"with research I rediscovered love" and my new bug

This post should have been written a while ago, when I had my first results (I don't have any second ones by now,  I just mean when they were fresh and I could have been enthusiastic). I thought of this phrase ("with research I rediscovered love") but everything was so sad. So, I postponed it until I feel better. Now the post is gonna come out strong and happy, I want it to.

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When I saw my beautiful matrix (the first step for getting the results) I was happy for a moment, until I realised it was not so beautiful after all. There was still a bug in there, which took me another week to fix, but I did it. And my supervisor said she was sure that the final matrix will be just as beautiful. And here it is:

So here we are, when do we open the champaign for the results? My other supervisor recommended the champaign, although I had no idea of brain anatomy. So there it is. I love it. Hard work gave me very good, clean results. :) I rediscovered love in small black bubbles on brain sketches, although I thought I could not be enthusiastic about anything again. These bubbles are so interesting, so full of mystery and open to interpretation, really exciting. I can look at them for ages. Really. Don't laugh.

Another thought has been bugging me the last weeks. I realised it stronger when I told the taxi driver that I study languages and didn't want to go into detail. Why would I do that? For two reasons: 1) I didn't think I would be able to explain it in a way he could understand (no positioning in whose fault this might be), 2) I didn't feel comfortable talking about my research and basically showing off. It usually scares people away. (except some smart, well read ones, who ask me maybe something about Chomsky or so)

So the bug goes like this: when I am in the office and thinking my stuff through, I sometimes think that I know so little and there is soooo soooo much I want to know and have to read on, so I end up feeling small and stupid. But then, I go out in the world and talk to my friends, or to my choir mates or to the taxi driver and think, oh my goodness, it is almost hybris to talk to them about my research, because to them all this is too complicated. Get my problem? 

I get bored from their discussions and feel bad about it. And then I try to match, to fit in, and this is how I end up saying that I study languages in a masters degree (which of course I already have since 2011), and might go back to Greece to be a teacher. What a fuzz.

Started writing

Today I started writing the thesis...
Documenting the stimuli is fun, I have to turn my mind around and try to understand my stimuli once again, but this time, explain them like I haven't heard about them before. Interesting...

Short break for ice-cream then back to writing and understanding again from scratch. I have learned from Pirita that it's better to write down something when you have it pretty fresh and clear. Relatively fresh and completely clear is the picture I have for my stimuli now.

Let's just hope I'll stick to writing up stuff early enough :)

ένα στα ελληνικά, περί του ηλίου και της άνοιξης

Ξυπνάω το πρωί, παίρνω πρωινό χαλαρά, Γερμανική συνήθεια που έμαθα να απολαμβάνω, και σκέφτομαι έχω καιρό να γράψω στο μπλογκ.

Κάθε βράδυ ονειρεύομαι τους γονείς μου και την Κρήτη. Τον ήλιο τον δυνατό, όχι αυτόν τον ισχνό που καμιά φορά θυμάται να βγαίνει πίσω από τα σύννεφα. Ονειρεύομαι και το Καψουράκι και την Εύα να με επισκέπτονται στο Μάρμπουργκ αλλά να τρέχουμε με τις βαλίτσες σε όλη την πόλη χωρίς να βρίσκουμε το σπίτι μου...

Και έχω να σας πω πάλι για τον καιρό εδώ και τις συνήθειες του κόσμου που με κάνουν να γελώ. Με το που ανεβαίνει η θερμοκρασία πάνω από 10 βαθμούς βάζουν κοντομάνικα, μερικοί σανδάλια, έλεος... Και το καλύτερο είναι τα βράδυα που πέφτει η θερμοκρασία γύρω στους 15 βαθμούς, κάθονται έξω στα καφέ και στις βεράντες. Και ενώ συνήθως το χειμώνα αν δεν χιονίζει, μπορείς να κάτσεις έξω και να σκεπαστείς με μια κουβέρτα προσφορά του καταστήματος, την άνοιξη (που έχει στην καλύτερη περίπτωση το βράδυ 13-15 βαθμούς) δεν προσφέρονται κουβερτούλες! Είναι αρκετά ζεστά θεωρείται... Αυτό εξακολουθεί να μου κάνει εντύπωση, όσα χρόνια κι αν περάσουν.

