Lafayette, on to Riverside, and back to Oregon!

Well, the trip is starting to show its wear on me. I'm having trouble feeling good and awake this morning. But that's ok, because I stayed up a little late. It was silly, I wasn't feeling sleepy, but when I did make myself lay down to sleep, I think I went right to sleep.
Lafayette is definitely in the midwest. I think I'd have a harder time adjusting to the midwest bugs and air and the like than I would Boston, but the people at Purdue were inviting and actually spent some time showing me around. Dr. Kip Williams introduced me to several of his grad students, and even set me up to go to dinner with some others in the department. The food wasn't that great, and the bill was too expensive. But the girls were funny and friendly and made me feel like I could actually make friends there. Sortof. They're not quite the type I'd normally hang out with, but they could make experiment jokes and talk about psychology, so I thought it was great.
I think I might be sick and just ignoring it. I've been feeling a little light-headed and sore and my digestion is a bit off. But you never can tell.
Kip was efficient and interesting, but not at all fluffy. I would have to maintain a high degree of self-motivation. I would have to find ways to provide myself with personal emotional support not from him. I can definitely see where Frank thought he and I might work well. I wouldn't be coddled, which in the long run is definitely a plus, even if it means some stressful times.
He works very hard, seems open to opinions and ideas, is not nearly so interested in first authorship as he is in science. He expressed at one point an ideal that I agree with, that it's fine to charge corporations for the use of your research or measures, but other researchers? No. That gets in the way of science. I didn't really feel the need to censor myself, or be less assertive with my opinions around him or his students, which was nice. He asked me all about the NAT and I even got to show him my video clips from it. It was funny, his questions and such about it followed so closely onto what I had prepped with Frank that it almost seemed like he had a script. I enjoyed talking with him, and I think that he would be a good mentor to have. Most of the students collaborate with more than one faculty member.
The impression that I get from the other grad students is that the funding is ok. But they did go out to a restaurant that had an average ticket of like $14. So who knows. They may not be used to living as frugally as I am. We'll have to see, I haven't looked at the numbers.
The students also mentioned that the class load is pretty heavy, and there are difficult prelims after you get your masters which determine whether you can continue to PhD.
I liked Kip's students. They all seemed to have energy about them, and some interesting research questions. The VR equipment is really cool, although I'm not sure what it would do for my research. I suppose something like experimentally manipulating various behaviors to see what the effects are on rapport. But the more I think about it, the more I find my ideas about discomfort and chronic pain on nonverbal behavior to be interesting. I wonder if chronic pain sufferers would have a negative bias to their performances on things like the NAT or ECT.
Anyway if I went there and worked with Kip, I'd have to do more with the nonverbals of ostracism. I'm not sure what would be interesting there. Not that I don’t think that there are some useful lines of research, it's just that I haven't had anything hit me over the head. However, they do seem to have some interest in adding some lines of nonverbal research to their body of work.
The building seemed adequate, pretty nice actually. Campus was pretty. It was all definitely in the midwest. I guess while I don't dislike the styles and aesthetics out here, I'm not a huge fan either.
Marco's pizza was really quite good though. Not too expensive really, and very tasty. So far, this trip has found me some really good pizza/calzone type food. I don't know if I'll be getting any of that in Garden. We'll have to see.
If I came out here, I'd have to rent a horse at a stable. I'm sure there'd be options. Hell, I could even buy one of my own or something. That would be a dream come true. Not something I could do in Boston or California.
I meant to go and see the wolf thing in Indiana, but with the trains being messed up, I really only had the one day there, and that was enough time to check out campus and go to dinner. Actually, I didn't even really check out campus that much. I really need to find some decent flats before I get to California, because the blisters from yesterday are just brutal. That's probably why I just went back to my hotel after the meetings, rather than walking around campus. Boy, I had better get myself in gear this term. I have so much to do. Maybe in Kansas I should do some work on my thesis.


