A Yellow Goodbye

This week I gave my final presentation, cueing the end of my AP Research project. It’s amazing to believe that I have accomplished such a task. Not only is this the longest paper I have ever written, it is also the most impressive. I have written the equivalent of an undergraduate senior research paper, as a high school senior. I think I learned a lot about time management as well.

This year, I was given a lot of freedom in what I was doing. My classes were more theoretical and required more discussion, thus less homework, and I was taking less classes all together. I learned that I have a lot of free time, and not enough hobbies to fill it with. But I also learned how to enjoy the work I was doing. Given all my free time, I actually began to look forward to doing my homework and doing my research, which to me, was the greatest thing that could come from senior year. This year taught me how to enjoy school and how to enjoy the things I was learning, rather than just doing them blindly. It felt good to be doing my research because I wanted to, and I think because of my freedom I was more likely to do things effectively. I learned how to do things on my own time, and when to do them. My teacher was very helpful in assigning a timeline that I think was very effective. The only thing that I think would have been a little better would be more time to implement our research, because I would have liked to do more with my research but I was limited due to the time span. But I think our timeline was pushed back because of our proposal, which was ultimately worth it.

While a lot of things weren’t perfect this year, the feeling of completion of this project is. While I’m happy to have completed such an enormous task, it’s also a little bit of a relief to no longer have to speak about how industrialization influenced the portrayal of synesthesia in Russian and American literature during the late 19th and early 20th century. Eight months is a long time to focus on such a narrow topic. It made me realize that doing intense research may not be the field for me. I want constant change and excitement so I’m going to need some different things in my life. I also really enjoy talking to people and research doesn’t entirely lend itself to that task.

In the end, what I found the best part of this experience was the knowledge that I gained. All of the research resulting in a better understanding of synesthesia, has helped me realize that I want to continue learning. I want to know more about the world and about everything, but I don’t necessarily want to be finding that information myself. I want to recite that information to others, but I’d rather be learning new things all the time and talking about them. I can imagine myself working for some science company, like Space X or Solar City, as a marketing representative or something, but not actually doing the science and research. I’m glad that I learned that now though, and not later in life.

Overall, I’m so grateful to have been given the opportunity to learn so much. I’m happy to be done, but sad to be moving on from such a huge part of my life. It’s a bittersweet ending, and in my opinion, a yellow goodbye.

Presentation Practice

My life consists of three things right now: synesthesia and coffee. Somehow I was able to bring those parts of my life together the other day.

Last week I gave a practice presentation. Due to a few things lacking in the presentation, I was asked to redo it on Saturday. During the time in between, I worked hard to make my slides better, as well as the way that I relayed my information. To say I was anxious about presenting would be an understatement. I practiced in the car, with friends, at work, etc. At one point I actually had like eight coworkers listen to my presentation. This was particularly helpful because after my first practice presentation, one problem that I had was that there were few connections between topics. I was having trouble relating everything back to synesthesia, By having a group of individuals who have not been exposed to the phenomenon or any part of my research , they could tell me easily where they felt lost. Unfortunately, I think that it may have been too complex for just an impromptu presentation because a lot of them were still very confused afterwards. But I felt much more confident after that presentation (also it was a great way to show off what I have been doing for the past eight months).

Over the many many practice presentations I’ve done, I’ve learned a few things. First breathe out, not in. When giving my presentation to my teacher, I realized that I have breathing problems. Although I think my speech wasn’t too fast the second time I showed her my presentation, it still may have been too fast. After doing some research, I found that breathing out, rather than breathing in can help greatly in controlling your breathing. So I’ve been doing exercises where I breath out using my stomach muscles, and then let the air just flood back in and I think it’s helping. I don’t feel overwhelmed to breath in air and breath it all out while talking.

Additionally, I have learned that my chain of thought it kind of all over the place, and scripts are truly very helpful. Often times, I make logical jumps that not everyone can follow. What I’ve found is that I have been doing this research for several months, so I know where everything is going and what everything means. Unfortunately, other people don’t have all the knowledge that I have acquired, luckily, we developed language so I can communicate the knowledge I have. I just need to be more aware of what is common knowledge and what is research knowledge. Luckily with my practice presentations with several people who are unfamiliar with the topic, and a couple with some people who are familiar has been the most beneficial. Having people who see the gaps is helpful for closing those gaps. And having people who understand the project is helpful for finding solutions to those gaps, and finding inconsistencies within the research project and then the presentation.

