Last week, I realized I was not as productive as I should have been due to poor mental health, anxiety, and procrastination. I resolved to better my work ethics, even if only marginally, this week, but alas, the universe conspired against me. This week, I was all but ready to start working on revising my capstone paper, which I received back on Monday with edits I need to make. Unfortunately, this was also the week where the school decided to issue standardized testing to determine our reading and math abilities. While in years past this would have been a one day thing, this year they switched the standardized tests and we had to test out of every grade level starting at kindergarten. This was excruciating and annoying, as the test were extremely long. Usually, I can blow through this test in about thirty minutes, but these tests took me two days each. With the reading test, there were so many passages and questions. There were moments where I couldn't think properly and just chose an answer which I believed made sense. This exam was draining and after the testing, I felt lethargic and annoyed. I could not force myself to do any other work around this time due to how draining the testing was. While the math had less reading, the questions were more complex. They took more time to answer and had more layers to it. While I like math more than reading, the math section was still draining, albeit not as much as the reading was. After finishing the reading section, which I did today, I just couldn't refocus my mind to my paper.
On the topic of my paper, there were some grammatical issues with the APA formatting in my paper. I was able to fix them on Wednesday painlessly. However, there was some content issue, with some clarifications needed to be made at places and safety information for the chemicals in the methods section needed. I was able to address some of the clarifications needed throughout my paper, but I still have a few more. I unfortunately was unable to start looking into the safety information for the chemicals. Although some progress has been made in my paper, much work is left to be done. Although I should have done some of the work at home, I was unable to for the most part. I had a lot of work to do for my other classes, especially my ECE English and Calculus classes. I also did procrastinate, but not as bad as last week. I just tend to do my work extremely slowly so work that should take me an hour takes me two hours instead. Likewise, I also tended to get distracted on YouTube at home. While I was making strides to improve my work ethic, misfortune struck again! Since my home laptop was not responding as I wanted it to, I kept restarting my laptop which caused it to crash. Now when I start it, it takes a while to load and when I log on, I can't do any type of function as as soon as I click something, my computer freezes and crashes again. I have spent the past two days trying to alleviate this issue, which took some time away from my school work. But I do know I need to change and better my work ethic, not only for the sake of my grades but for the sake of my anxiety and mental health as well. As soon as I fix my personal laptop, I will address the concerns in the capstone paper and move forward with the rest of my school work for now. Let's see how this plan goes... Tags: Blogs, Independent, Forward, Reflection, Planning, Lit Review, Problem Solving, Time Management
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Since I posted a blog on Wednesday, this blog will be pretty short in comparison. This week I was pretty productive, although I think I can improve. I was able to update the website and submit my draft of my paper. I began reading through my paper, making mental notes of what I might need to change. But I feel that I could have been more productive. I was side-tracked for most of the week. I think the main reason I tried to avoid doing my work was a combination of senioritis and anxiety. I have worked so hard the past three years, at times, I just don't have the motivation to do any work. During the summer, I didn't work as hard as I do during the school year and was travelling and having some fun. I feel at times, I am stuck in that mentality of trying to take it easier than I should. I also feel that I am anxious for the future of my project, of this class, my grades, and my own future. I don't know whether the data I need will come through in time. I don't know whether I will be able to write my final paper and make my final poster and present my final presentation. I don't know whether I will be able to pass this class with the grade I expect from myself. I don't know whether my college application will be any good. I don't know whether I will be able to do well on the SAT and SAT Subject test. I don't know how I will pay for college. I don't even know whether I will get into the colleges that I want to go to. I am just filled with so much anxiety.
