Almost the End!

Dear Blogosphere,

It is in the upper 80's. Tomorrow will be June 1. People are posting photographs of their fun summer adventures. And I am...

Still in school.

DESPERATE for a break.

I felt like having last week done with would make me see the light at the end of the tunnel. But no dice. I still felt like I got a lot accomplished last week -- including two firsts:

• Pre-pre-thesis proposal presentation.
• First lecture.

The presentation was on Wednesday and I feel like it went pretty well. But sort of looming above was my first lecture, on Thursday. The topic of my guest lecture was on sexual coercion. It was harder in some respects than I thought it would be. Putting together a lecture is a lot of work... and when the topic is, to put it lightly, depressing, it is tough. By the end of my preparation, I was a little emotionally exhausted. But the actual lecture was strangely fun. It went well, I think (we'll see how the students do on their 3rd exam/final). But I enjoyed teaching. A few students asked some great questions and one even came up after class to argue with me. He seemed surprised when I agreed with him. :-)

The presentation and lecture were big projects for this quarter. I decided to consider them my finals. But now I am realizing that I have another busy week ahead.

• Over 150 8 page papers to read.
• Narrowing, specifying my hypotheses, and reading more for my thesis/summer research proposal.

This proposal is due on Friday and comes with some possible money... if I receive the grant. My thesis chair is fantastic and told me to give her a rough draft of my proposal by June 1, she'd look over it and give me some pointers. So I really can't complain. I just wish it would write itself. Ha ha.

I hope y'all are enjoying your summers! I can't wait to dive into mine!

-N@

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Yellow

Hello Blogosphere!

Sorry for the lack of posting. I spent last weekend having WAY too much fun with my family in Salt Lake (yay!) and then hit the ground running when I got back.

One thing my life isn't?

Dull.

And you know what are absolutely delicious?

Rice noodles stir-fried with San J's Asian BBQ sauce.

We are getting more or less near the end of the quarter. Here's what I've got on my plate:

*Variable request! I'm asking for the variables from the study that I might use in my thesis!

*Reading... reading... reading. Which is what I should be doing right now! :-)

*Presentation for my lab's meeting. In about a week and a half! *eek*

*Guest lecture for the course I'm TAing!

*Reading and grading 160 or so 8 page papers! Wahoo.........?

*Lit review

*And I think that's about it.

Not too shabby. Now, back to work!

-Nat

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What I'm Up To

Dearest Blogosphere,

When my sister came to visit me earlier this month, she asked me what exactly I was doing. I realized that I haven't told many people what I'm up to! So here goes.

My primary age of interest is adolescence. Adolescence is a really, really cool time to study everything from social changes (becoming friends and more with "the other sex") to brain development. I am mainly interested in relationships during this time period, parent-child, peer friendships, and romantic relationships. Of course, these are all hugely affected by biological and cognitive changes during puberty and beyond, so I try to be cognizant of all the different factors affecting the adolescents (it's a dynamic system!).

This quarter I am learning as much as I can about romantic relationships during adolescence. I am also hoping to begin... maybe even complete... the lit review for my thesis.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done before I can feel comfortable using the data I want to use to ask my research questions:

1. Do adolescents who perceive themselves as victims or aggressors of peer victimization perceive their romantic relationships as having different (very hostile, somewhat hostile, or warm) characteristics than those who do not perceive themselves to be victims or aggressors?
2. If so, how are their perceptions different? Are their relationships perceived as more or less hostile than their peers?
3. If not, why are they similar?

But before I can ask these questions I need to make sure that the measures, which have been validated only with White, middle-class samples, are valid in an economically and ethnically diverse sample. In fact, the data that I'll be using come from a very diverse sample with European Americans being the minority. This adds a whole statistical element that I am very, very excited to work on!

This quarter I am taking a research methods course, which I LOVE!!, independent research hours with my possible thesis advisor, and I am doing an internship as a TA. I get to guest lecture and write an exam.

So that is what I am up to!

-n@

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