My Life as a Guinea Pig

I'm currently balls deep in writing up my Cornwall project, whilst also trying to get any cash I can together to make rent and generally live. My first, quite successful plan, was selling some of my possessions on ebay. I always said I wouldn't sell anything, but needs must and I'm only selling things which I've either never used, or are simply collecting dust in my admittedly dusty room. My other means of income currently is whoring myself out to medical research.

Okay, I'm not technically prostituting myself, nor am I involved in any medical research as such. I have signed up to help out at the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham with a study that is apparently to do with eyesight. I personally believe it is more to do with how the brain perceives certain images, but no one's telling me anything. So for the last couple of days I've been sitting in a dark room staring at a computer screen which is intermittently flashing a series of dots up on the screen. I then have to press buttons to say whether I think the dots look like a hexagon with its point at the top or on the side. This continues for two hours. I can say in all seriousness that this is one of the dullest things I've ever done. Jesus, I'd even consider getting a job rather than this! Thankfully no one is watching me, and so I've taken to listening to my iPod whilst laboriously pressing "1" or "0" for two hours straight. I'm not sure if this affects the results, but iof no one can be bothered to monitor me I'm just going to keep doing it. By then end I have the appearance of a man who has been awake for three days doing nothing other than smoking marijuana and rubbing his eyes. I'm fairly sure it's not good for the brain to be sat in a room with flashing lights for that amount of time, in fact I'm sure of it as yesterday I was sick in my mouth a little during the "experiment". Maybe that's the point...

I shouldn't complain though, I'm getting paid for it and next week I'll be subjected to an fMRI scan as part of the research. I just hope the study provides some fascinating results. It is paying for me to go to the last weekend of the Edinburgh Festival this weekend with Sam though, so it's all worth it.