Deparmental Talk I

On Wednesday I had to give my first departmental talk - and it went pretty well. While I was nervous up there I think I was able to pull off the illusion I wasn't 'too' horribly nervous and those who asked questions made sure to ask nice ones :)

The next day I had my second research committee meeting and that also went well. We talked about possibilities for what I could do at Blizzcon (qualitative research seems to be the consensus at the moment, but we will see if that changes as Blizzcon gets closer), as well as possible suggestions for some side-projects that could be done while I am running my stereotype threat experiment. They really are pushing for me to complete my lit review by October, which I think is a doable goal so I am going to aim for that.

Lets see, what else... today I went to GBK and had a chicken/cranberry/Camembert burger which was heaven while I was eating it but omg did I want to throw it up 20 minutes later. Too rich for my blood.. and I don't think the vanilla milkshake helped my cause :( Not sure if I will eat that combination again because it is still feeling heavy in my stomach and I ate it like 5 hours ago...

I was hoping to go out for a jog today, which it still could happen but Hannah's housewarming party is in an hour or so - so it would have to be after that. We'll see how it goes... I have a feeling working-out isn't going to make it into my schedule today :( Which is unfortunate, but then again I'd probably get cramps when I starting running due to the massive burger sitting in my tummy.

Until next time..

Stereotype Threat

Well it has come time to start working on my second experiment this year which is going to revolve around this idea of stereotype threat. It is actually really interesting how someones performance can be altered just from the mere mention of a stereotype that they would be affected by. For example, give a woman a math test without saying anything and she will perform as well as a man. Give her the same test and tell her that it has shown gender differences (which primes her to think about the general stereotype that men are better at math than women) and she will perform significantly worse.

Currently I am trying to figure out how I am going to measure this construct with my population. I have a few ideas which I have thrown out to my supervisor and he seems supportive - however it is up to me to put all these ideas together. I know that I am capable of doing such a thing, but I just don't want to get too ahead of myself. Supervisors are there to rein you in and make sure you aren't going after the big picture head first and instead are taking things one manageable step at a time... so I don't know. On Friday I was in the office for 10 hours or so working on this project and thinking in the back of my head that I hope when I show my work to my supervisor he doesn't shit all over it :P

Hmm.. lets see what else has been going on. Not too much I guess. Lisa is finally back from Manchester so that's good.. been hanging out with her and Jeff mostly :) It is going to be so horrible when Jeff goes back to Maryland in the summer... what am I going to do?! He's my rock here :( Guess I will have to manage somehow, especially considering he can't wait to get back home.. he is literally counting the days! Guess I am just lucky he didn't leave in December like he wanted to.

Alright, laundry time! Over and out!