limbo

Positano

it may be the start of a new academic year, but i feel suspended in motion: awaiting responses (unendingly, seemingly) for revisions of revisions of revisions of various manuscripts, and (sort of) celebrating my status (albeit provisional) as an official, bonafide PhD student, all while putting together the last pieces of my billion-piece puzzle aka Master's thesis. nonetheless, the summer has been fruitful: completion of my data analysis, thanks to the help of Professor Rob Cribbie, part of the wonderful and free Statistics Consulting Service at the Institute of Social Research at York U, and a quick and relatively inexpensive getaway to Italy with my brother, which made for a lot of great photo ops and delicious meals.

Linguine alla pescatora (fisherman's linguine) - Anema e Cuore
Restaurant, Napoli

my next moves are completing the introduction and discussion of my thesis (the bread of this delicious neuro-sandwich), sinking my teeth into my two courses: Introduction to fMRI (which will involve designing, executing, and analyzing my own experiment at York's brand-spanking new fMRI facility- the Sherman Health Sciences Centre) and Multivariate Statistics (which i won't discuss any more, as i have a love-hate but mostly-hate relationship with stats), not to mention TAing for Introduction to Psychology with Professor Heather Jenkin. 

my brother, Mike, and I at the Fontana di Trevi, Roma

i'm probably looking most forward to the latter, as providing guidance to lost freshmen is surprisingly satisfying, and i know that i would've appreciated any advice from senior students when i was lost and overwhelmed in my early years at UofT. 


yes, the next month or two shall be gruelling, but i've already got my eye on my prize: the Society for Neuroscience Conference in Washington DC - i will definitely be checking out the local sights (capitol hill, washington monument, obama's house etc...) in addition to presenting my own poster, and perusing the tens of thousands of other presentations, lectures, and symposia. i've also applied to be an official NeuroBlogger for the meeting, so hopefully y'all can check back for daily updates and posts on the goings-on of the meeting and what's good in DC!


i'll leave you all with an image that i captured myself while on a boat tour around the beautiful island of Capri (i know, i know, i sound like a *insert adjective/expletive here*), which i have since set as my desktop background- feel free to download it and do the same!

p.