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An Abbreviated Personal History

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In the 1960s when I was in high school, the world was somewhat like it is today. John Kennedy, a charismatic and forward-looking president who inspired the country to shoot for the moon had been assassinated. Richard Nixon, who would turn out to be a corrupt politician and narrowly escaped impeachment for his role in the Watergate scandal1, was in the White House and the United States was embroiled in a war in Southeast Asia that it couldn't win. I was completely bored with high school and for the most part blew off all of my classes. I played guitar in a band, smoked marijuana, hung out with SDS protesters and hippies while working the late shift as a receptionist in a church rectory in Southeast Washington, DC, and tried to pretend I had a future as a musician and itinerant philosopher and writer.

An Abbreviated Personal History Since you asked ... An Abbreviated Personal History Preamble: Every year I schedule time near the end of class for open discussion on whatever topics students want to talk about. At this late stage in the quarter, everyone is busy working on their final projects and we've been meeting in small groups to discuss project-related issues. The conversation in the open discussion inevitably turns to questions about how I got interested in neuroscience. I'm generally pretty open and I've found that students appreciate my candor and willingness to discuss details of my

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