IAT – Implicit Association Test
While exploring iTunes U recently I downloaded a couple of psychology lectures from the University of Washington. During one the lectures they talked about the a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_Association_Test”IAT (Implicit Association Test/a). These are self-administered tests that will help you find out your unconscious levels of prejudice about age, gender, race, self-esteem, and mathematics vs. art. (Wikipedia Entry) At the a href=”https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/”Harvard IAT web site /ayou can take a variety of IATs. I took one comparing Canada and the United States and one comparing Obama and McCain. It was interesting learning about my natural biases.
Geocaching adventure…
Yesterday, I did my first research session in 30C/86F conditions. The training sessions are four hours long and once outfitted you feel like a test pilot as you have a variety of sensors inside and outside your body, all measuring how you are reacting to the heat. In a future post, I will describe in detail what happened and will happen at my two sessions next week. The next sessions will be at 95F and 104F. It is fun training in the heat but the only bummer is that you don’t get a tan.br /br /While span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_0″geocaching/span yesterday, I made a data entry error that put me on the wrong side of the Ottawa River, on the north, Quebec side. When I got to the apparent cache site all I could see is a large patch of poison ivy. Would a span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_1″geocacher/span put a cache in the middle of a patch of poison ivy. I double checked my coordinates and had entered 24 rather than 23. The correct coordinates put me back on the south, Ontario, side of the Ottawa River. The cache was a little nasty as they had magnetically attached the first span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_2″waypoint/span inside a metal culvert leading underneath a sidewalk. You had to reach elbow deep inside the pipe to fetch the metal span class=”blsp-spelling-corrected” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_3″canister/span to get the next set of coordinates. The final cache was hidden inside an old willow tree that was apparently surrounded by poison ivy but I think that the folks at the cache before me didn’t know what PI looks like. While leaving the cache I spotted a red fox which was cool. It looked like a span class=”blsp-spelling-corrected” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_4″super sized/span cat and was on the prowl for dinner.
Walking schoolbus
Today while walking over to the swimming pool for a workout, I saw something that I have been meaning to see, a a href=”http://www.walkingschoolbus.org”walking school bus/a. There was a parent leading a crowd of six kids and a parent taking up the anchor position. They were walking along the sidewalk heading away from a nearby school. Some of my ideas on the concepts are expressed in a a href=”http://www.jasonplancaster.com/weblog/436.php”comment/a that I posted on a href=”http://www.jasonplancaster.com”Jason’s blog/a a little while back.br /br /My legs are recovering quickly from the weekend. Last night, I went for a 14 km/8.6 mile run along the Rideau River and my legs felt strong and fast. I still think they need a couple of more days of rest before I can give them there first cycling workout of the year.
Exam — Relief
As I type this entry I am still a little tense but also really relieved. As it is over! Today, I wrote the final exam in my college calculus course. It was a fair exam but a long one. The exam took the form of 15 short answer question and three multi-page problems. I finished the exam in 1.5 hours and then spent the next half-hour double-checking my results. After the exam, I sold the textbook and study guide and so, I will sort of sit on my hands for a while until the marks are posted on the web. It is a big relief to have this behind me.
Exams
The library is once again brimming with students preparing for their final exams. I have my calculus exam at the end of the month so I am in the library studying the various integration technique. The on-campus Tim span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_0″Hortons/span (a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hortons”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hortons/a) is doing a brisk business. I’m not a Tim Horton’s coffee drinker, but I imbib on there steeped tea. One of the challenges I usually set for myself is to see how good a job I can do predicting what is on the final exam. Over the thirteen weeks the lecturer usually drops a fair number of hints and you sort of get a feel for his/her favorite types of questions. I’m usually good at predicting this, so I’ll let you all know if my predictions were good, fair or poor.
Minimed
Just as my calculus course has come to an end and I’m starting to study for the final exam scheduled for the end of the month, I have started another course. It is a minimed course at the medical school at the University of Ottawa. I have done the two earlier courses and when the opportunity to do the third course came up, I jumped at it. The curriculum is available at: a href=”http://www.minimed.uottawa.ca/eng/curriculum.html”http://www.minimed.uottawa.ca/eng/curriculum.html/a Tonight, we had two doctors talk about the anatomy, physiology and diseases and problems of the ear. My takeaway is that the ear is complex component and also home to one of the smallest muscles, the stapedius. The eustachian tubes are cool as they are used to maintain the pressure in the middle ear. One can look at the ear as being composed of three components, the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The cochlea is the hearing part of the ear which is located in the inner ear and the vestibular system is our “balance” component.
The broken pencil…
In my last entry, I talked about how I played a guitar for about five years when I was younger. I stopped playing when we moved out to the country as the schools that I went to at the time didn’t have a music program and my folks were reluctant to drive me into the city. My first school in the country was an extension added to a one-room schoolhouse but that will have to wait for a future entry. As well, taking the tractor to school and making volcanos will have to wait too. So, what does this have to do with a broken pencil, you might ask. When we were living in the city if you wanted to get music lessons with the school board you had to pass a music test. For some reason, I was keen on learning how to play the violin. So, all the eager/budding musician stayed after school one night to take the music test. As I think about it now, it was most likely a music pitch test. They would play a variety of tones and you would have to put them in order and mark you answer on a piece of paper. For some reason, I was given a defective pencil. The test started and the first thing that happened was the tip broke off my pencil. But I was still able to answer the first couple of questions. I put up my hand to get another pencil and busily waved my hand but to no avail. Using the lead slug, I tried to scribble my answers to the remaining answers but my that time I was several tones out of sync. To this day, I can’t remember what the results of the music test were?
