Sunday, January 22, 2006

Eugoogalizer

I've just finished writing and reviewing a big research proposal that's due tomorrow. The title I gave it is "cAMP response element binding protein mediated reconsolidation of spatial memory in the hippocampus". Even I'm not sure I understand it, heh.

For the Masters psych theory class, all 17 of us have to write an NSERC style research proposal for an experiment that we would like to conduct, assuming we had all the resources possible open to us. After we submit them, we then become our own selection committee: with groups of us rating eachothers anonymous proposals, and deciding whether or not we would fund them.

We even had to write a pretend one-year budget. I had absolutely no idea what research projects normally cost, I've only been a lowly experimenter, never the primary investigator. For my undergrad thesis I used the morris water maze, which I decided to include again in this proposal. I emailed my undergrad supervisor, and she faxed me the price quote for the water maze. Holy bagoly. It costs upwards of 14,000$. I shat myself, secrelty remembering those days when I was so frustrated and tired of running the water maze that I would give the tank a few swift kicks.

On a more pleasant note, I watched one of my favourite movies earlier: Zoolander. I cannot explain the depths of my love for this movie. Here are some of my favourite quotes:
  • "You know, a eugoogalizer, one who speaks at funerals. Or did you think I was too stupid to know what a eugoogaly was?"
  • "You think that you're too cool for school, but I have a newsflash for you Walter Cronkite... you aren't."
  • "I deserve to die if I can't beat Han-suckass at a walk-off!"
  • "Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?"
  • "Who cares about Derek Zoolander anyway? The man has only one look for Christ's sake! Blue Steel? Ferrari? Le Tigre? They're the same face! Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"
  • "There was a moment last night, when she was sandwiched between the two Finnish dwarves and the Maori tribesmen, where I thought, "Wow, I could really spend the rest of my life with this woman"."
  • "What is this? A center for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read if they can't even fit inside the building? The building has to be at least... three times bigger than this!"
  • "Just because we have chiseled abs and stunning features, it doesn't mean that we too can't not die in a freak gasoline fight accident."
  • "Whoa, whoa, easy! How 'bout a "Good afternoon, Derek and Hansel. Thanks for the freak fest last night.""
ahhh, good times!

5 Comments:

At 2:28 AM , Blogger Ian Edwards said...

Only seen Zoolander once, can't say I was very impressed - Mmight have to give it another chance

 
At 8:39 AM , Blogger Mark said...

Woah, now this is a little freaky. Before I get to that though...

What is a hippocampus??

OK, now eugoogaliser! That word followed me on my ski trip and back here with comical results.

My mate had (obviously I now know) watched Zoolander and kept asking us "Will you be my eugoogaliser?". I don't know what I thought it was, I had no idea, but I laughed anyway.

I got back to the UK and tried saying the same quote to a friend, except I'd just watched Friends. The one with the Falangee (spelling??). I ended up saying

Will you be my falangee?

The look I got was priceless. How stupid I felt...

 
At 12:50 PM , Blogger Joanna said...

Ian - you MUST give it another shot! Just remember that it's all satire. If you take it seriously, I can see how you might think it's pretty lame.

John - heh, you desecrated my favourite Zoolander quote, damn you!
As for the hippocampus, it's pretty much one of the most important brain regions.

Here's a link that explains what it is and where it is in the brain pretty clearly and thoroughly. Wikipedia makes life so much easier:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus

 
At 2:06 PM , Blogger Mark said...

Ah makes sense now! Yeah sorry about the quote but, when I saw your post title I laughed so hard.

I wonder if Wikipedia can do my exam for me...

 
At 11:06 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

ooooh i love zoolander!!
and friends too
there's something wrong with the left falangee:P


but why male models...
dude, i just told you

 

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