***


Well, we're coming out of the flat plains and into the big hills of colorado, which will soon turn into mountains. Then we'll be in NM and NV. It should be a beautiful journey. I just wish that power outlets weren't so sparse and I could not worry about conserving my video camera power. Then I could fill up all these empty discs I have, which would be great. Like western montana, this place is beautiful, full of colors and life and contrasts. I really love the contrasts. I didn't find enough of that in the midwest. It's good to be getting home again into the mountains of the west and beyond. I'm sure California will be a bit scary, but it will also be gorgeous I'm sure. It's like playing Oregon trail over and over again on this journey. I just wish that there were more viable schools in the northwest. But honestly, I think I'm too comfortable at OSU. I think it's a good thing to get out into the world to start my work in this field.
Mountains to climb, mountains to see. It's beautiful but sometimes difficult. There are so many moments we pass by too quickly for me to be able to capture them in my cameras, but beautiful nonetheless. I think perhaps on my days off I should go out and take photos of my local wildernesses. I keep saying that but this year I think I might do it. I've already got the most expensive parts, the gear, the electronics. Well, I'll still need a solar panel, but hey, I can get one as soon as the industrial demand slows.
The clouds are one of the most beautiful things, this morning sunlight just giving them all sorts of unique texture and movement. This is the only place on earth where I've been able to just sprawl along through all this beautiful cloud and sky.
Ooh, the mountains are getting closer. I'm so excited to go through them. I really hope we don't just go around them instead. We've swung south now, so we may be a while yet before we really pass through the mountains, but some of these scenes are so familiar from Oregon trail.
Lots of grouchy people around, but that's ok. I'm getting hungry so I think I may go back to my seat and have some lunch.


***

Well, now I'm in new mexico. I don't understand why I get these headaches. I slept well last night, I've been wearing my glasses, but already at 11:00, I'm feeling tired, achy, and I have a headache. I don't know what's wrong. I wish they would let me scan my brain just to be sure it's not some sort of tumor or something.
I'll get through it. I wish I could read more without the headache. I've only made it through 1 1/2 of Funder's papers.

The search for wireless has so far been frustrating. Ooh! Spoke too soon! Just got a signal. No important e-mails, but some nice thoughts from people at home. It's really nice just to hear a little from friends and family, even if it's just a tiny bit. Really nice. It helps remind about all the good things I'm going back to.

This country is so beautiful. So damn beautiful. I wish we kept it that way, wish we worked together and made it safe and happy for as many people as want it.
I took some pain pills so hopefully that will help with both the headache and the leg soreness. It's pretty weird but I've been getting a feeling like a weak muscle cramp in my glutes to my calves. It seems to run along lines where the different vertebral nerves run, so it might just be an after effect of sitting so much and walking so much in bursts. It's not so bad today as it was yesterday. I stretched a bunch and walked around the park. Went on the swings again. Those swings are a wonderful invention. I need to find one around home so I could swing. You know, get those endorphins going. Maybe just a rocking chair.

Wow, I really really wish I could pause time and hop off the train to take photos. So many amazing shots just waiting to happen. Someday, maybe I'll have a motorcycle and take tours around where I can just stop and take photos. Not to go touristing, but to go as a photographer really. I guess these days I'm feeling more hope for the future these days, things are going to be tough, but I've made it through much worse and better off than one might expect.
Ok, time to save the battery.


Politics is a common topic on the trains. I guess things are really heating up this year, and for good reason. I just hope that the propaganda can be kept to a minimum and the people of the U.S. of America can vote for the person who actually stands for what they believe in.


Whew! What a day.
Well I'm back to having the power outlet, but I'm still in New Mexico. It should be an interesting sunset coming into Arizona. Great views. That sentiment is, of course, getting quite redundant. But whatever. Each state I go through has its own kinds of breathtaking beauty to see. There was this amazing empty factory we passed coming out of Albuquerque, (wow, spelled that right!) that was filled with those patchwork glass windows, full of broken panes and empty spaces, and then the surviving panes that held all the age of their years in muted greens and blues.
Now I can see rolling hills mixed with rough-hewn buttes and plateaus that erupt in formidable red walls from the sage green fields. I see cattle every now and then, and occasionally a pair of antelope or buffalo.
It's warm, even in the train and the shade. I guess that's how it is around here.
I can't focus long enough to type more than a sentence because the views are so striking. The sun is going down, it's not setting just yet, but it's lower in the sky, casting deep shadows and highlighting warm tones. I hope at least a couple of my photos come out despite the movement and the train windows.
Started working on this idea for a book I've been tossing around in my head, but it's not catching me past the first few pages. That's ok, the principles are in my head, and now that I've created a couple characters I suppose I ought to let them simmer in my brain along with the major plot so I can get the storylines going.

