew up in Minnesota, the frozen north, how bad could this be? Of course, it doesn't matter to me how bad it is, since I don't drive the plows, conduct the metro trains, or fly the airplanes. The furor of anticipation before the snow storm increases and peaks around Thursday night, when I start to get a little nervous. Friday comes around and I am starting to fret. What if I don't make it home? What if I get snowed in because people around here think getting snowed on is like a volcano exploding somewhere nearby, and are preparing for the next Pompeii.

After counseling with my wise parents, and getting a worried voicemail message from my practical older sister, I decide to look into my flight immediately. Oops! It's cancelled. ALREADY. So I quickly search around the NWA website and find out that I've rebooked on a flight leaving Saturday at 11AM. I know that won't work, so I keep looking. Turns out there is a flight that leaves that night at 11:30 PM. Perfect. I book the flight and pray the snow doesn't decide to dump early. I get home, pack in a frenzy and leave for the airport roughly 4 hours ahead of schedule, just in case (good Kramer practicality). The snow starts around 9:30, and it starts with an attitude. It is as though the storm is getting back at the east coast for all the years of snow-lite winters. I join many other passengers leaning on the glass, staring at the snow and hoping we don't get cancelled.

Forty five minutes after our scheduled boarding time, we begin the pre-boarding process. We sit in the plane for another hour waiting while the plane undergoes the necessary cleaning processes, refueling and deicing (that last one I felt we definitely needed to wait for). We take off around 1:15 in the morning, and after a slightly turbulent take-off, reaching cruising altitude. At around this time I pass out and wake up at MSP in the wee hours of the morning. My parents are diligently there waiting to pick me up. Somehow my bag was one of the first to be off-loaded. I leave the airport, get in the car, and cannot believe how incredibly lucky I am to have gotten on probably the last flight out of DCA before it was all shut down.

Phew! What an arrival, right? Well it gets better. The next week I am home consists of:

Dinner at a delicious German restaurant
A cooking frenzy where I make two different kinds of dough for making cookies later, as well as a separate batch of cookies (for christmas)
A hilarious and adorable performance by my niece (see DaddyTude) at her Christmas pageant - also where I got to see Mark Seeley in person!
Falling through the on the lake behind our house while xc-skiing around with DaddyTude and the Tude herself. Luckily I only fell through about 1.5 feet for another ice layer. I did, however get soaked in icy lake water. Not very fun, and actually quite scary.
Sharing the house with my entire nuclear family for a night (including the very little ones, and being awoken in the early hours of the morning by my nephew exuberantly enjoying his new play castle)
Enjoying a fabulous Christmas with my extended family on the 23rd, and the another on the 25th
Eating way too much food
Watching the vikings lose, twice - and to THE BEARS. Ugh.
Seeing fantastically fabulous friends
Ice skating on the pond near my house

In addition I had to watch as it rained on Christmas day, but at least it was still a white Christmas. Also, we saw a risqué production of the Nutcracker ballet! -phew-

So, that was my 10 days at home. If that happens every time I am home, I could used to this! Truly, it is going to be hard starting work for real again tomorrow. Sure I worked a few days last week... but not really.

To end, let me say to those who have seen me recently that there is most likely a beard trimmer in my near future. To those who have not seen me, count your selves lucky. Don't worry, I'm not giving up, it's just that my friend has offered a gracious truce.

2009-11-15T16:05:00.012-06:00

So, I've realized that I put in the description of this blog that I would talk about neuronal encounters. I haven't really lived up to that description though, as I haven't talked about my job all that often except to say that I like it, that it is going well, that it is a lot of work etc. However, I recently took some pictures that give me the opportunity to talk about what I do with some visual aides.

That above image is not some kind of tangle of muscles or just a bunch of red lines that I drew together pretending to do science. That is actually a brain cell (neuron) stained red and imaged (by me!) with a confocal microscope. This image is only taken at 20x (20 times what can be seen with the naked eye). But it is really cool because, though it may not look it, the image is actually taken in 3-D. I'll talk more about that later.

This above image is taken at a much higher resolution of 63x. The image is of a zoomed-in region on one of neuron's branches (or dendrites). As you can see, this dendrite is rather spiny, as though it had little thorns sticking off of it. These spines are what give this class of neurons their name, the Medium Spiny Neurons (or MSNs). Our lab is interested in studying this subset of neurons, and we are particularly interested in their spines. These neurons are located in the area of the brain that changes in response to drugs of abuse, and their spines change in response to cocaine infusions. They change both in their functional properties, as well as their morphological shape.

This picture above is important because it allows us to count the number of spines on the dendrite of this neuron. We can then compare animals treated with cocaine versus those treated with just saline (the controls). Then we also study them functionally with what is called a two-photon imager, and then using caged neurotransmitters to selectively activate one spine at a time. After activating single spines we can use the two-photon imager to take very detailed pictures of what happens to the spine when it is active. (I haven't learned that technique yet, so my explanation is somewhat limited).

I just really like the above image. It is a picture of the neuron's cell body (called the soma) taken at 40x. I think the image is stunning, but that might just be me.

So that is the new technique that I am learning in a nutshell. I cannot really talk about our results since they are currently unpublished and I like my job.

As I said earlier though, I'd talk about the confocal microscope that was used to take all these pictures. To explain this, I'll need to explain the drawbacks of a regular microscope first. A regular microscope focuses on one focal plane only, so that whatever you are focused on is in clear view, but everything else is fuzzy. Unfortunately for us, neurons are not completely flat and their branches do not stay in only one focus plane (z-space). These branches instead wind up, down and all around. If you were to image this, the picture would be fuzzy in every area except where you were focused.

What the confocal does is that it shines a very tiny amount of light on only one part of an image at any time, so that everything in that small area is in focus, and any background out-of-focus images appear black. The microscope then moves the plane of focus either up or down and continues to take pictures. Thus the image is taken in 3-D, and then all the images are put together in a stack and the final image is a 3-D compilation of all those stacks. This allows you to get an entire neuron photographed at very high magnifications, and still keep everything in focus.

Here is an example of these stacks. The images below three consecutive images in a stack of 8 total. As you can see the focal plane (everything that is seen) starts out at the soma and moves, from left to right, toward the upper dendrites.

So there you have it. I know I haven't explained things in huge detail (or maybe I went into far too much detail, I don't know). If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section and I'll try my best to answer!

OH! And some more pictures for you (these are of my beard progression). I am taking images every week on Tuesday. Here are the first three images (from day 1 to today, day 14).

Fall

2009-11-08T15:39:00.010-06:00

Well, it's that time of the year here on the East Coast. Sure, I'm not in New England where people travel from miles around to check out the colors of fall. But DC has its own brilliant colors! LOOK!

Haha. Good joke, right? But seriously, check out these colors.

My housemate ran a marathon the other weekend, and we went down to the finish line to see if we could catch him at the end and yell at him (positively, of course). We did not get to see him, as we either missed him, or gave up and left before he passed us. Running is absolutely the worst spectator sport (actually, it isn't quite as bad as XC skiing, why did anyone ever come to our races in high school?! Great, you get to stand out in the cold, waiting who knows how long for someone you know to come gliding by you for about 5 minutes. woopty doo). Anyhow, even though we didn't get to see my housemate, we did get to pass by Arlington National Cemetery, where the colors of fall were once again on display.

These fall colors are exciting for me, as I have missed the best parts of fall (the death and decay of leaves) by being in Minnesota for fall break, during which time all the leaves die and fall of the trees in Grinnell. I would then return to Grinnell, only to hear of all the fall colors back in Minnesota. Not anymore! As a reminder every morning of my fortunes, there is a large tree in front of our yard that, for a solid two weeks, had the most spectacular yellow colors to it.

That brings me to the final part of this blog - my house! I realized that I have not shown the necessary photos of where I am living. So, without further delay:

Here is my street

Here is my house (my room is on the top left side from this view)

To finish, let me give a brief rundown of things in my life right now:

I am starting "no shave November" on Tuesday. I will be competing against my housemate. The loser of our competition has to make one omelet for the winner. I apologize in advance to those family members who will be seeing me in two weeks. Also, don't worry, I will be thoroughly chronicling this with photographs.
We are close to getting our publication done in the lab. We just have a few more experiments to run. Our goal is to finish before Christmas-time
I broke my metro card and am paying for the bus again with my own money. Thus I have been traveling around much less.
This compounds with the fact that my knee has been hurting me and forcing me to take the metro to work instead of biking.
I still love having a full-sized bed so much more than a having a twin (sized bed, not the person).
My experiment in making heirloom beans went pretty well. Though I found out that using 3 serrano peppers really adds a lot of spice to a dish. This experiment started with a visit to this site. Ask gpatude for some great heirloom bean jokes.
I bought a 23-inch HD monitor for my laptop. This is the first of a series of investments in upgrading the technology I own. The next will most likely be an Xbox 360 (I encourage my KirkTude and DaddyTude to look into this, we could play games online against each other from all three major parts of the country!) The final investment will be a Mac Mini.
I was an iPod Touch for halloween!!

That is all. Stay well everyone!

Much love, paul

Broadening by Narrowing

2009-10-18T19:16:00.004-06:00

With this post, I will pass the total posts I made in all of 2008. Since the last post was all in pictures, I think this one will be all in words.

Exciting news: I am LinkedIn! I have absolutely no idea of what use this site will be to me. Facebook has my friends who I am now trying hard to keep in contact with, and I don't really need to make tons of connections, network and look for jobs. But, since I am 22, I figured I should keep up with the things that people are doing. This way, if I never need a LinkedIn account in the future, I'll already be set to go. Plus, if anyone ever is looking for a recent college grad who they want to pay millions of dollars to sit around on a beach on some tropical island, there is a small chance they'd look for that person on LinkedIn, and maybe I'd get chosen.

So I guess the reasons that I joined LinkedIn are to: stay current with technology, and keep alive dreams of making millions doing nothing.

However, at this moment in my life, doing nothing is about the exact opposite of what I am actually doing. This of course has the advantage of keeping me active and interested. It, however, does not afford much time to stop and breathe. I cannot claim I am as busy and overworked as a working parent of two extremely active kids. However, for a person who just left college where the definition of life can be summed up with the words "convenient, fun, whatever," this new life is much different.

In college I could play bassoon, act, be in several groups, take classes, exercise, hang out with friends, and work in a lab. College was the time to try everything to see what I liked. Unfortunately, I found out that I liked a lot of different things. Now I am trying to specialize my interests. I am finding out is important to me, and what I will probably let go of. This is hard though because there are things I don't want to let go of, but that I am just not integrating very well yet.

For example: playing bassoon. I really want to continue to play. I enjoy making live music, and I like playing the bassoon in particular. I joined the NIH community orchestra, but this is unfortunately not working out so well right now. I don't care as much about the general level of playing ability in the group. I do, however, care about people's commitment, and when only one clarinet player shows up week after week, despite our section having more than 5 musicians, it is disappointing. I don't really want to be part of a group that other players don't care about either. There is another group, the NIH Philharmonia, which seems to have more dedicated musicians. I sent them an email about possible need for bassoon - so we'll see!

On the work front things are going along well. As cliched as this phrase is, I am honestly learning something new every single day. I am beginning to appreciate something that my Neuroscience Seminar course proposed as a class, we said, "neuroscience is the study of everything." We kind of laughed about this and reduced it eventually to "neuroscience is everything." Having been around a neuroscience lab now for *gasp* almost 5 months, I am beginning to see that neuroscience does indeed incorporate, well, everything. Neuroscience bring together chemistry, physics, biology (genetics, cellular, and molecular), psychology, and many of the social sciences (sociology and anthropology in particular). My dad passed along an op-ed from the NYTimes that mused on the multi-faceted face of neuroscience, and I found it very satisfying. Neuroscience, it seems, can be both minutely small and overwhelmingly large in scope. It addresses issues ranging from the molecular signaling of neurons, to the mechanisms by which humans attain consciousness. We are as likely to argue philosophy as we are the specific binding affinity of a given receptor.

So, in sum, it seems I am currently in the process of specifying and narrowing my interests by weeding out those which are less important from those I will continue to pursue. I am finding, though, that the academic discipline into which I have narrowed myself is in and of itself incredibly and almost unbelievably inclusive and expansive. It seems that I have singled out the jack of all trades as my field of study. Now I get the chance to explore my interests academically beyond the scope I was afforded at Grinnell. Who knows, maybe I'll become an armchair philosopher, with access to a two-photon microscope.

P.S. - everyone should take 15 minutes to watch this

Post in Pictures

2009-09-29T19:38:00.006-06:00

I went to the National Zoo last weekend! Here are some of my pictures. I love this zoo, and I especially love that it is totally free.

The meerkat that got stuck with guard duty

Dramatic meerkat

Elephants are so weird looking...

Apparently Pandas spend 22 hours of their day either eating bamboo or sleeping

GIANT bumblebees! Seriously you could see these flying around 20 feet into the air!

Napping otters

A sloth bear!! such a weird animal...

A very still a unflinching prairie dog

A better panda shot!

This picture is how Juneau imagines himself when he naps

So that was my fun time at the DC Zoo. In other news I have now gone to two NIH Community Orchestra rehearsals. It is a very low-stress and convenient way to keep playing bassoon while not having a car or lots of time. We have our first concert on the 30th, and we are playing some fun music. Though this means we only have 4 more rehearsals before our concert... and I don't see how it is all going to come together. Should be exciting at least!

This has been a weird weekend since the twins and vikings have had incredible representation on all the major sports networks. I don't really know what to do with all this attention to my home team. Tomorrow I will be going to watch the Vikings play the Pack (booo Green Bay) and then on Tuesday I'll probably go back to the very same pub I was at the night before and watch the Twins/Tigers one-game playoff! Ah! We weren't very lucky the last time we did one of these, but maybe we will be now...?

A Really Good Day

2009-09-17T19:24:00.006-06:00

Before I go into the main driving force behind this blog, let me first comment on the previous entry. After having the wonderful experience at an outdoor baseball game, I was brought face-to-face with the downside of outdoor baseball.

Rain. We were watching the National lose (surprise, surprise) when all of sudden we started to feel little droplets of water hit our heads. At first we thought (quite rationally) that the people seated above us were spitting on us. The phenomenon of getting rained on while watching baseball was completely novel to me. So anyhow, we made for the super cheap seats that are covered by an overhang. The game was delayed and we sat and waited. I really do not like leaving baseball games early, and luckily my friends had nothing else to do, so we just waited. Luckily the rain stopped about 20 minutes after the delay took effect. We got to watch the grounds crew bumble over putting the tarp away (90 seconds to unroll, 15 minutes to roll up). We then watched, in a significantly less-full stadium, as the Nats secured yet another loss. However, the main reason my friends agreed to stay came at the end of the game and was the final outdoor baseball experience I had been missing. After the sun, the open sky, a real breeze and precipitation comes ... FIREWORKS!

