England!

Well that was one crazy trip to England. It started by ending up in Customs behind Mike and Amy, friends from Murray's lab in Philadelphia who were attending the same workshop. What a nice coincidence! We had breakfast and coffee together and then we went our respective ways.

one night in Oxford...

I took the bus from Heathrow to Oxford and walked to meet my friend Tim at the university. I had a little bit of a tour, talked to some folks, we t touch at Oriel College, and then went back to Tim's place where I saw his wife Heather and their two girls Zoī and Magali. Two highlights of the evening included Tim's shepherd's pie, and an outing to The Bear (Tim's favorite pub).

The next day I gave a talk to a small-but-interested audience and had lunch with a colleague (Kate Watkins) before rushing off to Tim's house and then the train station to go to London.

one night in London...

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Paddington Station

I arrived in London and took the tube up to Highbury where I had booked an airbnb. After a 20 minute break to check my email I headed off to the Snooty Fox for dinner and ales with some London friends, and Mike and Amy. We had a good time and even talked a little bit of science, too.

one night in Sussex...

Saturday morning I had breakfast at my airbnb (traditional British fare, including plenty of toast) and then met Mike and Amy for second breakfast/brunch before catching the train down to Uckfield. Our good friends the Farrants picked me up and took me straight to a delicious tea shop. We got home and took the dogs for a walk (and Kathryn rode her new bike). That evening I was treated to a delicious roast dinner and played some games.

three nights in Cambridge...

Sunday morning I hopped back on the train and headed to Cambridge. I met Mike and Amy on the train and we checked into the airbnb we were sharing, and then headed to The Esgle for lunch (and ale). We did some shopping and then headed to the Pickerel for dinner and to meet some of my remaining Cambridge friends. Oh also they had some ale.

The workshop was good! Very busy but I learned a lot. And it was really fun to show Mike and Amy around Cambridge.

A final night in London...

No photos for this, but I had a full cay of meetings at University College London followed by dinner and a final pub outing.

and back home

Home now and still recovering a little. Glad to be back with my Jill!

Work update

The last couple of months have been a whirlwind of deadlines and activity at work! Including:

• A big paper revision due in January. This is a paper I wrote with my colleague in Psychology, Mitch, on the role of visual information in speech processing. Audiovisual speech perception is something on which Mitch is an expert, but this was my first foray into the field. It was a great learning experience and I think we ended up with a very nice paper, but it was a lot of time and effort (especially making the figures, which is always something I'm picky about). When it gets accepted I will post about it on my lab blog.

• A surprise job application due at the end of January. This could be a whole post on its own. The short(ish) version is that the Australian Hearing Hub at Macquarie University (in Sydney, Australia) is looking for a Professor of Language, Hearing, and the Brain. Coincidentally this is exactly what I do, and they invited me to apply for the job, even though they ideally wanted someone more senior (a full professor with a lot more experience). It's not clear if anything will come of this, but I wanted to apply because it's an excellent networking connection, good practice at conveying my strengths and goals, and potentially useful in negotiations with my current department. Unfortunately the application was not short, and I (of course) wanted to do a good job. So, this took a few days of my time during a month when I could not spare a few days.

• A big grant due February 5. This is an R01 from NIH in which we proposed to look at speech processing in Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and healthy aging. I knew this deadline was coming for a while, but due to the items above I didn't start in earnest until mid-January, and most of the research portion was written the last few days. This is a BAD IDEA and a recipe for A LOT OF STRESS. I got the grant in, and am fairly happy with the outcome, but it was not fun.

Wednesday I leave for the UK for a week, including talks at Oxford (aaaaah!) and University College London (aaaaaah!), both places with formidable reputation and top-notch researchers. It's exciting to have opportunities to give talks there but I definitely feel a lot of pressure to do a good job. My official reason for going back is a 2-day workshop in Cambridge on a specific type of fMRI data analysis, at the CBU (where I used to work). Our friends Mike and Amy (both at Penn) are going also, which will be fun. It's going to be a whirlwind trip though: Oxford (1 night), London (1 night), Sussex (1 night), Cambridge (3 nights), London (1 night).

