The Beginning of the End - Two (Exceptionally Demanding) Weeks Left

Since France deserved it’s own post, blog Nummer Vierzehn of my study abroad gets to be devoted to Dublin and pre-finals week (uuuhhhhh…lol).  On our tour from Dublin to the striking Cliffs of Moher, all of Ireland gave me a pleasant feeling of home. Being that I am part Irish and grew to really like that idea at some point during my twenty years, I am not surprised.  The people in Ireland are so fun (rowdy, really) and carefree.  I like it.  On Sunday we needed to finish some homework, but being that I had finished mine on the bus to Paris, I finally got to take an adventure on my own!  Wandering about an ancient, major city equipped with nothing but the essentials, water, a map, and plenty of time to think and enjoy things by oneself gives such a great feeling of freedom and independence.  Once I found all the sites I wanted to see, I met up with the others, had some delicious traditional Irish stew with made with beef and Guinness, and then packed up for the airport… where we stayed…all night.  It’s college student logic- if you have to be at the airport for your flight by 5am anyway, why pay for a full night at the hotel when you can just do homework and sleep at the airport?

Suffice it to say I was a bit tired the next week…I’ll admit that.  But all in all, my 211 test went well, I had the exquisite opportunity to visit CAESAR (Center of Advanced European Studies and Research), a Max Planck institute, for my honors project to learn about studies in neuroscience from their Behavior and Brain Organization (BBO).  Being that all the PhD students and project executives were busy, Kendal and I were transferred from person to person.  It may sound undesirable, but it was actually extremely fortunate on our part because we got to see the various labs and learn about several different projects that happen throughout.  BBO’s primary goal is to discover the organization of the brain.  Using imaging capacities I haven’t even seen before, BBO monitors brain activity in mice as a response to several stimuli and matches this activity to the mice’s eye motion in order to correlate what reactions of the mice are based on instinct, learned behavior, or decision making.  They are finding that these different responses correlate to different areas of the brain.  The methods and machines BBO utilizes to discover new facts is entirely unique and made in lab.  Specifically, BBO’s research is much indebted to a two-photon laser small enough to fit as a crown on the head of the mouse, weighing approximately 8 kg.  This allows the mouse to make normal responses instead of compensating for human influences.  CAESAR is a very interesting institute, one which I would gladly return to Germany to intern for.  

But then...there was FRIDAY.  Details to come.