They were actually really good fireworks.

So what is with the title of this post? A "really" good day? Is that possible? I suppose it is. What made today so good though? Well, without getting into too much detail about data that is yet to be published, I finished analyzing and making graphs of some studies that I have been working very hard on, and the data looks amazing. Seriously, it looks like data I would find in a publication, and even if we don't get this published (which I sincerely hope we do), I will be happy with what we found.

I have now been working at NIH for almost 3.5 months. I am now realizing what research is all about. It is about questions and answers. Note the important plurality. We, at least in our lab, do not ask one question and only one. We start out with a goal (to better understand the effect of drugs of abuse on the brain), and then we ask all sorts of different questions in order to reach our goal of understanding. How do drugs of abuse alter the physical structure of the brain? How do they change the function of the neurons? How does this affect behavior? What is different between addiction and non-addiction? These questions, and more, then precipitate, through their answers, more questions. Today, we compiled data (which is quickly becoming my favorite activity! It is like opening a Christmas present) and we found the answer to a small question. Now this answers will shed light on a larger question, but it also brings about more questions with it. Thus research is never truly done.

At least, this is what I have seen and what I believe to be true. My own thoughts, though, make me have other questions. For example, if research is never truly done, how do we know anything to be true and correct? Anyhow - this is not a philosophy blog, nor would I wish it to be!

This weekend I hope to relax and go down to the National Mall and visit with FDR and Thomas Jefferson. Or if I don't see them I will instead go and visit some Cheetahs and Pandas!

Hasta luego mis amigos.

mucho amor, Paul

Outdoor Baseball and Publishing Mayhem

2009-08-06T21:04:00.009-06:00

Friends and family. I am so very sorry for the lengthy blog interruption. Let me wipe all those sad memories of an updating-less world away with the magic of outdoor major league baseball. Oooo!

If you look to your left, you will see the way that the flags are waving in the wind. The real wind that is coming from the oceans and not from generators in the basement of the ballpark. Look at the way that the sky is the backdrop for that large sign sporting the name of the home team. Considering these advantages, ask yourself this question: is a climate controlled environment worth sacrificing these marvelous sights and sounds? Does our HHH dome somehow diminish the experience of a game at the ball park and transform it into an extension of tv viewing? The home field in Minnesota used to be called the Metropolitan Stadium, and was located in Bloomington where the MOA is now (the Mall of America for those not up on their lingo). This stadium was home to the minor league Minneapolis Millers. My point is that Minnesota started with outdoor baseball, and I think people still attended the games then, and in droves. This, despite what everyone older than I am says, "back in my day, the winters were colder and then snow fell harder!" When I experienced outdoor major league baseball the other day, I realized what I was missing. Sure, it can be cold and rainy - but that is nothing more than an opportunity to show your dedication to your favorite team! That dedication will eventually pay off when, in the fall, it is 70 degrees, cool and sunny. I think that we will like outdoor Minnesota baseball more than we realize. The game I saw at Nats Park in Washington DC (where, coincidentally, the Washington Senators played before moving to Minnesota to play at Metropolitan Stadium, where they became the Twins) was a rare Nationals win. They defeated the New York Mets (not that hard to do this season) and even hit a home run! I enjoyed a chili dog (which was incredibly messy and more chili than dog) and a mildly cold MGD. I look forward to these days in the warehouse district of Minneapolis.

Now on to the second part of today's blog, which is in direct contrast with this relaxing baseball experience described above. So the lab I am working at is very new. It was started only some 1.5 years ago and the first publishable data is just now coming out of the lab. We were casually working on this data with the goal of getting something done relatively soon, but we had no real time established in our minds yet. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, we have be pushed into a rush to publish. I cannot reveal too much about it, but let's just say that some nobel prize winning researchers got advance-notice about our unpublished data, which shows interesting and unexpected results when considering their research. Now they are on our case, and could easily screw us either by doing our study and publishing first, or by wanting to "work with us" and thereby getting their names attached to this unexpected data, not my PI's (principle investigator, aka my boss). So now I am furiously working on analyzing data and producing graphs and will soon be helping to write this manuscript. This is probably going to mean long hours and lots of work with Microsoft Excel and Igor Pro (this super neat data organizer and viewer).

To cap off this post, let me leave you with some photos from my trip to the wedding of Charles and Jeny that I got the pleasure of attending in Portland, OR. I of course forgot my camera when I went to the actual wedding, because I was just so excited! So here are four photos from my trip over and back, and two from the rehearsal dinner.

Picture from the flight in of a mountain (not Hood... I don't think)

Us waiting under a tree for the rain to let up before continuing on to the rehearsal dinner

My mom with proof of her status as a minister, legally able to marry people (certain restriction apply). Also, look at the way my mom can barely contain her excitement, no matter how hard she tries!

The view from my airplane on the trip back

Real World

2009-07-08T18:45:00.003-06:00

No, this post is not about the first ever reality TV show (although that show IS coming to DC for their next installment!) This post is instead about my encounters with real people in this real world of ours.

People at Grinnell are not real. They are (mostly all) smart, motivated, liberal or moderate, informed and thoughtful. I could recognize perhaps 80% of everyone I saw on a daily basis, and I felt comfortable wandering around the campus at any time for whatever reason. There were amenities close by, and my bathroom was cleaned for me, my meals made for me, and my dishes put away and dealt with for me. It was rather nice. I have now left Grinnell and entered what so many college students have referred to as the "real world." AKA - the world where not everyone knows you, you have to do things for y

ourself, and not everything is always super convenient.

One good example of my encounters with this "real" world has been the saga of the past three days. It started out on Monday with a headache and mild muscle aches, and ended today with a diagnoses of a nasty strep throat infection that requ

ires the treatment of antibiotics. Throughout this whole process were many inconvenient obstacles for me to overcome. Such as dealing with the fact that I have not yet received my insurance card and do not know my member ID number, so I had to self-pay my doctor's visit (70 dollars, reduced by 50%!! - Because I was paying self-pay). I also had to go through the ordeal of finding a doctor's office around here that had a time available for me to come in. Then finally, I had to deal with getting to this doctor's appointment, because there was no way I'd bike there. The first problem never really got fully resolved, I'll just file a claim form to bluecross and blueshield and hopefully only need to p

ay the copay. The second problem took a bit longer, and it took some calling around to various places in Bethesda, as well as a lot of online searching. The last problem was thankfully solved by the fact that a Grinnellian has left his car at our house for a while since it cannot be parked on his street without him paying for a permit. So we let him park it here, and in exchange we can use it! Unfortunately, that option does not last forever, so I don't know what I'll do when I can no longer use that car and I am sick. I guess it'll have to be public transport...

But the real world has its upsides in addition to these annoyances. I think making a "real" income, and dedicating myself to a single work is also fun. It means I get to become fully immersed in one thing for two years, and learn and become deeply knowledgeable about that one thing. I also like the bigger city at times (though I

think huge cities are not for me). Sometimes I like walking around and being kind of anonymous, just one person in a crowd of hundreds. I also like the chance encounters with people I know. These become even more special because they happen so infrequently. I also love being in the nation's capital (or at least very near-by). It somehow makes me feel like I am at the root of everything truly American.

Speaking of America, seeing the Fourth of July fireworks display here was truly American, and awesome. Even more so when you consider that the Obamas were watching the same display (though from the White House). Here is a picture that a new friend Calvin (from Grinnell) took of me and my old friend from high-school, who is in DC for the summer, at the fireworks.

I do miss though small towns, midwestern ways of life, and my friends and family back home. I am excited for my cousin's wedding! Look forward to a post about that later...

Oh, and don't worry, I am on penicillin and will not be contagious in about 13 hours. So if you are going to be at the wedding this weekend also, please don't shy away from me.

love, Paul

My day

2009-06-27T10:14:00.005-06:00

I have now been in Bethesda (or basically D.C.) for almost 1 month. I thought that I would take this time to give you all a taste for what a regular workday is like for me. I will do this in chronological fashion, Eastern Standard Time.

7:13 AM: I generally am woken up about this time by my body who tells me "HEY! PAUL! It is time to get up now and go to do some exciting research! HEY HEY HEY! I am hungry! HEY! I need to empty my bladder! PAUL! HEY HEY!! My back is stiff!! DUDE!" At about this point I finally decide that maybe I should give in, listen to my body, and roll out of bed.

7:37 AM: After wandering around somewhat aimlessly on the second floor of my house (the floor where my room is) I make my way downstairs and put together some breakfast. My morning meals usually consist of either milk and shredded wheat and blueberries, or yogurt, granola and blueberries. Either way I get some morning fruit, protein and carbs. Mmmm.

7:56 AM: I look at the clock and decide I need to hurry up, if I am going to make it to my desk around 9:00 AM I am going to need to get out the door within the next 15 minutes. So I quickly gather my things and bring my bike up from the basement to the backyard. I then put my pannier bags onto my bike, sling my bag across my shoulders, fix the belt across my hips, click my helmet on, and get moving/

7:56 AM (alternate): If I am not biking, then I look at my watch and realize I have quite a bit of time before I need to walk to the bus stop in order to catch the 8:17 bus to the metro. So I wander around my house for a while seriously aimless. The commute gets me to my desk at about the same time as biking (if I start biking between 8:05 and 8:13).

8:06 - 8:43 AM: I bike about 6 miles to my work. My route takes me along busy and non-busy roads. On some paths, some sidewalks and some streets. I have three major hills to conquer (going up two on the way there, and three on the way back). I like my commute a lot, and it serves to seriously wake me up.

8:45 AM: I swipe my ID card in-front of the reader and walk into my building, greeting the security guard sitting at his desk. I then head down to the basement (where my lab is) via the elevator. Stepping off the elevator, I veer away from the lab towards the showers. I figure my co-workers would rather not have to smell me all day from across the lab.

9:00 AM: After showering, changing and putting everything into my locker I step into the lab. The first thing I do is check my various email accounts and sign onto iGoogle.

9:15 AM: Having satisfied my lust for electronic communication, I get ready for the morning experiments. I mix the drugs that are needed, if any, for the day. My PI (principle investigator) might chat with my a little about what to do today, how things are going, etc.

9:30 AM: I go out of the lab and up one floor and let myself (thanks to my ID badge) into the animal section. Here were have our own procedure room where we do our experiments. While here I become a multi-tasking fiend and set up the program on the computer (sometimes on two computers) while setting up the apparatuses for behavioral experimentation. I also prepare the day's drug doses and the lab notebook. Then I get the animals from their holding room and start the experiments. After everything is going, I go back to the lab and do any random tasks that need to be done, or I do some data analysis, or I just check some more email.

12:00 PM: At about this time (though often I wait until 1:00 PM) I go with co-workers and grab lunch. I generally bring my own lunch, though once a week I buy lunch from the café, which is about 9 dollars per meal. Often times, the buying of my lunch is precipitated by the fact that I forgot my lunch box in the fridge at work. So far, this has happened at least once a week, if not two or three times.

12:30 (or so) PM: The animals are done and ready to be put back into their housing. So I head to the animal section and stop the experiments, record the data, put the animals away and clean everything up.

1:30 PM: I go back downstairs to the lab (my desk) and begin doing any data analysis from the day's work. Or, alternatively, I may go a meeting, read a journal article, chat with my PI or other members of the lab, check my email, or do any other number of things. Basically, this part of the day, if I have no more experiments to run, is devoted to everything else I need to do as a member of my lab group. For clarification, I am part of the Section on Neuronal Structure (SNS), which is a part of the Laboratory of Intergrative Neuroscience (LIN), which is a part of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), which is a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). There are 27 institutes in total. All of this information and more can be found at http://www.nih.gov/icd/

5:30 PM: At about this time I start to wrap things up for the day. I then go to the bathroom, change into my biking clothes, and begin the journey home.

6:45 PM: I arrive at home, and if it is a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I go to the gym, if not I just make dinner.

8:00 PM: Having gone to the gym, I make dinner and relax for a while reading a book, chatting on the phone, watching TV, playing video games, talking with my housemates, or just generally enjoying my time.

10:45 PM: I start to get ready for bed at about this time (which is obnoxiously early for me) and silently dread the next day's long commute to work.

11:00 PM: I fall asleep and dream of science, friends and family. :-)

Any questions? I miss you all, but am having a great time in D.C. so far! I love my research, which has kind of begun to consume my life (seeing as how I spend 50 hours a week involved in it). Please continue to keep in touch, and don't be offended if it takes me a while to respond to an email or a phone call. I am learning how to manage this kind of schedule, which is drastically different from my college life.

Until next time!

Love, PK

Beginning in Bethesda

2009-06-06T21:18:00.005-06:00

Hello!

Alright, I have now moved out here to Bethesda, Maryland. My job at the NIH is going along well. I am trying to absorb everything I can from th

e person whose spot I am filling before she leaves next week. There is a ton I have to learn to do, and not a ton of time in which to learn it all. I am sure I'll make some errors and learn from those mistakes, but so far I have managed to do things relatively well! The people in my lab are most excellent, and everyone is really nice, helpful and supportive. My sister will be glad to know there is not any hint of "lab politics" yet, though I am sure that within the larger structure of my institute, there probably exists some modicum of this dreaded "politics."

I never thought I would be in a place where is rained so much. But for the past week there has been rain almost every day, and next week it looks to be the same. For me this means that I have not been able to try out my new bike as much as

I would have wanted. For those of you who have not been bugged by me regarding bike purchases, let me fill you in a bit. I decided to sell my car and buy a bike. This will be my main source of fast, personal travel, so I wanted a nice bike that would get me from here to there rather quickly without breaking. However, I did not want to spend a fortune on an incredibly costly piece of equipment. After much searching, thinking and test riding, I ended up with this:

It is called a cannondale quick 4. It is a nice hybrid bike (between a road and a mountain bike). It is built for commuting, and has a wonderfully smooth ride. I went on a relatively short 10 mile ride today, and I loved it. Tomorrow I am going to take the bike and go up to near my work and figure out a good way to get to there and back again. My goal is to avoid major streets, but I may not be able to unless I want to go way, way out of my way.

I think my favorite thing about this new house is by far my bed. This bed is an incredibly comfortable Ikea full sized mattress. I never knew what I was missing with my twin sized bed until I have slept in a full sized one. This is so nice. I can roll over a few times without falling off the bed! I can sprawl out, and I am sure I could share this bed with one, or even TWO cats without feeling like either they had to jump off, or I was going to leave the room. Unfortunately, my cats are at home and I don't think the landlord allows pets here :-(

Not much else to report, really. At my job I am also dealing with going through the mountain of paperwork in order to work at the NIH for the federal government. I got fingerprinted on Wednesday, and I need to complete background check information within 5 days. I got a health screening and there are endless online tutorials I need to take. The time I have spent at the lab though has been great, so I'll keep slogging through this busy work. I know that soon I'll be at the end of it, and I'll get to focus on research without having to think about finding time to take the next tutorial about protecting my privacy, or IT security, or lab safety. Did you know that it is a good idea to be careful, and a bad idea to spill chemicals while working in the lab? I had no idea. Seriously though, these tutorials do offer some good advice and tidbits of information, you just need to wade through about seven times as much useless information that is crammed all around the good and practical stuff.

