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Thursday, June 14, 2007

Psych!

So with a few weeks between being done and graduation, I signed up for a bunch of psych studies. I think I took around 25 or so in 2 weeks. Appointments ranged from 30 minutes to 3 hours. And in the end, I made a couple hundred dollars. Not bad, I say.

It was a pretty interesting experience, but the tests did get a little old, even if they were testing different things. I noticed a few common themes in my studies:

1) A lot of studies measure to what extent you are a certain type of person on a spectrum, such as silent vs talkative. The problem I, however, saw with these measurements, is that they change day-by-day for me. One of the popular tests is to see if you think you have "control" or "power" over a certain situation, such as decision making in a position of authority. As an RA, I can sometimes feel like I do have power and control, but in other contexts, such as thinking about my new job at Google, I have little. So my temporal state of emotions influences what choice I make on these surveys, which could vary day-to-day. I suppose there is utility in knowing that the survey represents my current state of emotions and can be linked to how I've reacted to other stimuli in the study.

2) Thankfully, I'm quick at taking the studies. When I've signed up for experiments, they say 30, 45, 60, minutes each. That's no good, considering the pay doesn't really work out to a whole bunch for an entire hour. So be quick and they really are worth your time.

3) Maybe an MRI machine is going too far. Yesterday, I did my final psych study - an MRI scan. It was my first time in that machine, and it's really cramped. I had to keep my head still for three hours while I did a pretty boring cognitive task. Even with the magnet spinning around and the scanner making a ton of noise, I still managed to doze off a bit. So, would I do it again? Probably not, even though it paid $20/hour and I was there for 4 hours. I guess it demonstrated the things I would do for money. It's not entirely worth it, I guess.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Road Biking!

So I made the jump and bought a road bike.


The Off Ramp was having a close-out on their 2006 Giant bikes, so I ended up getting an OCR-3 for only $1199.99 (MSRP: 1850). While not a top of the line bike or a well-known road bike brand like Specialized or Bianchi, the bike is certainly light with an excellent carbon frame and has the quality Shimano 105 shifters. It's taken some time to get used to clipping into my pedals and out, as well as getting the hang of shifting while still keeping up a pretty fast pace, but I've gone out riding the past week and it's been great.

Here are two popular trails I've gone on thus far:

Old La Honda seems to be an infamous climb for local bikers. It's a 3.3 mile climb to the top, gaining 1290 feet in the process. Really fast bikers can make it up in under 20 minutes (the record is around 15 minutes). I've ridden it once and my time was 30+ minutes. Anyway, the route I then took was to La Honda (Highway 84). Riding that highway downhill was thrilling - you go 30+ MPH, faster than cars. Guess I need to do this route more to work on climbing.


Rode this route today - La Canada is relatively flat and pretty darn fast if you can keep up a good clip. We did 26 miles in 2 hours. Could definitely improve on that time, but nothing to be ashamed of to start with.

Road biking is fun! I highly recommend it.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Psych!

So with a few weeks between being done and graduation, I signed up for a bunch of psych studies. I think I took around 25 or so in 2 weeks. Appointments ranged from 30 minutes to 3 hours. And in the end, I made a couple hundred dollars. Not bad, I say.

It was a pretty interesting experience, but the tests did get a little old, even if they were testing different things. I noticed a few common themes in my studies:

1) A lot of studies measure to what extent you are a certain type of person on a spectrum, such as silent vs talkative. The problem I, however, saw with these measurements, is that they change day-by-day for me. One of the popular tests is to see if you think you have "control" or "power" over a certain situation, such as decision making in a position of authority. As an RA, I can sometimes feel like I do have power and control, but in other contexts, such as thinking about my new job at Google, I have little. So my temporal state of emotions influences what choice I make on these surveys, which could vary day-to-day. I suppose there is utility in knowing that the survey represents my current state of emotions and can be linked to how I've reacted to other stimuli in the study.

2) Thankfully, I'm quick at taking the studies. When I've signed up for experiments, they say 30, 45, 60, minutes each. That's no good, considering the pay doesn't really work out to a whole bunch for an entire hour. So be quick and they really are worth your time.

3) Maybe an MRI machine is going too far. Yesterday, I did my final psych study - an MRI scan. It was my first time in that machine, and it's really cramped. I had to keep my head still for three hours while I did a pretty boring cognitive task. Even with the magnet spinning around and the scanner making a ton of noise, I still managed to doze off a bit. So, would I do it again? Probably not, even though it paid $20/hour and I was there for 4 hours. I guess it demonstrated the things I would do for money. It's not entirely worth it, I guess.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Road Biking!

So I made the jump and bought a road bike.


The Off Ramp was having a close-out on their 2006 Giant bikes, so I ended up getting an OCR-3 for only $1199.99 (MSRP: 1850). While not a top of the line bike or a well-known road bike brand like Specialized or Bianchi, the bike is certainly light with an excellent carbon frame and has the quality Shimano 105 shifters. It's taken some time to get used to clipping into my pedals and out, as well as getting the hang of shifting while still keeping up a pretty fast pace, but I've gone out riding the past week and it's been great.

Here are two popular trails I've gone on thus far:

Old La Honda seems to be an infamous climb for local bikers. It's a 3.3 mile climb to the top, gaining 1290 feet in the process. Really fast bikers can make it up in under 20 minutes (the record is around 15 minutes). I've ridden it once and my time was 30+ minutes. Anyway, the route I then took was to La Honda (Highway 84). Riding that highway downhill was thrilling - you go 30+ MPH, faster than cars. Guess I need to do this route more to work on climbing.


Rode this route today - La Canada is relatively flat and pretty darn fast if you can keep up a good clip. We did 26 miles in 2 hours. Could definitely improve on that time, but nothing to be ashamed of to start with.

Road biking is fun! I highly recommend it.