How to do Science

Sunday, February 28, 2010

The other day, we were in the lab working on setting up the new experiment we had. We were proof-reading things, making sure that there are no bugs in the program, so that when we load it in the lab and have participants over, there would be no problems.

Then I realized that with this one project that I am involved with, it has been a long ride. I guess that's just how one does science.

The thing is, this all started when we came upon a paper in which we didn't believe the results. So we decided to replicate the study. We also had ideas on how the study can be improved, so that would be our next step. However, since we thought that there were confounds on the original study, we decided to replicate the study after eliminating the confounds that we think they have.

This was about May 2009.

So we wrote new materials. We also got a little summer grant research money. We then normed materials so that the confounds would not be there anymore. We equated likelihood and plausibility of scenario. We normed for other stuff, so that there would not be a reason that the difference in reaction time that we would observe is due to something aside from what we were manipulating.

By November 2009, we were done with norming, but alas, we found out that some of the experimental items had to be dropped because they did not pass norming. Thus, we had to write some more and norm them again.

By January 2010, we had enough experimental items. Then we had to focus on the distractor items that we will be using. We used a design where there is a 3:1 filler:test item ratio. Thus, for every experimental item, there are three filler items, and this is done so that the people will not be able to strategize and learn whatever it is that we are testing. We want them to be unaware as possible with respect to the construction that we are testing.

So after norming, and all the other considerations, we are running the full replication experiment without the confounds starting this coming week: March 2010. It's almost a full year.

Wow. Doing science takes time. But honestly, I love every minute of it.

(Marble Chunks, from my Library of Congress Series)

Book Review: The Saint of Incipient Insanities by Elif Şafak

Saturday, February 27, 2010

I cannot help but enjoy this book. This is perhaps one of the most enjoyable reads that I have had in the recent past. I never thought that this book would be a good one, and thus I have prolonged touching it until I realized that I had to return the book soon to the library, but once I started it, it was just a non-stop awesome read.

So, what is this about? This book is about a group of twenty-somethings who come from all over the world. It is set in Boston, and the characters are mostly international graduate students from various places. Gee, that sounds familiar, eh?

So, there's Piyu, the Spaniard; Abed the Moroccan; Omer the Turk; Alegre the Dominican; and Gail and Debra Ellen Thompson who are Americans. Each character have flaws in them, like typical humans do. Piyu is someone who is dating Alegre but even though they have been seeing each other for 2 years, he cannot sleep with her. Piyu also has this thing with cleanliness, always holding a broom, and has a fear of pointed objects. Abed loves his horror movies, and is haunted by a jinn from his mother. Omer is chronically late, and is an alcoholic. Alegre is bulimic. Gail is a bisexual woman who has an identity disorder, and Debra Ellen Thompson is a lesbian who is a control freak.

I will not relate how these varied characters interact, but they do in intricate ways. I cannot do justice to the book if I do an attempt here.

But, why do I like this book? Primarily because it provides me with a glimpse of American life from the eyes of a foreigner. It has given me laughs while reading this. One example is about names and pronunciation. The book reflects on the fact that Americans are known for reprocessing names and surnames of foreigners, deleting diacritics, "normalizing" them. It is true that when a Turk mispronounces the name of an American in Turkey, it will be considered as the Turk's mistake. On the other hand, if an American mispronounces the name of a Turk in the USA, it is not the American's fault but instead it is the fault of the name being too complicated for Americans.

It is these little things that foreigners observe, but somehow I feel like I don't, and therefore by reading a book full of these foreign observations, I become pensive and see the other side of things.

Perhaps it is because I do not consider myself totally foreign, at least in the American sense. Perhaps it has something to do with my cultural identity crisis again. Perhaps because even though I carry a Filipino passport, there are so many things about Filipino culture that I do not follow. But at the same time, I do not consider myself an American either. It's like being in limbo, somewhere in between. And this book allows me to access the world beyond the Americans, the world that only foreigners, real foreigners, have access to.