Alright, well that is all for now. I hope that everyone is doing well, wherever you may be! I am going to sleep soon. I had no idea that working 8 - 5 (8:30 - 5:30) was so tiring, but it really is.

Back and Better Than Ever!

2009-05-26T12:50:00.005-06:00

Forgive me my friends, for I have sinned. I have not updated this post since August of last year, and that alone is enough for excommunication from the church, or so I am told by this little pamphlet I found on the bus (not really). Anyhow, in the spirit of re-energizing myself to blog I have retooled and revamped the look of "EPSP Generator," I have also added some features and taken away others. I hope you like the new look!

I found it extremely difficult to get motivated to blog whil

e actually at school because I had so much other work that I "should" have been doing instead of blogging. You would think that blogging would be a great distraction, but I found that writing about all the work I had stressed me out because then I thought about everything I wasn't doing! So instead I tended to watch episodes of Star Trek or wander the halls of my dorm without specific intent. That has all changed. As of May 18th I am now a certified college graduate with a BA in Psychology and a concentration in Neuroscience. WHOA!

I like this photo a lot, even if my dad forgot to look at the camera! Graduation was great. After sitting through two other graduations at which I was utterly bored up until and directly after my sisters' names were called, this one provided me with a pleasant surprise. Though some of the honorary degree speakers waxed on for a bit too long, Thomas Friedman gave an excellent address. The ceremony went fast than I could have expected (perhaps because I was a part of it this time). Standing at the foot of the platform before ascending the stairs and walking to get my diploma was a lot less nerve-wracking than I had thought. Professor Lindgren correctly pronounced my name (as he should since I took a course from him) and I managed to get to the college president without tripping or losing my hat or sash to the wind (unlike many of my friends). I also successfully shook his hand and took my diploma, all without any major blunders! Success!

What does this degree mean to me? I think that a college degree means different things for everyone. Some take it and immediately enter the workforce, content in finishing their studies. Others simply see this as a stepping stone to an eventual Ph.D or M.D. I see my degree as somewhat of an amalgamation of those two views. I don't think that a B.A. alone is useless and requires further schooling before I can fully use it, yet I also don't see my schooling as nearly complete. I feel like Grinnell has helped me to uncover the entrance to a mine, but I need further guidance to fully explore the depths of that mine and join the ranks of other neuroscientists who are exploring the secrets of the brain.

This brings me to my future plans. I have frequently been asked the question, "so... what about next year, then?" Well, let me tell you. I will be a research assistant next year in a lab at the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. This Institute is a part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. I will be conducting research into the effects of cocaine on behavior and the brain, specifically interested in the phenomenon of addiction. This position lasts for at least one year, and most likely two. After my term at the NIAAA is over I will be going to graduate school (or possibly, though not likely, medical school). For what will I be going to graduate school? Well, I am not exactly sure right now. I hope that my time in this lab will help to clarify that for me! If I love doing research, this experience will surely make me aware of that love. If I don't, I'll not have a lot of fun the next two years and I'll know that I want to do something more applied. I think I will enjoy the research, but not that long ago I was convinced I'd hate it. So, we'll see.

With any luck this blog will take on the new purpose of relating exciting events I experience while in DC and the lab. I will make no promises as to the frequency of my updates, but I know I'll have a lot more time to update and many more novel daily events to write about. Wish me luck!

Kramer

State Fairs: Compare and Contrast

2008-08-17T18:31:00.010-06:00

Although I have never repented my sins before, I may need to confess soon. I betrayed my home state fair and fraternized with another! I bought cheese curds, corn dogs, lemonade, fries, cookies, and all the good stuff from other food stands. I saw other large pumpkins. Different horses and sheep! Gasp. Although I have sinned, I believe it was a worthy cause, for I now have a point of reference to compare two of the best state fairs this country has ever produced. Because they are among the elite of the fairs, both have similar attractions. A grand stand that brings in popular acts, lots of food, animals, tractors, produce competitions, a skyride, and off-site parking. Deep-fried candy bars can be found at both state fairs, as can cheese curds. However there are a few items that I found missing which I have always associated with my experience at the fair. For example, there is no Sweet Martha's cookies in Iowa, nor a French Fries stand. There is a corn hut, but it isn't the same one (although I am sure the corn there is very good, I did not get a chance to taste it). Remarkably, there is also a giant slide in Iowa (one that is eerily alike the one in Minnesota, as though the same company supplied both).

Facts aside, here is how I felt about the Iowa fair, and compared to the Minnesota fair. I honestly like aspects of both fairs over other aspects of the other fair. The Iowa fair is a bit smaller, but I actually liked this because it allowed for less foot damage with more coverage of the fair grounds. I missed some booths and exhibits that the Minnesota fair has that I did not find in Iowa. This, however, is unfair since they are simply booths and exhibits that I am used to, and should not expect to be at every fair. Iowa had other exhibits that I am sure I would have liked just as much had I given it a chance. I liked that in Iowa I could "cast my kernel" for which presidential candidate I wanted to vote for (a popcorn kernel in a glass jar). The animals at both fairs are excellent, except I missed being able to pet an alpaca. The llamas, however, were quite funny (see above). Finally, as you can also see above, there was a fantastic butter representation of Shawn Johnson, the Iowa state heroin, who won many medals at the Olympic games in Beijing! Congrats, Shawn! GOOO IOWA! Although, there was no Shawn Johnson wearing a parka, sitting on a cold stool, while having her face carved into butter. Anyhow. Final verdict? Both are stellar state fairs, but I have more personal attachement to Minnesota's.

Sorry that this post was so delayed, I tried in vain to make the pictures go where I wanted them to go, but alas they would not! I thought maybe it was a glitch with Blogger that they'd fix. It has not been fixed. :( So therefore the next post will be coming up quite soon about "Paul, the College Senior"

TV Show Addiction

2008-08-08T14:47:00.002-06:00

Recently I have noticed the incredible ease with which I, and many friends, have been able to get addicted to TV shows. The advent of both TV shows located on the internet, netflix, and complete seasons of almost all shows available in DVD stores and for sale at Target, Amazon etc., have made it possible to watch an entire season at once. The West Wing, 24, Scrubs, Bones, Mad Men, Star Trek, House, Sex and the City, Weeds, Stargate SG-1, MI-5 - the list goes on, and it includes shows from all genres, of all quality (from Emmy winners to shows that have only a cult following).

This has recently made me ponder the nature of addiction. From substance abuse to gambling to reckless behavior to good doing. There are all sorts of addictions and all sorts of behaviors that have remarkably similar physiological effects on the brain, and consequent effects upon behavior. Would it be so hard to believe that similar effects act upon the brain when watching a TV show? Think about this. Why do people keep gambling? Time after time, pull after pull. From a biological psychology stand point, it is because of the dopamine release into the nucleus accumbens, inducing the subsequent feeling of pleasure and happiness. From a behavioral psychology viewpoint, it is because of the variable interval schedule of reinforcement that the gambler is on, which is known to be particularly addictive. I personally subscribe more to the neurological explanation, but my point remains valid under both. So, why do we watch TV shows? They are fun. Fun how? Funny, entertaining, witty, inspiring, dramatic, moving, idealized, fantastical–they are all these things, but not all the time. Is an episode of The Simpsons one long joke? Is every episode of 24 one long, drawn-out chase scene? Is every single moment of ER an intense, crisis-laden moment? No, of course not. But these shows create an environment that allows for such extraordinary events to occur. This sudden and unexpected humor, action-packed chase scene, or mind-blowing intensity is padded by dialogue and the mundane. Without being able to know when the dialogue will be fractured by a moment of the show's fingerprint, whether it be humor, drama, or action, we watch and wait. Of course you have to like the dialogue, the plot of the show, the lives of the characters and such. But simply watching them talk for 45 minutes would be utterly boring. Without the drama, the humor, the action, the intensity, the dancing, singing, jumping or fighting, what would the show be??

So, why the sudden and fast addiction? Well, the first time you watch a show, expectations are generally low. You have no idea how the show will be, who the characters will be, or how you will like them. Will it be funny or not? Or more importantly, when will it be funny? By setting expectations low, the amount of normal dopamine released into the brain that triggers the subsequent happy feeling actually elicits a more pronounced and longer-lasting feeling of joy and elation (yes, the reverse is true for when expectations are set too high). So, when you watch Family Guy for the first time and the camera pans in rapid succession across the faces of the four main characters, each saying "oh no" and then suddenly and abruptly focuses on the side wall where the kool-aide man breaks through stone and says "OH YEAHHH" the instant flood of dopamine is like the last drop of water onto a water-laden penny that breaks the surface tension. By itself, that water drop would have just plopped onto the penny quite harmlessly, but because of the low expectations, there is already that pile of water suspended on the penny, broken by what should have been an average joke. From that point on you are hooked. The same logic applies to gambling. Now you cannot get enough, and netflix will suddenly be happy to accept 16.99 a month for you to rent as many DVDs as possible to get your Family Guy fix.

Is this addiction dangerous? Behavioral addictions are no more harmful than anything else you spend a lot of time on, as there are no carcinogenic effects. The harm comes when the behavior begins to interfere with one's ability to live and function within society. Take for example the mother who got addicted to gambling in an instant when she pulled a slot machine for the first time and won thousands of dollars with that one pull. She eventually lost all her money, her husband, and her children because she could not leave the gambling floor. Luckily I don't think the amount of reward that comes from following a plotline, waiting for Homer to say "doh" or seeing is Dr. House can solve the latest case matches the amount of reward that comes from winning 10,000 dollars in literally two seconds. So keep watching those TV shows which are, in essence, drawn out movies. But, when the time comes that you lock the door to your room, and avoid social functions to see how JD made up with Elliot in that one episode of Scrubs, make sure you ask yourself if this has gone too far. Not that I have ever done that...

The American Pastime

2008-07-02T13:25:00.002-06:00

As a disclaimer to this post I must say that I am not, nor would try to claim to, nor would even feign to pretend to want to become a sports blog writer. This blog is not about that, and I do not know 1/20 of what most bloggers know (in terms of history and stats). So having said that, I will write this post with information that I quickly looked up on Wikipedia or information that I have filed away in my cortices somewhere, using the Hippocampus to access that information and retrieve it. Mostly though I will use my thoughts, feelings, and observations to comment on the state of the american pastime.

If you have heard of "The American Pastime" you have probably been discussing baseball: that true American pastime filled with hotdogs, peanuts, songs, loyalties, hatreds and last-inning comebacks. Recently though, there have been many challengers hoping to either dethrone baseball, take it down a notch, or otherwise taint it.

Those looking to usurp the title:

The first and most obvious: Football. This sport, formed into a National League in 1920 (whereas MLB formed in 1876) has increasingly been attempting a coup d'etat over the reigning keeper of the american pastime throne. Sure, football is fun for all involved, and of course it is a legitimate and very American sport. But, "the ball game" will never reference a football game, unless subjected to the unfortunate conversation in which this reference is the appropriate context. For example "Did you go to the Vikings game last night at the dome?" "Yes, that was an exciting ball game." Even in this forced context, the use of the phrase "ball game" feels awkward and incorrect. Why? Simple linguistics. In the minds of most Americans, a ball game brings us connotations of a true baseball game. Observe this sentence: "Hey, let's take an early break from work and catch the ball game today." Are you going to see the Vikings play? Unless this phrase was uttered sometime in the late fall, then probably not, you are most likely going to a Twins game.

I don't want to delve into facts regarding attendance of the two, income, nor any other seemingly "important" stats. They are irrelevant as I am merely discussing the semantic usage and correct application of the term "American pastime." Baseball has time honored traditions like the 7th inning stretch, beer and peanuts at the game, "Take me out to the ball game," crazy managers who dispute bad and good calls, and various club-specific traditions. Baseball gives you the opportunity to sit, talk and relax with your friends, or stand and madly cheer. Anyone sitting a football game is an anomaly. Both games are worthwhile, fun, and neither should take a stand above the other. Yet the title of "American pastime" should only belong to baseball, and the idea of the true American sport will and should always be baseball. Closely followed by football.

Next post: Free agency

A Grinnell Summer

2008-06-23T21:04:00.001-06:00

Before you all decide get angry with me for not posting in 11.5 million years, I would like to say this. I have not posted because I have been having such a fun and action-packed summer. I have done a ton so far and had even more tons of fun with friends. SO, you cannot guilt me because you would be then guilting me for having fun, and would you really want to do that? Should I instead not have fun? Well, if that were the case, I would then have NOTHING to write about! So again I say, it is better that I update less and enjoy life more.

Now, having said that and built up your expectations about how this great and full of excitement and wit this post will be, I will somehow attempt to meet your outrageously inflated expectations.

First and foremost, and the main reason for my being in Grinnell this summer at all, there is my research project. For this project I am investigating the human mind using various technical and advanced instruments. Our research question is how conceptual organization of a visual scene affects memory for that scene. We believe that organized scenes will elicit better memory since you are able to draw upon the faster tools of the mind to process and encode that scene, rather than having to look at each little detail in the scene to remember it. To test this me and my research partner are putting together a program that runs many pictures past a participant, some jumbled and some organized. At the same time we are presenting this pictures under a well understood psychological phenomenon called change blindness. This is basically those games in magazines that ask you to "find the difference!" between two very similar, but not exactly identical, photos. The inability for many people to perform this simple task suggests that we do not have very good memory for visual scenes, but rather we remember the "gist." So we take this paradigm and present some photos to participants that are jumbled, and some that are organized, but ALL are in groups of two, on pre-image, one post-image, with a change that occurs between the two (in some an objects changes into another, or one objects appears or disappears, or something changes colors quite drastically). Our research will provide more background into what "visual processing" is and how various other systems within the mind work upon this processing system to make it more efficient, but more prone to making errors. If you have any questions, feel free to ask away! :) I'll let you all know how stuff turns out.

In other news... I am 21! OMG!! I feel like I finally a trusted adult in the community. I can walk to the local store and purchase a bottle of wine for dinner and no one will get angry about the "legality" or this situation. I question a system where one can drive, vote, die for one's country at 18 and yet that same person cannot enjoy a simple beer while eating a meal with the family. This form of temporary prohibition creates a forbidden fruit that in turn creates a culture or drunken debauchery that results in many DUIs, and cases of alcohol poisoning on college campuses. The government should give states the right to choose the legal age for drinking without penalizing those who choose below 21. That way places like Utah can remain relatively sober, while places next door (Las Vegas) can imbibe more responsibly. When that restricted item is no longer so elusive it completely loses the thrill of lawbreaking when you partake in imbibing frivolities, and so the frivolities become more frivolous and less dangerous. At least, that is my opinion.

