Welcome to ‘How I spent my summer vacation’. Besides actual vacationing, that is. Today was my last day at the summer research office, and I am so very grateful for how relaxed and yet productive the project was! The basic question is how much better can 12 months of counseling help smokers quit, compared to “just” 6 or 3 months of counseling. Simple design and procedure, which meant I could actually learn to use the technological tools for taking the preliminary results and making sense of them. The mentor, Arthur J. Garvey, is a delightful man, and the two counselors in the study, Christine and Sarah, are charming young women with outstanding careers in clinical psychology ahead of them. I can’t believe it’s done, but so happy to have helped out when I could, and actually complete the written portion of the project before the school year begins! Taking a 2.5 hour lunch break to enjoy Restaurant Week at Harvest in Cambridge certainly didn’t hurt, as far as making the last day feel great. Oops!

The other shots are from early Wednesday morning, boarding the FEAT hikers for their trip to the mountains. I was able to make contact with an editor of the Harvard FOCUS newsletter today, and am excited to write-up 2 paragraphs on the whole ordeal for an upcoming issue! My mama taught me that all press is… fun press. :) hee hee

Happy last Friday of summer!