Anyway, this book is a drama-comedy: there are comedic parts to it, but it deals with serious issues. And I like the ending too: where every character has some life-changing moment. I am also fond of the match cut sequences that the book has, which is done by narrating the time in Boston, Marrakesh, and Istanbul, and the events that happen simultaneously around the world that are relevant to the characters.

So, overall, I recommend reading this book. 5 out of 5 stars.

(Floating Pillars, from my Library of Congress Series)

Sold

Thursday, February 25, 2010

The other day, I had a meeting with my adviser. A good one. A good one that after that, I went to my ninja's office and told her that we should go to Starbucks and get a celebratory drink.

Anyway, so what happened?

Well, it was the meeting when I had to show him the general idea of my dissertation. At long last, my dissertation doesn't seem like a cluttered collection of research questions. Instead, there is a running theme, and a big picture. There are three big points, and I walked him through each of them. And in each of these points, there is always two competing theories that I am testing, obviously pushing for one of them and trying to prove the other to be the defective theory.

Looking back, when I had written several drafts of a dissertation proposal back in the summer, I can see how different the dissertation is by now. It is so different from the thing that I said I wanted to investigate before. There is a real quantitative and qualitative difference between the knowledge state that I had before and now.

Which makes me realize that really, a PhD is indeed a terminal degree, and people who have it indeed knows a lot of stuff. One cannot be a PhD holder and not have a big ego. Heck, I basically am saying that I have a big idea that I need the academic community to pay attention to and be concerned with. Now why is it that it is worth for people to pay attention to my idea? That is basically my review of related literature. Arguing that other people have it wrong is a hard process, but somehow, I feel at home with it.

So yeah, the dissertation is moving, and the next step is to show my committee members that I can construct stimuli that would test the factors that I am claiming in each of these topics. That would basically prove to my committee that the points I am arguing for are indeed testable. Because what would a great theory do if it were not testable?

(Marble, from my Library of Congress Series)

Book Review: The Butt by Will Self

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Oh man, I did not like this book. The thing is, I liked a previous book that Will Self wrote, when I read his book entitled How The Dead Live. It was a weird book where the premise was that when you die in London, you don't get buried, you just move to a different part of London that you never knew existed before, because that is where all the dead people go to.

Anyway, this book is also weird, and somehow I did not like the weirdness. It is entitled The Butt, and it is about this guy, Tom Brodzinski, who went on vacation with his family to this unnamed country. This country is multi-ethnic, and it has strict laws against smoking. The topography really sounds like Australia, but the laws sound like Singapore.

Anyway, so one fine day, in the apartment that they were renting, he was smoking a cigarette, his last one, since he was thinking of quitting. So when he was done, he casually flipped the cigarette butt from the second floor balcony. But then, something happened. It landed on the forehead of an old bald guy, and that triggered several weird events. It turned into a boil, and then there were pus, and then he fell into a coma. So Tom Brodzinski was charged with a severe sentence, something along the lines of frustrated manslaughter. He had to go to their court system, and then he was charged, and his sentence involved going to the ethnic land of the victim's ethnicity and deliver some goods.

So he goes to this very long roadtrip, which somehow involved driving through a war zone, something along the lines of Iraq and Afghanistan. He has a companion, another guy who is also charged with something, and he is the most obnoxious guy ever.

Then they reach their destination, and guess what, it is not over yet. Apparently, Tom has to undergo brain surgery, and the doctors intended to sever his corpus callosum, the bunch of nerves that connect the left and right hemisphere together. And that is where the book ends.

So what was that all about? I know that the book is satire; I saw that right in the beginning, when I was leafing through the first few pages. But somehow, it lacked direction, a goal, an endpoint. It just went on and on with the weirdness of this unnamed country, and the troubles that Tom had to endure. So yeah, he was the most pathetic and unlucky person in the universe, so what? If that was the whole point of the book, then I think 350 pages is too long of a book length to accomplish it.

