Week 6 [6/28 - 7/4]

This week was a bit shorter than the others because of Independence Day, but I still did a good amount of work. I finished going through my letters and started looking at the results.

A view of the Mississippi River

Accomplishments

I finally finished going through all 130 letters and recording data! This data included the latitudes and longitudes for each letter, so I have everything I need to create my map. I also did a walkthrough of creating my map and exporting it to a web page to embed in my website. I also created a separate spreadsheet for letters that don't have any numeric data but contain crucial government correspondence that outlines the narrative of state and federal aid.

Barriers to my best work

The second subset of letters, however, creates additional considerations. I could fully lean into the data side and look at just the aid requests and receipts, or I could simultaneously analyze the correspondence to understand aid distribution patterns. I would like to do both, but will I have the time to do so, and will this branch dilute my argument? I'll think about it.

This weekend was also a shorter week because of the holiday, so I didn't spend as much time working as usual. I plan to spend time working this weekend to make up.

Things i learned

We attended a panel of graduate students at USM and heard about their experiences both applying for and studying in their respective graduate programs! It was nice to hear from current students in addition to previous panels of alumni. We also continued our studies in digital preservation with a lecture on specific preservation policies and how they are performed, and walked through the steps USM takes to protect and maintain its digital collections. Finally, we received guidelines for creating an effective research poster! Since I presented at a conference poster presentation last summer, this lecture was a nice reminder.

Next Research steps

Next week I will create and analyze my map, begin writing the results and conclusion portion of my paper, and revise earlier sections. I will also outline my final presentation and begin to create visual slides. If I have additional time, I will incorporate the government correspondence letters into my analysis.

A snippet of the South

Myself and a few friends made our second trip to New Orleans! Last time, we visited Cafe du Monde for some delicious beignets, saw the WWII museum, and walked Bourbon Street. This week, we visited the aquarium and insectarium, and had a lovely Southern dinner at Mother's. The insectarium offered a fun scavenger hunt which included eating a bug! That's right, we ate cookies with a small cricket baked within, and therefore earned the prize of free Dippin' Dots!

The main attraction at the insectarium

Bug of the week

This week's bug of the week is... me! My friends bought me moth wings and some 'bugeyed' antennae that I was obligated to wear in the insectarium. I must admit, I felt like an insect wearing the outfit, which was later augmented with compound eye glasses. Now, for the actual bugs of the week, I nominate these four flower chafer beetles! I just love watching these beetles eat, and their large eyes give them quite the expressive face.