PIRE I

There's no denying that Europe is a great place to travel. With everything being so (relatively) close, and the abundance of low budget airlines, I have been able to take advantage of my time here and have traveled somewhere almost every weekend. Travel has also been...

Although my time with PIRE has been a bit of a different experience than the other Penn State students that were here in Nijmegen with me (due to the fact that I had already collected my data before coming), it has still been one of the most valuable and educational...

My final week at Radboud was the week of June 27. It was a week full of wrapping up, goodbyes, and planning for my next adventure. After so many 9-hour days of testing participants, it was bittersweet to be going through the motions on my last day. On Wednesday I got...

During our time here, I have been able to take advantage of our location in Europe and travel a little bit in the Netherlands. One of the reasons I love Europe is because it is always a lot easier to travel around than through other countries. Every weekend I have...

One of the coolest things about traveling is seeing and experiencing things that are different from home. It’s especially interesting when you find things that surprise you, or that you didn’t expect. So here’s a short list of some of the surprising or interesting...

I have been spending the past few blogs writing about Colombia and what we did there as we were analyzing data, so now I am going to catch up on what has been happening in Nijmegen! We arrived in the Netherlands on June first, and we travelled by train to get to...

Well, today is my last day in Nijmegen. This is actually my last blog for the summer. Once again, I cannot help but think about how quickly my time here has gone. It does make me a little sad to see my time here end.   Despite not knowing how to speak Dutch (or...

Today is Saturday, July 2. Yesterday was my last day of testing. This is my last weekend in Nijmegen. When I think back to the day I arrived in Nijmegen, I can picture everything as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. I cannot believe that it has been 8 weeks....

This past week has involved trying to recruit even more participants. I've been posting flyers, recruiting people outside of the dining commons, and sending out emails to spread the word to as many people as possible. Participants have been trickling in, and I think...

This past weekend was supposed to be the last weekend that the six of us would be in Nijmegen. It actually turned out that this past weekend was the last weekend four of us would remain in Nijmegen. Saturday morning, three of us (Erika, Lina, and myself) decided we...

On Monday of this past week, the Center for Language Studies at Radboud University hosted a non-nativeness day where various language scientists gave short presentations about the work they are currently doing related to non-nativeness. Even though we are technically...

Before going to Colombia, I had never been to South America. However, I had been to my grandparent's village in rural Spain, and so I was at least a little prepared for what to expect. My grandparents live in Las Canchas near Ronda. Palenque was definitely a little...

The Netherlands. The first thing I used to think of when I heard someone say “The Netherlands” is Amsterdam. Surprisingly enough, I had not been to Amsterdam once in the six weeks I had been in The Netherlands. It was not until my friend, Cara, came to see me that I...

Before coming to Nijmegen, I had been warned that it rained all the time. When I was packing to come here, I brought all of my rainy day essentials: a rain jacket, boots, an umbrella, a waterproof cover for my backpack, and, of course, waterproof makeup. For the first...

These past few weeks have gone by so quick it’s hard to believe I’ve half way through this trip. After struggling to work through finding my around town to technical issues in the lab, I’ve started to get into the groove of things. Having troubles in the lab is both...

As it stands now, I have had 12 participants. Given that I didn’t start testing until May 27, can usually only get the lab Wednesdays and Fridays, give myself 3 hours for every participant, and only need 20-25 participants, that really isn’t bad! But I do find it...

This past weekend, the majority of the group of the PIRE researchers here in Nijmegen took a day trip to Rotterdam. It was a spur of the moment, we-need-to-do-something-now trip. We had no plans for what we were going to do that day. We were just going to do whatever...

When I came to Nijmegen, I was not at all ready to test participants. I had nothing but a list of target words and pictures to match those words. All of my stimuli had to be recorded here in Nijmegen. That very first Thursday, I completed the first round of recording...

Friday was probably the most fast paced day I've had since traveling to Nijmegen. Yesterday, I was able to run three participants back to back from 11-7 pm. It could be a result of all the caffeine I had consumed that day, but nonetheless, I officially started...

After getting through all of the preliminary paperwork and piloting, I'm officially ready to start testing participants this week. So far I've only had a few sign ups, but it's exciting to see more and more people fill in the times slots on the SONA system. I have my...

There always seems to be something going on in Nijmegen. Between all of the educational talks taking place on campus, concerts, and street fairs, there is never a dull moment here. It seems that Nijmegen, like New York, is a city that never sleeps. On Thursday, the...

As just about anybody who has spoken to me in the past two months knows, my first step in actually being able to test participants here in Nijmegen is recoding my study. While Penn State uses E-Prime for EEG experiments, Radboud uses Presentation, so I had no choice...

Exactly a week ago, I arrived to my apartment at Radboud University after having gotten on the plane at the Newark airport over 12 hours earlier. The journey from the Amsterdam-Schiphol airport to Nijmegen wasn’t without its confusion, but that part was comparatively...

We made it! That was my first thought as I stepped off of the train in Nijmegen, The Netherlands after travelling for 9 hours. The plane ride had been fairly uneventful – we only experienced a small amount of turbulence. Figuring out how to get to the waiting platform...

It's so strange to think that I'm leaving so soon! I have exactly 10 days at this point before I'll once again be rising above the clouds and subjecting my body to a weeks worth of jetlag. And the cruel irony of it all is that I finally have managed to get fully...

By Daniel Jeffrey Magerman There is time for just a few brief words before I pack up my laptop and put it into storage as Mary Beth, Mindy and I embark on the last leg of our PIRE adventures -- two weeks in Spain! From State College, to Palenque, to Nijmegen, this...

by Jennifer Rebecca Kline I do not understand how research was done before the age of the internet. Every day, I sent out emails to grad students, doctoral students, friends of friends, and anyone else who I discover is a native English speaker. I sent out so many...

by Mary Elisabeth Spang First, Mindy, Danny and I presented to the CLS here in Nijmegen. We met the renowned Dr. Pieter Muysken and shared information about our research with his lab. We were welcomed with smiles and after the presentation received encouraging advice...

by Melinda Paige Dennis Fours weeks have gone by so fast. One of my favorite things about being in Europe right now is the World Cup. So far I have travelled to Belgium, Germany, and of course the Netherlands and everywhere I go I feel the pride of each country that I...