Reading this book reminded me of black comedy and slapstick. You know, those movie types where bad things happen to people all the time, but are intended to be funny. This somehow feels like that, slapstick literature. But somehow, it didn't strike me as funny. I liked the way it started, but it all went downhill fast. 1 out of 5 stars.

(Artifact, from my Library of Congress Series)

Walking on Eggshells

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

They suck, period.

(Floor Tiles, from my Library of Congress Series)

Cold Turkey Version 2.0

Monday, February 22, 2010

So when I decided to write this entry, I thought of the entry title Cold Turkey, but then thought that I might have used this phrase already in the past, and sure enough, I did. Surprisingly, it was about the same topic.

The other week, we got the first written assignment for the class that I am TA-ing for. This is the second time I am a TA for this specific class, so I kinda know the drill by now. Anyway, I do not like to grade this assignment, as this is the most subjective part of the course.

I have about 70 papers from students, all talking about their experience with multilingualism in the United States, and whether they support or contradict assimilationist views on the English language with respect to immigrants. It is hard to grade, because one cannot expect much from the students, and how do you really grade the narrative of students' personal experiences?

Anyway, I just did it cold turkey, by sitting down my office and reading every one of them. I made several piles, based on whether I thought the student made a good job of arguing or not, and so on. My objective mind is screaming at the fact that I cannot have an answer sheet where things just add up and are very objective, but hey, I am just a TA, so I cannot do much.

When I got bored, I went online and daydreamed about backpacking again, this time to Armenia. I didn't realize that one can get an e-visa to Armenia, without even applying in person in the embassy, but instead by going to the website of their foreign ministry. I gawked at the sites of the monasteries and the mountains, and found a cheap flight from New York City to Yerevan via Moscow on Aeroflot for just 690 USD.

Oh well, some other time. I went back to my papers.

After a few hours, I was done with it, and I can now focus on something else.

(Grand Ceiling, from my Library of Congress Series)

Giving up the Elevator for Lent

Sunday, February 21, 2010

This past week, I decided to get back at the exercise routine and refuse to use the weather as an excuse not to go to the gym regularly. I also decided to refuse to use the fact that my former gym buddy finally declared that she is not a morning person at all and therefore does not have the desire to come with me to the gym first thing in the morning (hence the former).

So starting last week, I rearranged my schedule so that I can go to the gym first thing in the morning, just after waking up and even before eating breakfast, as this seems to be the time slot that works best for me.

The thing is, the gym I go to is in campus, in the north campus. I live near the south campus. Thus, there's serious planning involved if I want to stop being like Jared Leto in Chapter 27.

So, I wake up at 5:00 AM, in order to catch the bus leaving the south campus at 5:20 AM. This brings me to north campus at around 5:45 AM, which leaves me enough time to go to the 24-hour library to check my email and such, before the gym opens at 6:00 AM.

Working out in an empty gym is actually awesome, one doesn't compete with other people on the machines, and the jogging track, which I am fond of, is clear of other runners.

So, after exerting physical effort for about an hour, I head back home, ride the bus going back to south, walk home, eat breakfast, shower, and then head back to north for the day.

I also stopped using the elevator. My friends told me that I gave up the elevator for Lent, which is a funny concept invented by the Catholics I guess. But given that my office is located on the sixth floor, there's quite a few flights of stairs that I negotiate up and down every day.

Which brings the fact that for the first few days, my legs were sore I felt like I rode a mechanical bull for the whole afternoon. But hopefully, it'll be fine later, as I need the endurance to hike that Annapurna Circuit, or climb Mount Kinabalu.

And finally, since I begin my day early, I also end it early. By 9:00 PM, chances are I am already asleep.

(Exhibits, from my Library of Congress Series)

Discovering the Stapler

Saturday, February 20, 2010

The other day, in the class that I am a TA for, I finally received the first written assignment that the students had to turn in. I had about 70 papers that are about 4 pages long. And now the task I need to do is to read them and grade them.

Fun, eh?

