What a journey it has been so far, and it is only going to get better.
I went to class Wednesday morning, being in Belgium less then 10 hours from it, I was a bit tired. We got a new lecturer as well, he was pretty intense, definitely knew what he was talking about but he was going so fast. I got the majority of what he was saying, but I'm sure there are gaping holes in it. Eh, they will be filled in soon. Anyway, the lecture was about memory, what memory is and how we form them. Very interesting stuff!
In my next class we did an experiment to see if homologous word forms produce an error in reading... when we read we have two routes of the information going into our brains. The first route, called the direct route - is when you recognize a word on sight, it is how most of us read, from this recognition the word activates all your associations with the word and you now fully understand what it is (mind you this all happens in milliseconds). The second route, called the phonologic route, is when you sound out the word using spelling-to-sound rules of language, this is utilized by people who are beginning to learn to read as well as when we are presented with words we do not know. It was said that skilled readers would only use the direct route, as it is faster, reading by directly accessing memory was considered to only involve processing of the visual information of the text. We repeated an experiment which refuted this... in this experiment, subjects were shown a category, FRUIT for example, and we instructed to push "z" if the following word falls in that category, and "/" if not. Now, another word would flash on the screen - such as PAIR. The word PAIR accesses the phonological route and gives your brain the word PEAR/PAIR/PARE ... when thinking about the category of FRUIT one would tend to make the split second decision that indeed, PAIR is in the category of FRUIT. Showing that even as skilled readers, the two routes of reading are both accessed.
Wednesday night we organized a little poker game. It was Jordan, Marc, Dave, Shahab, Nick, Malcom and I. Pretty fun, it got down to Jordan and I in the end, I had a huge chip lead and then I don't want to talk about what happened after that ;). When it was all said and done, Jordan took first (with some help from those river cards!!). A really fun night none-the-less. We played a few 1 pound buy in quick games after, I managed to take some money from those. I got back in around 1:30am, ran into Malcom, we started talking, Rob showed up a bit later. We all just sat in the kitchen having full on debates - next thing I know it is 4:30. Bed time.
Thursday was a productive day. I made a to-do list the day before. I mailed some things I had to mail. Went to the grocery store, starting my healthy eating binge, got a ton of fresh veggies and fruits... omnomnom. Unfortunately I got on the wrong bus to come back home and took a 45 minute detour. Oh weeeeell. I then did laundry, skyped my pops, and finished up an application to Mortar Board - an honor society at state. After I finished eating my delicious food I headed over to Dave and Bennys for the night. Their friend from France was there, Charlene, we all hungout until late in the night and it was good fun!
Now I get 3 more days of my weekend... Gotta love my schedule!
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