by Elizabeth R Mormer
After 6 weeks, 27 participants, and mountains of voice recordings and reaction time data, the end of my trip to Sweden is nearing. While I’m excited that I will be back in the USA just in time for the 4th of July, I will definitely miss working at the lab here in Sweden.
The Humlab is a great place to work. Not only is all of the furniture very modern and Swedish (yes, it is like living and working in IKEA), but because of the interdisciplinary nature of the lab, there are cool experiments going on everywhere. In addition, there are always interesting lectures to attend in which people use all sorts of cool technology to study language. I’ll admit, some of it is a bit over my head, however being surrounded by so many people bringing together technology and different disciplines to study human language and behavior is truly inspiring.
This inspiration has made long hours of transcription and coding kind of fun. I cannot wait to see the results and see if they match what I’ve gathered anecdotally from collecting the data and what the hypotheses are. That being said, collecting data has gotten more and more difficult as the semester ended here and our building, campus, and town have completely emptied out (a la Penn State summer, but with no summer classes).
I’m looking forward to using the quiet to keep coding and to celebrate Midsummer (which is much bigger than Independence Day!) I have yet to Midsummer, which takes place next weekend, but I am looking forward to learning and experiencing a holiday that I have a heard a lot about since we arrived in Sweden. Hopefully next week I will have more information on what it means to celebrate Midsummer’s Eve like a true Swede!