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Reflections

This past week, we submitted our final papers to the college board. A task that has made me feel incredibly accomplished. Although we have our presentations coming up (practice this week and final next week), I feel as if I've completed the biggest part. All of the information exists and all I have to do is have a conversation with some people about what I have done over the past eight months. I thought it might be interesting to see what doing this project has taught me, aside from a lot about synesthesia and Russian literature. 

First, there is a lot of research that needs to be done, and the sooner you find your topic, may not be the sooner you find your research question. So I knew from last year that I wanted to focus on synesthesia. After bothering Kathleen with dozens of questions, she suggested that I do my srp on it. I took her suggestion. Unfortunately, the field of synesthesia is very underdeveloped. You may say, hey! Great news for you! But the problem is that there are a lot of scientific stuff that still needs to be discovered, and I am a high schooler who does not have the money to fund scientific research or a lab. So, although more humanity based research can be explored, a lot of my topics led to surveys and interviews. Unfortunately, I did not have a group of people that I could interview. So I had to take a different approach. I researched semiotics, but came up short. I eventually came across research about synesthesia in literature, and decided that this is the field I should research. 

Second, your original literature review will not be your final literature review. During the research process so many things change, that the first thing you do, is not going to match your final results. What you need to do, is adjust for that. It's ok for them not to match, but make sure you don't match your results to your literature review. But rather your lit review to your results. It's actually kind of fun to see how your lit review differs, and see the evolution of your research. My first literature review was heavily focused on the scientific aspect of synesthesia, and explaining how it works. But now it's very little explanation of the science of synesthesia, and the justifications for the time periods and literature, and explanations of the information found previously. If you want to make yourself cringe, go to your first draft. 

Third, I felt that I would be extremely stressed out when we were first told what we needed to do, but the reality is that I could not imagine a more relaxed way of writing essentially an undergraduate research paper. Although this was our teacher's first year teaching this class, she gave us all the tools that we needed to succeed. In college, it's very likely that I will also have to write a research paper, and I will be left to my own devices. Although I will have the help of a professor in my discipline, I will not have the help of someone who understands me. My teacher led us through the steps of a literature review, and explained a multitude of methodologies. This information will help beyond what we accomplished this year too. Knowing how to write different methodologies will be helpful for whatever field I decide to be in. I'm glad that I got this experience. I may not be in college, but I learned how to write something for college, but with a little extra help. 

Word count: 604 

How to Be a Presentation God

To say I’m a people-person would be an understatement. I love talking to people. It my opinion, it can be one of the easiest things to do. Which is why presenting shouldn’t be difficult for me. I did speech and debate for almost all of high school, so I know how to speak in front of people, but for some reason there’s something about giving presentations that is very difficult for me. I think it comes from a difference between a conversation and a presentation. When I’m giving a speech for debate I’m constantly thinking about what I’m saying because there’s not enough time to just form a conversation ahead of time. But with presentations, there’s this idea that you have to memorize everything you say, which in my opinion puts me in an odd state where I don’t think about what I’m saying because I’ve already memorized what I am saying. Additionally, when giving a presentation I get very winded. My speaking pattern changes and I feel like I need to breath all the time. So in order to make my presentation the best presentation that I can give, I have step up some goals.

My friends call me Scott Schwertly

1. Put Together a Script That’s Not a Real Script  

So part of the problem is that once I go up to give my presentation I feel like I lose control over what I’m saying because I just get frozen and talked based on muscle memory. So I created a list of things that I need to discuss on each slide, but rather than writing how I will transition and the actual words that I need to say, I will just practice. Every practice presentation that I do will be different because of this, but I think since I will be practicing so much it will allow me to take different avenues and try out new things, rather than getting stuck on a single phrase when there is a much better way to say something. I hope because of that when I go up to give my presentation I will feel very focused on what I’m saying rather than just sort of speaking.

