Weekly Blog

Week of 3/18-3/22 Final Updates

Some of the skills i focused on during this project were college prep through writing and researching, personal skills through crocheting, and professional communication through emails.

My first learning goal was to learn more about the human brain and emotions. i now understand the parts of our brain that play a role in the emotions we experience, such as the hypothalamus and the amygdala. my second learning goal was to improve my time management through implementation of healthy habits. now, i think i have a much stronger drive when it comes to doing work, which in turn gives me more time to unwind as well. my last learning goal was to improve my crochet skills. i now feel a lot more confident in changing patterns to make my own unique designs.

I decided that my project should involve crocheting, as it was something i got really into during the pandemic, more specifically during my freshman year of high school. i thought it would be nice to come back to it now that this was my senior year. we had done a project in humanities class about gift giving, and i decided to give away the pieces i made as gifts, as a way of making people happy. from there, i decided i wanted to incorporate some science, specifically neuroscience, as i had experience working with scripps research as a part of an internship last year. i was largely inspired by the work my teachers and mentors had done in their own respective paths, as i wanted to learn more about the topics they got me interested in.

The biggest moment in the beginning of my project would be when i finished my first official piece, a little stuffed lion. this was important just because it was when i had officially moved forward with my project, where there was some sort of tangible work i had made. the second key moment would be all of the nights and weekends that i spent outside of school crocheting trying to make sure i had enough of everything. there were a few times like this, but if i had to pick one it would be the first weekend, where i was crocheting bookmarks all day. lastly, my final key moment would have to be presenting my work to people during the exhibition and explaining the project to all the people that went up and asked.

My biggest struggle, personally, was adjusting to the changes i needed to make. initially, i wanted to work with different organizations, but after a week of hearing nothing from most of them, i had to pivot to crocheting works of my own and then giving them out without the partnerships. this was more than a little stressful, just because i was worried i wouldn’t make enough progress, but i kept going and made sure to communicate, and it all worked out.

I am proud of how focused i was during this project, as initially i thought i might get distracted. even as the weeks went by, and i grew a little tired of crocheting, i still persevered and stayed diligent. as a result of this, my final projects all came out really well, and i was proud of myself during our exhibition.

I think that, while i am happy with the work i did, i would have liked to go off campus and do some kind of internship along with the work i was doing. obviously then i wouldn’t be crocheting as much as i did, but it still would have felt a little more balanced this way. despite that, i still think looking back that the work i did was good, and i’m not upset that it played out this way.

I think the biggest piece of advice i could give myself would have to be that it is never too early to start prepping for a senior project. i think things would have been even cooler if i had a few more crochet pieces i had made over winter break or the weeks before senior project that i could have donated as well. i think improving my time management skills helped with this attitude a lot.

Final Photos 😭😭😭 (maybe...)

Setting up to exhibit our presentations was fun, but also stressful. this was because i had planned to have a cute tablecloth instead of the black ones the school provided, but i had to get it between when school got out at 3:30 and when the exhibition started at 5:00. i ended up getting a really nice pearl-like tablecloth, which you can’t see in this photo because i took the picture too early😭. i plan to recreate the set up and change the photo either later today or tomorrow, so if you are reading this, wow you are special. why don’t i tell you something secret too, just so you can brag that you saw this while it was still in its beta phase. my next crochet project is a spring themed cardigan, and i am going to upload a picture of it when i’m done, which should be sometime this upcoming weekend. DON’T tell anyone though, because this is a big secret.

It was a little bittersweet packing everything up, as that was the end of the project. since you are here early, i’ll throw in one more secret. the photo of my lion in the bag isn’t actually from packing up the night of exhibition, it was from my second week of senior project, but i don’t have photos of cleaning up as ms. yoli rushed me out of there, and also i really didn’t feel the need to take any photos of me putting my stuff away until just now.

Finally, i decided that while this project was over, my love for crochet definitely isn’t, and i was inspired to make another project. too bad you won’t be able to see it. or will you…