Poeppel & Popples
Mondays are one of my favorite days, because I’ve got my 7:30 yoga class. Yoga at the end of the day is the best! I come home all relaxed and feeling well and ready for bed. Today’s class had a bit of an odd twist to it, though I’m trying to not make anything of it. While we were doing our little cool-down meditation (where you just lie on your back and breathe) the instructor came and gave me a mini-massage – feet, knees, chest and head! – and didn’t seem to do this to anyone else. It was a little awkward! On the other hand, it was also very relaxing and felt nice. I’m going to assume she was just being nice and maybe I looked like I needed some extra relaxation. Otherwise, I’m not sure what to think!
The rest of my day was also excellent, and thankfully not also awkward! Class this morning (cogneuro) just about killed me. A big uppy-up was guest teaching, which actually isn’t unusual, since we usually have guest lecturers present the work their labs are doing once a week. This one was strange because this guy already gave his lecture, but presumably our teacher was just out of town or something today, so he sat in for a second day to oversee the student presentations that we do the other half of our time. Sadly, a kid was presenting work this guy had published, so it took him a whole hour to get through his 20-minute powerpoint since the uppy-up had a bunch of stuff to add after every point. Pooh. We only had two presenters today, so we were going to get out an hour early – but we almost got out late instead! Not to worry though, because our Wednesday class was cancelled. Yay!
I got lunch with Lewis at a great cafe just a few blocks from the Center, so that was a wonderful find. Gourmet sandwiches for 6 bucks! I’m always on the lookout for good places that aren’t crowded, expensive, or crappy. This place is friendly, delicious, convenient, and relatively crowd-free! Yay! After lunch I was supposed to hang out in the lab until it was time for our inaugural Journal Club meeting, which my advisor-to-be had asked me to run today. Presented two articles there, both of which had fruitful discussions, and I think I did very well. Or at least as well as one could expect to do in a we’re-all-friends no-consequences sort of meeting. I’m happy with the result, at any rate, and off the hook for journal club for probably the rest of the quarter. Whoo! Also got myself signed up for some more fMRI stuff this weekend — one session worth of scanning shadow (hopefully we’ll be less rushed and I’ll get more info) and once to be scanned myself! I’m hoping to come out of this with a nice high-res picture of my very own brain. And hopefully I don’t panic in the magnet.
Only other triumph worth mentioning today is that I finished sewing Lewis’ PJ shirt! It turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself, though I know I messed a number of things up. There are just a handful of things that show (like the pocket which is kind of crooked), but I learned a hell of a lot, and there isn’t anything I think I didn’t learn from. The next shirt will be mucho mas smoother. I’m really excited to get moving on the pants so the whole outfit will be done, but I lost patience with it today after wrestling with the button holes for a whole hour and a half.
All things considered, it’s been a most triumphant day!