It’s over? How did this week feel longer than the last?! Okay, okay, I suppose I know why. So I spent a hefty chunk of this week just searching, scouring the web for recent research on various topics I thought would buff up our literature review and coming up with, well, not much. I suppose most researchers hit this point, when they’ve read a lot, got a good idea of what they want to do for their study, and there just isn’t any more research out there that’s closely aligned with what they’d like to do. It’s a sign, perhaps, indicating that you’re ready, ready to fill the gap in the literature with YOUR study! Can’t say it’s not frustrating though—spending hours upon hours searching instead of reading and thinking. Compared to week 1, definitely spent a greater portion of this week thinking rather than reading. Thought a lot about our study design: how to quantify results and operationalize some variables. Still a work in progress. Linda brought up a good point about a potential issue we may run into trying to measure one of our variables. Isabelle and I went ahead and downloaded the software we think we’ll be using to take our measurements and recorded a trial run using the platform we think we’ll use in our actual study. Next week, we’ll run our recording through in addition to a standardized baseline recording that I know should work and see if the issue does indeed emerge. We’ll figure something out from there.

It’s a tricky balance between planning ahead and planning too much ahead. Something I, at least, struggle with. For one, there are just some things that you can’t anticipate until a set of other things that haven’t happened happen. And you can’t get too caught up planning the details when you haven’t planned the big picture. I am sure I will be surprised this summer as developments unfold that spark new directions—part of the beauty of research.

Really looking forward to participating in Ramzy and Joey’s mock study next week. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I really want to get to know my fellow interns better, and hopefully, this will be my opportunity to! I noticed some of the interns play Steam games off work hours (the game shows up as their status on Discord). I actually got into Steam recently. I think it’d be fun to have an intern game night sometime, but I’m too shy to ask :’) Did talk to Allison a little bit about Danganronpa the other day because I saw that she was playing (I’ve been playing too). Cool game and Allison seems cool too.