Not so much. But at least we have guidelines in grading them, so it wouldn't be a hassle. However, we need to do some precautions to ensure that students are not playing the system.

But anyway, the weird thing is that some of these papers are not worth of being called a paper that was submitted by a college student. Like, hello, has anyone not heard of the instrument called the stapler? Seriously, some students only have the top left corner dog-eared so that they all come together, and then they write their name on all the sheets of paper, but really, is that how you turn in a paper?

There's this thing called a stapler, it is metallic in nature, it allows a piece of metal to go and puncture the papers you have and then the metallic piece folds, so that the sheets of paper go together. They are all found in office places, including libraries and printer places. Using them is free, and would only take a small exertion of physical effort, burning perhaps a calorie or two but nothing more. Totally doable.

And yet some students don't even entertain that thought in their heads.

Bizarre.

(Ceiling Once More, from my Library of Congress Series)

Classical Music and Idea Generation

Friday, February 19, 2010

I didn't realize how conducive it is to listen to classical music while working. Yesterday was just a very productive day that I decided to tune into the classical music Internet radio and work while listening to it.

And it turns out that Saint-Saens is an awesome accompaniment to work.

Speaking of work, I love this feeling of juggling projects with several people at a time. I have this to-do list of projects involving several people, and as long as they progress in a good fashion, I am good.

So, how are my projects coming along?

1) The dissertation (also known as my own show) is progressing to the point that I now have a grand theme, and I have a meeting with my adviser next Monday to see whether the three-course argument that I have with a running theme is feasible. After playing around with these ideas to the death, I believe that I am closer and closer to defending this proposal.

2) I have been collaborating with a fellow graduate student on an experimental project regarding relative clauses, and we are done with norming our experimental items. We actually normed it twice, because there were a few items that fell off after the norming. Now we are polishing the distractor items so that when we run the main experiment, people will not be able to strategize and manipulate the online behavior.

3) I also have a project with a fellow professor, and that is also moving forward. We now have an idea of what to test, and a design for a new experiment. I need to write some stimuli now in order to move this forward. Thus, here's another beginning for another reading time study.

4) I have another project in collaboration with yet another graduate student. We are thinking of a big project that would involve at least two conference presentations. One of the two papers that we are planning is already set up: we are working on enlarging the project and making it language-neutral and theory-driven.

Aside from the four active projects I have listed above, there are also two solo projects I have. These are small, and basically involve me rehashing my old term papers and beefing them up. I have the intent of presenting these papers in some conferences in the next year that I have already marked in my calendar. It is good to have a conference presentation, but it is better to have two presentations in one conference; it saves me airfare money if I get to have two publications for the price of one travel occasion.

Well, I guess that is the reason why I don't blog often nowadays. There's just plenty of things to do.

(The Lobby, from my Library of Congress Series)

Library Phantom Shooter

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Two days ago, there was a shooting scare on campus. Someone allegedly saw a gunman enter Lockwood Library with a rifle.

Thus, in that afternoon, tons of policemen surged to the library, and evacuated the building. We all got email messages that the library was evacuated, and an hour later, all classes were canceled for the rest of the evening.

It later turned out that the library was secure, and there was no sign of the gunman whatsoever.

This was a couple of days after the University of Alabama in Huntsville shooting, where there was one professor who allegedly shot three of her colleagues because the university was denying her tenure.

It therefore becomes a thing to ponder about why educational institutions such as high schools and universities become the target of shootings. Is it because that students are seen as vulnerable and easy targets? Is it because that these educational institutions foster an image of easy shooting practice? Or is it simply that shootings happen everywhere, but it's just that the ones that happen in educational institutions get more publicity?

I actually was acting stupid that afternoon, during the shooting scare. It wasn't until my classmate who had an office next to me who would not leave until I pack my bags and leave as well that I decided to leave campus and go home. My first idea was that if there was indeed a shooter, then I would be safe cocooning myself in the office.

In the end, it turned out to be nothing. But I would rather have it to be nothing than something.

