February Goal Post

Well, I guess somehow it's already February. In past goal posts I imagined myself at this time being in the stage of rewriting my thesis paper. While that is not exactly the case right now, I've recently found myself intrigued and captivated by the ins-and-outs of clinical trials, experimental endeavors, and immersed in the many nuances of the scientific world. As far as the paper goes though, I'm really just working on finalizing all of the results and related sections as well as the literature review. I'm hoping to use the upcoming February break as a chance to really spend a substantial amount of time at the lab and make sure any loose ends get tied up. Oh, and scheduling meetings has been a little more difficult than usual these past couple weeks. Initially, we had a meeting planned for the end of January but that didn't end up working out so we rescheduled for the next week and that also fell through. We tried a third reschedule but everyone is very busy this week being the week before break so we've decided to reconvene after break since that seems most practical at this point. Additionally, that might actually be better because hopefully at that point I'll have the entire paper's preliminary draft completed and we can discuss the final group of sections.

I usually do an SDA after each meeting, or representative of a group of multiple related sections but I'm still not sure if I want to keep the results and discussion sections' SDA separate from the last section's SDA which would be about future implications and suggestions for further investigation. Anyhow, I know I want to do a written piece and some kind of video. Although the various theories of Alzheimer's pathogenesis are covered in my literature review and in several journals here, I think I would like to devote a writing piece to that specific topic. I'm not sure if I would claim that it has any relevance to the final group of sections for the paper but I feel that since I've already discussed it so much, I ought to take all of those journals and notes on the topic and synthesize some kind of coherent piece that ties each theory together. As for the video, I'm still debating between something like what I did my first year of emc which was more of an overall explanation of my project and the Biteable video I created last year about the findings I presented at the STEAM expo. Maybe I'll do a little bit of both but tentatively, that's the SDA plan for the foreseeable future.

Now, growth with respect to the 5 Cs isn't something to be overlooked. Obviously, I'm still working on communication and creativity. I think the past month, I really took that goal of refining my critical thinking skills seriously as for most of my journals, I was analyzing and questioning a variety of articles and publications that I read. But due to the nature of the work I will do in this coming month, I believe the focus will have to return on improving creativity and communication. This implicitly includes collaboration even if I don't mention it by name. Honestly, as I've discussed in the past, I really do feel as though every single one of the 5 Cs is inseparable from the others. So when I say that I want to work on a specific C I just mean that every C has a few components that are unique to that specific concept which I would like to concentrate on. That doesn't mean jut because I'm working on collaboration for one month that I'll simply ignore the other 4 Cs. They are always all in play, it's really just a matter of pinpointing weaknesses and emphasizing an improvement of those specific areas. But anyway, with communication, I think the meeting-heavy nature of the coming few months will definitely help my committee communication. Soon, the biggest thing is really going to become mostly about making sure those meetings get scheduled, actually happen, and making sure I deliver at those meetings. Creativity then, will play a role in my SDAs. When I say that I want to complete a written piece, I don't mean that creativity will be thrown to the wayside. Rather, that I still want to be creative but maybe within a medium that I am more comfortable with than say, a podcast or a picture book. For collaboration, I'm going to be completely honest and say that after January Day ended, I've definitely been collaborating less than I was then so I will be trying to re-incorporate that into my 5 Cs goals for this month.

Overall, I guess things will start winding down - but I also know for a fact that June will come around and I'll go crazy trying to figure out where all time went. I honestly can't fathom the fact that this is it, the home stretch. I keep saying I'm not ready to get to that finish line but time, my friends, time waits for absolutely no one. Some exciting things to think about though will be the STEAM Expo and the "defense" of my thesis. Oh, and also the June symposium (but that's not exciting, that's just the end). I'm really quite curious as to what this defense will look like. I know it will be a lot different than traditional thesis defenses but we'll see how everything pans out. I'm hoping to have a couple of ideas planned out for the STEAM expo in the next two weeks so I can give myself a place to start. After going through the process last year, I've proven to myself that I can do it but it's also a little frightening to know what I was able to come up with last year and want to get from a blank slate and a different topic to that same standard.