This week I did Halloween Bingo. At Halloween Bing we did it with Miss McEwen. She was saying the words and we were useing a crayon to draw an X on the word. Ms. McEwen said some people got bingo. But not me and I don't care if I have a bingo or not I just want to have fun that day.
At the spelling test we had lot of words was pretty hard. But I trid. I thought I would get 1 wrong. Then I got spelling skills that were very good at words. I hope I got them all right. I will tell you some of my word if I can remember them. Oh I can't remember them now.
Love, Michelle
3rd grader
For my PSYC363 (Principles on learning) class, we are asked to conduct experiments on our virtual rat, Sniffy. And it's the cutest, little rat ever. I named mine Pumpkin. Rule one of being an experimental pscyhologist, never name your subjects. I don't think I can ever be an experimental psychologist. Anyway, our task was to train our rat to associate bar pressing with food. First we had to train it to associate the sound of the bar with food, then later, the actual bar with the sound. It's a bit tricky and can take up to an hour. But since Pumpkin is so smart (and such a hungry lil one), he got it pretty fast. My friend was telling me that his rat just sat in the corner for 20min and wouldn't even come near the food hopper. Obviously you can see who got the smarter rat :P
There are other things in the operant chamber. There's a light, bar, food hopper, speakers for sound, and the ground is made of metal bars that can administer weak electric shocks. (sniff)
After the experiment is done, we'll have to write up a lab report describing our findings and our measurements (suppression ratio, DS/CS response strength, etc).
I think studying animals is so uberly interesting. I am absoluted fascinated with studies like such. Many people see animal testing as cruel and whatnot, but people who conduct animals studies are subjected to extremely strict regulations and believe it or not, the animals are most likely more safe in their hands than many pet owners. And honestly, we owe so much to these little guys on our knowledge of the human body, brain, advances of medicine and medical treatment.
Wow, I wrote more on Pumps than I had intended to. Now let me tell you about Screecher. Screecher is a robotic automobile that my group and I built for COGS300. And Screecher is the narliest thing ever. It can traverse through a maze based solely on internal representation (okay, that one didn't go very well since basing anything solely on internal representation sucks) and today, we programmed it to interact with its environment. What we did was put 2 light sensors which can detect the edge of the maze (different colours), from then, we recursively call our loop to decide whether it should go left/right depending on which sensor was stronger. Oh, forgot to mention the reason why we call it Screecher is 'cause everytime it turns, it makes a really loud screeching sound. What a 'lil racer wannabe eh :P
It's been a long time since I've enjoyed doing labs. Forgot how much fun they can be.
It's been 2 months of no update, but I am back! I don't think I've ever taken such a long hiatus from blogging (and I've been blogging for *gulp* 6 years). Wow. 6 YEARS!?
I decided to change the layout of the site 'cause I've been using generic layouts for too too long. I miss designing my own. I also added an About Me section on the site for first time visitors (and for the pleasure of stalkers). The pics on the site will be updated periodically (note how vague that was put...) with snapshots of relatively recent events. I added a spam removal program to my comments so rest assure guys, no more ads on viagra or online poker should appear.
Anyway, I just finished reading over some of my entries from October 2003 (can be found on your right if interested) and looking back, it feels like a lot longer than a year.
Remember a year ago, I had a convo w/ my coworker Wilson about this younger girl he was going to meet up with? She was 19 and he worried about her maturity level. I remember telling him that at 19, you are pretty mature (after all, she was just a year younger than me back then!) He said that you change a lot from the ages of 20-23. I told him I don't think so. People at that age should be pretty concrete by then and would know what they want (least have things figured out somewhat). Looking back, I don't know why I was so sure of that. I find it interesting (and maybe a little scary) how that was just a year ago and now my perspective on so many things have changed. I used to resist change, detest change, but now it seems like there's nothing more that I want to do than change.
Change into what? Honestly, I have no idea. But yet it feels right. At least somewhat. Looking back, I guess he was right.