(Statue and the Ceiling, from my Library of Congress Series)

Spinach and Couscous with Cultural Identity Crisis

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Living here in Buffalo, which has a large foreign population due to the large research university here, has provided me with occasions to reflect on the various ethnic cuisines that the foreign population thrive in. When the Chinese invite me for their parties, I love their pot stickers and noodles; I love the way the Indians make their curries; and I also like the Filipino fare that the small Filipino student population in the Department of Chemistry here provide me with from time to time.

So sometimes, people tell me that I should cook Filipino food for them some time. But the thing is, I don't know any Filipino food, except for the ubiquitous chicken simmered in soy sauce and vinegar. I realized that I can cook tons of other ethnic cuisines (heck, I even tried some Senegalese peanut stew once and loved it), but not Filipino.

Oh well. So for today, as always, I decided to make something that mixes several threads of ethnic cooking from different continents. And I figured, if it turned well, then I might as well post it here. If not, then nobody needs to know about how it turned. Again, I love cooking than baking, for this exact reason, that I can be cavalier about it. And I suppose since I am still blabbering about it, it turned out well.

So, without further ado, here's the recipe for Spinach and Couscous with Cultural Identity Crisis. I am sure you can figure out the two main ethnic traditions that this dish borrows from.



Spinach and Couscous with Cultural Identity Crisis

20 oz (2 bags) spinach, rinsed
8 oz sliced mushrooms
1 large onion, diced
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 habanero pepper, seeds removed, minced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 cups shredded cheese (sharp cheddar or Monterey Jack)
1 14oz can chickpeas
2 large tomatoes, seeds removed and diced
1 10oz can enchilada sauce
1/4 cup water

1 cup couscous
1 cup water

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a deep pot. Saute the onion, tomatoes and mushrooms until tender and golden, about 10 minutes. Put the spinach in the pot in batches, until they all wilt. Add 1/4 cup water. Put the salt, pepper, and diced habanero peppers (be careful when handling the habanero peppers: some varieties will need you using gloves). Simmer for 10 minutes.

2. While simmering, heat the enchilada sauce. Put aside.

3. Still while simmering, put 1 cup water in a small saucepan and let it boil. Once it boils, put the couscous and remove from heat immediately. Let stand for 5 minutes. Fluff with fork. Do not put anything else in the couscous, as the spinach will have more than enough flavor you will need.

4. Before serving, pour the shredded cheese in the spinach mixture, until they are all melted. Remove from heat. Serve on a plate, and pour the heated enchilada sauce over the spinach.

So there, that's it. That was the product of my imagination while in the supermarket the other day. If you decide to make this, and think that it needed improvement, by all means, let me know. I would like to know how people optimized it.

(Ornate Ceiling, from my Library of Congress Series)

E-C#m-A-B

Friday, February 12, 2010

The other day, I was doing some reading that didn't require too much brain effort. So I had the Internet radio on, and it was playing James Blunt's Goodbye My Lover. I tuned in, and figured that the chord progression was so simple, I could possibly learn it in a few tries.

So I tried looking for the sheet music online, and sure enough, there was a copy somewhere. I printed it late one night, and then went to the practice room in the Music Department. Fortunately, no one was there. So I sat down and worked on it.

Wow. It was relatively easy. The thing with this song is that the huge impact lies on the words, and the musical background is just feebly aural. The chord progression was simple, it was just E-C#m-A-B, and sometimes it becomes E-C#m-G#m-B, but it always was that four-step sequence.

So I was thinking, wow, one can get paid big bucks with just these four chords? But I have to say, non-classical music usually gets the audience with the words, and yeah, with a rather minimalist musical structure like that, it's the words that drives the song forward.

(Inside Arch, from my Library of Congress Series)

Grand Theme

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

So, it seems that there are several ways in which one can write a dissertation. And I guess this is the time in which I need to think of how I would write mine.

At least, in my field, there are at least two ways in which one can be driven in research. The way I see it, in Linguistics, one can either be language-driven or theory-driven.

