First Week at Work, and other Adventures

So, this isn't Eric writing.  But, he's also been negligent in posting, so I shall update you on some of the new mini-adventures we've encountered.  I'll also start off the first interactive game.

Most of our mini-adventures consist of simply figuring out where to go for normal parts of life, and then trying to navigate our way there.  For instance, the nearest Presbyterian church is literally hidden in the woods - great for a feeling of a sanctuary, terrible for visitors who are *almost* on time... and then not at all on time. It's also close enough to walk to, but not in the time that google said it would take. Late again... and sweaty.  But, the people are nice and the pastor's good - both thought provoking and funny.

In a related adventure, (they're both life necessities), we searched for an Indian buffet.  This brings me to our first interactive game: One of These Things Is Not Like The Others, or Name The Poser.  The following are the names of the restaurants in the strip mall where we found India Garden:

India Garden
Pho 95
El Mariachi
Bubble Express
Yuan Fu Vegetarian
International House of Pancakes (IHOP)

There may have been a few more legitimately international restaurants.  I think there may have been a Pizza Hut too... you know, Italian. :-)

For me, the rest of the week has pretty much been spent working (fancy that!).  I'm working in the Functional Imaging Methods lab at NIH, which is part of the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition in the National Institute of Mental Health. Or, as it is more likely to be writting NIMH/LBC/FIM.  They're fond of acronyms round about these parts.  Anyway, my projects (yes... plural) deal with things like 'How many scans are necessary to see consistent results?' or 'What happens if you take 100 runs and average them together rather than the usual 5-10 or so?  Can we validate/invalidate some of the usual assumptions made in fMRI?' or 'What happens if we make music out of the noise in the brain? And if we do, can you teach someone to control it?'  Well, that last one's not exactly the project, but kinda close.  I'm really enjoying it so far. Learning a lot.  I ate lunch next to the guy that wrote AFNI on Friday.  That may not sound super exciting (especially if you don't know what AFNI is), but I imagine it's sort of what it would be like to sit next to Bill Gates if Windows worked well.  Sort of.

It's a bit weird to not have class work and a bunch of "priority #1" projects floating around at the same time.  The result, as I see it, is that when I get bored of working on something, I can't just switch over to some other equally important project.  It makes the days a little slow, but oh well, c'est la vie I suppose.  I can still come home and juggle a few Purdue projects when I'm bored. :-\  Plus, I'm told that this lab gets papers out.  So, although the days feel kinda long, I've been assured many times that it will be a productive summer.  I do really enjoy being done by 5:30 or so.  I have to stop then to come home and let the puppy out, and my request for access from home hasn't gone through yet.

The dog seemed to be adjusting well, and then Eric left, and now she's all angsty again.  But not clingy.  When we first came to Maryland, she was all clingy, and got really anxious if Eric and I were not both there with her.    Then, she sort of adjusted to the new place, and began to really like the extra attention from Maria.  Now that Eric's gone, one would expect that she would again be clingy, but no.  She'll hardly even sit in my lap.  Apparently, the puppy doesn't love me anymore.  Or maybe, it's just because it's so hot and sticky here.  (She does still whine at me the minute I walk though the door and randomly try to play tug of war with my hand... so I'm going with "hot and sticky").

Yes, sticky... as it turns out, being nearer to the ocean means that it's humid out. Who knew?  So, when it's 70 degrees here, it feels so much hotter than when it's 70 in Indiana.  Additionally, I have to walk more places here, and am expected to arrive looking more presentable than I would for class.  I'm learning some of the tricks of the commuting trade - like wearing only the bottom layer of your outfit on the metro (and the walk to and from), and carrying the rest in your bag, and packing your nice shoes, but getting there in flip flops.  Another lesson from the metro: they're really far down.  It's not a big deal most of the time, except that you lose cell phone coverage.  But, when the escalators break (and magically turn into stairs), it gets to be a big deal.  A big deal compounded by the stickiness.  The stairs (I mean escalator) at the Bethesda station broke on Friday.  On Friday, I ate dinner with 3 old labmates.  Apparently, Bethesda is just Purdue East or something. On Wednesday, I ate dinner with Matt, who was in town doing an installation.  We ate dinner at a little Italian place with outdoor seating so I could keep the Angsty One with me (she needed a nice walk anyway).  The service was slow, and we ended up having to power walk back to beat the thunderstorm.  We did - by about 5 minutes.

It's been rainy all week, which has kinda gotten in the way of me "running."  Yeah, running's in quotes.  If you saw me "run," you'd understand. :-P  Unfortunately, this is limiting my wardrobe.  You see, the dress pants (and casual pants, for that matter) that I own were purchased over a wide range of time, and consequently pant sizes.  Right now, I'm limited to black and charcoal slacks.  I can kinda squeeze into the brown ones, but they're not really comfortable all day.  Goal: brown pants and potentially even camel colored ones by the end of May.  After that, pin stripe grey pants and then light grey ones.  Somewhere around the pinstripe pants, I can also fit into my capris.  Interestingly, though, if things work out well exercise-wise, my clothes will become progressively lower in quality as the summer progresses, and at any given point, I'll probably only have two to choose from.  Hmm.  Maybe when I get to the camel colored pants, I'll shop a bit.  It'll be a bit of a reward.  Congrats to me.

Oh, that reminds me.  Eric passed him prelim and Mitchel's (finally, officially) engaged, and moving to New York for his new job this week.  Congrats to all --  To Adventure!