In the end grades turned out fine, thanks to a favorable curve in Systems Neuroscience.
Have I mentioned that I was taking a course in LabVIEW? It was so easy that I almost never thought about it. For my final project I worked with their image processing toolkit to develop an eye tracking system. For whatever reason thats a really popular first step in image processing. It turned out OK, but it was nothing to write home about. I take that back, technically this is writing home about it.
I start in a new lab soon. Here's the webpage. ( Although that is subject to change, based on funding ). Wherever I end up this Summer I hope I like it a lot because I don't want to do another rotation. I need to get started on thesis work so I'm not stuck in school forever.
In the fall I'll be taking the gigantic Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience course that meets 4 times a week for 2 hours and maybe something else if I feel like pushing it.
Since last I wrote I've made a few acquaintances so I'm not spending all my Friday nights alone. I still spend a lot of my free time biking on my own. Or should I say walking my bike home because I get flats like every other day. I'm investing in some bomb proof tires soon enough.
I submit the first part of my preliminary exam tommorow. The underlying theme is the transformation of stimulus locations from auditory to visual reference frames. You can look towards an unseen auditory stimulus easily because you don't consciously account for the differences in head and retina position. It just happens and as a result you can dodge perps in dark alleyways etc.
An even harder transformation is the one that occurs when you look towards a tactile stimulus. You need to somehow convert a position on an extremity into a retinal error signal. That includes accounting for every joint between that point and your eyes. By way of example: a sensation on your fingertip must be transformed through every knuckle, then the wrist, the elbow, the shoulder, the neck and then the retina. Each of these elements can have several degrees of freedom. Good luck working that out champ.