I need to fix this if I want to be more productive. I need to buckle down and just do my work. If I can start chipping away at my work, I do think part of my anxiety that this class contributes to will diminish. I just need to start but that is easier said than done. In addition to this class, all of my work for my other classes, especially ECE Calculus tends to take up most of my time. I feel like I just don't have enough time to do my work. I need to start managing my time better and working harder, smarter, and more efficiently. If I can do that, I think I will find more time to study for the SATs and do my college application. I think my overall anxiety levels will diminish as well. By the beginning of next week, I hope to have my paper with revision suggestions, which I will work on next week. Hopefully, next week will find me in a more productive and overall positive and healthy head space. Tags: Blogs, Lit Review, Planning, Problem Solving, Reflection, Forward This is the last week before finals and the inevitable end of school. To say that I am stressed is an understatement: I am stressed, tired, cranky, worried, anxious, and overworked. I have so much to do over the next few days. But I just have to take it day by day and try to finish everything on time. In order to make sure everything gets finished on time without delay, I've been trying to prioritize my tasks and multitask. For instance, during some free moments during class, I've been working on editing my lit review. I finished editing everything up to the conclusion. I felt it took a higher precedent than some of my other classes because I have a higher grade in those classes so getting a lower final exam grade wouldn't hurt my grade as much. However, based on an online final grade calculator, I need at least a 78% on my final exam to pass Capstone 1 with an A. So with that in mind, I am putting all my effort and thought into my schoolwork. The first thing that pops in my mind when I wake up is what I need to complete that day and the last thought of the day is what I haven't finished and need to do tomorrow. In Capstone, I need to finish editing my conclusion (including my potential impacts), then add the revised problem statement and methods section. After, I might need to include an intended results and conclusion section as well as an abstract, though that is pending based on the answer Ms. Veillette gives me when I ask her about it. I am hoping to finish it by tomorrow afternoon or early evening. Then I want to actually fix my website and add everything I need. It will probably take me a couple of hours, but seeing as I have a final on Monday, I will either finish it tomorrow night, Sunday night, or split the work and finish it Sunday afternoon. However, since it is due on the night of the final exam (which is Thursday for me), I do have some leeway when it comes to completing this aspect. I also need to finish the introduction and methodology for my poster for next year. I don't think it will take me that long since I know what I want to write in the introduction. I could probably finish it in about 2 hours max, even if I have some unforeseen trouble. This will probably take me to the end of the weekend, since I also need to study for my Monday final. On Monday, I would like to finish my final capstone presentation. On my methods presentation, I did really well. I got 100/102, with the two point deduction coming because I forgot to add something that was on the rubric. On the verbal aspect I was graded highly. I would like to do just as well, if not better, on this final presentation. It is just a combination of the first presentation and the methods presentation. We are on a strict 12 minute schedule so I am hoping for no more that 14 slides with content. I need to practice it obviously and get the timing down, but I think I can do it. I found the perfect theme for my presentation. Now I just have to make it through finals week. Since this week is the last proper week of school, this is my last blog for the school year. But fear not, because when I go to Baltimore to do this experiment, I will be blogging weekly again. There won't be a blog next week, but look for a blog in 2 weeks time. Tags: Presentation, Lit Review, Time Management, Project, Forward. Reflection, Problem Solving, Independent, Blogs.
This week has been pretty uneventful. Even though the Experimental design paper was due today, I asked for an extension so I could talk to one of my mentors and finalize a methods. I spoke to them today and we finally decided on a method that is doable with my level of expertise. I will be testing whether estrogen increases the rate of choline metabolism by using empty vector and over expressing GDPD-6 MCF-7 ER+ cell lines. I will then starve them and then treat the cell lines with estrogen. After, I will test for GPC and MAP kinase using western blotting and NMR -spectroscopy. I now have to finish writing my methods section but my mentors offered to help me revise it so it's perfect, which I am grateful for. I also have to work on my lit review. I meant to do it this week, but we had standardized testing and I procrastinated. The good news is that I have three supporting sources for my second document already. If I finish writing up the supporting sources and incorporating it into my lit review, I would be mostly finished with the second draft. I just would need to add one more supporting source. While talking to my mentors, they recommended some articles, so I plan to use that as another supporting source. I just have to read and analyze them. Besides the write-ups, I have to work on my website. It still looks like a website for a company that offers tours up mountains. I would like to fix some parts of my website, mainly finish up my home page, by next week but we'll see how it goes. I got my scores back from my presentation and they were not as good as I expected. I got points deducted for not defining terms for my audience. I rehearsed it in such a way that I would explain, but I was sick and tired that day so I rushed through the presentation. I need to remember to do that next time I present. I will probably use photos to help me explain, as that's the best way to learn about metabolism and metabolic pathways, I also need to edit some of my slides to include information about my problem statement. I feel as if I answered all those questions while I was talking, but my teacher felt otherwise. I will just add the five facts to the slide so it's visible. Till next week. Tags: Lit Review; Networking; Planning; Presentation