I am staying dry down here at college, in case you were worried after hearing about the midwest flooding. My collegetown was built on high ground, and we have seen little, if any, effects from the crazy floods. Of course our thoughts are with those who are much less fortunate. Hopefully events like these galvanize more people into wanting to take action in using renewable energies (not just jumping on the biofuel bandwagon) and helping out the environment before we essentially self-destruct.

Finally, I am really, super excited for the movies this summer. My current list of must sees includes (in no particular order):

Get Smart

Hancock

Wanted

The Dark Knight

Wall-E

Dilemma

2008-03-09T16:48:00.002-06:00

So, I am in a bind of the most outrageous proportions, and I was wondering if my blog community could help me solve this. Or maybe, by simply writing out the pros and cons for each option I could work through it myself. Even still, help from all [you] would be much appreciated!

The backstory:

I am deciding where to live next year. I have a good enough roomdraw number that I could practically take any single on campus. I want to be an SA though, so I am limited to SA rooms. Still, I could have just about any one I wanted (only one person draws before me, and either we'll draw together or it won't matter where she draws since we want different locations - you'll see what I mean). So my options are to live in an apartment on campus. These are newly built and require two SAs in the one apartment (thus I'd live with the girl who draw above me since she decides who she lives with). Or, I could just draw into a regular single and choose a good SA room somewhere else on campus.

Similarities between the options:

Both are on-campus housing
I get to be an SA in both locations

Differences:

One is an apartment with its own lounge, tv, couches, kitchen, shower, bathroom, and separate sleeping rooms, the other is regular dorm living, I would just have my own single again.
The locations on campus are different
The RLC (my boss as an SA - kind of) is different

Pros for the apartment:

all the cool amenities (TV, couches, my own kitchen when I don't have time for the dining hall, etc.)
presents a challenge in terms of SAing - trying to establish community among the different apartments, and also being (probably) the only senior staff (returners) in that cluster (group of dorms)
Right on Mac Field - easy access to playing games/lounging on the grass etc.
Still on campus

Cons for the apartment:

not in my desired cluster (loosehead - loose, read and haines) and not with my desired RLC, but that might be okay because the RLC up there seems nice and on top of things
potentially far from my friends (although, they may live close if they get a group draw or not - that depends on a lottery system though)
Further from Noyce (the science building) - i.e. it is about a 7 minute leisurely walk instead of 2
need to clean own bathroom

Pros for the dorm:

closer to more friends
desired staff
close to academic buildings
better established community on the floors, and more first years to welcome to Grinnell (always a great part of student staff)

Cons for the dorm:

None of the amenities of apartment life

Okay, I might add to and subtract from this list, but for now I think it is about complete. So - thoughts?!?!

THANKS!

Hate Crimes are NOT Grinnell

2008-02-29T19:50:00.007-06:00

Warning: This post will be neither funny nor entertaining. For once I feel the need to blog about a serious issue. Last Sunday there was a hate crime committed on my campus. A student went to the effort of making a large poster with homophobic slurs on it and posted it in a basement lounge. This person also targeted a specific member of the queer community and wrote slurs on their whiteboard and tore down their decorations. This isolated incident rocked the Grinnell community, and there was an outpouring of support for the individual, including a campus-wide rally in support of campus unity.

If we thought this isolated incident rocked our campus, we were not at all prepared for what happened today. 34 students received hate letters in their campus mail boxes that had horrible slurs on them. If anyone had the delusion that the first incident was an "accidental" hate crime, something targeted at a specific individual, that notion was dissolved into a mixture of realism with today's broadly targeted incident. Unfortunately, homophobia has infiltrated even a campus that claims to be as liberal as Grinnell does.

This deplorable incident has forced our campus into a brutally real world, out of the progressive bubble we have lived in for so long. When something as useless, digressive, pointless and ignorant as hateful homophobia raises its ugly head on a liberal campus, it serves as a stark reminder that there really are people who are filled with this kind of hate virtually everywhere.

But, even in the face of such hate, it is important to not reflect hate back, but rather to join together and show support for each other in the face of adversity. To demonstrate our ability to form a community even when someone tries their best to tear the community apart stitch by stitch is to rise above the hate and show the person another way of living. So as angry as people may be, don't retaliate with hatred, but demonstrate your propensity for love by standing strong together.

I just want to say this to the person or people who committed these crimes. You have not accomplished anything except unite the campus more. Your scare tactics are not welcome here at Grinnell. Hate is not welcome here. I feel sorry for you because clearly your only avenue of expression is hatred, and that is more depressing than anything else.

Now I would like to say a few words to Grinnellians. Although we may be unwilling to accept this person into our community anymore, and although we may be unbelievably angry at this moment in time, it is important that if they do find out who did these acts, we do not lash out, but instead find the power to forgive. The person or people, if exposed, will feel enough public shame to want to leave campus on their own, and I think our last act as a campus should be to both denounce these actions while at the same time forgiving this person/people. That way they can realize how little they accomplished in attacking our community, and how pointless such hate is.

This morning I will make a slightly more cheery addendum to my post. Last night, after writing this post, I played a game of Risk that started at around 9:30 and which we stopped about around 1:30 in the morning. Everyone decided I was the clear projected winner. I had all of Asia and had just wiped out a player by taking Australia, which means I got 4 more cards and was about to receive a boost of 105 troops plus my usual 15 (so 120 for those of you counting at home). Then myself and my ally in Africa were about to move into Europe after my non-aggression pact there expired (I think there were two turns left on it), and from there my African ally was going to move into Europe and vacate Africa which I was going to take. Then I would have won with my larger number of continents, larger army and better strategic positioning. So, I was the projected winner - Q.E.D. I think that my family should buy Risk (we only own a very old version of Castle Risk) and we should play a game together as the whole family when I get back for spring break. Last night was so much fun.

A Valentine's Day Surprise

2008-02-14T15:56:00.003-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

I thought as a special present to everyone I would actually update my blog for once in a long while. Since it is raining, and type A influenza is raging through campus, I don't much feel like going to the gym. PLUS, this way I can communicate a bit with the "outside world." Meaning everything that isn't my tiny Grinnell campus.

So what's new? Well, not much really. Actually that is a blatant lie. A lot is new! I finally have the feeling of being back into the groove of how to manage bein

g in two groups, two jobs, taking classes, being an SA, practicing bassoon and having fun. It takes a lot of organization and time management, something I am now quite efficient at doing. Of course the entire system breaks down completely if it takes me more than 5 minutes to get wherever I am going. That 30 minutes commute really adds up when you need to do it often enough. One thing that I have been able to do during that potential commute time is decorate my room. And now, I must say, it rocks. Like Van Halen rocks.

See?? Check that out! If you look really closely on the door you can see my Obama sign. I have recently added on there all 22 states he has won, which of course reflects the delegate lead he has taken recently. Yup. To preserve family relations, I will simply leave that statement where it is.

So, what am I doing this semester? Well, here is a quick run down for those who are interested.

Research Methods: In this class we study the ways to properly conduct and evaluate experiments in psychological research. It is actually a lot more interesting than it sounds on face value.
Behavior Analysis: This class studies the field of behavioral psychology in much more detail than we went into during intro psych. Behavioral psych studies stimuli and reactions to those stimuli as a way of studying human behavior, explaining it and predicting it, and finally applications to the real world. It is pretty interesting and fun, and me and my partner just came up with a general research question that we'll work on all semester: what is the effect of negative versus positive advertising on consumer preference for a certain product? I am really excited to investigate this, and maybe apply it to campaign ads. Woo!
General Chemistry: This is just what the name suggests, the introduction to chemistry course-lots of information, not lots of time. And actually I am having a great time so far!
Water: Development and the Environment: This course is my "non-science" course even though it really is a science. We are studying water, its importance, its distribution throughout the world, how we are using it (and not necessarily reusing it) and how it is more of a finite resource than we think. We are writing a policy brief (mine is about the warming that is occurring in Lake Superior, and the consequent decrease in winter ice thickness), and a final paper (mine, at least now, is focused on the various forms of alternate energy, and evaluating their worth regarding water to see if they are really as great as they promise).

So yeah, that is my schedule! I have all four of my classes in the science building, Noyce. Luckily it has been redone recently and is amazing. Of course, if anyone would ever come visit you'd know that... *cough*

So, in sum. Happy Valentine's day from the deep south! (Iowa) Where the weather is always grey, windy, cold, and recently very snowy.

Enjoy the day!

Love,

Paul

Final Week and Home

2007-12-22T12:53:00.000-06:00

Well, this post is being written from snowy home and not Andalucia, Spain. It is going to be a challenge to construct this post from a blank page without the inspiration of being surrounded by the environment about which I am writing. But, I will attempt to use my hippocampus to the best of its abilities (the area of the brain that seems to be very active in memory) in order to write this post.

Okay, well now I am home with the family you all know so well, but it occurred to me recently that I never actually talked about my host family! Sorry. Okay, so I stayed with a mother in her condo on the 4th floor of a newish building. She has two kids, one who is married and one who has a kid (and is practically married). Here is a photo of my host-mom with her daughter and grandson. (that is me in the middle - fyi.)

Well, then I had to go leave the house after the program ended and stay in a hostal. But because staying around in a hostel is boring, and because I had already seen Granada pretty extensively and so did not need to participate in the hostel activities (they had a tapas tour.... and the person working the reception tried to get me to participate, so I had to inform him that I have probably been to every tapas bar they'd go to, and he was like "ah... okay"). So instead I walked around and saw some of my favorite sights, and luckily the sun decided to augment the beauty of my favorite places by being stellar.

See?

The peacocks were pretty cool too, they posed for me in a very characteristic pose...

Once again the sun!

okay, well after saying goodbye to Granada, I went to go stay in Madrid for a day .5 before catching my flight home. Unfortunately the weather was less kind in the capital city, and clouds dominated the sky. Also, when I got there (on tuesday) the museum I was planning on visiting (the reina sofia) decided it wanted to be closed on tuesdays. sooo i ended up wandering around at night through parks and seeing not too much. The consequence though was that the next day I was actually too productive with my time and ended up seeing everything I wanted to see by 5:30, at which point I did not know what to do! Ah!

This is a funny statue.

This was part of my night visit of Madrid, the picture shows lights reflecting in the big pool of the large madrid park (it is like half the size of the whole city! well.. not really)

Also, plaza mayor was cool as always, but what I did not realize was that the plaza would be converted in an outdoor shopping mall to sell Christmas items like the figurines for nativity scenes and small little gifts.

Well, the next day I got up early and went to the airport. 22 or so hours later I was sitting at daddytude's house eating mai village and enjoying the begging feelings of reverse culture shock. Although I think my family is going to do a pretty good job over this coming week of keeping me so busy that I won't really be able to experience any kind of shock except for a dull numbness until after saturday the 29th is over. For those of you unsure to what I refer - the 29th happens to be the day of geotude's wedding! This coming home is going to be surreal, I think I am celebrating Christmas at least four times and one huge wedding. As the most Spanish Spaniard would say..."oof"

Well, expect the next post to be about something completely different. Probably Christmas. Or the wedding. Or the amount of snow that has decided to fall ( a lot ). Ciao!

Thus ends the chapter of my voyage throughout Spain.

Las Navidades

2007-12-07T03:37:00.000-06:00

In the spirit of not much time remaining before Christmas (navidad in Spanish), I will help foster the mood by detailing as much of the Spanish Christmas tradition as I know. Because it is quite different from ours in the States.

As you know, Spain is very catholic, even though the state is "laico" (secular) they still like to decorate all over the place. Even governmental buildings like to decorate (like the picture below, which in the ayuntamiento (one part of the government) and which has lights on it that spell out "felicidades" (really has not good translation, but it is like saying Merry Christmas).

The city has gone mad with putting lights everywhere they can possibly put them. Every street looks like the below pictures. With varying styles in the decorations, different colors, etc.

Some stores have giant belénes (nativity scenes), like Corte Inglés which has a giant one made out lights, a jewelry store has one above their fixed awning that is pretty much a porch with bigger than life people. There is a walk-through nativity scene in front of the Corte that I have been through three times. It is incredibly detailed and has all sorts of different scenes (with camels, oxen, sheep, angels, baby jesus etc.) Every Spaniard knows how to recognize the three Reyes Magos (three kings) AND knows them by name. Baltazar is "el negro" (the black one), Melchor con la barba y pelo blanco (white beard and hair), y Gaspar "el pelirojo" (with red hair). Now, the big shocker is that on the 25th, they usually do NOT gift presents! Ah! (People are starting to now because of influence from the U.S. and because then the kids get more time to play with their presents before going back to school). Instead, the 24th is called "noche buena" and people generally go to church. Here is a run down of days and their significance:

22 of December: day where they draw the Christmas lotería (lottery).
24 of December: everyone goes to mass, it is called the Misa de Gallo
25 of December: Navidad
28 of December: Dia de los Santos Inocentes (day of the innocent saints) this is a day dedicated to the innocent children who were murdered according to some book of the bible. On this day everyone plays jokes on each other, like our April fool's day. The difference is that the whole country gets really into it, they sell things for people to use as jokes (like fake poop) and the news even puts on a fake announcement and everyone watches the news trying to guess which one it is. At the end of the broadcast they say which one it was.
1 of January: Año Nuevo (new year) - the night before, everyone goes out to bars and discos and stays out really, or if you stay at home to watch the ball drop (in Madrid) the tradition is to eat 12 grapes and toast cava. You have to eat a grape at every chime of the 12 chimes at midnight. People end up with very chubby cheeks.
Night of the 5th/Day of the 6th of January: Día de los reyes magos (day of the kings). Today, or the previous night, is when gifts are exchanged (following the tradition of the kings who brought gifts for baby Jesus).

There is a traditional dish to eat which is called Roscón de Reyes, which is kinda like fruit cake (I think) and in there you hide a little figure and a lima bean. The person who gets the bean has good luck for the next year, and the person who gets the figure has to make the cake the next year.

There are also three very typical instruments you play around the holiday. One is called a "zamomba" which is a instrument played that is made of a clay pot covered with the dried and cured stomach of a sheep or pig that has a hole in the middle. You take a stick and put it in the hole, spit in your hand, and bang the stick up and down. Another one is called la pandereta which is a lot like a tambourine, and the other is called la botella de anis, which is literally just a bottle of anis (a very typical Spanish liquor that has bumps and ridges on the bottle) and you play it by running and knife of fork or something up and down the side of the bottle.

Oh, and remember that bank from a previous post offering the leg of jamón for starting up an account, or taking out a loan or something? Well...

