Tuesday

Well Tuesdays symposium went quite a bit smoother. I started off the day attending a symposium that was centered around Stereotypes, prejudice, with Dr. Doris Van Auken and actually I ended up meeting the first presenter at a lot of lectures later. He even was taking the same plane from Germany to Heathrow that I was. So that was a great experience. Needless to say I didn't really think to much about the stereotypes I have about people who can't speak. Very interesting topic and very interesting presenter. After that I went to the "Internet access" zone of the conference and posted that first post. Walked around the posters for a bit, nothing there was outstanding but a few were interesting. I was a bit unnerved by the lack of print outs so I had to memorize or take notes on their posters which of course made me feel like a doofus. After a conversation with Dr. Van Auken well after the conference she stated that some of the posters were well below what she expected to see. Unbelievably, one person merely printed out their research paper and just slapped that on the wall!

But lets talk about some of the stuff I saw that was worth while and get off this negative subject.
I had to attend the symposium entitled, "Self-regulatory strenght and ego depletion: a decade later" with Alex Bertrams (Germany), Braqndong Schmeichel (USA), Alexander Unger (Germany), and Kathleen Vohs (USA). I was not actually aware of the topic before going in, but after leaving I still felt motivated to learn more about these two phenomena. Each one of the presenters was quite good.

During the symposium I felt kind of like a jerk. I got there a good 20 minutes early, and everyone else showed up 10 minutes before it started, and needless to say the room was PACKED!! two of the presenters even sat on the floor.

After that I was on my way to the Invited address, "Social Learning of Fear" when I ran into a fella I met the night before while attending Josh Jost's discussion. That's him in between some of the other Berliner students. So we ended up talking for a good hour and getting lunch. Ahhh the German people are quite wonderful to chat with. Once I realized the time I darted back to the conference to get good seats for the Controversial Debate which as I was told would be packed...and indeed it was.

Needless to say I got there right in the middle of the invited address scheduled before the debate and I must say...it was quite interesting. The topic was called, " The cultural psychology of globalization." Essentially if you are primed with information about your culture, then another persons culture, then asked to describe another persons culture they become more their-own culture and you become your own culture. My guess is that I was the only person in that room who was both American and Awake the whole time. I suppose it was not very interesting to the two other Americans in the room.

Finally the controversial debate! And this we have pictures of thanks to the CPO Hanser Service GmbH. So as you can see Dr. Van Auken was quite engaged on this particular topic, as were we all! This was hands down the most interesting topic of the day.

The debate was ushured in by Elsbeth Stern (Switzerland) giving a fantastic overview of the topic and the presenters and including a bit of her own research in there as well.

This brings to Dr. Van Aukens "Pensive Picture." I didn't take this shot but its quite good if you ask me and a fairly good illustration of how engaging this topic actually was. Starting with the American, Camilla Benbow, describing her population and the caveats of educational psychology in the first place. Mind you her population is the top 1% in terms of IQ (e.g., the sons and daughters of the sons and daughters of Yale for generations). In any case her point was well made and indeed she left on quite the high note by saying, "You know, it all depends."

The next presenter did not really chime with me nearly as smoothly as Camilla Benbow, although, she too had her points that appeared to be valid. (I am not going to get into the specifics in this post for the sake of brevity.

Now I'm sure some of you are wondering why exactly my face looks like I'm quite irritated and yet interested. Well there is a grand reason for that and the words from Dr. Hugh's mouth described them best which without a direct quote was something to the effect of, "Typically when there is a debate and the mic is offered to the floor, the person with the mic asks a question. They don't typically give their research and data as a rebuttle." So I'm sure you can figure out what happened exactly. The presenters opened the floor to the attendee's and 2 of 5 actually asked a question! Mind you when the last person actually got up he stated right away, "I have a question" which was followed by nearby applause. Now I don't want to sound negative about this. I'm just stating I feel it was inappropriate to pick up the mic on a Q&A and not actually follow the premise.

Aside from that the day was by far the most interesting up to the point (easy considering it was merely the second day) and was by far the most conference intensive day I had. It always surprises me the sheer number of people who are willing to strike up a conversation at the drop of a hat if they merely have one thing in common such as attending this type of conference. I think it is that (and my basic knowledge of psychology) that really makes going to conferences worth while. I'm going to move onto Wednesday in the next post.

