I'm not to sure what I should blog about this week. Easter has come and gone (faster than I would have liked), my birthday is just a few short days away (April 8th) and this coming Monday (April 12th) will mark the end of my life as a grad student. Andrew and I are also leaving for our first really big trip where we had to do all the planning, arranging, and booking next Wednesday (April 14th), which if I am unable to blog about on route, will definitely recap after we get home.
I wish I could say: "Bwa ha, ha! I will write about none of the above things. Instead I will devote this week's blog to this random, obscure topic!" Although my head is filled with random, obscure facts that no one really cares about, I will not take the time to write about them just now*. Instead, I will write another lightening round post, as I did a few months ago when I had no standout topics to discuss, but wanted to let my surely limited readership know I was still alive and kicking.
Easter Weekend
Andrew being Catholic meant that Easter weekend was full of church. I grew up in a small protestant church and we only had a service on Easter Sunday with the occasional Good Friday event depending on whether it got organized. In addition, my high school friend Michelle visited, so we had company throughout the weekend. We did a big lunch (lamb was on the menu) with a few more friends on Sunday afternoon.
How to Train Your Dragon
Sunday night we ended up going out to see How to Train Your Dragon. It was super cute and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a light-hearted movie with cheeky dialogue. Also, anyone who has ever owned a cat will see much of their beloved pet in the featured dragon, Toothless--so very adorable.
My Birthday
I'm turning 29 years old on Thursday. I considered calling this my 1st annual 29th birthday (as a friend once had dubbed hers) but I'm not overly concerned about growing older. As pointed out to me recently, this is likely because I'm married, have a reasonable nice apartment, a car, and a cat for a proxy-baby (at present I have no desire for a real one). Andrew and I are going to go out for a fancy dinner the night of, and I will be hosting some friends at our place on Friday. Lemon flavoured cake will be served.
Last Day of School
My last day of grad school will be next Monday. The time has passed relatively quickly, and I can't honestly say I'm too sad about it. If you asked me on the spot what I've learned, I'm not to sure that I could put my thoughts into words. That's not to say that I think I've learned nothing--that's not true (although some classes were vastly more useful than others). I feel like I've got various concepts and ideas fluttering around in my head about librarianship and what it means to be a librarian, I'm just not sure I could verbalize them in any sensible manner.
European Travels
Andrew and I will embark on a 2 1/2 week trip around Europe next Wednesday. We'll be flying into Frankfurt, Germany, then move on to Interlaken, Switzerland, Bergamo Italy, and several different places in France (Caen, Arras, and Paris). We have friends in Germany and Italy, who have been kind enough to offer to host us, and we'll be doing all our inter-country travel by train. The main purpose for visiting France is to see some of the major battle sites from WWI and WWI: Juno Beach (the Canadian landing beach for D-Day) and Vimy Ridge (one of the CEF's major victories). I suspect I will be extremely exhausted when we get back, but I'm looking forward to it immensely.
Ciao,
Andrea
*note the phrase "just now" meaning, those random, obscure topics make yet make an appearance on this small space of the Web.
Showing posts with label grad school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grad school. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, August 10, 2009
Food for thought
I thought, since it's currently consuming my life, I would take this opportunity to briefly describe my literature review and the related research project I am completing for my Masters. Also, nothing much of note happened this weekend, although I did get the chance to try out Starfarers of Catan.
I have an interest in nutrition; however, I have only taken one course on the subject during my undergrad, and I've done some reading on the topic (primarily Michael Pollan's books--who's not a nutritionist). In general, I have an interest in how medical/health information is passed onto the public and how that information is preceived and used. This interest has grown out of my experiences during my nursing degree, my time as a research assistant involved in systematic reviews, and my general outlook on health care and how it should be conducted. Since I am currently in a library and information studies program, I have combined this interest with the the LIS field of information seeking (basically, how people look for information).
