Research, research, ethics, & research.

I am learning so much about research here at WashU. However, much of it isn't dirctly about the reseach I am conducting. Now don't get me wrong here, I am learning loads about the redious, frustrating, painstaking process that is research. But, what I believe is more important is that I have been constantly asking, "why?" Why go through this process (as described above) and spend all of this time, (someone's) money, and mental effort participating in a process that carries (sometimes larger than others) a risk of failure?

But, at the same time, and from a more bibilical perspective, I know that we are to seek knowledge. I am just confused as how to discern when seeking knowledge is pushed aside for the academic glamour, career advancement, and/or money. If I am going to conduct research in the future, I must remember the larger picture: love God and love my neighbor as myself (Luke 10:27). I am slowly beginning to realize how incredibly easy it is to miss this.

On to ethics. Yesterday all of the interns in my program attended an ethics seminar all day. While thee are some really difficult ethical dilemmas that arise, I just really believe that, in its most simple form, the decisions we make boil down to honestly seeking truth. Yes, this is really simplifying the study of ethics, but this is how I am able to make sense of ethics in light of Jesus and the Gospel.

Prayer Requests:
- Doing good science for Christ in a secular environment
- Finding my comfort in the Father during frequent times of loneliness
- Giving people the benefit of the doubt

Crisis.

Currently listening to: Elliot Smith, which is probably the worst possible music I could listen to right now, given my mood.

I'm sure that the title "Crisis" caught your attention, which was the main purpose. But, I also want you to remember that I'm a bit dramatic and nothing that I call a "crisis" actually turns out to be one in reality.

Slight recap of the major events of the past couple of days:

Monday - worked in the lab all day and became an official taste tester at Solae, which is a company that makes soy based products (I will receive compensation for my time, which is why I signed up); I'll be honest, Monday was a little boring because I basically just read research articles all day. Don't get me wrong, self-esteem and its effects on the hippocampus are quite interesting, but there's only so much scientific jargon I can stomach in a 24 hour period.

Tuesday - kinda figured out a little bit more of how the spatial navigation project will work; The other undergraduate research assistant and I worked on coding for the typical errors that the older adults made when going through the maze. SLIGHT PROBLEM: the stupid program didn't save the majority of the files we needed to code, so this pretty much fell apart in 30 minutes. However, Jake informed me that this kind of disarray is a common part of the research process, especially at the beginning. I'm just easily frustrated because I'm a very headstrong, "go getter," and I don't like to be patient, I guess.

And that brings us today, where my crises that have slowly been building up, all came to a head. They are:
1. "Yes, I'm going to get my PhD in Clinical Psychology. That is definitely my career choice." Oh wait... but I'm really interested in neuropsychology... but I want to work with people... ok, so I'll specialize in Clinical Neuropsychology! (I found out yesterday that this is an option) Wait, maybe I should consider medical school? I could then specialize in Psychiatry. No, I should stick with Clinical Psychology. But, I really want to prescribe medicine; there's a big push for psychologists to be able to do that with special training right? HOLD UP. What about this whole MD-PhD thing ("mud-phud")!? Then I could do both! AND, the NIH would basically pay for me to go to school. But I don't think I'm smart enough to get in... or am I? But am I too late? No, I can do post-bacc. studies in pre-med. But do I really want to do that? Do I want to take the MCAT? What if I don't get in? Is this actually God's plan for my life? What is God's plan for my life? DAJSKDJALKSDAKSLDJA.

^^ Yes, above you can see my thought processes all day. Actually, I shortened much of it for your viewing pleasure. I don't think enlightening you to my vast neuroticisms will make anythings more clear to you or me. Summary: I don't know if I want to go to medical school, graduate school, or do the MD-PhD program. I don't even know if the latter is possible, given my limited research experience (The "MD" part means that I would be a clinical practitioner, and the "PhD" says that I will conduct research. The NIH sees the importance of research in an academic hospital setting, which is why they will fund individuals to go down this path).

2. I'm quite fearful that I won't have enough data collected by July 29th to present a poster on my research.


Prayer Requests:

- Submission to Christ (I think much of this worry/anxiety is me trying to do everything on my own).
- That I would become increasingly more comfortable in this novel setting; it still stresses me out at times
- Loneliness; I'm just by myself for the vast part of the day

The Rest of the Week.