Conference

Now that I'm back in the States, I can finally write about the conference and this particular aspect of my time in Berlin!



I owe a great deal of gratitude to Dr. Hugh and Dr. Doris Van Auken for putting up with us for 10 days and for taking us to this eye-opening experience. In addition I would like to thank Holy Cross College for offering this opportunity to us and essentially "fronting" the bill to what would have been otherwise an impossible venture across the Atlantic.

I suppose it is a good idea to talk about the symposia, paper sessions, and the like that I attended first, but I'm going to talk about about my observations about the presenters first. It is quite amazing the difference between presenters. Take for example the folks from the Ukraine. I was utterly amazed on the studies they were presenting one in specific about the schizophrenic population there. Most of the information they were talking about seemed to be years behind the studies of the western influenced countries like UK and Germany. The lady was talking about how they have developed a stigma toward that population in their midsts. Although we all well know that any "disorder" group like schizophrenics tend to be stigmatized by the population due to a multitude of different reasons: media, experience, and lack of education on that particular population. Moreover their presentation was so robotic and it seemed as though they were reading there speeches off of a script. With that in mind I while attending some of the US or German presenters they were quite animated and enjoyable to listen to. I don't mean to pick on the Ukraine in specific but that was the first symposia that came to mind.

After that note I'll walk you guys Day by Day in a very brief run through of my time at the conference.

Monday: We arrived at the congress by the U2 in Kaiserdamm and got to the conference by 8:00. After registering for the conference (which too too long if you ask me) we could finally get into the symposia (an hour later!) After sitting in a lecture titled "Motives: measures, mechanisms, management (part 1)" I started hammering out the next 5 days of lectures. I attened a lecture on "Psychophysics" which was actually quite interesting. Essentially the topic covered the Fechners "inner pscyhophysics" concepts and the relationship between the phsyical, phisological, psychological. It was especially interesting to me because a friend of mine Stewart Madon from Canada was presenting and he and I met at APS in May so I had a great deal of insite on his topic. Later I attened a symposium entitled "Tolerance for ambiguity, creativity, and personality." This is where I discovered that some speakers were really quite boring. Tons of information, zero personality. To sum that up pending on the individuals predisposition to ambigous enviroments would determine their ability to work with new ambigious material. After a quick jog across the ICC attempting to see a Zimbardo lecture I discovered I wasn't the only one who wanted to see that particular address. So I ended up hanging out with a German gal who was in the elevator with me and who happened to be interested in the same topic, so we jogged over to another address entitled, "Conceptural and methodoligal issues in logitudina studies of job performance." Sounds interesting right? Not even close. I was so bored and hot in that lecture that I think I forgot how to even run a logitudinal study! After 50 minutes of that wasted time I poped over to see something I thought would be facinating, "Ethic behavior and trust." I had no idea it was about business ethics and job performace! Ugh. Who would have thought I would pick two I/O psychology lectures. So tired from that boring stuff, I had to have a cup of coffee.

If anyone tells you "yeah most places in Berlin take a visa" they are liars! HORRIBLE LIARS! I just wanted a cup of coffee to get my head back into some form of thinking. I go to pay and the man is like, "we don't take visa" (but image it was in very poor English...). So I ended up buming 3 euro from the gal I grabbed a cup of coffee with (gal from Switzerland).

Because I was having such bad luck with finding addresses that were engaging I decided lets see what the psychopathologist symposium would be like. I sat down about midway through the "Psychological disorders II" lecture and was stunned into a stupor. This gal went on and on about paranoia and essentially came to the conclusion that its a maladaptive coping process. So I asked her, "Do you think the people in your study developed this from experience, that is from their parents and peer groups; or do you think feature of your study group (Netherlands)." Her study group was rather small, 39. She kinda looked at me and said, "I think it is a maladaptive coping technique that is escaerbated by sleep deprevation..." After that I didn't want to bother asking any more questions.

I tried to get into the "research in fields of enviromentally relevant behavior" talk but that was jam-packed so I had to find something else to do. More coffee.

I finally ended up at a symposium that was worth the days loss of time. John Jost. He's a professor out of NYU and was exceptionally interesting, but I wasn't the only one who thought that. People were actually filling every possible spot just to see this topic, "Why people care about justice (and sometimes they don't)." By some luck I sit next to a fella and when I leaned over to share my thoughts on the topic he spoke back in clean and clear Englisht. Surprized because I had yet to find anyone that spoke with that kind of clarity I looked down at his name tag and he was from Germany. So I asked him where he learned English and he actually studied a year in America. He actually studied for a year in a city that is right down the road from where I live and we even knew the same people! Small world!

