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

Pre-Beginning.

Hello everyone who wants to follow me as I blog about my summer research experience.

There are a 4 main reasons why I am blogging about my summer internship (apart from my personal blog):

1. Some people have indicated interest in keeping up with my happenings this summer.
2. Professors have indicated that I should blog or journal about my experience this summer in order to keep them updated on what I'm doing.
3. It seems like all the Community Development majors are doing it, and I want to be just as trendy as them!
4. It's an easy way to keep EVERYONE updated without having to respond individually, which takes much time.

Since my internship officially begins June 7, 2010, there's not much to say at this point. If you're really interested in what I'll be doing, you can go here: http://wucfa.wustl.edu/ and poke around. I'm working with Dr. Denise Head.

So. If you're interested, follow me, put me in your RSS feed, make me your homepage (that's kinda creepy), do whatever you need to do.

Ciao for now. Talk to you June 7th :)