A horse is going to be a must if I move to Indiana. A cat, then a horse, then a dog. Cat is a given no matter where I go. It's going to be extremely difficult being further from home. I'm realizing that even if I don't go home that often as it is, just knowing that if I have a major upset or something, all I have to do is hop on the road and I'll be home in 2 hours… well, that's majorly comforting. If I were in Boston, it wouldn't be nearly that easy.
I was thinking too, that if I do go somewhere for 5 or 6 years, and the housing market is still down, I could buy a house rather than renting. It would be a big investment, but I could find a really small place and fix it up over time. That would be so cool, to play with my home improvement skills, and to not have to be anyone's tenant.
Man, this is crazy. I have to get in first! But Dr. Williams seemed rather inviting, and said he enjoyed my visit, so maybe I can get in there. Maybe that's a good sign.
I will have to apply to some safety schools though. Man, that's tough.

I can do this.

***

Well, I ought to have written yesterday, talked about my first impressions of this place, but I was pretty tired once I got here. I'll retroactively describe things. Campus was really quite pretty. The architecture was definitely southwestern/californian, but it was nicely done. The landscaping was great, big trees and fragrant flowers. Behind the psychology building and in front of the business building was a 18X20 or so plot just full of rosebushes. Smelled great.
There is quite a bit of construction going on there, which is usually a good sign of growth and health. The psychology building is brand new. Like BRAND NEW. The faculty had only started moving in within the past week. It was really cool. They were still doing construction on the front patio area, so I didn't even think anyone was in the building yet that first day I walked around it. The buildings are mostly a light orangey-red stucco color with turquoise glass.

