Positive Psychology, Belly Dancers, and Chocolate!!!

Hey again!

Things here continue to be fantastic. In lab I am still performing transcriptions (they've been taking me a while since the interviewees have very heavy Aussie accents - but I am getting better at understanding them!). I'm also helping to research coding schemes for the Still Face Procedure (SFP) for our NICU study, in which I will be trained to perform tomorrow. Not sure how much psych background everyone has, but the SFP is a way of analyzing the baby's attachment style and coping mechanisms: The mother plays with the child for two minutes, then stares at the child with a blank face for two minutes, then returns to playing. The reaction the infant has to the mother's flat gaze and the child's recovery when the mom returns to playing are indications of the infant's attachment security. Right now we are establishing the best behaviors to code from these videos by performing a short literature review. It's all very fun stuff!

On Friday I attended a lecture on the use of positive psychology with adolescents. It was an incredibly interesting talk as I haven't had much exposure to positive psychology per say (basically a proactive approach to psychology and resilience). The lecturer broke us into small groups to show us a miniature version of the 10 week program she performs with adolescents to help develop resilience and critical thinking skills. One of the activities asked us to look at some magazine covers and advertisements to establish the message they are sending (e.g. I will be happy if I...). It was very interesting to hear some of the other researchers' thoughts on these pop magazines, as they could not believe than anyone would be influenced by these media images and articles. As a 21 year old female, it was truly fascinating hearing people debate the influence of magazine covers and articles on adolescents; it just wasn't that long ago that I was the adolescent surrounded by all those images. The goal of the program is to develop teenagers' critical thinking skills so that they can take all those messages with a grain of salt, something that I think happens naturally over time, but the idea is to help them develop these skills earlier. So far the program has been incredibly successful with dramatically lower rates of depression in the intervention group as compared to a control group.

On Saturday I busied myself with a farmer's market trip, a ride on the Brisbane Wheel and a long walk through the South Bank Parklands. While walking around South Bank, I stumbled upon the Queensland Maritime Museum, which was so much fun! Who knew you could have such a great time walking through old ships? They had a giant WWII vessel that you were allowed to walk through and climb all over (I'm a big fan of places where you're allowed to play like a kid again). I then wandered over to the Botanical Gardens, which were really cool. They had a great walking path with beautiful plants and river views (and were free and open to the public - really nice!). That evening I went out with my roommate and her friends for dinner at a really cool Turkish restaurant that had a belly dancer going table to table. It was a really fun (and delicious) place!

Brisbane Wheel
(A teeny version of the Eye)

Botanical Gardens' River Walk

Streets Beach at South Bank

Sunday morning I spent being passed around via Skype at my family reunion. It was great being able to see all my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. etc. in their natural state (e.g. partying at Daytona Beach). After a long Skype session I headed up to the Mount Coot-tha summit. Since it was pretty rainy and dreary, I wasn't able to hike the mountain as I would have liked, so I cheated and took a bus to the top. The views from the mountain were great! When I first got to the top there was a huge rainbow across the sky, which certainly brightened up the rainy day. To reward myself for the strenuous bus ride up the mountain, I tried my first iced chocolate at the summit restaurant. It was essentially extreme chocolate milk - think chocolate and chocolate milk and ice cream and whipped cream all in one lovely glass. Heavenly!

View from Mount Coot-tha

Iced Chocolate, mmm

I recently realized that I only have two more weekends in Brisbane on account of my upcoming trips. Since I have heaps more to do in this city before I leave, expect many, many more photos in the near future.

Cheers!