Understanding the Bilingual Mind and Brain: Blog

De vez en cuando doy cuenta de que, aunque la mayoría de la gente aquí (especialmente por dentro del centro CIMCYC, el edificio en lo que hago mis investigaciones) habla inglés con algún nivel de competencia, debo tratar de usar español tanto como sea posible.  Muchas veces este meta es bien difícil de alcanzar - mis conversaciones con los granadinos son, hasta el momento, a todo riesgo.  Había muchas personas que entendía perfectamente bien, y otras que, vale, era como hablaran el portugués o catalán o cualquiera lengua que sea semejante al español pero aún imposible de entender.  Siempre he amado el aforismo "bautismo de fuego" - describe exactamente mi estilo preferido de aprender.  Y claro, voy aprendiendo un montón en cada momento.  Pero hay que incluir las lecciones personales también, pues una gran parte de aclimatarse a una cultura nueva es acostumbrarse a los estándares conductuales.  Una idea central de la beca de PIRE es que los estudiantes tienen la oportunidad de correr sus propios experimentos, afuera de la supervisión y apoyo (en el sentido de que ustedes no están aquí físicamente para ayudar a resolver nuestros problemas) de nuestros asesores.  Pero lo difícil no es nuestra tecnología que a veces no funciona, no es la dificultad y frustración diaria que E-Prime nos trae, y no es la tarea de encontrar y ponernos en contacto con participantes...de ninguna manera.  A mi modo de ver lo difícil es coordinar los horarios de participantes que típicamente no siguen sus propios horarios.  De verdad, no esperaba tantos problemas, pero aprendí rápidamente que:

1)      El concepto de "tiempo español" si existe y mucha gente vive en este huso horario especial, lo que es muy diferente que el mío.

2)      También existe una verdadera "puntualidad americana" - estamos obsesionados con ella, pero el resto de mundo no se preocupa tanto de nuestra idea de "Five minutes early is on time, on time is late."

3)      ...tendré que correr entre participantes, el campus, y las facultades diferentes como un loco para pasar cada persona cuando mis planes se desprenden.  Ayer fue un ejemplo perfecto - había esperado un participante solo (quien se quedó dormido el miércoles) para hacer eyetracking, y por una combinación de tardanza y una falta de comunicación tuve que correr cuatro personas en cuatro horas (tuve que utilizar otro conductoral, lo de K2, quien muy graciosamente me permitió de usarlo - Thanks Kaitlyn! Dinner's on me tonight!) ...francamente no me gusta depender de otros, because when things go wrong, when people become upset, you have to take the fall for it.  But I'm re-learning the value of an important lesson: endless, ceaseless, patience, and how to be unassailably friendly, even when someone misses two sessions without contacting you and is then absurdly late to the third.  I consider myself to be a patient person, and sociable enough, but this is truly proving to be culturally (and personally) horizon-expanding experience.  Ah, y tambien he subido una foto de la ciudad del mirador que he comentado en mi post anterior.  How awesome is this?

Last weekend was a blur of testing out the NuAmps system, and it seems like our experiments and that system just don't work together. So, we started using the 64-channel Synamps system, though now we don't have the lab all to ourselves. But it's great that they have options! Now we have to figure out just what's going on with the NuAmps. I'm curious to see how the tasks that are run at the hospitable run on the system here. 

So we moved into the 64-channel lab, and had to test out all our scripts, so Dan capped me twice. But, with my allergies going crazy, trying to not blink was just awful, and my eyes just watered the whole time. I hope none of our participants have bad allergies!

The best news is that I've now run my first 3 participants here. I'm impressed with their level of English - they are all really good. The first participant was superblinky, which if it keeps up for other participants, means I might get to learn a new ERP trick - blink correction.  Now onto data coding.

Well it's officially been one week since I've arrived in Granada and I can hardly believe that I've been here that long.  It has truly been an action packed week and filled with many exciting new experiences and also many ERP problems. Although Kaitlyn and I ended up spending the better part of our weekend in the lab, I am now happy to say that we are all situated in the 64 Synamps set up and that we are now actively scheduling participants. It was definitely not easy road getting here but I think things work out well in our new room and by troubleshooting all these problems I feel like I've really grown as a researcher.

            In my break from the lab I have gone on a few runs to try and familiarize myself with more parts of the city. Every corner I turn I feel I need to take a picture of how beautiful this place is, as I keep going each street just keeps becoming more amazing than the previous one. As for meeting local Granadians, I'm ashamed to say that my Spanish is still too basic to allow me to converse with most people. I have however happy to say that we have become quite acquainted with the American study abroad community here in Granada. They have lots of helpful tips about how to assimilate into the culture and have also been great participants in our study. I still have seven glorious weeks to yet to come, so I am excited to see what Spain has in store for me. 