On the Wednesday though, I've had the single best day of this entire trip. I mean, not surprising given that there were so many people I was going to get to meet.
I was so nervous, but not in a jittery way. I was getting nervous in the nauseous sort of way, sitting there, riding through LA metro-area traffic to get to the UCR extension. All I knew was that I should ask for Robin or Summer. When I found where the Psychology conference was, I ducked into the bathroom rather than going straight in. I was so nervous. But I fixed my hair and looked myself in the mirror and told myself all I had to do was relax and be myself because this was going to be great. Plus, thanks to my mom, I had a perfect top and I looked pretty good, so what was there to worry about?
When I walked into the room, everyone was milling around and chatting. I didn't know who to approach so I just walked around a bit and then got up the courage to see if the lady with all the nametags would know. Of course, Dr. DiMatteo was right behind me. But we got connected and she introduced me to her students and everything.
Dr. Robin DiMatteo was very generous with her time, taking me under her wing basically. She had me sit next to her with her students at the table for the conference, and it turned out I got to sit next to Bob Rosenthal the whole time. He gave a talk as well and I am completely bowled over by him. He is probably the most humble person I've ever met, and generous. True curiosity and genius for science that requires no arrogance or competitiveness to thrive. Everyone there, EVERYONE just loves him. He was sweet and funny and brilliant. What I wouldn't have given to have been able to videotape that talk. I have to remember to tell Frank about the meta-analysis he did. He was talking about how for like the first time, the meta analysis he and his colleagues did, they actually had the results from ALL the studies, not just the published studies. This is important because if you think about it, published studies are often reporting much more significant results than the studies that don't get published or don't even get sent to the publishers. A meta-analysis is a way of combining a bunch of studies in a particular domain to see whether there is really a significant trend or other pattern, but by combining them, you can talk about results you are generalizing to a population, and do it more accurately. But as we all know, you can't just do an analysis of people who fit your model. If you only do a study on people who support your hypothesis, you can't get real results. Therefore, when doing a meta-analysis of published studies only, there was a big question as to whether all these significant results combined were actually significant in the population. But of course, it's nearly impossible to get the results from those studies that are stuck in a back drawer and never published. However, he got that data, because for the FDA, all the studies were recorded on a particular drug, not just the successful ones. So, if many meta analyses (ones using mostly published data) come out to about a .5 correlation, what would be the REAL correlation? He said that this study he did that used COMPREHENSIVE data from all the studies from this FDA study, significant and non-significant results alike, the correlation was still somewhere about a .4, which is great news for meta-analysis people.
He also talked about how so many of the people in the room, neuroscientists to developmental psych, all had nonverbal studies waiting to happen if they had any video or audio data for their studies. He encouraged them to collaborate with a nonverbal person to discover how important nonverbal could be. He described some really important and relevant studies, such as the one where they found that the way a judge spoke the standard instructions (the same words, so no words were used differently, only the tone of voice) to the jury had a significant effect on their likelihood to return a guilty or innocent verdict. Put simply, if the judge thought the defendant was guilty, the jury could pick it up in his tone of voice and were more likely to return a verdict that went with the judge's belief. Just his tone of voice! Studies like this are really cool because they're relevant to anyone.
When he came back and we broke for lunch I went ahead and got my courage up to chat with him, at the very least just to pass along Dr. Bernieri's regards and say hi. Despite my usual tendency to go blank when confronted with a situation like that, he was extremely easy to talk to. He was very kind and inclusive with me, talking with me for several minutes. I told him about OSU and our lab and how lucky I am that Frank was his student and now I'm Frank's student. When in the lunch line another faculty member ahead of me talked to Bob, he promptly introduced me as his academic grandchild. From what Dr. Funder tells me, if Bob's ever had a down day, he'd never seen it, and he's known Bob a long time.
I could only aspire to be like him. As I write that just now, I'm struck by the similarity to the sentiment expressed by Frank in his speech about Bob. He gave me a copy from a conference thing where a bunch of Bob's students got together and thanked him with speeches and presentations. Frank wrote something about how he was at his best when trying to be like Bob. I thought it was an inspiring sentiment even before I met Bob. I read it at times when I was getting down about things or about my chances at grad school. But now I think I begin to really understand.

Robin was really great and so easygoing. I felt comfortable and felt like I was both true to myself and also made a decent impression. I did my best to avoid my tendency to brag and I think I was pretty successful. Frank's advice was, as usual, right on target. I was enthusiastic, optimistic, and humble (for me anyway), and it resonated well with everyone. There was no need to run around saving face. It seemed like nearly everyone there was pretty genuine.
Robin's work is definitely a bit different from what I've thought of as my primary interests, but she seemed very open to flexibility of interest. Everyone in the area seemed very open to the concept of adding a nonverbal aspect to their research or enhancing an existing nonverbal aspect. Of course, it helped that Bob's talk included the appeal to researchers with video or audio data to recognize that they had an array of possible nonverbal studies with data already collected just waiting to be explored. If I got into this program, I feel like I could just run around collaborating with everyone as well as working with a primary advisor.
Robin also seemed … I'm having trouble phrasing it, but hopeful/interested in getting me as a student at UCR. Not overtly so, but comments like "well, I want to know what our competition is!" laughingly accompanying a query about the other schools I'm looking at. She also introduced me to Dr. Tuppet Yates, a clinical psychologist working with how mothers and children work together, and also what are the longer-term effects of being in adverse situations like foster homes. When she did, she said "she's here - well she's not a grad student yet, but she's visiting" to which Dr. Yates laughed and pointed out was an interesting phrasing. This seemed to be an example of what in general felt like a positive attitude towards me.
The program seems happy, healthy. Not that others didn't along the way, but UCR seemed particularly so. I did, of course, come at an optimal time. But I could imagine that even kickoff conferences like this one could easily go wrong. Everyone got along, was pretty positive, and there was enthusiasm and friendliness in the room. Not politeness but genuine friendliness.
Robin's lab does a lot of meta analysis. They have a large number of recorded interactions with doctors and patients and such. Some of them are video but most are audio. They don't do too much experimental stuff, which is kinda a bummer for me since I enjoy that, but there's nothing to say that I couldn't just do experimental stuff anyway on my own or as a collaboration with one of the other faculty. Health psych and its various domains seem to be something that is very popular at UCR. That's pretty cool because UCR just got everything worked out so now they're going to be building a hospital there, the only non-private school hospital in a large area.