Between the symposiums I attened the two poster sessions which was either a hit or miss presention. One was stand out interesting. "The influence of IQ on early mortality is explained by SES: National logitudinal study of youth. Markus Jokela (Finland)." His presentation was solid, as was his methodology it also helped he really knew his topic.

After a day of learning some quite esoteric information it was time to eat. I ended up going out to eat with the Van Auken's, then going for a swim in our wonderful hotel--the Marriott.

For the sake of making this readable in bites I'll end this post with a simple retrospecitve observation. Read the abstracts before attending symposiums!

Let's Hear from one of the students: Greg Wright

During our many travels around Deutchland the V.A. (Van Aukens) and I decided it would be a good idea to get a blog from each of the students regarding the conference. As much as this is my blog, it is our experience so let me present to you guys Greg Wright; Holy Cross College Psi Beta President.

(P.S. This will be the last update that is not in sequence. As I stated before they will all be reorganized and re-edited upon return when I can access the internet for more than 20 minutes at a time! Expect a full revision and update 7-30-2008. Until then Enjoy! and Tschüs)

07.08

International Congress Of Psychology: DAY 1

Hello all from Berlin! Our experience here thus far has been very busy and exciting. Even with the jetlag and the seemingly endless driving across the German countryside, we were able to squeeze in many culturally and historically defining moments. After four days of travel, learning, fun, and excitement, we reached the “second stage” of our journey to Berlin: The 29^th International Congress of Psychology. Time to show the large psychology world what the mighty psych majors of Holy Cross are made of!

It was an early morning to start, awaking at 0600 Berlin time. The eight of us attending the congress met in the lobby at 0700 looking sharp and professional, journals and business cards in hand, along with the much needed coffee and tea. We hopped on the U-Bahn around 0730 and arrived at the conference around 0750. Upon arrival we had to register and we all received official nametags for the week (and we’re hanging on to them with our life because replacement costs 50€!). We were able to start taking part in the symposiums around 0830. At this point, we all went our own ways, finding whatever topics being presented fitted our interests.

Sammie, Dana, and myself attended a few lectures relating to childhood psychology and schools. Then we met up with Chase, Ryan, and Dr. Doris in the poster session hall. There we were able to witness a large variety of presentations, and we were able to ask questions and learn what each study was about. If there were handouts/outlines available at a station, we took them for our own reference. Dr. Hugh was off and about right off the start, attending many lectures. Chase had to make multiple coffee runs for his much-needing father. Nate was off and about also, surely running from one end of the conference to the other attending as much as he could.

Overall, the first day was a bit hectic, as we were all gaining our footing for what the week was to hold for us at the conference. We were able to get some of our requirements completed. The next few days of the conference should go smoother as we have been planning the rest of our week out and we know the layout of the conference building much better. One exciting highlight of the day was meeting Philip Zimbardo!! We received and autograph from the Stanford University psychology king, and some of us even received a Polaroid with him!! That will be one to hang on the wall!

Most of us are pretty tired tonight, so we are going to get some rest and be ready to go tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a successful, fun, and educational day! We will be following up on the upcoming day’s events soon!

-Greg Wright

Guten Tag London, Guten Tag Berlin!

Hello everyone, I am posting from Berlin! Amazing as it my sound, but getting here was no “walk in the park” if you permit me a small pun. Because this is my story lets walk through my day-to-day-to-day events. It started at a lovely 8:00 of restless sleeping (e.g., I finally fell asleep at 4:00), followed by a trek to the bank. Mind you I can get ready in 15 minutes or less, pending on the condition of my hair (yikes). After two attempts of finding an open bank I decided snack food for the plane would be a brilliant idea (thanks Bflat), which was just as much of a pain in the butt meaning I ended up going to the gas station. After that I spent the better part of that morning just trying to double, triple, quadruple check everything I was brining to make sure I didn’t forget anything.
For Reference to what I packed:

2 books—Lucifer Effect; Godel, Escher, Bach
1 Nikon D40X, Nikkor 18-135mm telephoto lens
2 Nikon 1.19 aWh batteries
1 Powerbook G4, power, mouse, iPod etc,
3 pants
3 short pants
3 dress shirts
3 ties
3 polo shirts
4 tee-shirts
1 toiletry set (thanks Bflat)

Ok, I can’t remember it all, but in any case it was a very selected bit of my “important” items.

At this point I ended up waiting around for Dr. Doris and Hugh Van Auken while sitting around at Holy Cross. It was kind of interesting to watch all of the summer students roam the halls oblivious to my presence unlike the professors who knew I was a psychology student or have heard about the trip from others. They on the other hand would come up to me and ask if I was excited, gave kudos, and expressed a great deal of pride that we were sending students to this conference. I guess it's more amusing than it is interesting.

About 12:00 the Van Auken’s showed up, we loaded up the cars then headed off to the wonderful Chicago O’Hare Airport; or as I have dubbed it: (extemporaneously deleted) on Earth. Needless to say I have never felt so stupid, smart, dirty, clean, and a plethora of other oxymoron’s at the exact same time. On one hand I would smell some dirty foreigners walk by rank of vodka and cigarettes (making me feel quite clean) but the instant I had to take my shoes off at the security check I felt so god-awfully disgusting! I have noticed that I’m quite anxious around airport folk. I seem to be hyper-vigilant and a terrified worried I’m going to appear as a tourist in spite of the fact I am one! All of those complex emotions aside, it was pretty smooth touring through there, in spite of the aforementioned things.

While boarding the plane I had a sudden rush of fear for my first flight but once I was seated next to Sammi and Greg it was a grand relief. During take-off that fear went into a complete opposite direction toward that of exhilaration. But the flight itself outside of those things was terribly boring. The corner stone flight movies followed by the reported typical airline foods. I guess I should mention that I only dozed off a bit because the seats were quite uncomfortable and very close to the person to the right or left (even though I was isle-seated).

When we landed in Heathrow it was a totally different experience. Needless to say I was more rushed and confused than I have been in quite some time. Doing the check in process at Heathrow was kind of like going to a dentist you know is about to pull out your teeth, but when you get there he trips you and you end up busting half of your teeth out. This parralles my experience there quite nicely actually. I knew I was going to get checked and assumed SOMETHING I own would set off an alarm. Actually, nothing did although I did end up dropping my bag which cracked the case. So now I'm typing on a very ugly looking computer :-(. Next came my luggage in general.

Getting my luggage to move from London to Berlin was quite the event. The folks at Virgin Air tore the luggage numbers off and so the concierge at British Air had to track down my luggage by name which is apparently a feat. Then the security was just so rushed and almost haphazard that it barely seemed worth it until I passed that and looked to the left. This was something I’ve wanted to see for a long time in person. A Ferrari F430. Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful. What a great welcome to London England! As I toured the Heathrow “mall” which is as it sounds a mall complete with cafés, duty free shops, a bar, some designer clothing shops, oh and an apple store. Well not a full sized apple store like the one in Chicago or Indy but it did happen to have all of the typical mac stuff on display so it was fun all the same.

After we boarded our planes to finally fly to Berlin via British Airways, I actually happen to sit next to this English couple that are professional photographers. What a fun couple of hours. Needless to say, that particular flight was pretty straightforward: jump on plane, get off plane. Outside of that the flight to Berlin was a breeze compared to the 7.10 hour flight from Chicago to London (well the seats were quite a bit nicer). That is until we landed. It wouldn’t be traveling if someone didn’t loose luggage.

Once they finally found her luggage (still in London) they were going to have it delivered to her, but our day was just beginning. Oh yes. This is around the 15th hour that I’ve been up and active. I would have considered sleeping on British Airways but the people next to me were just so interesting. Would have slept on Virgin Atlantic, if it was not for the aforementioned reasons). And now we have to trek across town to the Hotel and then the Bier Garden at 7:00 at night! Holy Hell. After that it put me well into the 26th or 27th hour of no sleep.

OK. I think it’s a good idea to talk about this whole “no sleep” deal. Why? Well I think its quite amusing to see a metro full of Americans who are having the most ridiculous time trying to get tickets to board this damn thing, then trying to stay awake. Pfft. No way. I slept on the u-bahn—standing. Not very comfortable but it at least gave me the umph to keep moving for the next couple hours.

The Bier Garden. My definition: a reason to come to Germany for incredible beer and the incredible food. Braughtwurst never tasted so good, as was the kolslaw, potatoes, and red cabbage. I honestly could write an entire blog on merely the food experience. The beer was unbelievable. At first I took a drink and thought, “well this isn’t any—HOLY COW!! This is amazing.” It was actually good enough for me to want to savor the beer with the meal as it was some sort of symbiotic and recursively amplifying relationship. In any fashion, Germany was absolutely validated by that meal alone.

When we finally finished at the Bier garden a small group of us decided to go head on down to the mall since it was right off the train station at Potsdamer Platz near our hotel. (Yeah, we’re young, we can handle ourselves in the mall not to mention we are all exhausted) For once I am not with out some smart ass comment about how we totally fell on our face. Ha Ha, we conquered the mall! We didn’t buy anything but we actually went to all 3 stories in less than under 30 minutes. There I finally found them. Birkenstocks! If I may liken this to the moment in Wayne’s World where he describes the white Fender Stratocaster, “it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.” Mission 1 accomplished 50% accomplished. Now I just have to wait a day to buy them because we will be doing a tour of the countryside tomorrow.

Finally returning to our hotel after way to many hours out and about (getting back at roughly 9) a number of us decide to go swimming. One would think we’d all be dead in our shoes with all of this stuff, but apparently we needed to swim to get to sleep even though I fell asleep on the train ride to (Kiserstrasse). Obviously we enjoyed the many comforts of our luxery hotel, (e.g., sona, pool, and bath robes.) After all of this we finally called it a night, and went to bed.

Gute nacht Berlin, und gute nacht Nate.

(Sorry for the lack of pictures, I will have to post those up later :-(

Guten Tag

Hello everyone. I have to inform you that I will not be posting as frequently as I planned. Please return to the page 7-25-08 for all of the updates with back-dated blogs.

Also to let you all know we got here fine with only a single person loosing their extra luggage so it was no biggie, and they ended up delievering the luggage at the hotel later that day.

5 Day Count Down: 1

We'll looks like I'm rounding the home stretch to liftoff! As mentioned yesterday, I guess I'm a little terrified to fly, yet quite excited. In any case I thought I'd show off the area in which we will be staying! This is Potsdamer Platz:














The white building on the far left is actually the hotel in that I will be staying in! That big building in the center is the Sony Center which looks like this at night!




























Quite amazing huh! Potsdamer Platz is really quite an amazing area. Anyway, lets take a look at the next couple days schedule!

DAY SIX: Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Twenty-ninth International Congress in Psychology!

Congress activities. Travel to the Congress. Attend the programs you have selected.

TODAY’S CONTROVERSIAL DEBATES

Managing diversity at school: Should students be grouped by their ability?

Differences in students’ cognitive capabilities affect schooling outcomes from the very beginning and set challenges in
providing appropriate learning environments for the entire achievement spectrum. While some countries have a system of
comprehensive schools for the first ten years, others have implemented tracking systems after grade 4. There is an
ongoing debate about whether students’ needs can be better met in homogeneous learning groups, or whether
heterogeneity stimulates learning. A related question concerns whether it is better to integrate or separate students from
the extremes of the achievement distribution: Should gifted students and students with learning difficulties stay in regular
classrooms or not?

Tuesday, 22 July, 15.00 – 16.30 h, Hall 6

Moderator
Elsbeth Stern, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Debaters

Camilla Benbow, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA
Zemira Mevarech, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Do evidence-based psychotherapy and education require randomized trials?
The clash between researchers and practitioners is a matter of concern in numerous fields. Many experimenters believe that randomized trials are the sole means of obtaining knowledge about efficient treatments. Yet in health
care, evidence-based medicine routinely conflicts with competing interests, and many doctors do not deliver evidence-based treatments. Should psychotherapists always base treatments on the results of experimental studies (randomized trials)? Should educational policy makers always rely on this “gold standard“ or instead on quasi-experiments or other methods,
and if so, on which? What if a practitioner’s gut feelings conflict with evidence from randomized trials?

Tuesday, 22 July, 15.00 – 16.30 h, Roof Garden
Moderator
Gerd Gigerenzer, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
Debaters
Alan Kazdin, Yale University, New Haven, USA
Barbara Schneider, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA

Return to the hotel. As a group, we will select a fun group activity for tonight!

