It still baffles me that I’m three weeks into this project, it feels both longer and shorter at the same time. On the one hand, I wish that I had more time so I could explore my topic more deeply and possibly write a huge paper on it. But on the other hand, I’m kinda glad that it’s ending. Not that I haven’t enjoyed this, I really have, but doing this project has further isolated me from friends and family. I spend my days reading articles, taking notes, drawing diagrams, or trying to figure out what in the world hypomania is because apparently no one can agree on its definition; so I’m not spending time with my family and I’m not talking to my friends as much as I’d like to. When this is over, I’ll be able to just do nothing and not worry about hours or timesheets or CRs. But yet, this project has kept me busy during a very hard time in the world. It’s kept me from worrying about the big things and focused on the small ones, and I’m glad that it’s doing that. I really do wish that I had more time since I don’t feel like I’m going anywhere. 

My essential question – How do Psychology and Psychiatry Intertwine In Terms of the Adolescent Experience? – is a pretty vague question. It is so vague that I am honestly unsure that it is even solvable. It sounds more like the title to a four-hundred paged paper with all sorts of footnotes and diagrams. It sounds like someone’s life’s work, not an eighteen year old’s senior project. But I chose this, so I guess I’ll have to live with the consequences of choosing such a broad question. 

At the start of senior project, I thought that I was going to be working in a lab, probably mindlessly putting data into a computer and BS-ing my reports saying that I was solving my question when in reality I was just doing petty chores. And maybe I’d get to sit in on meetings or lectures by my supervisor and I actually would be able to solve my question, but that’s not the case. Instead, I’m basically doing another senior project. Which isn’t a bad thing, I love senior projects, I’ve done quite a few. I just don’t know if I should be doing something differently, or if I’m looking at the project all wrong. Maybe if I changed something the pieces would come together and I’d instantly know what to do to make the senior project committee happy, and to make me happy – but that probably isn’t going to happen. 

Maybe I should write a huge paper, or make a lecture, or upload my notes. Maybe that’s the final project. But even if I do one, or all, of these things, I don’t think that I’ll be satisfied by it. So what should I do? Should I continue to keep my head down and read more, learn more, write more? Or should I write a paper, something that I doubt anyone will read because it’ll be long and full of medical jargon that most people that I’ve met don’t care for. Maybe a lecture? I could make a powerpoint, and record the voice-over, but who’ll want to sit down to a lecture that will be over an hour about the intricacies of the brain with even more medical jargon? I just feel stuck. I don’t want to phone it in, but at the same time I don’t want to overwork myself. I just don’t know how to answer my question, and it feels like everyone else does.