Language-driven research are mostly true when it comes to fieldworkers. These are the scholars that are so fascinated with one language or language family. They establish field sites and work with the speakers for basically the rest of their career. They become known as the experts of anything that has to do with this language, whether it is about the sound system of the language, or the structure of the language, or the social aspects of the language. The disadvantage for scholars like these is that one needs to cover a lot of theoretical background, since basically, one is responsible for the various different aspects of the language.

Theory-driven research on the other hand are done by scholars who are interested in a small set of phenomena or research questions. Then, in order to investigate the research question, they find what ever language it is that can help them solve that question. They know bits and pieces of various languages, but only the pieces that are relevant to what they are interested in.

So, who am I? I suppose I belong to the latter type. I am interested in a set of research questions, and I am investigating that using the language that can provide me with answers. I know a lot about the topic that I am interested in, and I know stuff in different languages that relate to this research topic, but I know nothing about other aspects of the languages that I look at that are not relevant to what I am interested in.

Of course, there are pros and cons to the approach. And with this, the issue also comes up in what type of dissertation one would write. There are two possibilities.

One can write an "aspects" dissertation. This is the dissertation whose title usually goes along the lines of "Aspects of [insert big topic here]". A lot of dissertations that are based on fieldwork targeting a specific language is like this. Perhaps this is not what I want.

On the other hand, one can write a dissertation, where there is one grand thesis, and the chapters are basically points that lend evidence to this grand thesis. Thus, this is the "big idea" dissertation. I've seen several dissertations like this, and yes, I have to say, they are very logically sound.

Now, I have come to realize that the current state of my dissertation research needs to be improved. It needs to be reined in, so that it has one grand theme running through. And I think that is what I need to do from now on, to have a grand theme, and every family of experiments that I am going to propose will basically lend evidence in support of my grand theme.

The good thing is that my adviser told me that the grand theme doesn't need to be earth-shattering: in fact, only a few people do earth-shattering theories, theories which result in paradigm shifts and a change in world view. Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky comes to mind as examples.

So there. I think I do have a grand thesis for this dissertation, therefore, the things that I would be talking about aren't just random clutter but instead revolving around a common theme trying to prove a common thesis.

(Library Steps, from my Library of Congress Series)

Book Review: The Scroll of Seduction by Gioconda Belli

Monday, February 08, 2010

I never realized that eroticism and history could mix together and form a very interesting novel. If one wants to have that combination, then this should be the book that one should read.

So, what is this about? This is a book written by Gioconda Belli, one of Central America's great writers. This tells the story of Juana La Loca and Philippe the Handsome. Juana is the daughter of Queen Isabella of Spain, while Philippe is from Flanders. The story begins along the time when Juana was arranged to be wed to Philippe, up to the point when she dies as an old woman of 76 years old.

As a parallel story, it also tells the story of Lucia, an orphan from Central America, who is studying in a boarding school in Madrid. She befriends a historian, Manuel, and his aunt, Aunt Agueda.

The main setup of the story is that Manuel first met Lucia in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, and remarked that Lucia resembles Juana La Loca very much, to the point that he invites her, a 17-year-old student, in his house, in order to relive the story of Juana La Loca. Manuel has a medieval dress that he insists Lucia wears whenever they would meet during the weekends.

Thus, the story of Juana and Philippe and Lucia and Manuel become intertwined together, and the narration swings from first-person to second-person and back. Overall, I think it was a very interesting device.

Now, the title is actually misleading. There isn't a scroll of seduction in the book. However, the story is indeed about seduction, and there's multiple instances of it. First, there's Manuel, a 30-something-year-old historian, seducing a 17-year-old girl. There's also Juana, seducing Philippe, back in the 16th century. And yes, there are numerous instances where sex becomes a major player in diplomacy.

A little disturbing factoid in this novel is the fact that a body seems to inhabit multiple bodies. Lucia makes love with Manuel, but as who? As Lucia? Or as Juana? And who was she making love to? Manuel? Or Philippe? The book makes a good job of blurring the boundary between reality and hallucination.