Currently: Basking in the Sabbath :)

Whew. This past week was QUITE exhausting, but also very good. I'm loving St. Louis, and I'm loving WashU even more.

With the week wrapping up, I was getting into more of the "meat" of my internship this summer. I got to go over consent forms, administering the WAIS assessments, introducing subjects to the maze, etc. Also, I was able to begin research for one of the side-projects I will be working on, which Nate (graduate student) is currently trying to iron out. Basically, he's attempting to propose a study on personality, stress, aging, and regions of the brain. Yes, it's very vague at this point, which is why it's a SIDE-project. Anyway, I've been reading articles on self-esteem, the hippocampus, and personality. It's all quite fascinating. I'll probably have a little more to say about the articles once I finish the summaries (probably tomorrow).

Also, I've been learning how to use the Freesurfer software (you should Wikipedia it or something), which is basically quality control for the MRI scans we do at the Medical School. My Friday consisted of looking at the brain of a 35 year old woman for about an hour.

This week we should finally be getting some subjects in! I don't think we will be administering every aspect of our current research, just because right now the primary concern is getting the older adults through the maze (they couldn't do it effectively before, so we tweeked it a little bit). We had a few young adults come in on Friday with no trouble, so hopefully things will go well for the old folk as well :)

Everything has been kind of a whirlwind (moving, orientation, getting my bearings in a new city), but it's been really good. I'm starting to feel much more situated and I'm getting the hang of this. Though I hate adapting, I must say that I do it fairly quickly. It's crazy that we're almost halfway through June!

Prayer Requests:
- Doing good science for God's glory even while in a secular environment and figuring out exactly what that means in the first place

- Consistency in all areas of life

Head Lab.

Currently listening to: Bowerbirds

Annnnd we're officially done with orientation. Monday was essentially just a ton of paperwork, health stuff, safety precautions, ethics training, blah, blah, and blah. However, it was good to get to know the other people in my program a little bit better, and to explore a little bit of the Medical School. Oh, and I got a sweet ID card that says "Neurology" on it. People will see it around my neck and think that I'm super intelligent.

Today was pretty awesome though. We did a little bit more orientation/ethics training, and then we had our "Meet Your Mentors" session. However, my mentor was super busy today, so she sent her Research Assistant, Tyler, to meet and talk with me, which was great. THIS IS CRAZY: I met someone today who graduated from Covenant. Small world. Turns out, she is Ginny Somerville's sister-in-law, and she lived on Chi Alpha when she went to Covenant. She's a Research Assistant for someone else in my program. SMALL WORLD!

After this little luncheon, I was able to go back to the Head Lab, where I will be working for the next eight weeks. Tyler showed me some software that basically takes MRI scans of the brain and measures the volume of various brain regions. It was pretty amazing, and way over my head. He also showed me some of the spatial navigation software that was used in some pilots of the research I'll be assisting one of the graduate students with.

When Dr. Head arrived, she explained to me what I'll be doing the rest of the summer: administering Psychometric Assessments. AWESOME. For the next couple of days I'll be training myself how to administer two of the WAIS assessments that measure fluid intelligence (WAIS-III Matrix Reasoning) and crystallized intelligence (WAIS-III Vocabulary). It's not as difficult and intense as it sounds, I promise. So as soon as this gets underway, I'll be scheduling subjects to come in and help the lab out with research (administering tests and showing them how to use the spatial navigation software) and begin collecting data. Then, I'll be presenting a poster at the end of the summer on the research.

Oh, and I'll be able to sit in on and observe Tyler performing MRI scans at the Medical School.

Here are some other cool, random thoughts that occurred today:
1. St. Louis is really humid.

2. I got completely lost on my way back to my apartment from the Psychology building. When I realized that I was on the bus going in the complete opposite direction of where I live, I just laughed. Anyway, I made my way back.

3. They serve turkey burgers EVERY DAY in the dining hall. IT IS AWESOME.

4. I went to the gym today for around two hours, and I now feel much better about myself.

5. I have my own desk in the Head Lab, and since the other undergrad research assistant isn't there yet, I got first dibs on the desk. There was a Dell and a huge iMac. Which do you think I chose? :) Oh, and the head lab uses Mac OS and Apple computers. Legit.

6. I don't have to drive to work. I don't even have to walk to work if I don't want to because there's a bus that can take me right to the Psychology building that leaves very close by. However, getting to the Medical School (which I will have to do on some days) will be a different task.