And yes, of course I'm planning on stopping off at the Eagle and Child for a pint.

I have two grants being reviewed this month; the outcomes of these reviews will do a lot for my mood over the upcoming months. My current funding runs out in July, so if I don't get either of these grants I will not be able to afford any staff in my lab, and my own job will start to feel pretty precarious (we have a new department chair coming this year, so nothing is certain — though if I'm bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in grant money, things are a little more certain).

All of that aside, with the February grant deadline past I can breathe slightly easier, until March 8th (next grant due March 16th). What I'd really like to do is get back to regular exercise, walks in the park with Jill, and cooking at least once per week. Jill has been hugely supportive the past month and a half as I've felt margin-less, and she's done all of the cooking and cleaning and basically everything else. I certainly couldn't have done all of this without her!

My Perfect Saturday

Jonathan had grant deadlines fast approaching and I've been picking up some extra shifts so I was thrilled when Jonathan said he'd join me for yoga Saturday morning.  And even more when we just ended up spending the whole day together., especially since he was going to be flying to Dallas Sunday morning for an overnight trip.

Our favorite yoga teacher is Jenn Tara and she didn't let us down. How can something be so soothing and leave you limping afterwards? It was great!  On the way home, Jonathan asked me "Where do you want to go hiking today?" :)  At home Jonathan did a bit of writing while I baked some healthy but delicious almond apricot squares. We have this tradition of bringing afternoon tea on fall and winter hikes as it reminds us of walks in England where there are often little tea shops tucked away in walking areas or tiny villages. It was almost 50 degrees and sunny on a January day so Castewood State Park was a busy place.  We did a 3 mile loop and it was gorgeous!!!  It was also insanely muddy so I'm SO glad we wore our hiking boots. 

The we walked back to our car, grabbed our picnic basket and found a table by a stream.  I was in heaven! 

We drove home. Well, Jon drove and I napped.  Jonathan did a bit more work at home and I indulged in a new British drama series Murder at Pemberley that showed up in Netflix and just a bit more tea. We cozied up on our couch in the afternoon sun.  

Then we decided to have a mini date night.  Ahh...the things you can do when you're childless!!  We went to our favorite vegetarian and whisky bistro, sat at the bar and made out notecards of some our home improvement plans.  This can get a bit overwhelming for both of us in different ways do writing it down, discussing, and prioritizing is super helpful.  It was so sweet to sit and share and dream a bit, even if some of it was about tilling the backyard and adding topsoil to our clay mud lack of lawn:)  We also got to some deeper, unexpected topics which really good.   

Small Batch all lit up and cozy looking.  

It's not often that we get to indulge in such simple and specie togetherness on a weekend.  There's always so much to do and friends to see and lists to make.  This was a rare day that I felt worth sharing a remembering myself someday :). Being married to your best friend is a true gift from God.  

Baiba and David in St. Louis!!

We had an all too short but wonderful visit from Jonathan's parents this past weekend.  It was so sweet to share our new home with them and thus appreciate it all the more for all their insights and enjoyment of it. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in  all the little problems or future renovations. David especially has a lot of experience with building and contractors and hearing him give a positive assessment of the "bones" of the house was really encouraging. 

When we weren't cozied up at home reading, drinking tea or watching BBC flicks, we were exploring St. Louis.  We made a visit to the zoo which was B & D's first time.  I'd never been to the aviary house before and it was SO amazing!!!!  The beauty and variety of bird species are endless.  We also saw the beautiful apes who I feel I could observe forever.  

On Sunday we were planning on going to a new church downtown that we've been trying out. When we arrived it turned out that it was annual meeting week.  So, quick change of plans and its off to the Missouri Botanical Gardens in our Sunday best.

It was a bit chilly so we spent some time in the rain forest climatron.  

And of course we had to make our traditional trip to Pi Pizza!! Baiba said that we never leave there with leftover pizza and she was absolutely right.  We finished four small gluten free thin crusts all named after St. Louis neighbourhoods like Central West End, Tower Grove and Maplewood. Yum!!

Here's our living room where spent all our indoor time ;)