2. Breathing Exercises

This one is more for the speaking aspect. In order to speak in a clear voice and not feel winded, I will do breathing exercises before. I was inspired by a Ted Talk that was called something like, How to make people listen to you. And the guy who was leading the talk discussed how doing breathing exercises can help with your speaking and your breathing. I have also found that drinking water while presenting allows me to get a bearing on where I am, and kind of restart my breathing patterns. I also interact with hundreds of people a day, so I think that I might try give them little pieces of my presentation to get comfortable with what I’m saying and lift the pressure of a presentation off. I also want to make my presentation more casual. I know that there are obvious standards and there needs to remain a level of professionalism, but I want to be able to go up there and enjoy my presentation and have a good time, not just explain what I’ve done for the last year. That’s tricky though. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish it though.

Well that’s all for my tips. I’ll tell you next week, once I have begun practicing my presentation how it is going. Until next week!

Word count: 588

I submitted my final paper!

This week, I finally submitted my paper!

Skip to 52 seconds to see my reaction. 

I apologize for the foul language around 14 seconds. But his reaction at 52 seconds is worth it. 

Oh my god! What a relief! How awesome of an accomplishment too! I have essentially submitted an undergraduate research paper, as a high school senior. My final paper was 3980 words, so around thirteen pages and then at least thirty pieces of work were cited. Although now that I think about it… I realize I made a dumb mistake. Even though my research was centered around analyzing seven pieces of literature, I never cited them in my works cited (If Mrs. Haag is reading this and hasn’t graded my paper yet, I’m totally kidding. I would never do something so silly. Take my word for it). Alright well this past week’s work was pretty challenging to be honest. I focused on three parts of my paper that needed the most changes: the abstract, the results, and the discussion.

Abstracts are surprisingly difficult to write. The reason that it’s so difficult, is the same reason that the presentation portion is ending up being more difficult: it’s hard to condense months of research into 100-250 words. Largely, there’s a portion of me who is still clinging to part of my original research ideas. When I started, my research was all over the place. I knew I wanted to do something with synesthesia, but I couldn’t figure what I wanted to do, so I learned so much about synesthesia. I learned about how the brain’s of synesthetes vary from non-synesthetes’ brains. I learned about how grapheme-color synesthesia isn’t exclusive to graphemes like letters and numbers, but also shapes. I learned about the genetic components of synesthesia. I questioned, and still do!, why identical twins are sometimes born with different synesthesia, or only one twin has synesthesia (if I could research anything with all the resources, and all the time, and all the money, I would try to figure out why sometimes only one twin will have synesthesia). I obviously learned a lot. A lot of material didn’t make it into my paper, but it still resides in my brain. So condensing all I know about synesthesia, Russian and American literature, and the industrial revolution is very challenging.

The results. This was the easiest part of the paper to edit. The results themselves did not change, but I tried to include more visually pleasing ways to view the results and more comprehensive ways to understand the results. Based on the review of my peers, the changes were nice and I achieved my goal.

Lastly was the results section. The results section was the hardest. I was happy with the limitations section and future implications, but I was lacking in the actual analysis of my results, quite possibly the most important portion of the results section. After reorganizing my results section, my findings became much clearer though. Unfortunately, my conclusion was that the books I chose to read were too different in subject matter to be able to attribute any differences in the portrayal of synesthesia to the culture. Hopefully though, someone in the future will find literature of similar subject matter and redo my research. Maybe I’ll even be able to do it! Well until next time!

Word count: 536

The Amazing Race

Currently, I lay unable to sleep. This post was definitely supposed to be posted before midnight, but in a frenzy to get to bed before 10 pm for a 6 am shift, I forgot to upload a blog post. Upon realizing my mistake, I set an alarm for 4:30 am so that I would have time to shower, eat, get ready, and write a blog post. But as I lay awake in bed for two hours, I decided that I would be too tired to write in the morning and I may as well be useful in this cursed insomnia stage. I will definitely be getting less than 5 hours of sleep tonight, but luckily I work at a coffee place. If anyone wants to make my day, I will be working 6 am-11 am at Dutch Bros on Bell and 62nd! I can give great drink recommendations and high fives!

As far as my research is concerned there are a couple things I want to cover. I have been watching a lot of The Amazing Race, so I am 100% going to be formating my blog post like an episode of The Amazing Race.

Our starting line is the results section. Once teams have completed their results section they will be receiving their next clue.

