Wednesday, September 21, 2011

It's been a while...

Hello all,

Sorry I haven't given many updates lately...things have been pretty hectic (between school and things going on at home) so I haven't really even had time to put much into my research let alone to post on my blog (unfortunately). Besides an HCI assignment that completely snuck up on me, my landlady decided it would be a good idea to have an exterminator come through and handle the 'bug problem' that I, as well as other tenants, have been complaining about for the longest. The best part about this was that we had to pretty much remove everything from our closets and cabinets...just for them to come in a spray the bathrooms and the kitchen. That's it. Makes no sense to me, but what can you do?

On a brighter note, I was able to find my 3rd letter of recommendation (as well as a potential co-advisor/mentor) from Dr. Annie Anton. She's currently my software engineering professor but after meeting with her today--and finding out we have a good bit in common--I'm hoping we will be getting to know each other better. She also agreed to help me with my CV for my application.

As I said before, I haven't had a lot of time to work on my research this week with all the class assignments I've had, but I was able to re-listen to the interviews and try to put together a chart to compare the responses/results from each interview. Our current assignment is to write a conclusions/results paper to go over with Dr. Murphy-Hill and see whether the information we're getting from the interviews are actually useful. I'm hoping that this paper will serve as a draft, especially since I haven't written any potential publications before now. I'm actually really looking forward to his feedback to see what can be done better/different in the future.

Another side note, I've been seriously re-evaluating what I'm doing and what my plans for my future are. I was told (again) today that I would make a great professor. The problem is 1) research is my priority..it's what I want to do, it's what I'm going to do and 2) I've never had any teaching experience so I don't know if it's something I'd want to do. After meeting with Dr. Anton today, however, I'm starting to reconsider the way I am doing things. In order to try and solve the issue of not having enough time to work on my research, she suggested I try to do an independent study with Dr. Murphy-Hill next semester so I can get more time to work on my research while still meeting the university's requirements. As for the issue of teaching, I was under the impression that because I'm doing research, TAing was out the window. Apparently I was wrong. According to Dr. Anton, I can take a semester off from research to TA (and she recommended trying to TA for my research advisor). This is something I'm going to seriously consider and hopefully get to speak with my advisor about it.


Well that's it for now...I've got a lot of work to get done so until next time...

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