So did I like this book? Yes, definitely. This is not for youngsters, but I find it very well researched. I never knew of the existence of Juana La Loca before, but now I have a better idea of who she was. This may be fiction, it may be historical fiction, but it was a good read if one is interested in the history of Castile and Aragon back in the 1600's. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

(Fountain Creature, from my Library of Congress Series)

Groupthink

Saturday, February 06, 2010

The other day, I was in the bus heading home, and I witnessed something disturbing.

There were sixteen girls in the bus, all college students. And practically, they dominated the whole bus, they were the only ones talking, in the middle of the night, while everyone was trying to wind down and rest. Therefore, one can hear what they were up to that night.

Apparently, they were heading to a sorority house, and it's their first night pledging. And so after hearing what they were up to, I couldn't help but think how pathetic they were.

So they were talking about how to interact with the elder sisters. How one should not look at them in the eye. How every time they interact with them, they should call every one "Sister So-and-So" and all that. How every time the sisters talk to them, they should always say sorry and apologize. How they shouldn't talk before being addressed to do so.

I was like, wow, this is groupthink par excellance. I wonder why people feel the need to join groups like fraternities and sororities, where one undergoes these initiation rites to fit in, to join a group, a secret society. Is it the case that one cannot stand alone in this world, that they are willing to be submitted to all this humiliation just in order to fit in and stand as a group? I don't get it.

It's like surrendering your own body and soul to a group entity. I overheard one girl telling her boyfriend over the phone that she cannot talk to him for the next two weeks, even over the phone, because she was pledging. Because that was a requirement for the sorority, and she kept explaining to her boyfriend and apparently the boyfriend wasn't too happy about it, and so some other girl in the group even told this girl who had the phone to give the phone to her so that she could explain it.

Weird.

Then, they did a countdown roll-call sort of thing, they practiced that while in the bus a few times. Then they called some other girls and told them to wait for them in the bus stop so that they could walk together once the bus stops at the end of the line.

What makes people surrender their individual control of their person and let a social construct guide their actions like that? What constraint ranks so high as to allow a group dictate one's movements? I am no sociologist, so I do not know the right answer to this, but nevertheless, I am disturbed that there are people who would be willing to go to great lengths just to pursue group solidarity. The thought is somehow scary.

(Poseidon Fountain, from my Library of Congress Series)

Make My Day

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Wow. It's been a non-stop day.

8:45 AM: I arrive on campus. I head to my office, and turn on my computer. I head to the lounge to leave my lunchbox in the common refrigerator. Unable to wait for my computer to boot up (it's a 2005 laptop), I head to the library in the next building to check my email and respond to the important ones.

9:15 AM: I head to the ATM and withdraw a small amount of money intended for participant compensation that would last the whole day. I head to Lab A and get my folder where I keep my recruitment fliers, and walk all over campus, refilling the ones that are gone.

10:00 AM: I head to Starbucks and get a hot chocolate. I need an excuse to do so, as I don't do this often (not only is it calorie-filling, it's also 3 bucks a pop), but I need to break the twenty bucks I withdrew so I can pay people 5 bucks each when they come to lab. After getting my drink, I head back to Lab A and return the folder.

10:10 AM: I arrive at my office. I work on amending an experiment protocol that we currently have approved, since we are adding a new venue and a new subject pool to the experiment. Thus, instead of conducting the experiment just in Lab A, I can also conduct it in Lab B once the amendment gets approved.

10:36 AM: I am finished with the amendment, and emailed it to the reviewers.

10:45 AM: I head to class in another building.

12:00 PM: I get back from class, and check my email. I notice that the reviewers were quick to respond, and that they have no problems with my amendments. I now have my approval.

12:05 PM: Lunch in the lounge, while talking with two other graduate students about why I do not like to do fieldwork, and how I told someone interviewing me for an honor society that I wanted to do fieldwork in Zulu in the future. Totally false given where I am right now.

