The Truman Show, 6 North, & Research Musings (Part 2)

Ok, so I'll be honest. I don't remember the week of July 12-16 very well. Actually this makes sense, because I can barely remember how to I got to this airport. Maybe I'm dreaming. . . (Inception reference).

Anyway, I think that the beginning of the week found me very spiritually needy. Oh! And financially needy too. I started taking the Metro more. Hmm. . . oh and I found my favorite coffee spot in St. Louis (Kayak's). Here are some research related activities that I think I did:

1. This whole week was me getting my poster ready. I learned how to plot data in Excel and then copy & transpose it to SigmaPlot to make graphs w/ error bars. The whole process was a little frustrating, as I was struggling to find any significance in my data.

2. I started figuring out the format and the things I wanted to add to the poster. A Master's student already did a poster on a previous pilot run, so that also made things much easier and much more difficult. Easier because I had a really good template of what my poster should/could look like and more difficult because I knew that whatever I said on my poster would be painstakingly compared to the work of this Master's student. It's slightly intimidating, considering that I'm wicked new to research.

3. Wednesday was our program meeting. Emily Somerville came in and described what occupational therapists do in regard to aging. I really enjoyed this presentation because it encouraged INTERACTION between the audience and the speaker. Also, Emily is a Covenant-graduate! How ironic! It was such a blessing to know that we're coming from similar educational backgrounds. I've felt fairly isolated in regard to that in this internship.
After the presentation, we went to 6 North, which is an apartment complex that was constructed using 100% universal design principles. If you aren't familiar with universal design, you should Google it or something because it's pretty cool. Basically, universal design in building construction refers to living space that is usable for everyone, not only people with disabilities. For example, there are things like ground level entrances without stairs, wider doorways and hallways, lever handles instead of knobs, etc. It was extremely nice, and I really appreciated there are federal programs that assist people with getting this living space. I would LOVE to live there! The apartment we saw was ballin'.

4. I stepped outside of my box on Friday and went to a Bible study that I had heard about. I didn't know anyone there, which is scary to me because I hate meeting new people. It turned out to be a huge blessing to me though, because I was able to talk to a guy who recently became a Christian. I need insights into life like that to remind me that God is omnipresent, and does not dwell in the temple of Covenant College.

Hmm. . . now that I've typed all that out, I am reminded that the week before last was really good in comparison with that past week. Pessimists like myself would do well to look back on good times more often, haha.

Stay tuned for Part 3, because it's one for the ages.

Ciao.