Post 20: Tomorrow Never Knows

Saturday May 23, 2009

In My Life, I’ve had many wonderful experiences Come Together. Sadly, my 7 week stay in Cambridge is over. This Boy is all packed and ready to go. I Feel Fine from having heard some excellent Rock And Roll Music here. But it’s time to Get Back, to start thinking about what I’m going to do When I Get Home. It Won’t Be Long now. I’ll miss the Blackbird with the orange beak that chirps outside my window-- indeed, my Bird Can Sing. All I've Got to Do is get on the plane. Then I’ll Follow the Sun towards NYC. Cambridge, You Won’t See Me anymore. But Because my travels take me Here There and Everywhere, surely I’ll Be Back. Cambridge friends come to NYC Any Time at All.

This is the official close to my travel log/public diary from Cambridge. I want to thank Trevor Robbins and Barry Everitt for their generous hospitality and friendship, as well as some very stimulating and valuable discussions about brain, mind and behavior, and especially about our mutual friend, the amygdala. I also had interesting discussions with a number of graduate students and postdocs. It was also great spending time with Seth Grant discussing the evolution and organization of the many hundreds of proteins that make up each of the trillions of synapses in our brains, learning about Barbara Sahakian’s work on cognitive enhancement and entrepreneurs and decision making, and visiting Angela Robert’s impressive lab. A night out with Tony Dickinson early on helped introduce me to Cambridge music pubs, and also taught me some interesting things about the history of animal behavior research. Nicola Richmond and Mercedes Arroyo in the BCNI were very helpful throughout, as was Hannah Critchlow of the Neuroscience Program. The Downing College staff was amazing, especially the guys in the Porter’s Lodge, Carol De Biasi in the housing office, and Christine who attended to the flat. Meeting Damian O’Malley and his family was also a pleasure. And it was a treat to get to know Simon Baron-Cohen, and his family and colleagues, including Bhismadev Chakrabarti, Teresa Tavassoli and Jill Sullivan. Finally, playing music with Bhish and Simon, and Simon’s daughter Kate, was great fun, and it was very exciting to record some tracks with Simon and Bhish.

I don’t know whether I’ll keep writing this blog. But Tomorrow Never Knows.