When I woke up Wednesday morning it looked like my poor peace lilly was dying. I didn't have time to give it that much of a pep-talk, but I ensured it could make it in the real world - and gave it a little water.
I spent many more minutes than intended analyzing my dreams, and realized I would be late for class after said pep-talk to plant. Then I realized it didn't matter, made myself two pieces of toast and a thermos of cayenne-hot-chocolate, and rocked up to class five minutes late. When I got there everyone was standing outside and they asked me: "Is there anyone in there?" This was how I ended up the first person to the Neuropsychology tutorial on visual-spatial disorders.
I scarfed X-amount of corn-chips with the beans and fajitas I had effectively placed in a generic brand plastic container, rocked up to the library, and studied for 1.5 hours before going to a lab meeting. The lab meeting was for post-grads studying music cognition, and I ended up the first person there, despite my being New Mexican and therefore always late.
Allow me to back up a second and speak on how I knew about such a meeting: It all started in freshman year when the College of Santa Fe was going bankrupt and everyone started jumping ship. I suddenly realized that I shouldn't just be studying film - I should be learning something that was a challenge for me. I remembered back to a conversation I'd had with my dad when I was around 6 or, thought about human potential, and dreams from ages 5+, and decided I needed to study neuroscience.
It took me a semester of community college to find the school I would be transferring to, and it took a semester of college at the school I transferred to, to realize there was even more to be had - I could study abroad on their scholarship dollar! (+ a couple thousand of parent-dollars, and about 20,000 of future dollars, AKA student loans).
I systematically looked through each school on Mill's study-abroad list, and found that the one with the best classes for me was Macquarie Uni. This was actually mainly based on the fact that they offered a class called: "Music, Mind and Message:" which specialized in music cognition, and was taught by the head of the psychology department, Bill Thompson. In the end that class wasn't offered this semester, but the textbook Thompson wrote is available in the library, so I know what I'm doing for spring break!
The date of my 21st birthday was the deadline to get all the materials in for study abroad, and this happened to be the date I completed my entire application for study abroad, including but not limited to a petition to the Academic Standing Committee, saying they should let me break a bunch of rules so that I could study abroad. It probably worked because I used key terms such as "classism." Study abroad is a complete privilege, and it's consistently a statistically a life-changing experience (because, you can easily quantify that which is life-changing). 85% of community-college transfer students miss out on this life-changing experience, because if and when they do transfer to a four year college, they are encouraged not to study abroad. It is also interesting to note that 70% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
You really have to commit to the word committee, because it has two m's, two t's, and two e's. Similarly, repetitive is repetitive because it has three e's. Tangent aside, here I am, in Australia, writing a blog, based on a heap of scraggly logic. I think what my scraggly logic turns into is a lot of white matter, just making connections like some sort of networking capitalist that lives inside HUMAN BRAINS!
So back to human brains: I ended up the first person at this lab meeting, because my life-story and college history has placed me in this position at a neuroimaging lab. The person who interviewed me at this lab noted my interest the brain and music, and mentioned the name: "Bill Thomspon" I emailed Bill, asking about any experiment ideas he might have involving MEG (that's the kind of brain research lab I'm interning in) Instead of replying to me like so many professors would (with automated messages or "something something something bureaucracy and "No kid, you are a fool!") He responded inviting me to a lab meeting, and to discuss experimental ideas.
Dr. Thompson seemed keen to use me as a buffer between the brain lab and his music-cognition lab and hinted at a role in designing/piloting my own experiment several times, only to realize that I will be here until December, which will not be enough time to get it passed by ethics etc. I couldn't believe that my foolhardy dreams were being siphoned out into the little office with such ease, like it would just be possible for an undergrad with a small amount of lab experience to bypass the real world based solely on enthusiasm. I am so grateful for all the opportunities and support and wish I could stay here another semester. I may not be able to design a complete experiment, but we'll see how much I can do.
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