The Worst Nacho's EVER as told in a vlog

This week in our culinary adventures Andy and I visit The Whig and Courier and test out the Nacho's...

And So It Goes...

I am currently well into my summer research and it is proving to be much more work than I had initially imagined. As many know, I am looking at why people use Second Life as a means of social support, so I am sitting in on support group meetings in Second Life. While by nature SL is hyper anonymous, getting accepted by a group has proven to be difficult in some respects. For example, before I started actually doing my research on a regular basis, I had sat in on some AA meetings. I asked the group leaders if it was okay for me to be there (which they said yes) and then asked the group. During this particular meeting I had one individual who IM'd me very upset that I was there. In another group I asked to be able to sit in and there was another individual who was uncomfortable with me there as well. I have sucessfully sat in on several groups recently and I may have found the formula to being accepted by the group...but only time will tell on that!

This doesn't mean that I haven't been able to get interviews however, I'm at around 15 people in, which is actually behind where I think really should be. Unfortunately the best time to get people is immediately after a group meeting and there are only so many meetings a week. So, I'm going to be content getting maybe 2 people a meeting. That seems to be a controllable number in terms of managing IM's and should keep me somewhat close to the final number of interviews I need (about 60-80). Of the people I have asked to interview, only one has declined saying they were busy. In fact most people seem to be very willing to answer my questions and tell me about their experiences.

Not only is the interviewing (and sitting in on groups which typically go for about an hour) time consuming, but there is also reading and writing to be done as well. While I had an idea that the project would take lots of time and energy, I didn't think it was going to take THIS much time and energy. My work schedule has changed and the number of hours I'm putting in at the day job has increased significantly (one day last week I left my house before 6am and didn't get back until after 7), and while that isn't a forever change, it is definitely making the whole research thing seem to go a little more slowly. While I know I will be able to get the project done by the end of the summer, the pressure lies in that I have two professors counting on me to write a decent paper that will be accepted to the Eastern Communication Association Conference as well as be published.

That is where the stress lies! How does one work a full time plus job, spend 12 hours a week driving, spend another 8 hours or so simply sitting in on support groups and then another who knows how many hours writing...And expect to have a decent result? And how do you explain to others the amount of stress that you are under without sounding whiny? I'm really the only person I know of in my boat!

Progress

A long and busy semester has ended and my nights and weekends that were once filled with Health Communication and The Future of News will now be dominated by research in Second Life.

Initially my project on Second Life and social support groups was just going to be a literature review for my Health Communication Class. It evolved from there into a thesis topic and an independent summer research project.

Over the summer I will be working with my adviser to collect all of my data (by sitting in on support groups in Second Life and doing 1x1 interviews people who go to support groups in SL) and then writing the paper with the hopes of getting it into the Eastern Communication Association this fall and ultimately into a journal.

The big news, while at ECA my adviser spoke with another professor about work she had previously published and told her that we were using it in our research. They discussed the research I was going to be doing this summer and she was interested in it and ultimately wants to work on the project with us. It is very exciting for me!! We had a conference call a couple of weeks ago that went very well and I think that she will be able to bring more of the social support side of things into the equation that my adviser and I don't as much about.

Overall, VERY exciting!!

Who Ever Said Grad Students Aren't Any Fun??

So, tomorrow marks the beginning of the last day of the semester and what does that mean for me? EVERYTHING is due. Let's recap the excitement that was my life this weekend...

Friday night - Yeah, I have no recollection of what happened and not in the good, I was so trashed I don't remember my name kind of way...

Saturday - Spent the morning at McDonald's writing part of a health campaign. There are several McDonalds in my town so I actually have my pick of them. I decided to go to the one closest to my house. Now typically I would have had a coffee milkshake, because really that's my favorite, but since it was 9am I had a hot chocolate...which burned the top of my mouth. Even after that tramatic event I still wrote probably five or so pages...which I consider a success. Then after feeling strange for hanging out at McDonald's for so long, and since the weather was actually nice for a change, I decided to go to the waterfront and actually get some fresh air for a chance. So, I hung out there for a while and then my friend Michelle came by and gave me a much needed distraction from work.

That night I went out to dinner with a friend I hadn't talked to in years which was so fun. I happen to LOVE hot spicy food, so we went and had Pakistani, which we had together a million years ago and ate and talked for 2.5 hours. My clothes still smell like Pakistani food even a day after.

Sunday - Today I experimented with a new writing location, the food court of the mall. Here is the beauty of the mall food court...people leave you alone and they have free wifi. Seriously, I have the ability to get food somewhere if I want it, but I don't have to buy something if I don't want to. There are people walking around all over the place and yelling and chaos...which is the only way I can get anything done...if there is chaos around me. I tried the library and yeah I could plug my computer in, but it is just too quiet. I can't concentrate. But my time at the mall was highly productive and I finally got my health campaign paper written, all 28 pages of it. So, I'm feeling highly accomplished. Unfortunately I still need to create my portfolio and make up a power point, but that will have to wait for another day. Sadly it will have to be done the day before it is all due.

Yup, how exciting is my life?

And There Now Is A Plan

I've been pretty vocal of my love of Grad School. It makes me happy to spend time doing the readings and to write the papers. Things had been a bit up in the air since I was officially accepted into the program starting the fall of 2009. But now I have a plan.

I have been meeting with a professor about a paper that I was writing for another class about social support groups in second life. He had been giving me advice on how to do the research and some of the things I should be looking at. So, at my second meeting with him, and after I got my official acceptance letter, I asked him to be my thesis adviser. To which he said yes. So YEAH for me!! I'm incredibly excited. He specialized in Computer Mediated Communication, which is what I'm into as well. And he is into my research project. I sat down with him last week and set up my schedule and determined that I will actually go the communication route instead of mass communication, which is actually really good. I'd been going back and forth not sure which I should do and really just needed someone to tell me what to do.

With that said, the communication route is apparently more difficult and will be especially hard for me since I have no background in interpersonal communication. I went the pure journalism route for my BA. So, it's going to be a rough road, but I'm sure I can handle it....somehow. The best news...He wants me to do directed research over the summer and present at a conference in the fall, and then publish in the spring. Pretty sweet!! Oh, and he told me I should get my PhD....which I am actually considering doing. Who would have thought that someone who barely made it through their BA would be looking at getting a PhD....oh how life changes!!

Once In A Lifetime...

One of the reasons we chose to go to Iceland, at least for me anyway, was to see the northern lights. I've always wanted to see them and had it on my list of things to do before I die, and I finally got to do it!! We went out at around 9pm on Thursday night on a tour that took us outside of the city (away from the street lights etc.) As you can imagine it was freezing cold and the wind was blowing so much that it made it impossible to take a picture outside. We chose to stay in the bus and snap some photos from there and they came out fabulous!! The weather there changes amazingly fast and went from snow blowing so hard it hurt your face to virtually no wind at all. So our bus stopped again and we got some more shots...
And just to prove we were there....

I Have Thighs of Steel...

Yesterday we went horseback riding. It was terrifying. And today my body is incredibly sore. I can barely walk. I don't know how the girls who ride the horses there everyday do it!

We rode our horses for around an hour or so through lava fields and man was it hard. I had a good horse, he was little and didn't run away with me on him or anything, but it was still scary for me. I'm sure I gave my poor horse mixed messages, I know I must have told him one thing and did the exact opposite with my body, but it worked out.

Unfortunately I don't have any video of us riding our horses, but I did get some video of the farm....and other parts of the country (oh and the waterfall in the video is one of the smaller ones, we're seeing Gulfoss tomorrow when we go superjeeping and caving).