07/02/2010
Hello 🙂
It snowed one morning unexpectedly. It is Feb so I thought all that weather is over. But it lasted an hour and melted within the next two days. It’s been raining persistently ever since. My roommate fell ill when it was sunny and got better as it started to rain. She isn’t too happy about that. I took as good care of her as I could.
My project is going well and the expectations are slowly rising to a level where I feel challenged in a positive can-do way. I’m socialising enough now. To balance life with work, I sing every weekend with a Carnatic violinist. Well, he’s come over twice so far. I didn’t realise how much a part of me that music was till I sang. I may audition for a rock-and-roll band :). I’m also starting to volunteer at a children’s charity shop every Friday evening. I keep volunteering for events involving interaction of science with public and children. I keep busy and involve people in life as much as I can to make up for the absence of interpersonal interactions in my work place.
CRIC- Clinical Research Imaging Center is part of QMRI- Queens Medical Research Institute which is located in the Royal Infirmary campus. Our section of the building is in the basement, brand new and only about to be finished. (They are still working on the cyclotron area for PET scanning). We have our own side entrance, alarm issues are being sorted out and I’ll soon get my own access pass. (I will use this to work on weekends and even stay over to do more work as the load increases). The Image Analysis Room where I work is warm with computers working all the time. It’s a little too warm. Just like how in India, people overdo the AC and blast it to freeze in trying to take revenge on the heat, the heating here too is a vengeance to the cold. I take off two heavy layers when I get in! Everyone else in my room is male and pretty old. I’m their first real student. No one talks except about work and problems related to work. They are a dedicated three but seem to have little balance in life. In the beginning, I felt the silence and seriousness of the place irritate me but now that I have enough work to do, it doesn’t bother me as much. We have a lady visitor once in a while who smiles and talks. It is refreshing.
They take lunch breaks, I eat at my table as I read a paper (science article) on my huge double screens 🙂
My project is going to be about how the brain remembers music and whether musicians’ brains are different to non-musicians’ structurally. I’m being trained in analysis softwares and have to give a presentation on what I’m doing on Wednesday. If I impress them, they may let me do my own project there for my PhD. Well, it’s a possible option.
I think that’s enough detail about my life. I hope all of you are healthy and happy 🙂