EVEN BETTER!!!!!

So. Well, the final thing of interest has to do with religion in Spain. You know how pretty much every day is a saint's day? Well, the day of The Mother and the day of The Father (as in Joseph) are also doubled as mother's and father's day! Clever, no? Okay, well... love you! See you all soon. Also, with this being finals week, I wouldn't be surprised if I find lots of reasons to blog and not work... :)

Oh! And I saw a flamenco show last night. It was VERY traditional. So much so that actually half the show was canceled because the woman dancer of the first show was in a relationship with the guitar player of the second half, they got into an argument and the woman refused to dance. It meant a bit less dancing, but really that is kind of funny and very typical of the crazy world of flamenco. OK, that is all.

Just kidding.. one more pretty photo!

(I walk down that camino at least two times on an average day)

Alpujarra Weekend

2007-12-02T12:23:00.000-06:00

This weekend was extraordinary. Reference photo 1 for the first reason I had such a great time.

(the above would indeed be photo 1). Saturday and Sunday were spent on an organic farm in The Alpujarras, a region back in the Sierra Nevadas where there are a bunch of small, extremely typical Spanish villages (small, built into a valley or onto a hill, with lots of closely packed white washed houses). Now, although a 100% organic farm is not extremely typical, the farming style of living certainly is. We stayed with a host family who was actually not extremely Spanish because... they weren't actually Spanish. The mom was from Switzerland and the Dad from Germany, they had lived in Scotland before buying this farm and moving Spain. The kids (ages 3, 10 and 12) speak German, Swiss-German, English and Spanish, and the parents also speak French (and the kids can understand well enough). Their farm is completely sustainable, they grow their own vegetables using organic methods, they generate their own power with solar panel and windmills, and they heat their water by running the water through heating coils on the roof. The house they live in has been there for about 1500 years (being founded by the Moors), but obviously being rebuilt with new materials every so often. They get their water from Moorish aqueducts that are still functioning.

They fed us the most amazing tasting vegetables I've ever had, even the lettuce had a distinct flavor. For our main project that we did, we collected acorns (payotas in Spanish) on the first day, then cute and shelled some that they had already soaked for us (you must soak them for 36 hours to facilitate shelling), then they were cooked, ground into flour, mixed with regular flour and made into pancakes so that we could see what a complete organic cycle is. We also got to learn traditional basket weaving techniques (they are extremely hard to do). We got time to relax, and time to play with the kids on the their trampoline. Also, there was a beautiful sunset that evening.

See? It was REALLY cold there at night, but during the day, it was easily t-shirt weather.

Here is a photo from the morning we woke up, this is the lighting of the sun just rising over the mountain behind us and illuminating a small village where our first bus dropped us off and we caught the second bus (I think it is Orgiva). The daughter of the host family we stayed with goes to school here and has to walk 3 KM downhill (about 1 hour) every day to catch the bus and go 3 more KM into town. She'll really be able to tell her kids "I had to walk two hours each day in the [insert bad weather conditions here], so buck up!"

This is the house we stayed in. It was quite warm, but only under their giant comforters. Otherwise it got a bit nippy.

Of course, olive trees! (one of the main exports of the organic farm we stayed on). Okay so... embarrassing story. So here we come, this group of 7 American to visit an organic farm. I think I know Spain and Spanish ways pretty well. So this 12 year old girl who is the daughter of our host family (and can speak english, spanish, german etc.) is our guide up to her house. Well, once there, the farmers staying on the farm come back with buckets of freshly picked olives off the tree. Now, being the gullible sap I am for trying new things and having new experiences, this little girl (who is extremely nice and fun, so how could she be mean?) offers me a "freshly picked a wonderful olive" HA. Never eat a raw and uncured olive. It is the most vile thing you have ever had in your life. That was a great first experience on the farm.

A pretty view of the mountains.

The son in the family has three goats that he traded for hay and stones from a neighbor, so they are completely his. He hopes to bring organic meat to Spain like we have in the U.S. and like they have in Scotland, it is something that is hard to find aquí. He has named his goats and walks them every day. He gets home-schooled in the morning and spends the rest of the day working on the farm and with his goats (as well as playing, obviously, he IS 10 after all).

The entrance to their little group of neighbors.

The orange trees on their property. Even though they were still a bit unripe, they were still delicious oranges.

There are not their solar panels, but I think a neighbors. Still, a cool photo.

Okay, so in sum. I had a ton of fun on this farm for the few hours I was there. I made a good friendship with the people, had a great time with the kids and enjoyed working there, talking, relaxing, and being more peaceful and less wasteful. I don't think I could do it as my entire life, but I think I could do it for months at a time. I have been thinking about wwoofing, and before I didn't want to in Spain because I've been here etc., but after being on this farm I would love to do it here after I graduate from Grinnell and have a bit of free time (probably). I am also thinking about going to Canada to wwoof, and probably I could do both which is pretty common. I'd probably go to Canada in the summer so that I can also be at Shuswap then head over here in the fall/winter to help with the olive harvest etc. Just an idea I am tossing around that has gained a bit of momentum.

So, also on last Thursday I went to the Alhambra again by daylight. It was even more marvelous than by night, and I loved all parts of it. To save from having a double post and repeating an old post, I'll just share with you my favorite photo (although there are SO many more I can show in... 17 days in person).

Love you all!

You Know You're In Spain When...

2007-11-24T05:29:00.000-06:00

You see a bank offering a jamón if you open an account there.

You see orange trees with ripe oranges in the middle of November.

You call a restaurant to make a reservation and you ask for "8:45" and they say "that's really early, what about 9:30?" And you get there, and you are still the only people in the restaurant.

Christmas decorations are hung in the streets by the government.

You walk by one bar, and just hear normal loud voices, then walk by another bar and you hear flamenco singers belting it, and you keep walking because this is totally normal.

The ice cream shops actually close in the winter (even the indoor ones).

Also, you know when you've been thinking in Spanish because you read the word "compromises" and you think, "I have never heard of that word in English" because you are putting the accent of the word onto "pro" instead of "com" and pronouncing it like it were "com promises" then you look it up in a dictionary and read the definition and go "hmm... I think I do know this word, oh. yeah. compromise *slap self*" - the word in Spanish is compromisos.

Cádiz/Jerez/Doñana

2007-11-17T11:01:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I took my final organized IES trip to visit the cities of Cádiz and Jerez, as well as the well conserved natural park called Doñana (the name comes from the woman who owned the land where the park is now, who was named Doña Ana, and now Doñana). We also stopped off at an Andalucían horse show near Jerez, and a bodega of sherry in Jerez (the Spanish word for sherry is jerez). While at the bodega (which was from the Gonzalez Byass company that makes the famous Tio Pepe vino fino) we got to see such super cool things as sherry casks signed by famous people, like Cole Porter for example:

As well as Pablo Picasso, Orson Wells, Kings and Queens of Spain and many, many other people. Unfortunately we did not get all day to wander through all the casks to find the names we really wanted to find... but seeing Cole Porter was super cool. Also, I met a really famous person. The famous Tio Pepe. He was the uncle and financier to his nephew for the start of this bodega in Spain. Well, when the bodega became really super famous, they named their best sherry after him! Here is a photo of me with the famous Tio Pepe.
Ha. Ha. I bet you are laughing your socks off and then putting them back on only to laugh them off again, right? Well if not, it's okay... It wasn't a great joke (you probably didn't even realize it was a joke). Well, something that is really cool and not an attempt at being funny is that in the sherry casks (called botas in Jerez) are bought by some whiskey companies and sent to Scotland to be used to make whiskey and to give it an extra flavor that it otherwise wouldn't have. Some people like it, but some do not. I really am curious to try it, mixing the Spanish with the Scottish to make an alcohol sounds fantastic. One of these is called Glenfiddich 15 year Solera reserve. Here is a photo of said casks, and also (although not seen) lots of sherry waiting to be consumed.

So, like I said we also went to an Andalucían horse show. These horses are pure bred Andalucían, they are those horses who have "the good genes" and only "the good genes." There is absolutely no intermixing with horses from Morocco, northern Spain, and heaven forbid colts from the U.S.! These horses are more Spanish than the king of Spain himself.

So during the show, they would bring the horses out in different methods to show them off to us. These just pulled a carriage.

very Spanish

This horse got to run around free while epic music played in the background.

These horses are raced around a track. This was the most fun event they showed to us. The guy driving the cart was this old man who clearly has worked with horses all of his life and he looked like he was having so much fun racing this horse team around the track in under a minute (54 seconds I think it was). They were really booking it! (The two in the back are for dead weight). The truth is these horses live very cushy lives on this ranch. They get to run free, they are protected from the heat or cold when they need to be, they have their own personal doctor, and they get all the food they want. The only price is that they have to run around for people every once in a while. People from all over the world (or at least Europe) come to see these shows, the announcer spoke in English and Spanish.

Another type of animal we saw was in Doñana the nature park. Here we saw this VERY cute (sarcasm) boar. Don't you just wanna cuddle with that cute face?

In truth, this was a very beautiful park that was a mix of desert and forest, very interesting. It lies in south western Spain, right near were the Rio Guadalquivir empties out into the ocean.

See the deer with the big horns in eating in the meadow?

This tree grows like this because, so they said, the leaves are so heavy from all the water, it weighs down the tree. Another theory is that the trees drink alcohol, get super drunk and grow all over the place.

Cows! Like in Iowa or Minnesota!

See what I mean when I say a desert mixed with a forest?

Save me from the heat and lack of water!! AHHhhHhhH

Those, way down there, are our buses that they rode us around in. They went extraordinarily fast and it was extremely bumpy throughout the whole ride. Of course, I was far too cool for a seat belt, so I got to do some really fun "butt-jumping" (jumping while seated) around while holding onto things so as not to fall all over everyone seated around me.

We still managed to have fun though

Now, Cádiz. This city is really unlike any I've seen before. Not only was it second most important city for the Roman Empire, it is also a city that is on a peninsula and so is completely enclosed. The streets are tiny and narrow, but the plazas are frequent and beautiful. It gives you the sense of wandering through a maze that has frequent breaks where you can stop, look around, and realize that you are just as lost as before. But luckily, we had a robot guide from the CIA to lead us around (haha, not really). This was super funny, we found a bear that was passed out against its steering wheel.

Also, we went to an old roman theater that they have found there. I decided I needed to take advantage of this opportunity and act on a roman stage.

Epic.

The Cathedral of Cádiz. Pretty grand, no? But really, you see one, and you've seen them all.

So, once you feel completely closed in and suffocated by the city, you can wander out to the ocean walk and be marveled by the vastness of the ocean and the majesty of such a giant body of water. Cats also called this place home.

Here is a castle that remains built out onto the shoals of the coast where one could watch for boats coming and going, and regulate trade, and all that important mumbo jumbo that made the south of Spain and north of Africa so prosperous.

Well, that's about it from that trip. We stayed in a nice hotel and where I got to have a hot breakfast (something that is not done so often in Spain). Although, now I will be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with real, crunchy, peanut butter!! mmmm... thanks mom and dad! I hope you all are well... I come home in just about 1 month! ah!

love

¡Que mis photos sean buenas!

2007-11-13T14:43:00.000-06:00

Okay so, I submitted a photo to the Grinnell review just for kicks, and it got in! ah! Here is the photo I submitted... (for those of you who don't go to Grinnell, the review is a magazine published once a semester with a collection of art, be it poems, short stories, or visual art, that is judged and selected by a panel of students).

It is from the Mosque in Córdoba.

Then, on top of that, there is an IES photo contest with a free gift certificate to an arab bath as the prize for the winners (two). I am going to submit these three photos to that contest. Wish me luck!

I have quite a bit of work to do for tomorrow, since the "no pasa nada" atmosphere of Spain has infected me and I have tended towards leaving work to the last minute, but not caring since "I am in Spain! It doesn't really matter if I work or not, right?" Well.. I guess professors still want assignments to be turned in. Who knew?!

love to you all!

All Things Alhambra

2007-11-09T11:40:00.000-06:00

This may be the post that everyone thought would be first. Maybe second. Certainly not nearly last. Finally after being in the city which gives to the world the "8th wonder," La Alhambra, for two months, I scaled those steep and imposing hills up to see this wonder of an Arabic palace. I'll give you some history and facts so that maybe you understand this place a little bit better, then all I am going to do is post some pictures since my words would fail at capturing a seventh of the splendor of this place. Although, the pictures really can only hold 4/7, or at most 3/4, of this palace's majesty. La Alhambra is the best preserved palace in the Arab world. There were other very important and beautifully done ones, but only La Alhambra remains standing and in such pristine condition. This place was the last major toehold that the Moors had on Spain before being driven out by the Catholic Kings.

Note: I would have pictures also from the Alcazabar, but because I had a momentary lapse in cognitive functioning and my "cognitive resources" were being directed elsewhere, I thought a visit to the fortress part of the Alhambra started at 5:30 and not 4:30, so I didn't get to see it. But it was just the military part anyhow. Here are pictures from the Generalife (pronounced: Hgen-er-al-EEfe .... no IPA here on google blog) and the Alhambra palace at night. I am going to go again during the day and also to the alcazabar, but because I have to see it. Also, included maybe not in this post but the next, are pictures from the park called Carmen de los Martires, which is adjacent to the Alhambra. It was beautiful.

Alright, I am done talking. Except maybe a few comments throughout. But not many. Just look at the photos. Take your time. Examine detail. They are amazing.

The garden of the Architect, possibly the most well known

They loved their symmetry

This (below) is part of a poem in Arabic that goes all the way around the room. The Alhambra is super famous for being the ONLY Muslim architecture that has poetry written on the walls as part of the decoration.

(looking up)

This wall is super famous and super beautiful. It was done by a Muslim Caliph after they won a great battle against the Christian Kings and took over the straight of Gibraltar (obviously an important tract of land - am I right?) So, to celebrate, he built a wall. He probably threw a kegger also. Oh, and on this wall, at the top where the shells are, there is another poem. Arabic poetry, at least here, is written in the feminine voice (since all about the Alhambra is feminine since it is like a woman to the Muslims who built it), and the poem is in the first person.

A reflecting pool that was absolutely serene

near, far, farther

drama!

just wow

a key part of the Alhambra was that the princes could sit up here and watch the city, so that if a rebellion started, or someone invaded, they could know right away and act accordingly (usually to flee)

update

2007-11-03T11:50:00.000-06:00

Recently I have eaten:

Cuttlefish (sepia)

And a real-life photo

It had a very strong seafood taste, was completely white and unbelievably chewy. Honestly, I could only eat 1/4 before I had to stop and eat two fried eggs instead. I am sure it is very good for me, the taste was just too strong! With every bite I had to suppress a momentary gag.

