LONG DAY. Woke up, went to lecture with a heavy feeling in my stomach. This was the last day of the conference. 🙁 First lecture was stuff I already knew (about the evolution of the English auxiliary ‘do,’ not really interesting to non-linguists). Dr. Anthony Kroch was the professor giving the lecture. Next we listened…

Today was the greatest day ever. Abigail planned on having the group do a talent show at 8 and we ended up actually going through with it and letting Jessica attend the event (Jessica is the IRCS activities coordinator). But first… Cognitive Control, conceptual retrieval, and creativity Sharon Thompson-Schill The front brain controls goal-directed behavior.…

Today was a major day for learning about linguisticky things. Unfortunately, though, I’m tired of typing about lectures so these are going to be kept really really short. Motor intelligence in machines and animals D. E. Koditscheck Spacial memory is thought to be held in the hippocampus. We watched a bunch of robots climbing walls…

It rained today. All day. A lot. Regardless, I didn’t let that stop me from having a good day. Unfortunately one of the bad things about having a chock-full-of-everything day every day for a week in a half is that it’s really taxing on your brain and eventually all you want to do is sleep.…

There is not nearly enough time in the day/this program is not nearly long enough. When it hit me that there are now only four days remaining before I go home, I became really depressed. I’m just now getting to know everyone and settle into life in the big city! Nonetheless I will continue to…

So I’ve never been to a Pride parade. Or any kind of Pride event, really. I came out two years ago or so and since then I’ve been on a really long personal journey discovering how diverse the human population really is, and how much culture is associated with each group. It’s really fascinating. So…

Since it’s a Saturday we didn’t have any talks to go to. The only scheduled event was a picnic-type lunch at the Farmer’s market. Since my computer has not changed its time zone settings since I got here, I thought it was an hour earlier than it actually was, so I made it just in…

So yesterday morning I actually woke up on time which made my whole day 100 times better. My shoe fell apart that morning: So I figured it would be a good idea to go out and buy shoes after our lectures. First, we heard from Dr. Nicole Rust, who does research on the visuoperceptive system.…

Today was another loonnnnggggg day. Last night we went out to a club to dance and relax after all the straining mental work we’ve been doing. I got to wear a shirt I found in South Philly last night! Only $20! Needless to say we had a lot of fun, and I’m going to skip…

So I’ve run into about everything today. I ran into a stationary chair, I ran into a wall, I ran into my desk, I ran into multiple people, and I stumbled over just about every crack on the ground downtown. I think I did a good job of hiding it, but it was annoying nonetheless.…