Understanding the Bilingual Mind and Brain: Blog

What a week it has been in Granada! Lab work has been going well - I haven't had quite the rush Dan/Brittany/Kelsey have since my participants are still a ways off from final exams, but I'm certainly keeping myself busy! As of 48 hours ago, I had two sessions scheduled for next week. I now have 17.  I've been running only eyetracking this week, and I must say, there's a true sense of fulfillment to be reflected on when you see your participants following your hypothesis.  The tracker symbol on the screen and I are well acquainted at this point, and it is enormously satisfying watching it jump exactly where I anticipated it to; I can't help but smile a bit when I see things working out.  This summer is a very important one, needless to say - I feel like it is going to be the strongest case I have for or against research as a career, and I'm putting all my efforts into making it as genuine an experience as possible.  Time will certainly tell!

On a more extracurricular note, we've been graced to have Eleanora in the lab with us this week! I'm actually double dipping in her fMRI experiment - once at PSU, and once in Spain; even though she presented her work to us yesterday I'll be doing my best to blindly follow the instructions on the screen and forget about all of the conditions and other paradigms.  Honestly, though, even if she sat and worked me through every individual photo slide it probably wouldn't help.  Though the human brain is a remarkable organ in that it named itself (ponder that over a glass of wine sometime), mine doesn't seem to want to work.  I'm noticing a strange shift in language skill now that I've been here - Spanish is becoming easier to speak at times, and certainly easier to access in general, (the "shift" from whatever language to Spanish takes less effort than usual) but my English is actually starting to, to use a colloquialism, take "hits".  Since English is so uninflected, we host a beautiful variety of adjectives that are used in infuriatingly specific places to express even more specific nuances, and the retrieval of such slightly related adjectives (consider the differences between pretentious, narcissistic, and pompous - a hair's breadth apart in meaning, but separated by a hair's breadth even so) is absurdly difficult for me now.  For the first time in my life, I mixed up the English question vs. statement construction and politely asked a friend "What it is?" in English, only to then realize that I seem to have lost all control of the words coming out of my mouth.  I'm not alarmed, only surprised - as someone who studies languages, a large part of what I do is keeping everything straight; not an easy task when you're in a lab, in Spain, full of Russian/Spanish bilinguals, and your roommate speaks French.  (Eleanora simply speaks everything and was thus excluded from the previous sentence for the sake of avoiding redundancy).  It's just never been quite this hard before, but then again this is my first time immersed in a culture I can actually communicate in.  It seems like there are going to be many more surprises to come, and I'm pleasantly expectant of future challenges.  

Well time to sit down again and write another blog post. It's been a really busy week since most of the study abroad programs are ending this week and it's a sprint to the finish to try to test as many people as we can before they leave.  We have identified some people in other programs some who have been here for a whole academic year and some who are just arriving for the summer. I'm excited to keep testing, but I'm looking forward to being able to relax our pace a bit and analyze the data we've collected thus far.

On a more cultural level I've felt like I've really learned a lot more about the city of Granada. This past weekend was the Festival of Virgins which had apparently been in preparation that been in planning for several years now. It was an elaborate show with ornately decorated floats carried robed children and priests. As we were walking down Calle Recogidas luck would have it that we would run into one Eleonora Rossi! It was a very pleasant surprise as we knew she would be in town, but not exactly when she was getting here. After meeting up with her we decided to go an Arabic restaurant on Calle Elvira which was truly a unique experience. They had menus in English, French and Spanish (for the linguistically inclined) and I tried my first ever Lamb Tajine.

Personally, I feel like I've been slowly adapting to life in Granada. Coming from a fast-paced East coast lifestyle, I knew it would be an adjustment coming to Southern Spain. I think I'm coming to terms with the pace though, I just wish people would learn to walk a little faster on the sidewalks! Then again which surrounded by so much man-made and natural beauty, it's hard not stop and look around to take it all in. I think I definitely have a lot to learn from the Spanish and their relaxed lifestyle and that sometimes it's best not to take life so seriously.

In my free time I've taken to going on long runs and exploring the far edges of the city.  One of my favorite things to do is just to find the tallest hill I can see and just run up it and relax for awhile. Like magic, every time I go up there I feel like I can really clear my head and let all the little things from the day go.  These are truly some of the best runs I've been on in a while and I will definitely miss Granada's scenic vistas. (Pictures to come I promise!) 

This past week has been a little bit of a struggle. There is still the issue of Wifi struggles here. The people at the Haagen Dasz officially know me as" the American girl who needs wifi so she comes, buys a coffee, and sits there twice a day", and it is really starting to get frustrating when trying to keep in contact with the participants. The other struggle is that I cannot figure out how to use the washing machine, and every time my clothes are drenched with water. Other than those two struggles Spain has been great!

The weather has been nothing but nice, a little chillier than the past two weeks and it rained one day, but each day I catch some vitamin D from the sun! Last Saturday we went up past the Alhmbra and found ourselves in a beautiful field of olive trees. The view was amazing; at the top we were able to look out on all of Granada!

As far as research, everything has been going smoothly. We have been able to get a number of students through the University and also by just meeting them out on the streets. There has been one problem that I have been finding. It seems that we haven't been clear enough, and unfortunately I have received two people who don't fit my criteria, even though through email they explicitly say that they do. I have fixed that problem in making myself more clearly in the initial email asking specific questions. The problem is that the students hear spend so much money that any chance they get to make some Euros that jump at the opportunity and aren't as clear with us as they should be. The problem is fixed now though, so that is a plus. This next week I plan on packing in as many participants as I can, a lot are getting ready for finals and are starting to leave to go back home. 

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?