 I'm Lorena. I'm from Brazil. I did a bachelor's in clinical psychology and a master's in neuroengineering. So I've heard about OIST actually in several different times of my life and I remember doing my master's a friend of ours found OIST in a website and he was like Lorena, this is so much like you it's in through disciplinary because I went like from psychology to engineering. I looked up OIST and I was like, oh, that's too fancy for me Like I cannot go to a place like this for sure. They would never accept me. After I finished my master's I was also like checking PhD places and there's a website like find a PhD and there was a huge advertisement for OIST I was like, okay, that's another time that OIST appears to me. So maybe that's a sign or something so like I kind of applied I had zero expectations, but I applied and I came to the interview So they fly us over for the interviews and when I stopped my food at OIST I looked at everything. I was like, this is the place for me. I'm gonna do my PhD here Whether they like it or not, like even if I don't make it now I will apply in the next year and until I get in and well, I was lucky and got in so here I am Before coming I think the language barrier was a concern for me So I didn't know any Japanese and my English is not very good as well So I was very concerned about language, but OIST has a lot of ways to help us. There's the resource center Graduate school also help us a lot with with Japanese related stuff. Turns out it wasn't a problem We can also take Japanese lessons here. That was very helpful. I'm taking the lessons and I really enjoy I was a very curious kid I think when I started studying like the brain and introductory neuroscience in undergrad It made me fascinated to get to know the organ that makes us who we are I think the scientist life also combines like traveling and going to places and meeting different people It kind of combines two things that I'm really passionate about I studied the neurobiology basis of Habit behavior So, you know when you have to go to a drug store, but you automatically drive to your work, for example Just by habit So what we are studying is an animal model of that of how the animals create the habit to go somewhere And what is happening in their brain when they're doing that? I got to design my own idea for the project along with my supervisors I got to design like the behavior apparatus So there are small pieces and pretend I'm an engineer. So it was really fun outside of work I really enjoy walking my dog like going to the beach with her or just walking on campus because we have like such a beautiful campus I'm also part of the student council So I'm a welfare officer for 2020 student council So we kind of facilitate the communication between students and OIST also part of lots of clubs So I really like doing sports. So we play frisbee volleyball There are some sunshine lessons on campus also, which I take I think it makes me feel like closer to the okinawan community And okinawa also, I really like the outdoors activities of okinawa. Okinawa is so beautiful You can go to the beach. You can go snorkeling hiking Diving it's just if you're an outdoor person, it's perfect. It's heaven. So I really like enjoying okinawa On our first week here at OIST Someone took a picture of us with our like our dream for when we finish our graduation And I remember I wrote I want to make the world a better place I think it's very sweet, but I think it was also very grand and I still want to keep trying to make the world a better place But I think what I want is to get to know the world through science and to get to know different people Different perspectives and how science is being made in different countries Because I think that kind of makes us like more together as a whole