29 May 2008
Hello everyone!
Was a bit lax on the blog entries in the second week so I have to give a retrospective account now that I’m back home. I’ll probably miss a lot of stuff out, which will annoy me when I later remember, but I think it’s still worth doing as we got up to lots of exciting stuff and I can stick photos here and there to illustrate the funness!
MONDAY 19 MAY
We had a lecture on Optical Imaging techniques, which really ain’t my bag, but was interesting nonetheless. We also got demos of some of stuff they use. This where my paparazzi attitude came in handy as I have a pic of Marijan with one of the head set-ups on.
In the afternoon we got a talk on Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation from Alvaro Pascual-Leone which was pretty darned exciting cos he’s one of the macmothers in the field and I read a lot of his work/books for my undergrad lit review on TMS and schizophrenia. Never would have thought at the time that a couple of years later I’d be sitting in on his talk in Boston. Mad!
No real plans were made in the eve. None of us really fancied doing anything exciting so we just decided on some cheap and cheerful pizza. What I now know is a 15 minute walk from the hotel took almost 45 minutes cos (so called!) Ranger Dave took us around the block 3 times over. Gotta admit I was getting mildly hungry and grumpy by the end of the walkabout and was tempted to just go home.
We ended up having pizza at Papa Ginos which was pretty cool. It was still pretty early in the eve so me Dave and Michael made the trek to a nearby mall so that Dave could get some sheets and pillows and stuff for his new apartment. That walk didn’t get off to a great start cos Dave got us walking 10 blocks in the wrong direction before we checked the map turned back to where we came from! Not much to report on in the mall. I bought a shirt from Old Navy, and Dave managed to buy what he needed. Yay!
TUESDAY 22 MAY
Now, here’s where it gets a bit fuzzy. I didn’t have my camera for Tues or Wed cos now I cant remember which order things happened in! The course was 9 to 5.30 again and today was the Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy lecture, the thing I’d flown just a few hundred miles to attend! As it was only an hour slot, and I was the only person really interested in (I wonder why!), I wasn’t expecting much more than an introductory whistle-stop type talk. Dr Savoy had kindly arrange for me to have lunch with Dr Ratai who gave the talk, and Claudia (Swiss cog neuroscientist working on auditory hallucinations in schizophrenics also interesting in MRS’ing the patients). We exchanged ideas about our projects and Claudia had some great ideas on overcoming some of the more practical issues of scanning children. On her advice I think we’ll show relaxing pictures of nature or some thing neutral while the kids are in the scanner instead of showing them Disney videos as was originally planned, as this is likely to cause them laugh or induce large eye movements etc.
In the afternoon we had a lecture on databasing neuroimaging studies and I have to admit my narcolepsy kicked in something rotten. Might as well admit to it now, before Steffen posts the (many) photos of me trying to suffocate some bugs that had become trapped in my eyelids.
I’ll have to check with the other dudes on the course but I think we factioned off into smaller groups that evening cos no one had managed to organise something for the whole group of us to do. I didn’t have my camera with me so I don’t even have any photos to jog my memory but I think that was the evening a small group of us (Me, Michael, Raphael, Marijan, Mellisa and Dave) went to a Thai restaurant in Charlestown called Chow Thai (I think). I do remember I had a beef pannang which was delicious, and there was a palaver at the end when I tried to get a separate bill so I could et reimbursed later and they didn’t really understand what was going on, and then it turned out we had underpaid or something and I had to cough up an extra couple of dollars! They had loads of rough guides in the restaurant including a very new edition on Norway. Was fun reading about Vigelands park cos I’d been there,
THURSDAY 24 MAY
Thursday was the last full day of the course. We had some really interesting talks, including from Dr Lichtman and the Brainbow technology that I remember being a cover article on Nature! I think they’re missing a trick not putting the images on canvas and marketing them as art. They’re so pretty in themselves, nevermind that they’re actually images of brain tissue! In the afternoon some of the people who had neuroimaging experiments planned got a chance to present their work and get some feedback from the group. I think it was a really good exercise for the people that presenting cos lots of people had interesting feedback to give. Unfortunately for me, my work isn’t really task driven, and no one else in the room really had much to contribute on chemical shift imaging or the other MRS-related fun that matter to my work.
Sajun who was such a fun dude, had also been working lord knows how many hours on a powerpoint presentation for our social decision making project. I have to admit that I felt bad cos apart from the workshops, and deciding that we couldn’t really implement the experiment in time, I hadn’t really done squat by way of extra curricular activity! He’d put together a whole bunch of pictures and charts detailing the rationale for out experiment and all sorts. (must remember to email him from a copy!). He’d even added a couple of videos to the beginning and the end I think interesting and baffled the group in equal measures! This was the second video... What it’s got to do with the unequal distribution of wealth I’ve really no idea, but the guy’s one hell of a hard worker and entertaining presenter!
Most people had flights etc to catch as soon as the course finished on the Friday so an informal group dinner was organised for the eve that day. Sharon suggested karaoke at a Japanese restaurant in Kenmore, which people were surprisingly enthusiastic about!
Before we all dashed off to the meal we present Dr Savoy a cheeky parody of a conference poster presentation that Steffen, Carolina and Natatlia had come up with as a way of saying thank you. They’d actually spent loads of time on it (sometimes during the course, tut tut!), I’d actually only contributed the small logo in the corner which involved photoshoppin a statue to look like it was surfing (as a play on FreeSurfer, geddit?). The sight of Dr Savoy wearing a cap that looks like a brain being taken aback by the poster (and Brian’s excellent presentation skills!) certainly was a sight!
Once we’d all managed to make our way to the restaurant using variously planes, trains and automobiles we actually had (almost) all 26 people there including Dr Savoy. The food was great, I had sashimi deluxe which was raw squid, yellowtail (whatever the funk that is), mackerel, salmon, tuna and more thing I can’t remember. Delicious!(‘cept for the squid, to borrow a maedagre phrase ‘it wasn’t my favourite’). And, Sajung taught me how to use chopsticks the proper and polite Korean way too!
The best part of the eve was absolutely the karaoke. Definitely think the flowing cocktails on helped lubricate the vocals chords of most of the group, but I can honestly say it was the fun atmosphere and not the booze that got me blaring out the hits (and doing a lil impromptu compeering and joke telling inbetween songs!). The whole evening was an absolute blast but three highlights immediately spring to mind:
1. Sajung getting the singing started with an amazing operatic style solo rendition of Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful World (those of you who actually clicked on the youtube link above will more understand the brilliance of the song choice). No ones singing topped that all eve – the guy is a bonafide leg-end.
2. Steffen belting out Highway to Hell, and for some funky reason (probably the scorpion fishbowl type cocktail thing they were drinkin) ending up sounding more English than I do!
3. The 30 man rendition of Total eclipse of the heart, belted out with such emotion it almost brought a tear to my eye. sniff, sniff. I actually dedicated the song to Mae cos I know it’s one of her all time cheesefest favourites :)
Notable mentions also go to every time some random song came one that no one knew and some poor bugger always just decided to read the lyrics out loud (no, not always me actually!), and singing a song like he was singing it to me. You melted my heart Ranger, you melted my heart. We eventually got booted out at 12 when the place closed, which I think was for the best, as a couple of people (and their vocal chords) were a little worse for wear!
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