Observations and Plans

2007-11-02T04:26:00.000-06:00

So, this weekend I am staying in Granada for a long and relaxing weekend instead of traveling to some exotic place. The hope is that I will get to know the city I chose to come to a little bit better this weekend instead of scratching the surface of some far away city to say that I have been there. Because of this though, I do not have an exciting adventure story to tell you! So I'll blog about observations from Spain and then about plans for the future (near and some far).

Observations.

It is not unusual to go through 5L of olive oil in 2 months. I think, roughly, by the time I leave for home I will have consumed the equivalent of 1.5 liters. Of olive oil. Mm..... I love greasing up the system to make it work more smoothly.
A siesta is not, as commonly though, a 3 hour sleep in the afternoon. The average siesta is usually closer to 30 minutes or an hour if you did not sleep much the previous night. It of course various person to person and situation to situation, but sleeping from 4 to 8 is sleeping again. Some siestas are just mini-rests in front of the TV watching animal documentaries.
Spain is the country with the most relaxed alcohol culture in the world. People drink with friends at all hours of the day, but never to get drunk. Going to a bar is the equivalent of taking a drink on the porch with family after 5.
The weather in Spain is changing like everywhere else. They used to have fall around this time, and sometimes the trees would have been completely barren. Now though the trees are still green and the leaves have just started to think about changing colors. Today the high will be 69 degrees F with sunny skies.
Heat in buildings is never turned on before Nov. 1
In almost all the houses and apartments the clothes are hung to dry outside. No driers.
You can walk in almost any direction and find a beautiful fountain.
I have been asked for directions at least 5 times now. I look Spanish!!
Houses are NOT (typically) social gathering points with friends for teenagers. Bars, discos, cafés, malls, and parks are.
OLE!

Now, to talk about my plans for the future. Next weekend I am taking a trip to Cádiz and Jerez and the natural park Doñana. I am very excited. Also, this is our last scheduled trip with our program! There only remains one short month and 18 days until I am stateside again. Time flies when you're having fun, I guess! Before I come home though, I hope to do some traveling just around Spain. I would love to make it up to Galicia after the program ends and before I come home (16 - 19). I'd like to see Valencia sometime (make a weekend out of it) and go hiking again in the sierras.

I have also recently been thinking about my plans for the far off future, and since I have been keeping them rather clandestinely hidden inside my head, I will share. This summer I hope to do some research, either at Grinnell or at some other institution. After I graduate from Grinnell, I am looking at going to medical school (maybe at the U so as to stay close to home) and then becoming a doctor of neuroscience. My goal is to somehow bring the field of neuroscience closer to the public in general, to those who have not necessarily spent 10 years studying the subject. Geometry and algebra used to be the top forms of math reserved for the smartest people. Now they are taught universally in middle school. Neuroscience is hard because we know so little about it and because when people explain it, it is easy to complicate the big picture with the minute details. Also, wrapped up in this goal is my hope that once neuroscience is not such a lofty and "rocket-science" field it will become more affordable for people who need attention but are unable to pay for the expense of brain surgery, EEGs, CAT scans, fMRIs etc. Set the bar high, so that if you don't reach it you still land above where you started, right?

Alright, that's all for now. I'll post some photos I have not posted yet since I don't think they went with any particular post, or did and I just didn't post them.

The House of Garcia Lorca

This is one of the ways that Ryanair can have such cheap flights

The English breakfast. Mmmmm..

A semi-artsy photo of the bookstand on the street in London

The Alhambra, of course

And now, I will introduce you to my host-nephew, Daniel!

He is the second cutest baby I have met in person, and is now just about 7 months old! (the first cutest baby can be found here)

3-2-1

2007-10-25T07:57:00.000-06:00

Part 2

For Part 1, it was easy to choose the English flag as the representation of my trip to England. You see that at the beginning of the post, and instantly you know the general topic of the post. Well, I had to choose a representative photo for my next trip. You may observe it on the left side of this post. Yup, camel riding. I thought that captured what people think of when they hear you were in GREENLAND. Just kidding. I of course was just recently in Morocco! If you have never been to Africa but you have seen photos, let me tell you, not all of it is desert with lions and zebras. In fact, Morocco is very similar in climate to Andalucía, Spain. It is even similar to this part of Spain in terms of architecture since (as stated in an earlier post) Andalucía was Al-Andalus, a Muslim country, from 711 - 1492 - when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. But, you knew you were in Africa when you saw a few distinct things. For one, there is Arabic writing on all the signs (as well as French since that is the second official language of Morocco). Also, you can look anywhere you choose, in just about every direction, and you'll see the minaret of a mosque. What's more, there are many more people dressed in traditional Muslim clothing. I did not take a photo of this, since I believe it would probably make the person feel as though they were a spectacle instead of a person. Of course, there are many more things that make Morocco different from a part of Spain... like its geographical location, for example. Although, technically, only 14 Km of water separates Africa from Spain. Anyhow, geography and obvious observances aside I will now attempt to capture the essence of my 5 day trip to Morocco in one blog post.
Let's begin with the overall facts and from there develop the more interesting points. We started out in Tangiers, where we caught a bus and went down to Rabat (and on the way stopped to ride camels). In Rabat we met our host families. My host sister was very nice and her family was very welcoming. She spoke excellent English, which made it so much better to be there instead of sitting quietly while Arabic is rapidly spoken everywhere. My meager Arabic skills so far only get me to be able to pronounce nouns and to read words. Not very useful when I want to ask what something is, how to get somewhere, or what the person's view on modern economic struggles is. The next day I went on a day trip with my friend from college and the film crew that was traveling with our group through Morocco making a documentary. We went to Casablanca where we walked through a shantee town and had tea and dessert in a family's house there. That night I came home late and crashed. The next day we said goodbye to our host families and traveled to rural Morocco where we went into the mountains to have a talk with a student who was born there. Then we left and drove to the tourist town Chefchouan. That night we did some shopping and had a good dinner at a nice restaurant. The next morning we went on a hike up into the mountains to a view to overlooked the city cradled by mountains. Then we returned to the hostel and left for Ceuta. There we crossed the border into Spain and then took the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar. There are the facts and a short synopsis. Now, to elaborate briefly on a few stories and conclude with a picture show.

The Shantee Town:
This is the picture of the center plaza in the town. The only photo I took outside there, because once again I did not want to make this town into a spectacle that I photograph, walk through, and leave. But, I felt I had to take this photo, of cows grazing on fields of trash. For me, this was the defining moment in Morocco. I have heard stories about the way in which "the other half" of the world lives, but never did I really imagine those conditions to be something like this. Nor do I believe I could have ever imagine living situations as poor as these ones without walking through this place. Possibly the most surprising aspect of my visit to this town was the incredible hospitality of the people living there. We came for the film team to do a preliminary shot of the town since they will be filming here next week. We had to go into the house of one of the families with a student who will be a subject of the documentary. Not only did the family greet us with smiles and open arms, but they prepared us tea and lots of desserts to enjoy while we talked with the family and the student. He is incredibly motivated, has a job and is seeking a BA degree. He already supports a family and is only 19. This struck me as the perfect story of escaping the world you are born into. I will not pretend I wasn't apprehensive about walking through this town, especially at night. But we were not heckled, yelled at, or even approached in any way except for an old woman to ask us if we would spend the night at her house since it was getting late.

The next story I will highlight is the conversation we had in the mountains. Here we discussed with a local the influence of "The West" upon "The East." This person spoke frankly and directly to us about his beliefs, and how he feels the west is to blame for the the moral corruption and sexual deviation that is penetrating the east into the religion of Islam. Never have I been at such a loss for words as when I asked this man "Do you blame the west" and he looked straight at me and said "yes, I do." To clarify, the west does not directly equate to the U.S., but includes Europe and Canada and possibly South/Central America. Also, he feels that no westerner is capable of approaching a Muslim man without being afraid he is a terrorist. This experience was revealing and challenged me personally to put in order my beliefs. I appreciated the frankness with which he spoke to us, but it also made me a bit angry the double standard he cuts of judging others for holding stereotypes but then using a stereotype to identify who the "culprits" are.

Lastly, and somewhat tied to the above experience, our group had a conversation with two Muslim students studying in Rabat. We discussed American politics (they dislike our foreign policy, obviously, and do not blame the people of the U.S. for that, but rather our president). We then got into a discussion about what responsibility us as U.S. citizens have to affect change in the U.S. when we do not like our country's politics. The discussion digressed into an argument among the U.S. students about whether it is worth it to protest, and why there are not nearly as many demonstrations against this war as there were against Vietnam, when both wars can be argued as being equally unfavorable. Possibly the most interesting piece of information I want to relate though is the new light that shed upon Islam by their Professor. The terrorists who invoke the name of The Prophet for their cause are not true Muslims in any sense of the term. The phrase "fundamentalist Islam" did not exist until we invented the term. This professor said that the root of Islam is based on the union of the three holy texts, the Bible, the Torah and the Koran (all of which are in the Koran). The major and fundamental difference is that Jesus is not seen as the son of God by Muslims. God has no children, that is a contradiction of ideas. Their religion is based on peace and acceptance, as well as discipline. In Islam, to kill one person is equivalent to killing everyone in the world. Therefore Islamic terrorists are no more representative of Islam than Hitler was of Christianity. They are more radical people with radical ideas rather than radical religious fanatics. I believe this is a point more people should come to understand before we judge all Muslims the same. So spread the word.

Now, a picture show.

The rock of Gibraltar at night. This is officially a part of England on the Iberian Peninsula.

The mountains around Chefchauan with the local mosque in the center

You can see the color Chefchouan is painted

I WAS there, see?

A small village we visited that lies on the coast of Morocco. To my right extends the ocean, and if I had a BIG telescope really high up I could see you if I had looked that way!

Some wall art

A flower?

The mountains in the rural part of Morocco

A pretty view around Chefchouan

The ruins of an old mosque

Welcome to Casablanca

My roommate in the room we stayed in while with the host family in Rabat

The sun setting in the mountain village

The most colorful olive shop I've seen to date

3 Countries - 2 Continents - 1 Week

2007-10-17T15:31:00.000-06:00

Part 1

Two weekends hence, I went to London and saw my college friends. It made me so happy to see some of my best friends again. Also, seeing trees changing color, green grass and cold weather made me very happy. In case you, the reader, would like to not read any further then I will summarize for you - I loved London a ton and could see myself living there.

Now, the long version!

We got into London Stansted airport at around 12:00 at night. We got to the border line at around 12:30. We got OUT of the border line at around 2:00 AM. Yeah. It was horrendous. Oh, and the E.U. line which was even bigger got through in about 10 minutes. They just walked right on by the guards on duty. We were of course in the "rest of the world" side. Because of this, we were being asked every question you could think to ask. Well, after a long and somewhat stressful journey, I finally arrived at my friend's flat at 5:00 (AM) and proceeded to chat, and then crash for a good four hours. That day we saw:

Picadilly Circus

Buckingham Palace

Giant mole tracks outside of Buckingham (ha, not really)

GREEN!!

Halls of Parliament

Westminster Abbey

BIG Ben

The TUBE! (Mind The Gap)

Then, later that day, Aleja and I met up with my college friends who flew in from Turkey.

There we all are outside of the aptly named Green Park. This park was very green, and it made me very happy. There were leaves aplenty to go running through and jumping around in. Here is me and one of my other halves (yes, I have more than one other half) sharing a walk down lover's lane in Hyde Park on our way to the speaker's corner where we heard crazy people galore talking about so many different crazy things! Like this guy who referred to the Old Testiment as a "learning curve" and called Islam a "completely violent religion" using as the crux of his argument "can you name one Muslim comedian? No?? Therefore all are violent." He got into a few very heated discussions with Muslims in the crowd who all took offense to the absurd words spewing forth from his slightly biased mouth. This type of person drives home the fact that there are extremists on both sides of any conflict, and that neither person is an adequate representation of their respective religion, but rather just a crazy person (who, for some reason, have a knack for acquiring followers).
Well, crazy people and lovers aside, we had some great memories on this trip. We saw a rugby match in a rugby pub where England defeated the French. It was an amazing experience, and I cannot imagine how intense actually being at the game would have been. After England drowned the French, I got hang out with a big group of college friends at their flat. It was very fun and relaxing to be among people I know well again. We also went to the British museum where they have something from every culture that has ever existed in this world and the previous world, and I am sure they will have things from cultures yet to come. British Imperialism is something intriguing to try to understand when you finally encounter it. Later that day we also went over to the Tate Modern museum and tried to understand some materialism art, such as Rothko. Much of this art, such as a slash through a canvas, made less sense than a Russian saying an African prayer at a Jewish wedding on Christmas while dancing Flamenco and wearing a poncho, all the while eating rice with chopsticks. Yup. Example:

or, the highlight

That does nothing for me compared to an impressionist, realist, surrealist or really another artistic style.
Finally, we finished up the trip with a visit to the famous Foyle's bookstore, the biggest in all of London and therefore the WORLD. They had 5 floors with a total of over a million books total. It was amazing to be there and somewhat daunting. They also had a jazz café (not a chain coffee store) in the store where you could sit, listen to jazz, and read your new book! I loved it so much. There I bought Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot and The Shooting Party by Anton Chekov. I also bought Pride and Prejudice and King Lear from a street book sale. How could I leave London without buying English books? (and.. a Russian book). Finally, the visit was capped by a mandatory visit to the most historic location in London.

La Gran Mezquita del Occidente

2007-10-11T08:37:00.000-06:00

The Great Mosque of the West, as it is known, is located in Córdoba, Spain. For those of you who, like me, thought that Spain has always been a Catholic and very "Spanish" place, I don't think you could be more wrong. Not only was Spain home to the second most important city in the Roman Empire (Córdoba), it was also home to Greeks, Phoenicians, Byzantines, Visigoths, Muslims, Christians and probably some others. The most of important of these are of course the Romans, Muslims and Christians (important as in the most remaining structures and the greatest impact on the current way of life). Well, Córdoba also was the seat for the capital of the Omeyan empire which separated from the Damascian empire and was established as the first Muslim reign in 756. They went building this mosque there that kept of being added onto over and over again, with different princes (and eventually kings) adding their own addition. Finally, it became to be the biggest mosque in this side of the muslim empire (and was until Casa Blanca built a bigger one recently). So Spain has been the seat of a Muslim empire, a very important country for the Romans, and home to the capitals of many other long-forgotten empires.

Now, the mosque. This place where the mosque is built on top of has always been religious ground. It was the site of a Christian church, a Roman temple, and then the Islamic mosque which now has a Catholic cathedral built into it, literally. It in interesting to ponder the significance of this. Is it just that different religious groups wanted to assert their power by building over the previous religious temple, or is something more divine? Is that area religious ground that groups are continuously drawn to for some reason or another? I'll let you ponder while you look at these photos of the mosque and the cathedral within it, and the fascinating juxtaposition is creates.