Μπιλ, πάμε στο πι τσι κέι για ακαδημαϊκή καριέρα;;

"words were never so useful"

Dear all,

my first pleasing results are there. Causality makes a difference in the ratings :D and in the right direction :) what am I saying to you.
Basically, people rated a Subject as more subject-like, depending on the question about how this subject willingly participated in the act, for verbs like kiss, hug, push, throw than for verbs like see, watch, hear, admire.
Example: John kissed Mary VS John saw Mary.
In the "kissed" case John was more volitionally involved. And this is statistically significant. How cool is that? Juhuuuuuuu!!!

So, singing this song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXSgDgowSJo I am magically starting to believe again in the mighty power of language and our brains...!!

Love life for these moments!

Inspired from encoding the stimuli

We in experimental psycho-/neurolinguistics have to create something measurable (experiment) to describe something not measurable (linguistic reality). In this way, an experiment needs to quantify linguistic reality. So we need to find a way to create a complicated experiment which will be simulating/measuring a simplified reality. We need to make decisions which are very difficult to make, because they want to capture linguistic reality in the experimental material. These are the challenges we are facing every day. And we torture our minds trying to find a meaningful solution for these challenges.
Exactly there my thought problem emerges.
These challenges we have created ourselves, because we want to test reality. Test reality: oxymoron.

Basically the problem can be summarized in one sentence. Our testing methods are far to far away from reality and the ways to fill this gap might not even exist.

A rather negative thought from an otherwise positive person. Whatever. If you don't get it and care to get it, ask me. I think this could be the start of an extremely interesting discussion.

from http://xkcd.com/1163/

I need a dollar, dollar

mi dear friends it is a new non-snowy day in grey Marburg and I am at work.

should be working but I just thought I'll write some stupid lines and share my story.

I wanted to write last week about the snow and how it goes on my nerves because I cannot ride my bicycle, but I cannot write in Greek from the computer at work, so ksenerosa.

Remember I told you that the stress period was near? Well, it's there.

Ethikantrag, the pre-tests will most probably be ready to run in March, so we should start the fMRI experiment ideally in April?!? Juhuuu!! Excited and afraid. But happy in any case!

And a little song for you 'cause it has a nice beat, earphones on and loud..!!

Do I get to be a doctor in the end?

My father said go go into the clinical stuff, you will get better financed there. 

My grandma asked me: "Paedaki mou giatros tha geneis?" (My child are you going to be a doctor?) HA, did you get the double meaning? Sadly it doesn't work for Greek. So my grandma meant medical doctor. 

And I am wondering, do I get to be a medical doctor? Wouldn't that be cool? No, I would be more the scientist Dr., hiding behind the medical doctor, telling him what to do, just because I would know. (The leap is actually bigger, between what I study and what could be useful for treatment. But this we don't tell the committee.)

In the ethics application I need to describe why we want to test patients and what would be the potential outcomes. Hmm. Hmm, hmm. Das alles bitte auf Deutsch. So I need to learn to spell Schizophrenie in German, too. Got it right, but only when really focusing. I promised my big boss supervisor I would do the analyses of the results for the patients, too. Boahhhhh, what did I think of when I said I will do it. 

PhD phase - hanging belly - 10th month

After Evis recommendation I have decided to turn this blog into my thoughts and views on my PhD life. I am not sure in which language I will do that, though. But at least some people might get to know that they are not alone.

Sitting in the office and wishing I had data to analyze.
There is this time of boredom, I could be doing a million other things and use my time in a meaningful way, e.g. reading about fMRI, neuroscience, mirror neurons or at least some theoretical linguistic background.
And now I realize, I still have to read about the patients. I am supposed to study schizophrenic patients, too. And at least this time I got to spell schizophrenic correct on the first try! How do humans process language in natural contexts like story comprehension? What do schizophrenic (almost right this time, had to correct it) patients do differently and what cues do they neglect using?
Ok, and although I could be doing all that, I am not. Cause I feel there's nothing going on. And I can sense it, a stress period is coming, is coming, is coming, but it's not there yet. So, bored. And my supervisor is away, so no additional motivation, no specific tasks to get out of the way, just DULL. dull dull dull.