Currently, I am enrolled in an independent study course involving a literature review on the topic of undergraduate information seeking behaviours for food and nutrition-related information. Since no one has specifically looked at the nutrition information seeking behaviours of undergraduates, I'm having to combined data on undergraduate nutrition (perhaps not to surprisingly, it's not great) with information seeking behaviours of undergraduates in general (also not that great) along with a smaller section on what is known about how people search for health information (I haven't gotten to that part yet). This whole process has taken a considerable amount of time, much more time than I had anticipated. I'm glad I don't have to factor in class time as well. Sadly, because of this, completing work on my Nora MS has been delayed.
During the fall semester I'll be taking on the primary research part of this project. I'm going to interview U of A undergraduate students to find out if, how, where and why they search for information on nutrition. This is a slightly terrifying prospect, a) because I'm an introvert by nature; and b) I suspect I'll be dragging information out of these students by tooth and nail. My suspicion is that most students don't look for information on the food they eat. They eat what's convenient (which is what I've found out from my literature review) and cheep. I think the whole thing is going to be a tough go. Once I've completed the interviews I'll have to transcribe, code and analyze my data and finally write up a paper. From where I stand, it seems like a mind-booglingly large amount of work.
After that, well, I'm not sure. I would love to continue on with this vain of research except, the only way for me to really do that is through PhD studies--and I'm not convinced I want to do that (when would I find the time to write more adventures with Nora?). Another possiblity bouncing around in my head is I could look at applying to the Nutrition department at the U of A for a second Masters. I would be a little behind on the nutrition knowledge, but I think given my background experiences I might be able to swing it. However, there again, do I really want to do a second Masters? I don't know. This is a problem, and I see no immediate answer to the question. Maybe I should just apply to everything that comes my way (jobs included) and see what happens.
Ciao,
Andrea
I have an interest in nutrition; however, I have only taken one course on the subject during my undergrad, and I've done some reading on the topic (primarily Michael Pollan's books--who's not a nutritionist). In general, I have an interest in how medical/health information is passed onto the public and how that information is preceived and used. This interest has grown out of my experiences during my nursing degree, my time as a research assistant involved in systematic reviews, and my general outlook on health care and how it should be conducted. Since I am currently in a library and information studies program, I have combined this interest with the the LIS field of information seeking (basically, how people look for information).
Currently, I am enrolled in an independent study course involving a literature review on the topic of undergraduate information seeking behaviours for food and nutrition-related information. Since no one has specifically looked at the nutrition information seeking behaviours of undergraduates, I'm having to combined data on undergraduate nutrition (perhaps not to surprisingly, it's not great) with information seeking behaviours of undergraduates in general (also not that great) along with a smaller section on what is known about how people search for health information (I haven't gotten to that part yet). This whole process has taken a considerable amount of time, much more time than I had anticipated. I'm glad I don't have to factor in class time as well. Sadly, because of this, completing work on my Nora MS has been delayed.
During the fall semester I'll be taking on the primary research part of this project. I'm going to interview U of A undergraduate students to find out if, how, where and why they search for information on nutrition. This is a slightly terrifying prospect, a) because I'm an introvert by nature; and b) I suspect I'll be dragging information out of these students by tooth and nail. My suspicion is that most students don't look for information on the food they eat. They eat what's convenient (which is what I've found out from my literature review) and cheep. I think the whole thing is going to be a tough go. Once I've completed the interviews I'll have to transcribe, code and analyze my data and finally write up a paper. From where I stand, it seems like a mind-booglingly large amount of work.
After that, well, I'm not sure. I would love to continue on with this vain of research except, the only way for me to really do that is through PhD studies--and I'm not convinced I want to do that (when would I find the time to write more adventures with Nora?). Another possiblity bouncing around in my head is I could look at applying to the Nutrition department at the U of A for a second Masters. I would be a little behind on the nutrition knowledge, but I think given my background experiences I might be able to swing it. However, there again, do I really want to do a second Masters? I don't know. This is a problem, and I see no immediate answer to the question. Maybe I should just apply to everything that comes my way (jobs included) and see what happens.
Ciao,
Andrea
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