I realized the other day that I have focused much of my life on this research. But it's only a beginning. The questions I feel that I've answered only lead to more questions, which makes it hard to think that this will be consequential in the long run.
I've started the process of learning to conduct research. It's far more rigorous than I first imagined. I had high hopes to discover things that matter to the public. Most of my time though, has been adapting a research question. In hindsight, the question could have been formed much sooner with much more clarity. Then again, there's value to discovering this the hard way. I've read close to 40 scholarly articles if not more, six books, and a lot of newspaper articles. I've written over 120 pages of research, conducted three one-hour interviews, and listened to each twice.
Now I need to hear back from my advisor so I can submit it tomorrow.
After that, I'll do a presentation on July 24th at 4 p.m. and I can be officially finished with my graduate degree.