But first, a quick little piece of history intrigue for you to maybe shed some new light onto the perceptions and notions that today's war climate may be trying to firmly plant into your way of perceiving groups of people. When the Muslims came up from Africa, it was a relatively bloodless conquering of the majority of the Iberian peninsula. When the mosque was built, the Muslim prince bought the land from the Christians who moved their church to a different place and worshiped in peace. There was a thriving Jewish sector and many synagogues to be found. People worshiped side-by-side their own Gods and al-Andalus was a great mixture of cultures that gave birth to such things as flamenco dance. When the Catholic Kings "reconquered" Spain, they tortured, persecuted and killed countless people in the name of their Holy mission. All that remained in Spain was Catholicism. Who were the "evil doers" and who weren't in that case? Stereotypes are never what we make of them, so be careful when generalizing anyone. Now I will step off the soapbox and you may see some photos:

Me and two friends in the mosque itself.

The photo that captures a war. Christ, the Saviour, taking refuge within the arches on an Islamic mosque.

Some detail of the beautiful craftsmanship of the mosque

A view of the cathedral as seen when standing inside the mosque. The cathedral is built up, and the mosque is always built around. A cathedral is about finding God above us, and a mosque is about finding God within us.

One of the impressive views within the mosque. Red and white are the colors that together symbolize divinity and beauty.

Another similarly amazing photo

The jewel of Islamic architecture is found in Spain and is considered one of the if not THE most astonishing Islamic art piece on all of Europe. It is a mosaic of tiny, beautiful stones that are arranged in this way and have verses of the Koran framing the archway where the Caliph entered from and prayed.

Well, after going to Córdoba I came back to Granada, did some work, went to sleep, and woke up at 7:00 to get to the bus station and onto a coach by 9:00 to head out to Nerja and visit some family friends who have a villa in this beautiful part of Spain. Their villa was absolutely everything I thought it would be, and more. They had the most spectacular view, an exotic and relaxing cactus garden and a patio to eat on that makes you want to never eat anywhere else again (except maybe Shuswap lake). If ever you get a chance to get a villa in Spain, do not pass it by because you'll be missing this:

Me with 2/3 of my thoughtful and kind hosts (the remaining member was camera shy)

A view of Nerja from the walkway that extends out into the sea

The view from one of their deck levels out over their pool onto the mountains of Spain that drink from the sea.

My two favorite cacti that were in the garden

A closeup of one of the cactus flowers

The patio where we ate our fabulously prepared meal

Well, I hope you all are having excellent days wherever you may be. Midwest, East Coast, West Coast, England, Turkey, Costa Rica, or anywhere. Tonight I will be going to London, so get ready for a corresponding blog soon! Also, here is one last interesting tidbit. Enjoy!

*besos*
paul

A Memory-"Reaping" Weekend

2007-09-30T06:13:00.000-06:00

This weekend I almost died. Okay, not really. That beginning got your attention though, right? The truth about this weekend is that it was very eventful. I saw things die, I felt like I was about to die, and I often wished for all the little cold viruses in me to die. Ahora te explico. (Now I will explain).

Friday I woke up and felt the beginnings of a cold coming on. So what did I decide to do? Normally you'd think, "Oh, Paul... I bet he did what he always does when he feels sick - stayed at home, drank liquids and read a book." You would be absolutely wrong. I instead went on a 45 minute bus ride up to the Sierra Nevada (on VERY windy roads) with 4 friends , to a town called Güejar Sierra, and we went hiking for the day. When I say day, I don't mean starting at around 2 and getting back at like 5. I mean starting at 11:30 and coming crawling back, pleading for a shower, at 6:00.

The hike starts innocently enough, we went up some very, very steep inclines to get to the top of the mountain that overlooks the village.
From there, we get our first photo op (first of like 897374 million). From this point, I also took the first photo that I will enter into the family contest for "the photo." Here it is.
Well mom, will that do nicely or what? If you want another option, keep reading! (Although, I assume you'll just keep reading anyhow and not stop once you have you much wonted photo). We then continue hiking, reading the map every once in while just to make sure we are on the right track and to remind ourselves that this hike is marked as 4 hours long. Everything is going so well, we are walking, talking, laughing, and everyone is having fun. The sights are absolutely incredible, and the weather was spectacular. So we stop and have some lunch at around 2:00.

We stop by this place where there are crosses permanently put into the edge of a cliff. We are not sure exactly why they are there, and honestly the crosses were a bit menacing and discouraging , but also quite noble to see. Here is a good photo of one.Around this time we start to doubt that we are on the right trail, so we head back down a bit to where we though we saw another trail go off from ours. We get to this spot only to see that in fact this trail we thought we saw was just a straight down cliff. Soooo... we re-decide that we were on the right trail and that we have to go back up to where we were. Not wanting to retrace our steps so quickly, we mosey around this spot for a good photo op, and to have some fun yelling about the superiority of the MN Twins to the mountain wall which echoed! Here is one of the photos that was taken of me... "not" sitting on the edge of a cliff.

And here is another, this one is the other possible contender for "the photo."

Okay, well... about now people start to notice something ominous in the background. It is unknown how we missed this before because it looks something like:
Sooooo we have a decision. We can abandon the hike and go all the way back down to that small village you can see in the above photo. Or we can keep hiking since "the storm is really going more north-east than towards us so really we should be fine, and plus how much would it suck to turn back?" So we keep hiking, always keeping an eye behind us. Turns out, we were right! The storm did go mostly north and we only got a light drizzle to fall on us. Of course, there was also some lightning, so I had to educate my friends about how to crouch down on the balls of your feet, avoiding high places (like the top of a mountain, of which we were 150 feet from). The storm passes and we continue our hike. We come to some old Spanish Civil War bunkers.
They spoke of very interesting stories. I really felt the presence of history while I was standing in an old bunker that housed solders fighting for their lives in the mountains of Andalucía. We are now on the ridge of the mountain, which has a very meadow-ish look to it.
And is actually one of the more peaceful places I have ever been to. The views from here are spectacular. Turn to your left and you can see the more distant Sierras, and the olive tree groves that are planted at the mountain roots (the photo below). Look to the right and there is the valley in which is nestled little Güejar Sierra. Straight ahead (the view in the above photo) are more mountains, and behind is the relatively flat area where the city of Granada is located.
We continue along the ridge for a good long time before a wise friend once again has the thought to turn around and observe the weather. Whoever said that mountain weather can change in an instant was not lying. Or exaggerating. The sky had turned black behind us, and on either side of us. And, unlike last time, there was no blue in sight behind the black. We start to get a bit frightened and so our walking pace picks up a bit. Then we see the sheets of rain, and so we begin to power walk. There are no photos here because I didn't want to take the time to stop and get a nice little photo of the impending doom. Of course, our situation is worsened by the fact that we are not 100% sure we are even on the right trail. The markers alternate every other one pointing in the opposite direction, if they are even still standing. What's more, we have not seen a single other person the entire walk (nor did we end up seeing anyone). So we get a good view of the trail from a tall vantage point, and start walking. The frightening thing is that we have not hit the turn around yet, and it is almost 4:00. We are still walking away from the village, not towards it - not back to a safe roof, but away from one. We can see it though! (or so we think). So we continue power walking until at last we get to a road. There is a broken sign on the ground that says "Güejar Sierra" on it with an arrow pointing to the right. We see a path and decide to take it. At this point the storm has come very close to us and we can hear the thunder. Even though we are no longer on the mountain ridge, we are still on a mountain, in a storm. Being a little bit frightened, someone suggests we jog. So, we begin to job. Along a mountain trail. In a storm. ... Then the rain hits. ... Then it thunders directly over our heads. So we take some shelter in a little rocky alcove (much like the hobbits hid from one of the nine). One of my friends says that the storm is lighter in the direction of the village and that we should jog over there. So we leave the alcove and start to run towards shelter. During the run I never got tired, and I truly appreciated the value of adrenalin in a fight/flight situation. Finally we make it out of the rain and to the village. Our legs are jello, or clothes are wet (except I was not wearing jeans and cotton this time, so mine dried quickly), and we are exhausted. Absolutely dead tired. I wake up the next morning and find I have a cold. Surprised? Don't be.

A photo for a geologist. What is up with this rock??

The hikers. Notice the correct lightning sitting position of the friend on the left. Also, notice the very non-scary sky.

Then on Sunday we went to a bull fight. I will tell less about this. It was very interesting, very educational. It was hard for me to watch the fight at times, especially when the bull was killed at the end. There were 6 bulls and 3 matadors (2 bulls per matador). I felt that going to a bull fight was a very Spanish thing to do, and that I had to go. But I don't think I'll ever go again. Quickly, first the bull is released and some minor matadors play with it, getting it ready. Then it is stabbed by a person on a horse to get it to bleed so that it doesn't have a heart attack since its blood pressure is lowered. And also blood is very important to the "art" of bullfighting. Then lances are stuck into its back. Then the matador comes out and dances with the bull, flagging it around with his cape. Then the matador stabs and kills the bull in one swipe. In sum. If you want to learn more, I suggest wikipedia.

As a prize for their fight, matadors get either 1 ear, 2 ears, or 2 ears and a tail if they do really well. Doing well if being valiant, moving minimally, and killing the bull in one stab. The first matador was pretty good (got 3 ears total), the second was amazing (4 ears total) but the third was pretty inexperienced (only 1 ear), and it was hard to watch him because he could not kill the bull in one stab and had to try multiple times. In the below photo, you can see the son of the first matador holding his father's trophy, the ear.

Here is a lesser matador warming up the bull.
Here you can see the lances in the bull's back as the matador is dancing with him.

This is the outside of the historic building.

Now, I must sleep since I have class tomorrow at 8:40 AM. Sorry for the extremely long post. *besos*!

A Day in the Life

2007-09-26T07:15:00.000-06:00

I was walking home today and thought to myself "I should blog" but then I though "I have nothing about which I can interestingly blog!" So I ambled along content that I would wait until something interesting happened for me to blog about. Until, suddenly, a very familiar and very motherly voice chimed in my head saying "your blog doesn't need to be about something interesting, even the seemingly uninteresting things to you are actually very interesting to us." So, taking the advice of this mystery woman contained within my brain, I will blog A Day in the Life of Paul in Spain.

First, I wake up from my 6 - 7 hours of nightly sleep in this bed (the one closer to the camera, with my laptop sitting on it).
I have some pretty sweet accommodations, I know. You all are probably super jealous. Actually, it is funny because this mattress is not a long one so I definitely feel giant when I lay down, stretch out, and forcibly kick the bookcase. At least it is well made and not put together by trolls. Well, I get up at 7:33 and sit in bed contemplating not going to class just today. After time seems to fly by, I realize that I must shower to get to the class I know I am going attend on time. So I shower. Now here it gets interesting. For anyone who knows me, my showers usually last 20 minutes. I have taken to the "navy shower" here meaning I only use water while rinsing. This has the effect of making my shower last all of 5 minutes. 400% time improvement and water conservation!
Well, then I get dressed and go have some breakfast. I have decided that toast is the way to go for me and that cereal is a thing of the past now. I much prefer toast with marmalade or butter and some milk/juice/water. Oh, and recently I have started getting a piece of cake with breakfast. What could be better?! Then I walk to class which takes roughly 30 minutes, even with a short cut. Grammar class is in the mornings, after which I go get some tea or just go to the café and do some last minute homework. Then I have more class. Depending on the day I may either have: Flamenco (theory and practice), Beginning Arabic, Islamic Art and Architecture, or my internship. I am struggling with learning to move my hips in Flamenco, also with learning to step and clap at the same time. Arabic is literally insane. My Art and Arch. professor talks rapid, quiet Spanish and my internship is... really cool actually. Check it out here - it is with an international film festival that takes place in early June/late May. I won't actually get to be here for the final product, but at least I can help out in my own way now.
After class I walk home and am served a nice, huge, meal. Usually it consists of three courses. A rice dish or noodles or something to start, then a dish of meat or sea food, then dessert. It is enough to feed a horse, and enough olive oil to make wine with (not really possible, I know). I love it though. Then I indulge in a nice siesta which may or may not be followed by an afternoon class.
In the evening, I usually do some homework in the living room:

Then I go out and get some tapas for dinner with friends. Granada is the best city in Spain for many reasons, one of which is that when you buy a drink tapas are FREE! FREE FOOD! And it is good too. Sometimes you get serrano which is special Spanish ham, sometimes you get snails... depends on where you go and what is being cooked that night. Then I come home, usually, around 1 or 2 (less so now with my 8:40AM class) and go to sleep!

Some small Spanish details of interest:

Always turn off a light when you leave a room
Don't waste any water!
Don't eat or drink outside of the kitchen or a restaurant/café/bar (meaning no snacking on the street)
The cars are mostly all European make (Citroën, Peugeot, Mini cooper, VW, BMW) and only a few fords
Don't walk around your house in bare feet or socks
Everyone plays soccer, in the plazas, courts, wherever

More to come when I think of it.

This next picture really has no explanation, I just thought it was a pretty photo taken in the palace in Sevilla. It kind of looks like the jungle right? Well, I can assure you Sevilla is not a jungle...

So in sum, Andalucía is the best province in Spain, and Granada is its best city.

Oh yeah, and a point of interest and discussion. I had a conversation with my College-from-home friend here and we were discussing the trip thus far. We decided that we like it, but we are not enamored yet. There is so much pressure to love the experience and to instantly have an amazing time here that it is easy to fool yourself and say that this is the best time of your life. I am having fun, but really I don't think I have quite found my place here in Granada yet. I don't think I like going to the discos every night. Nor do I want to spend all day in the museums. I want to speak Spanish, but a big majority of people in the program opt for English. We also decided that by admitting all this, our experience will be more rewarding at the end because we will have (hopefully) been able to find that magic thing that clicks and makes the experience our own and absolutely amazing. Don't read this and think I am not having fun, on the contrary you should think that I am finding out a lot about myself while here so far, and that I will grow from being here whether or not this turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, and that this growth is very fun and exciting. Plus, I am having fun on a daily basis in class, with friends, getting tapas, and speaking Spanish.

Just some food for thought.

*besos*!!

Granada -> Ronda -> Sevilla -> Granada

2007-09-17T08:09:00.000-06:00

This weekend we departed from the small, now familiar, town of Granada and left for the even smaller town of Ronda on our way to the large, once center of the world, city of Sevilla! It was all very exciting. Ronda is the stereotypical small town of Spain. It was partially built by the Romans, inhabited by the Moors, and then conquered by the Catholic Kings. How cool is that? The U.S. has a good history, but in comparison with Spain we are but a prepubescent teenager. Here are some photos of Ronda. Imagine looking upon these views and all this architecture while a slightly clouded sun shines down and a lazy flamenco guitarist strums idly in the background.

Is it just me, or does this city have many semblances to the mythical city of Rivendell from LOTR?