12:40 PM: I get back to my office, and print stuff for a meeting with my adviser.

1:00 PM: I head to Lab A to run an experiment for 30 minutes.

1:30 PM: I print legal forms for the experiment, so that they can be run in Lab B. 60 Informed Consent Forms, 30 Debriefing Sheets.

2:00 PM: I head to Lab B and install the experiment. I find out that the button boxes (weird experimental contraption that has just 5 buttons) do not work in Lab B, therefore the procedure has to be edited so that the experiment runs on button boxes in Lab A, but runs with just the keyboard on Lab B.

3:00 PM: The experiment finally runs on Lab B. I go ahead and print the tracking sheets and several other pieces of paper.

3:30 PM: Awesome friend calls and tells me we should go for coffee. Since I haven't caught up in a while with awesome friend, I accompany her. However, I already had my drink fix in the morning, so I was just an escort and not a customer.

4:00 PM: Back in Lab B, I finalize the folder that contains the legal documents, the storage for the data, and the tracking sheet. I email everyone in the lab about the particulars of the experiment, telling them that if there are any problems, they should email me. The experiment is due to start tomorrow first thing in the morning.

4:30 PM: I email everyone in my Tuesday Lab Meeting the paper that I am discussing. I also upload the paper to the common online folder that we all have access to.

5:00 PM: Little break. Chat with friends. Catch my breath.

5:30 PM: Meeting with the adviser. I manage to convince him that the second topic I plan to cover in my dissertation is worth doing. He finds the idea very interesting and cute. Discuss, chat, discuss, explain. Wash, rinse, repeat.

6:25 PM: Meeting adjourned.

6:30 PM: I head back to Lab A to run another participant.

6:50 PM: Participant finishes the experiment. I answer emails and write emails. Then I write a blog entry.

Which brings us to now. 7:09 PM.

(Jefferson Building, from my Library of Congress Series)

I Need Two Bodies

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Today was such an exciting day. Well, the excitement actually started yesterday, but it extended mainly to today.

Well, the thing is, I had an epiphany yesterday, with respect to the research that I have been doing. I cannot tell the whole thing here, for fear that someone might catch the idea and publish it before me, but it basically consists of finding that nobody has done what I wanted to do in my topic, but plenty of people have done something similar in a totally different topic. Thus, I can make analogies from a totally unrelated discipline to my own, thus making a generalization that might shake the way we see how things work.

It's like, say you're a neurosurgeon, and you were trying to find a way of doing something with your field, but found that nobody else has tried it before you. That makes you skeptical, but you notice that people specializing in culinary arts for example has done something popular in their field, and that you think you can apply the principles they have in such an unrelated field, therefore drawing analogies.

I know, I can't say much here, but needless to say, I am excited. I have ran my story on several people, both on people in the department who work on my field and those that don't, and they all tell me that it is a neat idea. So at least I am getting feedback that aren't telling me that I have a crazy idea.

Aside from that, it seems that we got permission to run our experiments in another lab. Thus, I have spent the rest of this evening amending the legal aspects of the research, revising the formal documents that allow us to collect human data in the first place. I then sent copies of those to my collaborators and my mentor so they can read it and see if there are bugs that I haven't caught. If it is all clear, then we'll go ahead and send it to the reviewers, so we can perform the amendment as soon as possible. Thus, hopefully, we can go ahead and finish the data collection. And after this, all we need is sit in front of the computer and run the statistics. And then we have something to write up.

Sometimes, I wonder at the amount of correspondence I get in my email inbox. I get so many emails every day from students, experiment participants, adviser, collaborators, and so on. But I like the excitement. I like this, I prefer this than stagnation at least. I can feel that my brain is working. That's a good thing.

Oh, before I end this post. This is the beginning of my Library of Congress Series. I know, I suppose people are sick of my Washington DC photos by now. But don't lose hope. I only have one more series from DC after this one.

(The Library, from my Library of Congress Series)