Hi all!
The program has only started about two weeks ago but I already feel like it’s been a month of full work days. That’s the thing about stay-at-home life– time blurs, blends, and burns slowly. I’d like to spend most of my time focusing on the positives though. I’m sure many of us may be facing similar feelings or struggles in regards to the instability in our personal lives and the difficulties of remote research.
I’m working part time on two projects, both of which have valuable but vastly different tasks, experiences, and skills to learn. I appreciate having the diversity in workload and the freedom to balance my time between both.
For my project on the politicization of face masks in the age of coronavirus, I’ve been doing heavy readings on previous academic literature on media studies. We’re in the initial phase of the project as a whole, hoping to lay out a solid foundation for data collection by developing a well-informed research methodology. I chose to join this project because of its timely relevancy to current affairs and because of its aims to compare the cultural differences surrounding the dialogue of [wearing] face masks and the discrepancies in dissemination of such public health information itself, between Western and Asian countries. As a student with both Western and Asian cultural understandings, I find this project quite interesting.
For my project on improving writing and public speaking skills in a professional setting, particularly within a courtroom, I’ve been helping my mentor with online course edits to improve user experience, pre-publication book edits, and more. It’s been really enjoyable getting a glimpse into graduate studies– law school, to be specific. Although I am not “pre” anything, the prospect of attending law school at some point in the future is enticing.
All in all, my work has been challenging, busy, and hopefully, productive. I wanted to take this time not only to learn what I’m being offered, through mentoring experiences and workload, but to learn what I like and what I don’t like…what I’m interested in and what I’m not so interested in….what I want to do and what I don’t want to do. Part of what makes this summer experience so valuable to me is that I believe that by the end of these ten weeks, I will have a clearer sense of self and a better idea of what academic/professional pathways I’d like to pursue down the road. Everything is a learning process, after all.
It was even quite difficult to write up a coherent blog post, but I’ve done it! Me and my cold cup of coffee. I think the most important thing about each of my work days is that I want to find little victories. I want to be able to validate my thoughts and feelings. I want to give myself a break, or ten, when needed. I want to be kind to myself and kind to others. Wishing you all well and wishing that we could have met under different circumstances.
Thanks,
Jakin