This week was very mellow. Not much work was given in any of my classes. I took my AP Bio exam on Monday and I think I did very well on it. This week in capstone we started working on our methods. I have a meeting with one of my mentors next week to discuss my prior lab work and the methods I am planning to do. I want to make sure it is actually feasible for me to do; something I can do with my limited labwork experience and with as little training as possible. I know I won't be able to test on mice since I don't have any prior experience with testing animals. In order to test on animals, you need a lot of training on how to handle them and how to properly care for them. It also takes a lot of paper work, which I would have had to start months in advance. I would also need funding, since mice aren't cheap. So I am focusing on what can I do with breast cancer cells since they are easier to cultivate. As of right now, I was thinking of inducing breast cancer cells to hypoxia and then using a western blot to determine the metabolites that are increased in choline metabolism in this scenario. I would then compare metabolite levels to a control breast cancer cell, and maybe even a control breast cell. However, I don't know if I can do this because I have never induced cells into hypoxia before and I don't know how. I don't know if it is safe or even feasible for me to do. I know that some labs in Johns Hopkins have induced cells to hypoxic conditions, but I don't know if I can do it with what little exeperience I have, or even if Johns Hopkins would let me (they would not want to be legally responsible if I got hurt). I have to talk to my mentors to see if it is something I can do. If not, I have to change what I want to test so I can make it feasible. I am going to try to ask for an extension until the following Tuesday for the Exeprimental Design paper. That would give me a chance to talk to my mentors. If I can't get the extension, I would probably hand in what I have to that point and make a copy of the Experimental Design and change it if it is needed. I also won't start working on my methods write up until next weekend, as I want to talk to my mentors first. Since my uncle is visiting for Memorial Break, it gives me a chance to work with him on the write up. Besides the methods, I have began to edit my lit review, I added one supporting source and found other sources for my other main sources. I just need to read them and analyze them to make sure that they contribute to the main source and aren't irrelevant or unnecessary. The one supporting source I added was on how metabolic reprogramming is found in lymphatic T cell when they are active and Myc is the most crucial growth factor to the reprogramming and proliferation of proliferating cells and cancer cells. I am planning on doing another 2 supporting sources by the end of this weekend. Tags: Lit Review, Reflection, Planning, Communication, Problem Solving
This week was not too bad, surprisingly. Monday and Tuesday we worked on a presentation about our Capstone project. It covered the basics: two sources from our lit review, problem statement and justification, hypothesis, goals, and problems we were facing. It was due on Wednesday. As usual, I waited until close to the last minute to finish the presentation because I didn't know what to put for my hypothesis. Wednesday was Exhibition Day, where we were paired up with another class and showed what we were working on. We were paired with another Capstone class in Aerospace and were tasked with showing our problem statement and if we had time, our presentation. It went well and I got some positive feedback on my project. The only thing I had to work on was explaining my project more precisely so that others who do not know anything about cell biology can understand it. Thursday and Friday were presentations. We had a sign up sheet and I decided to go first on Friday, because I knew I was not ready to present on Thursday. I was able to see some mistakes or elements in other people's projects that I wanted to add to mine, so it was a good idea for me to go Friday. I got an idea of what I needed to say and how I needed to present. I practiced Thursday night so I would be ready. But Friday came and I woke up with a scratchy throat. I could barely speak or swallow my own spit. I took some Benadryl but that did not work out as planned. I became tired and exhausted, sleeping in my first two classes. When I went up to deliver my presentation, I rushed through what I had to say and omitted some parts that I had rehearsed. I was very tired. But apparently, I didn't do too bad, and I got it out of the way, which was a positive. I know that I have some points to work on in presenting, mainly not looking at the board, speaking clearly, and to stop rambling on. I plan on working on this in the future. For some reason, I've lost 10 points on my last three blogs. The three blogs were put in the grade-book as one grade. Since I lost 10 points on three blogs, I lost 30 points out of 300, causing my grade to drop to an A-. Hopefully, my presentation can bring up my grade, as well as my lit review. I still need to talk to Ms. Veillette about my first draft, which I know wasn't as good. I rushed through the last parts, and thus didn't write as well as I intended to. I was planning on starting to revise the draft without talking to Ms. Veillette, but I would like to know when to turn in a second draft, especially because the lit review needs five supporting sources. I will start working on the second draft, even if I don't get to talk to her so I can at least get a head start on my second draft. In other news, my AP Biology test is on Monday. I'm going to need all the luck I can get. I looked through the material and I know most of it. Luckily, the questions deal with the application of material and not memorizing the material itself. There are some things that I need to brush up on, which I plan to do over the weekend. Wish me luck! Tags: Blogs, Forward, Independent, Lit Review, Planning, Presentation, Projects, Reflection
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AuthorShubhangy Raghavan Archives
January 2019
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