The snow is all gone

Look at me, following through with my commitments. How cute.

I started work today. My alarm went off this morning at half eight, I showered, ate some toast and granola, and got m'shit togetha. My flatmate and I happened to leave right at the same time this morning and seeing as she is a post-grad in nano-chem we share the same route. It's a 2.3 mile walk by the way - one way. But, half of that walk is through a really lovely little park that looks very pleasant under a sheet of frost or snow. My flatmate, Anna, is Polish but has lived here for four years. During our walk I discovered that she didn't agree with my take on the British reserve, and I don't like her anymore. By the time I got to uni, it was already ten. I had coffee with Kim while we discussed the plan of attack for my work. I am officially called a visiting research fellow for anyone who cares about official business, i.e. Mom.

So, in a not-so-boring nutshell, Kim studies face processing and recognition. The broad field is social cognition - the same heading that my work with moral reasoning and moral psychology fall under. She deals primarily with stereotyping. A simple way to explain this, and covering only a small facet of what she researches, can be understood by thinking of how we come to show preferences or prejudices toward certain groups of people, may it be one's ethnicity, race, age, or sex. What devices, in other words, are necessary for us to process the affect and judgment that follow the presentation of a face? Do we process a face with hair in the same manner as we process a face without? What comes first, processing of eye colour, face shape, skin colour? Like many things in social psychology these questions may seem intuitively easy to answer, but there are some surprising findings on the way the brain processes a face in order to allow for prejudices and stereotypes to be activated. I think it's all very neat, don't you? And, I'm scheming about some potential collaborations with Kim's work and moral reasoning - some very obvious links can be drawn. She seems to think that's a definite route we'll go at some point.

Today was pretty much red tape. It was really nice to see Ian, Sarah, Linda, and Stewart again - riotous bunch of lecturers. Kim made me a set of lab keys, office keys, activated my swipe card from the summer, and took care of some financial matters that pertain to not taking a part-time stripping job. Do you need a work visa to strip? Anyway, the financial end of this journey is a total nightmare. I'm told that in the past this type of thing would have been very laid back, but for whatever reason has now become a tightly managed operation that involves keeping receipts and invoices, and receiving payment from multiple grant accounts in an effort to be sneaky about expenditures that fall under the category of "drinking" or "traveling" or "cinema". Let me just take this opportunity to open your eyes to a culture phenomenon of Britain. There is one person delegated in administration to a very specific task. If you need some one's assistance with said task, and that one person is out sick or at a wedding or on holiday, then you can be guaranteed that there is absolutely NO ONE who can assist you and you will be politely instructed to wait until he/she returns - whether that be days or months is not of their concern.

Kim gave me a lab manual and some articles that she'd written to look over. I spent the remainder of the afternoon getting organized with my Inbox which has been nuts for the past month, and reading her papers. Something about Kim's anal retentiveness has inspired a deeply suppressed desire for organization in my life - at least in the office. Lunch was just like old times - sitting around the common area eating a potato pasty (potato and cheese pot pie type of thing) and listening to jokes and rants about undergraduates or recent films viewed.

The 2.3 mile walk back was colder and darker than this morning - to be expected. I've had dinner, washed my dishes, and after writing have to decided to fulfill my urge for some Russell Brand comedy on youtube. Again, iTunes gift cards to those who love me. Just buy one and send my the voucher code. My email is nlpowell@uncg.edu. Watched Two Days in Paris the other day, really wonderful film to those of you who haven't seen it. By the way, Patrick, apparently Happy-Go-Lucky did not go over so well with the British lecturers at work. They found Sally Hawkins' character, "just bollocks, that god awful phony twat". What a shocker, the British don't like a film character who is British but verbose with cheer and positivity.

Well, today was a success. I'm excited about the plans with Kim. I'll be running participants all day, everyday beginning on Tuesday. It was nice to find myself working in my old office drinking coffee out of my old "Drink and Drive" mug.

I've got time on my hands...

So, I've decided to start a blog. I've always flirted with the idea but never really thought I'd be experiencing things if I were always writing about experiencing things. Same sort of logic behind not taking pictures when I travel. Well, forget it. I've got a few days here with not much to do - I'm not making any promises that this will stick around much, but I'll give it an earnest shot.

I've been in Birmingham for two days now. The first of which doesn't really count considering I slept most of it and then went to the grocery market. Last night I was determined to beat this long-lingering jet lag, and forced myself to sleep by about half ten. Surprisingly, I felt refreshed and revitalized by 9am this morning when my mobile alarm went off to the tune of "It's time to get up, it's nine o'clock" in a female British voice. So, I got up and made eggs and toast, showered, dressed, and did the ol' email check. Then I went into Uni to deliver a "please give me some god damn money or I'll starve" slip to accounting that was given to me by Kim. In keeping with the theme of Britain, they were less than helpful and rather confused as if they had never seen a piece of paper like that before - a piece of paper that has the Uni seal at the top. Hmm, guess all those professors are volunteers. The lady who I was to see is an Indian woman in a wheelchair - I don't know how else to describe her, if you can think of something better / more PC, let me know. She took the piece of paper and said she'd be in touch. I stressed the urgency of the matter and she replied by asking what exactly I was doing here. I asked her how long it would be and she replied with "right, just leave your contact details and I'll be in touch". I wheeled her to the top of the stairs and let go in the direction of payroll processing - that was just in my imagination I'm sure.

I left Uni and caught the bus to city centre and decided to have a look around. Picked up a hat for 4 quid and had a coffee outside under a heat lamp. I walked for a couple of hours and realized that since I woke up early, it was only 1pm. When you don't want to spend a dime, there's really not much to do downtown.

So, I headed for the bus, came back to Selly Oak, and walked another couple of miles to my flat over sporadic sheets of ice that sent me skidding an inch or two. Probably very funny to watch - slip, slide, "shit!", repeat.

I've been hanging out in the flat now for several hours, looking at things that I've dreamed of looking at on the Internet but never really had the time or purpose, e.g. this blog site. I made a tasty lunch and it's dark now at half 4. If anyone out there reads this and loves me, an iTunes gift card would be oh so nice because movie watching would be loads of fun right now.

I have nothing on the agenda for tomorrow - last day off before starting work. Maybe these posts will get more interesting or maybe they just won't exist, and then you can be rest assured that I'm having some kind of fun. Stay tuned for blog 2 - I brushed my teeth with hand soap this morning...

But hey, I'm still happy to be here.