The 1st Adventure: Day 2

Hello all!

After a long, 12-hour train ride, I am finally in Cambridge, Massachusetts at 8am this morning. The train ride in itself was uneventful, if you don't count the fact that they weren't calling out the stations and you only had five minutes to get off before they started pulling away. I swear, an old lady almost missed her stop.

I also hailed my first cab today. Go me!

I am lucky to have an old high school friend(we will call her Spices) that lives in the area and I'm staying with her, her boyfriend, and her roommate. They are pretty cool people! We went out for brunch today and all I can can say that it was the best brunch of my life! They took me to a cozy, quaint place called Tatte Cookies and Cake. My eyes were immediately drawn to the mounds of pastries and I almost died when I saw the coffee board. They had white belgian chocolate cocoa...I did a happy dance...In my mind of course!

 Spices recommended that I try a dish called Shakshuka (paoched eggs, potatoes, bacon, and some sort of creamy sauce). It was amazing! I also said had a cheese croissant (which was so flight and airy and melted in my mouth) which I washed down with white cocoa. Delicious!

After brunch, we went to the mall because I was not prepared for the coolness of northern weather. I'm a southern girl after all! Followed by me sleeping for another six hours. I had to make up for all the loss sleep on the train.

So far, my adventure is starting out well. More to come and hopefully more pictures!

The 1st Adventure: Day 1

Hello all!

First off, let me introduce myself.

My name is Sade and I'm a Psychology graduate student at a university in Virginia. I spend my time on campus in the lab, reading articles, and wondering when I'll see the light of day. 

I bet you're wondering why I chose Psychology for a field. No? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. I had planned, up until I was sixteen, to be a veterinarian. I was going to save all the dogs/cats in the world and be known as a hero to all the pet lovers in the world. That plan was going great to until I took my first Intro to Psychology course in high school. I learned three things that year: 1) Freud is King!! 2) If you're even the slightest bit crazy, you should probably be a Psychologist and 3) Listening to people's problems trumps sticking a thermometer up a dog's rectum.

So, here I am. But then a year ago (or maybe more..I don't know), my life took a turn. I decided to take Intro to Neuroscience as an elective course. Why any self respecting psych graduate student would do that? I don't know. Maybe I hated myself? But I digress, not only did I sign up for the course but I signed up with the professor who had a reputation. Not a good one mind you. A reputation of beating down students' dreams, throwing kerosene on it, and throwing a match to watch them ignite. Poor dreams. Of course, I didn't know this until after day 1. But, hey! I like a challenge. Oh boy..It was a challenge. I broke down twice, I couldn't sleep, and my disposition turned ugly. I even cried in the middle of class. It was horrible! 

I didn't understand a thing. In undergrad, my Intro to Biology class consisted of collecting bugs in a stream and drawing ferns. I was not prepared for the anatomy of the brain or how neuron worked. They don't teach you that in undergraduate psychology courses! At midterm, I had a 47 F (you read that right). An F! I didn't know how I was going to make it.

But then one day, I received some good advice. If psychology and neuroscience were rooms in a building, psychology would be the very top and neuroscience would be in basement level 3. Psychology looks at the person but neuroscience looks within the person. You have to step on the elevator and go down to the basement to understand your neuroscience course.

*switch*

That was the light switch turning on in my mind. After that, I studied like a maniac and managed to turn an F into an A. The only A in the entire class. Go me! And some how the ruthless professor witht he reputation became my mentor (Still don't know how that happened). 

But now, I can't leave the basement. I don't want to. I like it down here. Neuroscience is cool!

And because of this I expanded my training in psychology by incorporating neuroscience. I became interested in working with EEG and fMRI and I haven't looked back since.

Now, you know that bit. It brings us to the reason why I'm starting this blog.

I was accepted to the Two-week Multi-Modality Short Course at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. I decided to record this adventure in writing because I never thought that I would be able to have an opportunity like this. As a sit on this 12-hour train ride to my destination, I can't help but be excited about my new adventure.

I'll make sure to update each day. The highs and the lows. The funny and the not so funny. The cool and mundane. All of it will be here!!

Until tomorrow folks!!

Sade