Me in bull fighting ring... I am the bull!

Now, this following photos were taken from Sevilla. Here we saw an ancient Cathedral (third largest in Spain), a group of old palaces, all of which have been added onto by various kings, and we also went to a soccer game where Sevilla took on Recreativo de Huelva. Sevilla outplayed Huelva almost the entire game and won 4-1. I was forced to become a Sevilla fan, and now my loyalties are torn between Barcelona, which I have liked longer, and Sevilla which I know better now. What to do? To whom do I pledge my insignificant allegiance? Which team's site will have one extra count in the hundreds of thousands of hits a week? If you have any suggestions, I am all ears. The fans were amazing and a lot more animated than any other group of fans I have ever seen. There was a bass drum in the crowd, a loud speaker, and constant singing. Also, it was an important game to win for Sevilla since the home game previous to this one a player, #16 Puerta, had died from a heart condition that resulted in two heart attacks after he had walked off the field from falling down and was in the locker room. All this put together made for an amazing fútbol experience that I wish could be recreated back in the states, but alas I know it will never be so.

In addition to the soccer game, I also got to meet up with my very good friend who is studying in Sevilla! She showed me around to some non-touristy areas, and some touristy ones I had not seen. So I got to see the place where Sevilla hosted the World's fair in 1929. Sevilla used to be the capital of the world at one point. Everything that came from the New World back to Europe came first through Sevilla. Also, interesting fact, because the U.S. colonies turned away from the British monetary system after our independence we had to find one to use for a while. Well, since we traded with Spain we used the Spanish currency a lot for a while. Then when we had our own currency, it was based so much off of the Spanish currency that the symbol for our dollar, $, is actually a simplification of an image found on the Spanish coat of arms that represents the two mountains across the Strait of Gibraltar (represented by the two up and down bars) linked by a banner (the S part) - thus showing the union between Spain and Morocco (at the time). Interesting, eh? Here is a photo of these arms displayed in the palace in Sevilla. It is on the right, at the top of the arch (double click the photo to enlarge).

Here are a bunch of photos from the partido de fútbol! (I know you are jealous daddytude)

The following was a horrendous call against Sevilla.

Here is part of the World's Fair from 1929

Two photos from the palace that incorporates Islamic architecture and Christian (I only have photos on here of the former)

And two photos of the amazing Cathedral

And finally the tomb of Christopher Columbus. If you look at the front right person who is stabbing his lance through a pomegranate, that represents Sevilla's opinion towards Granada at the time when it was still controlled by the Muslims.
(here is a close-up of what I described)

Well, that is all for today folks. ¡Hasta luego, mis amores!

mini post!

2007-09-11T16:24:00.000-06:00

Snails!!

Alhambra

Only 4 days?

2007-09-09T05:31:00.000-06:00

It is hard to believe that I have only been here for four days because in these four days I have tried veal, calamari, anchovies, a schwarma, spent a whole day hiking along the Mediterranean coast, gotten to know the city of Granada pretty well and met almost 70 new people.

The customs here are very different, but I feel that I am able to adjust. A big difference has been how you greet someone, even for the very first time. In the U.S. you usually just shake someone's hand, and if it someone you already know you give them a hug, or if it is family a kiss on the cheek. Here is Spain you greet everyone (even someone for the first time) by kissing both cheeks (obviously not at once). I have already succeeded in accomplishing this feat of cultural adjustment twice now, and am quite proud of myself.

Yesterday we spent all day walking from El Cabo de Gata, which takes its name from the agate stones that used to be found all over the place but are now gone because of people who took them all, to San José. It was about a 16 Km hike that went up mountains, down mountains, along secluded beaches (some of which were naturalist in nature) and through dry desert. Yes, the south eastern tip of Spain is dry as a desert. Actually, it rains less in that spot than anywhere else in all of Europe. (pictures to follow).

I have been enjoying the Spanish life much, which includes staying out until 2 with friends, eating dinner at 11:00 (usually just a few drinks with tapas), taking a siesta between 3-5ish, eating a huge lunch and a tiny breakfast, and walking everywhere I need to go. My legs are going to be gladiator size by the end of this trip. We have walked up to the Alhambra and all around it (at least around the free parts), and around the oldest Barrio in Granada which is up in the hills that includes the most beautiful view that Bill Clinton has ever seen, and all around the city looking for good tapas bars or restaurants; not to mention the 30 minute from the IES center to my house I need to make at least twice a day (which includes at least 8 flights of stairs). Also I have learned to be a bit more forward, to not care if I walk in front of someone who is looking at items in the grocery store (something that would get me scoffed at the U.S. if I did not acknowledge them by ducking my head and walking quickly under their gaze - Heaven forbid I would deprive them of 2 seconds looking at the cereal boxes!), and how to cross the street when I need to.

I have also started the Spanish course which is meant just to remind us about our basic Spanish. That is going pretty easily so far, we just talk in class and go through a booklet about basic grammar, tu vs. usted, directions, etc. The people in the program are all pretty nice, but I do not know everyone. It is definitely a bigger program than I had expected (71 students) which means that we need to divide into small groups all the time. When we walk around the city in unison we are a very imposingly big mob of obnoxious American tourists - not my ideal position to be in!

As promised, here are the photos. I am importing them smaller so that I can fit more, but you can click on them to enlarge.

A very blurry photo of me in front of the Catedral in Granada

A cool photo of El Catedral

A fountain

Palacio de Carlos V, next to La Alhambra

Me standing awkwardly in El Palacio de Carlos

Me and another one from CollegeTown!

The sand is hard to walk in

An egg on pizza??

goats!

A photo for a geologist

half the people here rides motos

the first floor of my IES center where my classes will be (not in this plaza, but upstairs)

A nice view near el Cabo de Gata

Along the coast near San José

Another photo for a geologist

In La Alhambra

With the photo below this one... these two symbols (the hand and the key) are above the two old entrances to La Alhambra, and whomever can touch both at one would be the owner of the entire palace.

The key

Me and my roommate with La Alhambra in the background. This view is the one that Bill Clinton said was the most beautiful he has ever seen.

Granada

Here at last!

2007-09-05T12:54:00.000-06:00

Finally the intended purpose has this blog has come to realization. I have safely navigated crowded airports, a missed flight, multiple terminals, a cross-Atlantic voyage, speaking only Spanish to be understood, layovers, functioning on 3 hours of "plane sleep" and eating new food. When I put it like that, it seems pretty impressive, but really you just do one thing after another until you are done, and during the process it's not so bad. It's Kind of like the implication embedded in the old saying "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Well, to be less cryptic and more interesting, I will now relate to you the story of my travels in rhyming verse (not really, but wouldn't that be cool?)

I left for Newark on Monday, Sept. 3 at around 11. My flight should have been at 12:55, but it was delayed (the beginning of much delay). When we finally took off, it was to a rattling, clanking somewhat frightening sounding plane... but when we started cruising in the air all was well. I land in Newark in terminal "B" and I need to get to terminal "C," but of course the tram is outside of security. So I have to leave the secure area, get on this tram, get to my terminal, and then get back past security. This was not so fun since I was wearing a belt buckle that beeped (usually mine don't), not very easy to put on shoes, my security pouch that had to be taken off, and this is all not to mention what I was carrying which was my smaller suitcase and my backpack that had inside of it a small bag of liquid items and a laptop that has to be taken out at all security points. So, after dismantling myself on one side, stepping through security, and then putting myself back together I am into the Newark international airport, ready to leave the United States for a duration of almost 4 months.

My plane was delayed. Again. 1.5 hours. I had a 2.5 hour layover in Madrid during which time I had to get into Madrid, go through immigration, get my bag, go through customs, figure out the madrid airport and re-book myself onto a flight to Málaga on a different airline. Because there were mechanical problems with the walkway to get us off of the Madrid flight, I had all of 40 minutes to do this. Needless to say I did not make my flight. So I had to book another flight on Iberia to Málaga leaving 4 hours later. I was tired, feeling slightly sick, jetlagged, in a new country, speaking Spanish, and not entirely thrilled with my trip so far. I could not let myself sleep in the airport since I needed to watch my stuff, so I instead amused myeslf by taking photos.The Madrid airport ceiling is very interesting, and very ingeniously designed (notice the lights with the mirrors and the many sunlights) so as to save energy on lighting.

Well, I finally got to Málaga and got a taxi to the hotel where we'd be meeting with other program members. Everyone who was there already had gone to El Museo de Picasso and so I went upstairs, took a much needed shower, brushed my teeth and relaxed in the four star hotel we were staying in. I then went for a walk to the beach, spent a lot of time sitting and listening to the waves crash on the Mediterranean shore and trying to make myself believe that I was indeed in Spain.

Today we went to a beautiful little hidden away restaurant with the while IES group and got some lunch which, even though the courses were small, ended up being very filling. I forgot my camera, so please excuse the lack of photo documentation. There was a huge 8-foot tall bullfighting poster on the wall, and the ceiling had original dark wood roofing. The waiters were very Spanish and we all drank wine, ate new food, had dessert and drank more wine. It was very fun.

I am currently sitting in my room in Granada, I will take pictures all around this place when it is daylight, but right now I think I may just lay down. Jet lag is a real pain.

Ketchup

2007-08-26T10:08:00.000-06:00

This is a little game called ketch-up and mustard (the mustard doesn't really come into play)

Shuswap
So, we have a cabin in British Columbia, Canada where my family and I go just about every year (I have been the past 18/20). This year it was gorgeous up there, and the water was quite warm- a balmy 70 degrees or so. I cannot really describe the majesty of this place, so I will just show you photos. You should probably consider double-clicking the photos for some great big pictures!

We took apart the deck on the studio

and we got a big ol' pile of wood

that made a BIG ol' fire

Here is part of the view from the deck of the main cabin

Some of the mountains in great lighting

The main cabin as seen from the path up from the "beach" (which is big, but very rocky)

the view looking up the path to the little cabin and the studio from the main deck

Another one of the mountains

In the college town
So then the day after I got back from the cabin, I drove down to my college to take part in student staff orientation (but mostly to see friends). It was hot, humid, rainy, stormy, and unbearably fun (almost). It is hard to accept that I went down there and made all these new friends, and strengthened many other friendships, and then just left. It's like I said to everyone "okay, now put everything on pause and I'll be back in a semester!" I hope that things are not drastically different when I get back to college in the spring, but we all know that it probably will be much different. Realism meets optimism...

Back at home, @ the State Fair
So then I said bye to everyone (or not everyone since I had to deal with a flat tire instead of "making the rounds") and came back home. The very next day I was thrown back into my home state pride by attending the Sate Fair. This is a place where even the fruit is deep fried and on a stick. I ate:
Deep fried pickles
Funnel cake (with chocolate, deep fried, and powdered sugar)
Corn (with lots of butter)
Sweet Martha's Cookies
Cheese curds
French fries
Mini donuts
Chocolate shake
Some fabulous watermelon
A strawberry smoothie

Obviously I did not eat entire portions of all that, the only one I did not share was the corn (and the smoothie, but that doesn't really count since it was so much better for me). But, I did not have any "real" food all afternoon/evening.

We also:
Rode the giant slide
Saw farm animals
Stopped in at the DFL booth
Saw some crop art
Saw a GIANT 990 lb. pumpkin (plus some other huge ones, and some other really cool veggies)
Watched a most.. amusing 4-H play about working together (set in the "cave-man" era, where they had to build a wall to protect themselves from the dinosaurs...)
And just walked all over the place and enjoyed some excellent people watching

That has been a brief recap of the previous month. I leave for Spain in 7 days!

Daily Life

2007-07-24T20:37:00.000-06:00

I scored my first goal in the summer league this week! I am usually modest, and try not to boast, but it was quite a beautiful shot. The ball seemed to just float in, with a slight spin on it, into the upper corner of the goal. The shot started our rally, and we came from behind from like 11-1 to lost 14-4! Yay! Maybe today I put down the books. Maybe today I leave behind the smarts, leave behind my current goals and dreams, say goodbye to other people's brains, and step into the world of major league soccer. Maybe today I will join the ranks of that English super star who shall remain unnamed because he is getting paid far too much. I can hear destiny calling, and it is clearly saying "Soccer."

Oh wait, no. That was just the dream I just had and typed out for you. Sorry, this tends to happen ever since my glycine levels have been getting low, so my glycine clutch becomes inactive and I tend to act out my dreams. And I don't mean dreams as in "what I hope to be when I grow up" but rather "random neuronal firings of my brain during sleep."

I have also been attending many Twins games, but unfortunately my record at the dome is less than stellar, so I think I may stop going for a while to see if they improve. Last time I went my my parents and got to see Johan Santana pitch, which is always a delightful occurrence.

See? There he is throwing a pitch against some Detroit Tiger. I cannot tell who.

Twins, soccer, work and friends (see below for one particularily amusing photo of a friend who is at Harvey Mudd. He is apparently being taught how to properly stack those little half-and-half cups. Ahhh.... the benefits of a 120,000 dollar education). I haven't really talked about work, mostly because there is not much to talk about. I fixed up some gardens and painted the side of a house. I have to get a sunburn (HA! take that depleting ozone layer!) which is an accomplishment for me during the summer work week. It might have something to do with the SPF 60 I am now using and applying in copious amounts. However, I prefer to think I have not gotten burned because the sun loves me too much.

And on that note, digo adios. Hasta luego, mi amigo! (Debes anticipar mucho español en los meses que vengan).

EPSP Generator

Off the Wall: One Energetic Ember

Life: A Novella

(Why Do?) I Just Keep Moving

Logistics

5 Weeks Left?!

A new kind of post

IT'S DONE!!

The Final Round!

Round IV - New Haven

Round III - Part Bee (ha ha!)

Interviews - Round III: Part A

Interviews - Round II: A Decision Emerges

Graduate School Interviews - Round I

Cherry Blossoms with no Cherries

A snowy conference, but a snowier MD

Visit home

Fall

Broadening by Narrowing

Post in Pictures

A Really Good Day

Outdoor Baseball and Publishing Mayhem

Real World

My day

Beginning in Bethesda

Back and Better Than Ever!

State Fairs: Compare and Contrast

TV Show Addiction

The American Pastime

A Grinnell Summer

Dilemma

Hate Crimes are NOT Grinnell

A Valentine's Day Surprise

Final Week and Home

Las Navidades

Alpujarra Weekend

You Know You're In Spain When...

Cádiz/Jerez/Doñana

¡Que mis photos sean buenas!

All Things Alhambra

*update*

Observations and Plans

3-2-1

3 Countries - 2 Continents - 1 Week

La Gran Mezquita del Occidente

A Memory-"Reaping" Weekend

A Day in the Life

Granada -> Ronda -> Sevilla -> Granada

mini post!

Only 4 days?

Here at last!

Ketchup

Daily Life

update