by Kaylee M Roupas
Today is my fourth day of running participants, and so far, no significant problems have occurred! This is exciting for me because I’m the poster child of “technologically impaired”. However, the participants seem to have some problems either understanding or remembering the instructions of my experimental task, so I’ve been trying out different methods to get them to follow the directions completely. (The typed instructions sheet next to the computer seems to be working.) It’s nothing major, and the data seems good so far, but I’d like to work out these complications as soon as possible.
I spend pretty much all day in the lab when I’m running participants– from 9.00 to 16.30 usually. This is fine though because I’m productive during the day, and sometimes the man working at the cafe outside of the labs gives me free appelflaps. [See picture below.] I also have a stamp card for coffee, so it’s a pretty nice arrangement.
On Saturday, I went to Amsterdam for the first time in four years. The city was so much more beautiful than I remembered. (And luckily, it didn’t even rain, which seems to be the default weather pattern here in the Netherlands.) I spent the day with two PhD students doing tourist-y things, like canal rides, eating pancakes, looking at the shops, and sampling more cheese than one person should ever be able to stomach in one day. Seriously. We visited three cheese museums/shops.
That evening, I met up with my host sister from when I studied abroad in Romania five years ago. She studies and works there now, so it was nice knowing someone in the city. We walked all over the city, then to a huge park where we sat and talked for an hour. Then we went back to her place, made dinner, and talked until we couldn’t stay awake any longer. I didn’t do much the next day, just tried to find my way back to Amsterdam Centraal.
Overall, it has been an incredible 2 weeks here. I’ve started to pick up some Dutch, so that’s also really encouraging. I get the impression that the next few weeks will just keep getting better.
Some pictures from Amsterdam:
