She Blinded me with Science

Today I went to work early so I could finish things up by five, so I could get out to Charlestown by six for the exciting evening I had planned: participating in an EEG/MEG scanning study. Yes, the whole mad scientist electrode cap and all.

It actually was like some sort of erotic sci-fi nightmare: after hours on a weekend at a huge medical research lab, uncomfortable equipment, two incredibly beautiful female scientists, one American and one Russian. Sadly, we all conducted ourselves very professionally.

For the experiment, I was supposed to look at words that flashed on a screen in pairs, and tell if they sounded the same by pushing two buttons. The idea was to understand brain wave activity in children and adults with and without learning disabilities. I was supposed to be in the non-disabled group, but for the first group of questions, I had the buttons backwards, and so I got nearly every one wrong. It reminded me of the time I was in the fifth grade, and I messed up on one of those test forms where you have to fill in all those little bubbles. I filled in the wrong section or was off by one row, and was crushed to find that I had scored in the fourth percentile.

By the end of it, my back and neck hurt and my hair was full of gritty electrode goop, and I was hungry because I’d skipped dinner. Still, I was kinda reluctant to leave. Maybe it’s the weather, but my experimentors had this completely mesmerizing combination of brains, beauty, and complicated electronic equipment that requires the application of conductive gel.