DAY SEVEN: Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Twenty-ninth International Congress in Psychology!
Congress activities. Travel to the Congress. Attend the programs you have selected.
Remember to attend the Phillip Zimbardo lecture today! This is a required program!
THERE IS NO CONTROVERSIAL DEBATE TODAY!
Return to the hotel. Wednesday night is on your own!





Well thats it for now

Auf Wiersein

5 Day Count Down: 2

As I sit around writing all of these lovely posts, I kind of occurred to me, "WAIT, I'M DOING WHAT?!" That's right. I'm boarding a plane, with my professors, flying to Europe, sharing a room with colleagues, playing the game I like to call "I-totally-understand-everything-you-just-said" with people I don't know, and leaving everything I'm familiar with to do it! What do I think about all of this?

I love it! I couldn't be more elated.

This whole trip is kind of like a good classically composed movie soundtrack. Every note purposeful, planned, proper, and leaves a lasting impression. I doubt anyone will be able to deny recognizing the Star Wars soundtrack. If they don't its most likely they live under a rock somewhere. Somewhere where the masses don't go, and people still consider rocks as technology. In any case as promised yesterday, lets see what I'm doing.

Considering my focus in psychology at Holy Cross College is research in some hyper-obscurified field a great deal of my attention is focused around my chosen area.






































You'll have to forgive me for the white space that was wasted there, but it was quite the challenge to get the body of text there in the way I needed to.

On the home page!

Yesterday, Holy Cross College posted this (link) page up on the home page. But let me borrow the direct quote from Dr. D. Van Auken in regard to her thoughts on the trip,

“this is a rare opportunity for our students to learn from some of the most internationally respected and renown experts in the field of psychology as well as making acquaintances in their field including potential employment and/or graduate school contacts. At Holy Cross we try to incorporate experiential learning opportunities into our classes whenever possible.”

Glad to hear the college is very interested in our trip and what an outstanding opportunity this is for us as students.

Also, in addition there was a request I made earlier in the year in regard to our way to identify ourselves to our colleagues at the conferences, business cards! What a simple but powerful thing to use as a growing college. That was my one and specific observation while attending APS Chicago 2008. So this afternoon Dr. H. Van Auken informed us that we would indeed have business cards! Fantastic news.

5 Day Count Down: 3

Count downs are truly fun are they not? 1, I can write them in a matter of minutes; 2, it provides a theme; 3, I can create theme's of the day and yet hold a continued overall theme of the segment; 4, they are just fun to do! So because I'm a man who loves his white space, this one's theme is simplicity.

Itinerary:

DAY FOUR: Sunday, July 20, 2008

Today, we spend some time recovering from our busy Saturday travels. No events are scheduled in the early morning. You may wish to sleep-in, take a walk, or get a bite to eat.

o Sunday morning options…

o Sleep-in.
o Have breakfast/brunch at a neighborhood café or restaurant
o Mass at St-Hedwigskathedrale, Bebelplatz near Unter den Linden

o Sunday Afternoon

o City touring
o Topographie des Terrors, Checkpoint Charlie
o Holocaust Denkmal
o KaDeWe

This is a fairly free form day. There are any number of things we can do. We’ll talk more about this when we arrive in Germany.

DAY FIVE: Monday, July 21, 2008

Welcome to the Twenty-ninth International Congress in Psychology!

o We will awaken early, about 0600. Get ready and head over to the conference. Remember to bring your journal book. (for me a handy dandy moleskin pocket book that I have held with me everywhere I go to keep my thoughts...)

o We will gather in the hotel lobby at about 0715. We’ll need to take the U-Bahn (U2 Line) to the Congress Center. While Dr. H and Dr. D are already registered for the Congress, due to the complexity of registering multiple students, we will be registering each of you on site, early in the morning. Remember: BRING YOUR STUDENT ID CARDS to assure that you will receive the sizable student discount rate for attending the conference.

o Review the Congress agenda and select the programs you wish to attend! Remember, this agenda is already online at www.icp2008.de. Attend the programs you select and have fun!

o PLEASE REMEMBER: For each symposium, poster session, or lecture you attend, pick up a copy of the written outline of the program. Most presenters will have a written document or abstract about their program. This will document your attendance and help you with your research project.

o LUNCH is on your own. There are a number of restaurants in the local neighborhood or grab a bite at the Congress center.

