capuchin

I'm doing laundry right now so Im wearing an old black t-shirt I stole from my b/f and these white and blue boxer shorts...

Heidegger, Being and Time...

Hah, I'm just an addict...there was a point in time when I lived in Tucson when I would keep a cappucino maker on hand so that I could have a cup of espresso just to give me the energy to walk four blocks to the coffeehouse for espresso...

cookies...esp. if I bake them myself :grin

Heh that's the advantage of being a hardcore caffeine addict...I'm never without coffee when I wake up

Preparing to go to my boyfriend's mom's house for crepes :grin

Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception.

Heh, I'm pretty ancient too--I took a "semester off" that lasted more than ten years at one point, so I'm a little slow in getting the undergrad done. But it all evens out in the end since just about everyone who goes to grad school doesn't finish til their sixty anyways Yeah--my big interest is in primatology. I really kinda dig neuroethology/neuroscience etc. as well, but primate stuff is where my passion is. I especially like some of the comparative work being done with primates and development, such as taking attachment theory that Psychology has typically applied to humans and seeing how it manifests in primates, to get a better sense of the evolutionary component of this stuff...

The senior thesis is part of the honors program--basically, I'm going for departmental honors which is an additional 12 credits, where I do a directed study (which is basically working in a lab for credit) a thesis, an honors section of a regular class and then a class specifically offered through the honors department. The thesis is a pretty good deal,though, even if it's a lot of work. It's one of those things graduate schools look favorably on since it means you've already learned some of the skills you'll need to eventually defend your masters. Just the Bachelor's of Science in Psychology. Wayne State's Psychology department offers two options--a BA or a BS. The BS means 27 credits in science courses outside of Psychology, which for me will be mostly Bio courses, with a few classes in Chemistry, Physical Anthropology and Geology. I'm planning on applying mostly to graduate schools in Psychology that are doing primatology research (Emory, U of M, UC Davis, etc.) which tend to be housed in neuroscience/animal behavior concentrations although there are a few Physical Anthropology programs with particularly strong primate resources (e.g. Duke, who has their own lemur colony.) that I'm interested in as well.

I want a plane ticket. Someplace overseas would be nice :grin

That's kinda how I feel about it too. I actually don't like it when people ask me about my tattoos. Mostly because all of my tattoos have deeply personal significance and usually when someone asks, they only want to hear the sound-byte explanation anyways. And in the case of the sigil tattoo on my wrist, I refuse to explain it unless I'm fairly confident the person I'm talking to will "get it", so usually I just tell them, "Oh, that's personal..."

I have five--on my right shoulder, I have a tattoo of the doll painting that was on the cover of the comic book, "I Feel Sick". On my left arm, I have a tattoo of one of Posada's dia de los muertos skeletons. On my left wrist, I have a sigil representing the sun and venus. On my left calf I have the demon-cat from the inlay to the current 93 album, "As The World Disappears". On my right calf I have an image designed by a good friend, it's of a pterodactyl against the sun. I want a new one, which would most likely go on the back of my neck, which would be of a tarsier, but I have to find someone to do it...

drinking coffee, trying to wake up, thinking how it's far too early for a night owl like myself

It's pretty interesting stuff...being that I'm still an undergrad, most of what I do is stuff like doing the pre-screening of participants to see if they meet the health criteria for the study and meeting participants at the hospital to get their bloodwork done. But there's some really interesting stuff being done with fMRIs at the lab. We have this cool software that lets us measure precisely the size of various parts of the brain, and then we also do a variety of cognitive testing for all of the participants. The research is all longitudinal studies, so we (ideally) do this five times for each participant over the course of five years. Doing the cognitive end of neuroscience is kind of a new thing for me--before this I was a research assistant in a behavioral pharmacology lab, using animal models to study the effects of toluene on development, both prenatally and in adolescence. Working with humans is a totally different thing, since so much time is spent in recruitment and scheduling. Unlike rats, you actually have to get people to consent--you can't just pick 'em up by the tail and toss them in watermaze

Oh wow, that is close--I don't actually have a car myself (although my b/f does) so I usually get my daily exercise by walking to school We've been talking about having a party at our place sometime over the summer, since it's been nearly a year since our last party. If we do, I'll probably make a post about it or something. You should come, being so close by and all...

That's a great link--I got kinda sucked into it

Thanks :grin To answer some of the questions I didn't cover in my intro: Where from? Pennsylvania originally, I've kind of lived all over the U.S. though (California, Arizona, Texas, various parts of the midwest, etc.) Work? Lab rat, basically. I'm a research assistant in a cognitive neuroscience lab studying the effects of aging on the brain. I'm also developing my senior thesis, which is going to be on primate social behavior. I'm looking at the Detroit Zoo but may wind up doing it in Manaus,Brazil next summer if I can get all my clearances. I also volunteer as the secretary for psi chi (the national honor society in psychology) where I do a lot of stuff like process memberships, maintain the mailing list and various administrative type stuff. Kids? No kids and not married--though I live with my boyfriend who I've been with for about five years Hobbies? Watching movies, I also like to read a lot, and I spend a lot of time writing Other Stuff? I think that's about it =)

Hah, yeah I definitely did. The class was on Critique of Pure Reason, though I actually liked his ethics better when I took it in my intro to ethics class. The Kant class was a really good experience though, in terms of the mental discipline, and it's helping me a lot in my advanced applied stats class that I'm taking presently...

Hah, I used that excuse when I was taking my Kant class and working on my term paper. People laughed at me but I actually got a good grade on it, which was no small feat for that class I think sometimes when you're doing a task that's very mentally exhausting that you get to the point where continuing to work is just counter-productive so doing something relaxing is the best thing you can do...

Bad movies are the best :grin My favorite excuse for watching tivo when I should be studying is that it actually helps my grades because I cease all thinking for a couple hours and in turn recharge...

They are--I went to Brazil about a year ago and the place we stayed in had a mini zoo with capuchins. I got to play "catch" with a corn cob with one of them...

Hey, I just signed up for an account here. I had one, I think, for a little while when this board first started but let it lapse. I finally have some free time this summer so I thought I'd check it out again. A little about me: I live with my boyfriend and two cats near the Detroit Medical Center, I'm an undergraduate at Wayne State going for my Bachelor's of Science in Psychology, with a minor in Philosophy. I want to go to graduate school for primatology. I spend most of my time "working" (I don't actually get paid) in various labs, and am currently trying to set up a study in Brazil next summer for my senior thesis, studying deception behavior in capuchin monkeys. Most of my free time is spent watching really bad movies on tivo :grin

what I'm doing: watching various bad tv on tivo what I should be doing: reading a chapter on the philosophy of experimental design for my advanced stats class.