The beginning of the end

I have less than 2 weeks left in Atlanta, and I'm a little surprised at how quickly time has passed and how easily I've slipped into life here. I don't shiver quite as much in the frigidly air conditioned rooms and buses, and stepping out into the 90 degree-plus heat isn't too horrible anymore. I now know the Atlanta public transit system so much better than that of Boston or Philly (I live about 40 minutes outside the city), and though I complain about its wacky scheduling, it's treated me pretty well. And after my initial shock at seeing a "sunshower" (they've happened several times this summer), I'm just slightly amused to find myself squinting into the sun as raindrops fall on my head.

I've completed running all subjects (I have usable data from 17 people), and I've completed some analyses already in preparation for my poster. It's strange to think that in two weeks I won't be taking the 9:06 number 1 bus to my lab anymore, and that I won't see everyone at the lab once I wrap up the pilot experiment and my program.

My lab director, Dr. Duarte, usually spends her time in her office at the psychology building or in a small office in the building where the lab is (Georgia Tech has a psychology annex in a building--shared with Georgia State--where the MRI machine is kept). She'll pop in once in awhile to conference with lab members and for our biweekly lab meetings. I most closely work with the post-doc in the lab, Eric, who is also working on several other experiments at the same time, a couple of which I'm trained to run participants on. Michael is the grad student, and he also oversees several experiments. Then we have a lab manager, who worked as a research assistant before graduating from Georgia Tech this year, another recent grad who's working on some studies before leaving for grad school in a few weeks, as well as three undergraduate research assistants.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a chance to chat with my PI about what she does, so I'll be able to write more soon! I spent a fantastic day at Six Flags with some people from my program today, so I need to put some aloe on my slightly sunburned skin and do lots of reading in preparation for my poster draft, due Wednesday!