Week 7

Afternoon light through the trees.

1. 3 Things Accomplished

   1. I completed the initial drafts of all parts of my paper, with not much time to spare. A lot of the latter half of my paper needs immense revisions. Quality over quantity!

   2. I completed an initial draft of my presentation on Thursday night, which was the first step in honing in on what I actually want to talk about, versus what needs to be omitted.

   3. Finally, I completed a map of the contraband camps I hoped to talk about, and I also completed two correlation graphs on Excel with the help of Dr. Stan's instruction.

2. 3 Obstacles

   1. As I presented my work on Friday morning, I ran out of time quickly because I spent a lot of time talking about the context of my work and not the results themselves. I need to figure out how I can switch the sequence so that the important aspects of my project (and the ones that mean the most to me) are emphasized.

   2. I had trouble creating the correlation maps because I kept messing up the data I wanted to compare, which is where Dr. Stan's help became integral.

   3. I sprained my right ankle. I don't think I need to elaborate, but it is quite painful...I also got sick to my stomach after dinner on Monday, and could not attend Tuesday morning's lecture.

3. 3 Things Learned

   1. I got excellent feedback when I presented on Friday morning, and as daunting as it is, I am so excited to put in the work to make this presentation close to perfect.

   2. I learned how to create my Chatbot, and did so successfully over the course of a few days with help from Dr. McGowan.

   3. I learned how to find the right journal to publish my work, and how to look out for predatory journals that do not have my best interests in mind.

4. Project Updates: What's Next? (quite a bit)

   1. I have my work cut out for me:

      1. Integrate all feedback from Friday's run through into my presentation by Monday.

      2. I want to use Dr. Stan's concision strategy and try and cut off as much fluff from my presentation as possible.

      3. I want to revise and edit all of my paper (it is about 30 pages at this point) to be as concise and non-repetitive as possible.