Detour Info: Teams will be completing their first detour where they will have to analyze their results and how they play into the academic conversation.

For my analysis I have found that there is a strong correlation between the usage of nature and synesthesia, and a weak one between industry and synesthesia. This is important because in a raising industrial world, based on my results, there should be a lack of synesthesia present in literature. The problem with a world where synesthesia is not represented in literature is that even though 2-4% of the population has synesthesia, it is poorly portrayed. If synesthesia is truly eliminated by more industrialization, then we can expect nobody to understand synesthesia whether they have it or not.

The reality of the situation is much more complex. According to Pat Duffy’s research, there is a massive amount of literature with synesthesia, most of it modern. That means that there had to have been a shift. For all of Ms. Duffy’s pieces of literature, synesthesia was used as a characteristic rather than as a literary device. In all the pieces of work I observed, synesthesia was used as a literary device rather than as a characteristic. Meaning that at some point there had to have been a shift.

Roadblock Info: Teams will have to explain the limitations of their research and future research.

One limitation is that although the industrial revolution’s impacts were long lasting, my research only observed the direct consequences. Of course this is extremely helpful in understanding how synesthesia was portrayed at the time, but there is little use in my research in hypothesizing how the shift between synesthesia as a literary device and synesthesia as characteristic occurred.

Other limitations were that the pieces of works chosen had research done on them that explicitly stated that there was synesthesia in the literature. The reason that the pieces of works were chosen this way, was that the literature absolutely had to include synesthesia, and there was not enough time to read hundreds of pieces of literature in Russian and English to discover if synesthesia existed in each book. That being said, there may be many more books that are more popular and have more obvious examples of synesthesia that were not included in this study.

There may have been a bias because in what was considered natural and industrial language and synesthesia. I had to decide whether or not something was considered natural or industrial according to a code I developed. In order to minimize the effect of bias, I had a consultant to identify synesthesia. but none was used to reconfirm natural and industrial language.  

Luckily, our team came in 3rd. So tune in next week to root for #teamsynesthete in a chance to win $1 million!

Three Things I Learned Last Week

Over the last week, I have (among dying part of my hair purple, working a lot, and getting sick) been finishing up my research and analyzing my results, so I thought this week I could give my general ideas for the research process and any interesting things I found.

First, the research process is longer than you may expect. You may think that you can read 8-10 pieces of literature, but you will quickly find that to be false. Reading literature for pleasure and for research is very different, and the pace at which you read will differ greatly.

This is what a 100 page book feels like when doing your research.

When reading for research, you have to be much more attentive, because you’re looking for specific ideas and themes. When reading for pleasure, you can easily skip every other word and understand what’s still happening. Just make sure you take into account how much literature you’re really reading so that you don’t have to cut down on a lot, like me. Another reason I struggled was that when you’re doing a content analysis you set up a code, and you think that your code is perfect and it’ll work great. The reality is that your code isn’t great, and once you start reading you begin to realize it. So my suggestion for any content analysis people in the future is to develop your code and then do a test run. Take a very small section from each piece of literature and run your code on it. For me, it was only when I began reading The Jungle that I became positive in what I was doing. Unfortunately, that was my last piece of work. But to account for my new confidence, I went back and redid earlier pieces.

Second, don’t get too caught up on your original hypothesis. One problem that I faced was that I wanted my results to match my initial ideas, which made me more lenient with my code. Something that maybe wasn’t quite industry, may have been counted industry.

       The line between real and fake, isn’t always so clear.

In the end. this screws up your results, and is dishonest (which is why you always have to go back to your earlier results and check them). I found that with more works, there was less attachment to the original hypothesis though, but it would have been more helpful to have this attitude the entire time.

Third, your results may be inconsistent, and that’s ok! There is true happiness is the stars and planets aligning and giving you perfect results. Unfortunately, this will never happen. You will have nearly perfect results, you will have incomprehensible results, you will have inconsistent results. That’s ok.

Actual picture of my results.

You will have happy moments. Like you will find that the results that use the most natural language per page, will also have the highest number of uses of synesthesia. Then you will find that the results that use the most industrial language per page have the least amount of uses of synesthesia and a medium amount. Unfortunately, nothing will be absolutely perfect. Fortunately, where things are not perfect, they are interesting.

Word count: 535