Behind the Curtains
When I was younger, I hated silence. I couldn't stand it at all. The stillness and the quiet bothered my hyperactive brain and so I filled that silence more often than not. I didn't seem to care whether the silence was awkward; I frivolously thought that silences were meant to be broken. As I got older, that seemed to change. I began to confide and even find solace in the very stillness I used to abhor. It's easier to say nothing.
Nowadays, I often find myself seeking the haven of silence. But all silences are not for the good. I have found that in my desire to hide behind the quiet, I have become quite isolated in regards to my project. I haven't spoken to a lot of my peers in E=MC2 about my project in what seems like ages. That's not right. I love the ideas that I am uncovering, I am ecstatic that I get the opportunity to study something so close to my heart and yet I haven't tried to expand my research outside of my own little bubble. I haven't tried to apply it to my potential key-holders and I need to work on that. I need to work on speaking about my project and even collaborating with others to improve. I need to begin understanding the story I want to tell with my research, and actually tell it. The last part is looking to be more of a struggle for me at the moment.
That narrative is also crucial in context to the STEAM Expo. I enjoyed last year's event more than I can even express. It really put things into perspective when those who are not required to be there ended up listening to me rant about dreams and their importance in research. I can clearly remember some of the people I got to talk to about my project and the amount of excitement that spurred in me cannot be described. Therefore, I have decided to participate in it again, in hopes of improving myself and also sharing everything I have been doing and how important that all is. An explicit goal for March would definitely be putting the narrative together, so that I have time to build something as a supplement.
Another immediate goal is to finish analyzing the second phase of the case study. I have a lot of survey results to sift through and prioritize the questions I want to ask of my data, which will then help me understand the analysis and graphs that I can use in my Research Methods section of the paper.
While finishing up my research methods, I need to pull myself out of my silence. I don't mean just by talking or explaining my research to others. I also mean my writing more journals. I love writing my thoughts down, without any guides or limits and I felt kind of suffocated the last two months. I felt restricted because I had too many ideas and thoughts that needed to written out, that needed to be out there somewhere, that just never got out there due to the lack of journals. I was so busy managing the groups for the surveys and actually analyzing the results, which took hours -who knew graphs and data were so time consuming- that I prioritized that over writing journals that fed my curiosity and drove my passion. I refuse to continue to do that. I don't have a lot of months left, time is running out and I am going to write, to not only appease and console myself but to add to the final product that I will have accumulated by the end of the year.
I mentioned time before and it has been on my mind quite a lot. As a senior in high school right now, I feel as though I am racing against time, to do everything I want to, everything I need to before that time runs out. At this point, life seems to have the sole purpose of gaining time. But that's not possible and I am slowly but surely coming to the realization that it's okay for that time to run out. I will continue my search for knowledge in college, and then my workplace and then whatever else that comes afterwards. That realization is what is pushing me that much harder to find that end product from my project.
One of my favorite movies of all time was Interstellar. In the movie, the Cooper had said something like, "We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, but now we look down and think about our place in the dirt." I think this might express everything I am thinking at the moment. While entrenched in the analytics of the paper, I had begun to lose sight of my purpose towards my research. Though I love that I am finding data that might validate my ideas, I need to keep that which motivates me in the forefront of my mind. I remember that I need to keep stretching the boundaries of what I thought would have come out of the project. I began the year with a lot of uncertainties in my head, I didn't know if I was going to be able to "measure" something that backs my research question. I thought that I would have to change my question or even my topic. That did not happen. Slowly and sometimes agonizingly, everything has been falling in place. I just need to work that much harder to make sure that continues.
