Weekly Blog

Week of 3/04-3/07 Updates

This week, i have moved on to the second batch of my crochet work, which is the bookmarks. these have been easier to do, and so i have also had more time to work on the second section of my essay. i still need to add citations, which i can work on next week. so far, the project has been running a lot smoother. things have changed a little since the first week, but i think it has been for the better overall.

The biggest thing i was able to understand is that giving and receiving gifts is a social activity, even when you are not giving the gift in person. just knowing that someone made you a gift, along with knowing someone out there will receive your hard work, is enough to activate oxytocin in your brain, which is a neurotransmitter that thrives in social situations.

So far, the consistent struggle i have had for this project has been time management, but i think i am winning the battle overall. this week, though, i also faced the challenge of trying to stay motivated. crocheting is fun, but when you do it for hours every day for weeks, you start to lose interest. i still have the mindset of just powering through, but that is faltering a little bit more everyday. i need to find something to keep my interest so i’m not just zoning out.

Next week, i am going to be moving on to my final batch of crochet. i am currently considering flowers, but i may change this if i do some more searching over the weekend, which i plan to. i still want to keep it simple for sure though, as the week i was making the animal figurines was definitely something i do not want to have to do again for a while. i may also be able to start distributing gifts out next week if i am quick enough, but i still have the first few days of the week after if not.

Personally, a high for me this week was the short week. i now have a lot more time to calm down and relax after some hardcore crocheting. i still have some things to do over the weekend, but knowing i have more time is definitely comforting. my low has mainly just been that my energy has been a little lower than i would like it to be. my energy and motivation levels are definitely interlinked, so i need to make sure i get some good rest over the weekend so i can finish strong.

Next week, i am going to finish the rough draft of my essay, which i will probably work on during the later days of that week. i also intend on finishing all the crochet work by the end of the week, that way i can focus on the smaller details the last few days of the project. lastly, i want to work on filling out an off campus permission slip for at least one day the week after, so i have plenty of time to distribute all the gifts.

By working on my senior project this week, i now know how to change the look of a crochet piece by reversing it, which can also help with the actual crocheting process. i also understand more about how our brain and the neurotransmitters work. lastly, i have familiarized myself with programs that have been able to help me better manage my time and create a helpful schedule to work on crochet projects.

Other Updates

We had a blood drive last thursday, on the 29th. i signed up, but wasn't able to give blood because i was too excited, meaning my heart rate wasn't low enough. this was a bummer, but i decided i wouldn't give up, and made an appointment on saturday to try again. i looked up some ways to lower my heart rate and stay relaxed, and it ended up working. my heart rate was too high at first, but i tried to practice the techniques i learned, and lowered it by at least 30 bpm, which is pretty impressive to be honest. it was fun giving blood, and because it was my first time, they brought snacks to me in my own little chair, which made me feel pretty special.

I also saw that meta, the company behind instagram and facebook had their own ai chatbot, which seemed interesting. i like asking random ai chatbots questions about things they are almost certainly not programmed to answer, just to see how they respond. obviously ai is a hot subject right now that worries some people, but i can assure you all the meta ai chatbot will definitely not be going all, “i have no mouth, and i must scream” on us, at least not for a long time, because it didn’t answer my math question correctly. i then asked for a graph, and it decided the best thing to give me would be a little emoji, which was nice. in case you want to know, the slope is 9, which is not equal to 5. i asked it again, rewriting the problem just to clarify what was being squared, and it gave me 6, which is closer, but still not equal to 9 yet. maybe we’ll get there one day.