Dr. Funder was also very accommodating. He is actively looking at taking on students. He has several very interesting projects, some of which could have some very interesting nonverbal stuff, but would also be awesome to work on just by themselves. He voiced that he hold to the opinion that all of psychology is interesting, and that you can just as likely to come to love what you study as come to study what you love. This is something I agree with, since I find all of it amazing. He has structured meetings in which his lab discusses the week and also help each other come up with a game plan for the next week. He said it's pretty laid back, but structured at the same time, which I think is really great. His students always have something to work on as part of the greater lab, but are also encouraged/free to pursue their own topics at any time. He has two third-years and one new student, so there is definitely room in the program. It's relatively competitive, but he said that when they offer it to two students, they usually get one of the two who accepts, and the other chooses another school.

It's hot here, definitely, and there would be some personal difficulties in learning to live here in this environment, but I think it would be so far past worth it that I couldn't even begin. I wish it would have been doable to get my photo with Bob, but it felt like it would be too weird. Maybe if I wasn't here except to visit, but I guess I had a decent reason to be aware of the impression I might be making. Oh well, it'll be imprinted on my mind forever, and I can always come back some way and get a photo with him. Boy do I hope I get in here. I've really got to focus on getting in, keep myself motivated that way. It's going to be a challenge to balance everything this fall. But if I just keep focused, I can do it. I just need to keep from getting caught up in things that, in the end, won't be conducive to getting into grad school.
I am so proud of myself for taking this trip. It has been difficult and daunting and amazing and extremely educational about myself as well as the future I'm attempting to take on. First off, prep for the GREs as a daily routine. Next, make sure everything is squared away to graduate. I'm being too neurotic about doing the little things like setting up meetings. That's a waste of time, and I know that I've stepped up to much scarier meetings than that. Next; buckle down and write my thesis. I'm making it too complicated and too far-reaching. I need to keep up on my research of schools, and prepping my application. I also need to get straight A's. It's not hard. I just have to make sure I do the basics.
Part of all of this is going to be staying healthy. I will build workouts into my morning routine, which is easy since my schedule is so consistent. I will also try to eat better, not just picking healthy foods, but also eating at the right times so I stay off this roller-coaster effect I get when I don't eat right. It should be easier because I'll be in the UHC most days so I can get to the microwave and fridge easily.
It will work. I can do it, and having gone on this trip, I know that somewhere, someone will want to work with me and I will want to work with them and it will be great. I just have to continue to remember that, that even if things don't go exactly how I expect (they won't) it will work out great.

***

Man am I glad to be back in Oregon. I've just barely crossed the southern border into Oregon and we're sitting and waiting for another train to pass us. It's taking a while, but we already have an extra scheduled delay in Klammath Falls. Fortunately, this delay ought to be cutting into that delay, and we'll be continuing and our scheduled late time. Bah, I just want to get to Eugene. I'm hopping off there so I can meet up with Mom and ride with her to portland. A good idea too, because this train sucks.
No power outlets, rude staff, incompetent food people. Man, the snack car opened an hour and a half late, and the dude takes hour-long breaks.
I'm sitting in the lounge car again because I'm in the worst seat in the train. It's right behind the stairs and so you have a wall and no footrest in front of you. They didn't give me a pillow, and the girl behind me had her pack wedged in so I couldn't recline. I slept maybe two hours. I'm so tired. I should have come and slept in the lounge car, but whatever. I just couldn't get a comfortable position. I'm so very tired of sitting. I think my butt is going to be permanently numb.
But man, I'm almost home, really. No more nights on the train, and I'll probably fall asleep in the car.