7. I get to make my own schedule. There's a ton of freedom with this job. I don't think I'll have any problems with abusing this responsibility though, simply because I love what I'm doing.

By the way, thank all of you for your words of encouragement and your prayers. It really means a ton, and God has used all of you to motivate me. You don't know how happy it makes me to know that people actually read this thing! :)

Alright, here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

I live here.

I got an ID card! And keys! I'm official now.

Preliminary Uncomfortability.

This was originally supposed to be posted last night, but apparently, there was a problem with Blogger. So, I typed it in a Word document and then copied and pasted.

Right now it is 12:43am on Monday in my head. However, in reality, it is 11:43pm on Sunday. Combine this with the fact that my mind is also swimming with ideas, realizations, new experiences, and trying to understand how his lazy summer got on the fast track and you get. . . one confused Rashad Jadon Gober.

Here’s a quick recap:

I left Rock Hill, SC on Wednesday for Chattanooga and got stuck is HORRIBLE traffic in Atlanta. I stayed with John-Michael for a night, hung out with Ben VanderHart, Will Dyer, Joel Harris, and MATTHEW PILLSBURY (who I hadn’t seen since he returned from France!) on Thursday, stayed another night with JM (and got to hang out with Hilleke and Micah), had coffee with Micah, whom I didn’t know too well before this trip, had a great dinner with Josh Johnson, got completely rained on (I freaking hate rain) on the walk back to the car, spent the night at the White House, saw one of my best friends in the whole world get married to his love on Saturday in Homewood, AL, drove back to Chattanooga, had one more night at JM’s with Micah (Tim Goldsmith dropped by too, which was AWESOME), and then left a 9:30am EST Sunday morning for St. Louis, MO.

Seriously, I had the GREATEST time in Chattanooga with all of the people listed above (and more!). I cherish my friends and I’m really glad I got to turn my little excursion into a road trip. It was totally worth it. God used all of the people I saw to encourage and bless me in a special way, and for that I am thankful.

Back to present-day matters:

I got to WashU at 3pm. Wow. I can’t put into words what my last 9 hours or so have been like. I’m just going to give you a list, because: a.) my mind organizes itself in lists and bullet-points and b.) I’m exhausted.

1. Washington University in St. Louis is GORGEOUS. The Gothic architecture made my jaw drop.
2. I really expected the check-in people to say, oh sorry, you actually didn’t get this internship; it’s another Rashad Gober. Imagine that! Sorry! It’s just all too surreal to me right now that I’m actually here.
3. My apartment building is extremely nice, but there is no easy access to bring luggage in.
4. I am extremely high-maintenance. I mean, I knew that before, but I seriously have EVERYTHING with me. But, it’s comforting in a materialistic way.
5. My roommates are nice. Myro is a Neuroscience major at NYU and Robert is a Cultural Anthropology major at Emory. Myro helped me move in. I seriously couldn’t have done it without him.
6. This campus is REALLY “green friendly,” and it makes me really happy. Hopefully, I’ll come back with some ideas for the CSC ☺
7. I had dinner with Alex Anderson, which was great, and made me feel a lot better.
8. There is a Whole Foods about 3 minutes from my apartment. Definitely hit that jank up already. BOOM.
9. I personalized my room to make me feel more comfortable.

I’m not going to put the biggest thing in this list because I want to expound upon it a bit. If you know me, you know that I hate change. I HATE change. Also, contrary to popular belief, I hate meeting new people too. It stresses me out. I don’t get stressed out about finals, sports, etc. but meeting new people seriously makes me a nervous wreck. I think this is because I am a person who likes to know where my foot is going to fall before I take the step. I plan EVERYTHING. Therefore, when I meet new people, which, by default are unpredictable because I don’t know them that well, I freak.

I think that dealing with change is one of the biggest things that God will teach me during this internship. Today was really, really stressful for me just because I am in a new environment and I don’t know the people that I will be working alongside of for the next eight weeks. I don’t know how to get around here, I don’t know where the freaking gym is (I need to work out), and it’s not what I’m used to. BUT, I think this is good. I need to be challenged and be pushed out of my comfort zone (that is SUPER cliche).

Prayer Requests:

- That I will be open to change and have faith that God has me here for a reason
- That I will be receptive to adapting to my environment and getting to know the people around me
- That I will have confidence in the intellectual abilities that God has given me, even though I’m in a new academic environment