o In the afternoon, consider taking in a poster session – you need five of these through the week, a symposium, or other event.

o TODAY’S CONTROVERSIAL DEBATE

Functional neuroimaging has already told us a lot about cognition: Yes or No?
Methods of functional neuroimaging are used in a steadily increasing number of scientific studies in psychology, the neurosciences, or economics. While these studies have, without doubt, helped develop our knowledge about brain functions, the issue addressed in this debate is to what extent they also have contributed to a better understanding of cognition.
Monday, 21 July, 15.00 – 16.30 h,
Hall 6
Moderator
Arno Villringer, Berlin Neuroimaging Center, Germany
Debaters
Max Coltheart, Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Sydney, Australia
Karl Friston, Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, London, United Kingdom

o Return to the hotel at your leisure. Remember, try to travel in a group or at least in twos.

o Monday Night: On your own! Do what you like. Take in a movie at the Sony Center (40 screens including an IMAX), several neighborhood restaurants, etc.


OK. after my experiences at the 20th Association for Psychological Science convention, this is a really weak demand. I attended 20 symposiums, stayed on site for literally 15 hours a day. I feel confident I will be able to hammer out the requirements (minus Professor Philip Zimbardo's: The Lucifer Effect; for more information about my interests in this professor return to my parent page.) Outside of Dr. Zimbardo, I am exceptionally excited to see Claude Steele again. His talk on social psychology at APS was amazing. I look forward to seeing him with just as much anticipation as I do Dr. Zimbardo. Another key swinger at this congress will be Dr. Albert Bandura; as in the BoBo Doll--or vicarious learning--psychologist. The instant I saw his name on the roster for attendance, I screamed like that prototypical little girl who just got that pink pony and the unicorn to boot!
One can not image the powerful minds that will be wondering the halls of the convention. Life-long psychologists, winners of the William James, Nobel, or other various internationally recognized honors. In any case, This prepares you for tomorrow. It is MY itinerary of events while attending--rather merely the abstracts

5 Day Count Down: 4

As the previous post stated, I am doing a count down to liftoff! To keep the theme of activities rolling, lets cover day 3. At this point I'm preparing my mind for an intense semesters lectures to be crammed in a mere 5 days, in addition to reaping every bit of superfluous information about my major from Dr. H. and Dr. D. Van Auken. But I feel compelled to talk about why exactly that is my goal from this journey. (whats life without a little validation :-D, and this is not to brown nose...seeing as they do read this). It seems I've been talking with people a lot lately about how to succeed as a psychology student in spite of my long journey ahead of me. But I keep saying the same thing over and over. Find your discipline, then study all the ones related. Taste all of the cherries on this tree, and find ways to make your cherry pie. For me it was a intimate course on research when everything clicked. I discovered I'm pretty good at thinking about how to think about research. Since then my attitudes about this thing we call education and how to do it have changed completely. Needless to say, I went from a horrible student only attempting to achieve (and to leave it at that) a mere Associates of Arts degree from Holy Cross. Now I feel confident about my ability to achieve much greater--eyes on a Ph.D.

But since all of that is pretty boring stuff, but I'm sure someone's bound to find it interesting. Lets move back to the events of the jouney. Therefore yet another post from the infamous Dr. H. and D. Van Auken.

DAY THREE ITINERARY: SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2008

As you know, Holy Cross College requires that all students participating in international trips experience the "culture" of the country they visit. Today is our longest and busiest day. We will travel via car and van to several historic sites in Germany. This requires that we awaken and leave early. Fortunately, we will be traveling on a Saturday morning with less rush hour traffic in Berlin.

1. Awaken at 0600. Hopefully, you will have slept well after our dinner in Nikolaiveritel the prior evening.

2. Gather in hotel lobby If you require more than about an hour to get dressed, make-up, etc., consider awakening earlier than 0600. Remember, tomorrow, Sunday morning, is a sleep-in morning (no events planned until the afternoon). Please dress conservatively. Jeans are OK but no shorts, flashy, bright, or gaudy clothing.

3. Depart hotel Don't forget your journals and cameras. Drive approximately 270 km to Buchenwald Concentration Camp just outside of Weimar. We will stop along the way at an autobahn rest stop. Sleeping on the drive is an option for you as your humble professors will be fully caffeinated and READY TO ROLL!