There are certain things in this world that people like to be aware of: the price of food, the condition of their possessions, and whether or not you may happen to be wearing two different types of stripes at the same time.  One of my favorite things to try to gauge is unfortunately one of the hardest to pinpoint, and that's my perception of a place.  Not ten days ago, most of Granada was a veritable maze of graffiti, artesanías, and back alleys.  However much I pride myself on my sense of direction, I'm most accustomed to finding my way around the woods I grew up in, and I can still get lost amongst the winding streets and endless seas of tapas bars. 

Now that I've taken the time to read maps (in the safety of my apartment), learn bus routes, and generally wander, I can stroll through the streets of Granada with confidence - it's almost an entirely different world.  Being lost, which still happens from time to time, is more of a challenge than an issue at this point, and every time I go running I endeavor to delve as deep as possible into an unknown region of Granada.  Sunday, for example, I was taking my favorite route - the brutal ascent from the bottom of Calle Recogidas up to a viewpoint above the Alhambra.  Up there in the olive fields, the whole of the city is laid out beneath you, and you can enjoy the view from inside a small pergola/terrace-like structure of sorts.  This was the fourth time I had ascended the Alhambra, and each time I had noticed a small, circular viewpoint below on the edge of a hill.  On a whim, I ran on, and enjoyed the second viewpoint for a while before the stares of alerted Spaniards led me to decide to continue on down the hill (which, incidentally, ran away from my district of the city).  I know I don't look Spanish in any way - somehow, being 190 cm tall, white as a ghost, and having green eyes and red facial hair gives me away in this country...pero vale. 

So I ran on, descending down a long and winding highway that led to a part of the city I hadn't seen before.  I knew I was at least two miles from the river, which is the relative center of the city, but that's when the adventure kicked in.  Yes, I didn't know exactly where I was, but my relative-direction compass was still working overtime.  I'm fortunate enough to be the Spanish speaker on this trip, so if worst came to worst I could break gender barriers and ask for directions.  Though the sun was going down, I'm generally too big for people to want to mess with - I've never had the problem of being catcalled at or glanced at or anything else, and Granada is far too touristy of a city to risk being dangerous to generous Americans.  What did I realize in that moment? Quite possibly one of my favorite feelings in the world - that I'm independent, free to do what I wish, and have an entirely new area laid out before me, ready to be absorbed and understood.  I'm comfortable in Granada now, know where to find wifi, all the food I want, and the local sites.  It feels as if I've lived here for a month or more. 

In laboratory news, I've been running behaviorals for a while now, and my first eyetrack is tomorrow.  My fingers and toes are crossed that neither E-Prime nor E-Builder decides to flinch; I'm itching to run my experiment for the first time.    

The first week here in Granada has flown by! I had been looking forward to my trip to Granada for months and when I finally landed I couldn't believe that I had finally made it. Luckily for me, my flights went very smoothly and I only experienced a short delay in Madrid.

Upon arriving to my apartment, Kelsey and I were spared no time to rest and headed out to explore the town with Alvaro, Kaitlyn and Ben.  We sat and drank coffee outside at a café that is located right below the Alhambra. Afterwards we walked around the streets and ended up on a hillside that looked over the city of Granada and had a beautiful view of the Alhambra. On our walk back we saw street performers as well as people sitting outside playing guitar and singing. Even though I was tired and running on only three hours of sleep, I couldn't have imagined a better way to spend my first day becoming familiar with this beautiful city that I will be calling home for the next two months. 

The next day we showed up to the lab, which is brand new and has a really nice view over the city of Granada.  We were introduced to Teresa Bajo, our advisor here in Granada, as well as some of the other people who also work in the lab. The following day was the first day that Kelsey and I decided to take the bus home from the lab by ourselves. Both of us speak enough basic Spanish to get around, however our conversational Spanish is not the best. Assuming that the buses here run like the ones back in State College where they make a complete loop, we decided to stay on the bus and see where all the stops went. The bus eventually stopped and everyone had to get off. We had no idea where we were except that it was not close to our apartment. In order to get home we used "donde esta" followed by a lot of pointing which lead us to another bus that took us back to our home. It only took us a few common phrases to be able to communicate, however without those phrases we would have had a lot of trouble finding our way back.

Over the last week I have been trying to improve my Spanish vocabulary so that I can better communicate with the people here. I have found that one of my most commonly used phrases has become "donde esta wifi" which the Spanish pronounce as "wee-fee". I have never been to Europe before and so I had not been expecting to have so much trouble finding wifi. At first this was frustrating because in order to contact participants I needed the Internet but there is an ice cream place close to our apartment that has free wifi (if it's a good day). Needless to say I will be eating a lot of ice cream this summer.

Today, Monday the 13^th, is the first day that I have begun running participants. I have run two so far and hopefully will be running a third in an hour from now. I have enjoyed interacting with the participants and learning where they are from and how their studying abroad experience so far has been.

I am so lucky and excited to be here in Granada doing research. The city is absolutely beautiful and amazing and so are the people. I can't wait to spend the next two months here and am so thankful to have had this opportunity.