4. Arrive Buchenwald Concentration Camp Tours of the camp begin at 1000am. There is a background movie (German with English subtitles) and a walking tour of the camp. For many visitors, this is an emotional experience.

4. Depart Buchenwald Drive approximately 90 km across rural Germany countryside to KZ Dora-Mittelbau just outside of Nordhausen. Lunch "on the run" between Buchenwald and Dora.

5. Arrive KZ Dora-Mittelbau The Dora tunnels are a significant historical site. Ms. Gabrielle Knabe of the Buchenwald Visitors Center has arranged a 2-hour English-language tour of the tunnels for our group beginning at 1400 hr. These tunnels, where the Nazis built the ME 262 jet fighter as well as the V1 and V2 missles that were launched at London and Antwerp, were dug out by slave laborers.

5. Depart Dora Drive approximately 60 km through the Harz Mountain national park to Goslar, Germany. This city has the largest collection of medieval timber frame buildings in the world and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

6. Arrive Goslar We have a dinner reservation at the Worthmuhle. This is a former mill about 100 meters from the city center. This should be a good place to wind down after a long day. Herr Michael Randolff has confirmed our reservation and forwarded a lovely, interesting, and somewhat humorous menu from the restaurant (think piggies playing with beach balls on the farm - I kid you not!) This restaurant features Harz Mountain specialties including local game (think boar and deer), farm products (pork, chicken, and beef), and the Goslar bier.

7. Depart Goslar Drive via autobahn to Berlin. Arrive back at the Marriott Berlin by 2345. Have a good night. We will have had many lifetime memories from the day. A late wake-up tomorrow and much to do around Berlin on Sunday. City tours, museums, Unter den Linden.

Take care.

More to follow.

Oh, please sent me an email indicating that you have received this. Just want to make sure than you are receiving these messages.

Dr. Hugh

At this point, I must ask...What did you do with YOUR summers?!

5 Day Count Down: 5

In five days I depart with this wonderful country to head to another wonderful country to attend the XXIX Annual International Congress of Psychology. So at this time I'm going to lay out my plans and pray there is no-one in this world stupid enough to stalk me all the way in Germany! This is written as only the infamous Dr. H. Van Auken and Dr. D. Van Auken would arrange it and my notes to add some livelyness to them. In any case, one can not express how excited they are when this is the first overseas travel they have done. For those of you not in the know, I have NEVER flown in my life. As the family moto goes: do it right, or just don't do it; and apparently this is my idea of "doing it right."

DAY ONE ITINERARY: THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2008

1. Depart Holy Cross College

2. Arrive O'Hare Airport

3. CHECK-IN at Virgin Atlantic in the International Terminal

4. Bum around O'Hare until departure--TIME FOR AIRPORT FUN TIME 1.

5. Flight: Virgin Atlantic

6. Enjoy: The on-board meal and video entertainment at your seat...Dr. Hugh will challenge you all to a game of trivia on the inflight entertainment system! (am I excited for this....YES! I'm damn good at trivia)

OVERNIGHT FLIGHT TO LONDON HEATHROW, (that really means I sit there and play games with myself attempting to figure out who would marry the balding, snoring, reeking man two rows ahead)

DAY TWO: FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2008

1. Arrive London Heathrow

2. Depart: London Heathrow for Berlin Tegel on British Airways

3. Arrive: Berlin Tegel Now in CET time

4. Via Rental Car: Berlin Tegel to Berlin Marriott Hotel at Potsdammer Platz

5. GET CHECKED-IN AT HOTEL. CHECK OUT THE SURROUNDINGS OR RELAX IN YOUR ROOMS. (Priority 1, FIND BURKENSTOCKS; priorty 2, find bench and coffee; priority 3 have coffee with someone I've never met before purely out of of discovering another culture.

6. GATHER IN LOBBY OF HOTEL--college briefing on expectations

7. Travel via U2 subway line to Nickolaiveritel medieval neighorhood in east Berlin. PHOTO OP TIME!

8. GROUP DINNER: at riverside restaurant/beirgarten Brauhaus Georgbrau

9. RETURN TO HOTEL for the evening.

10. Get some sleep...Saturday, July 19 will be very busy with trips outside of Berlin

More to come shortly!

Seriously, this will be a wonderful experience. As a note about how all of that is arranged, I removed times and such just in case someone feels like stalking us...They will return post Germany as an accurate account of my actions overseas.

Auf Wiedersehen