February 17th

This year has been nothing short of exhausting so far. Due to a bunch of bad luck, I haven't made as much progress on my MARC project as I hoped I would. I think that due to the circumstances this was kind of unavoidable, and I also think it's important to write down in my blog, especially for junior MARCers to see that not everything goes to plan. I really think that a work/school-life balance is crucial in general, and I think this past month has taught me it's ok and necessary to take breaks, and that plans can be derailed extremely quickly. However, despite these circumstances, I'm still set on finishing this project by the end of the year. I know that my continued passion for this subject will push me to keep working at it and persevering, and I'm still really excited to have a finished product for all of my hard work these past two years.

October 15th

This week was so chaotic!!! I had a bunch of final projects due so unfortunately I wasn't able to collect as many papers as I wanted, so instead I started reading through the sources I already have. I want to try and get through 2 a day, which should put me in a good position to finish reading the papers during winter break. I'm pretty sad that I won't have a MARC block next quarter, but I'm really excited to get started on reading the literature and getting in position to write during quarter 3!

October 8th

This week, I was able to both move forward on my project through, surprise surprise, finding more papers, and was able to talk to and connect with the junior MARCers. The junior cohort seemed very. put together and all extremely motivated. I was really interested by the ideas all of them had, and the overall grit they are showing by putting passion into these projects despite being off campus. I hope to find maybe 20 more papers and then stop actively searching through work cited pages, and instead start reading while deleting papers I think aren't relevant and following up on threads I see in other papers about things I am interested in or things I think relate to my topic.

October 1st

I once again looked for papers this week. I made really. good progress, and now have around 88 different papers! I'm going to continue looking this week, I'm hoping to get the paper count to total around 150-175. Then, during the second quarter, I want to try and summarize them in preparation for actually sitting down and writing the literature review in quarter 3. Since I don't have MARC quarter 2, I think it is going to be a little harder to stay focussed, but at this point I really want to see this project to completion, so I am determined to finish it off strong. Looking good so far!

September 25th

Still looking for papers! I believe I have found around 50 so far, so I think I'm making good progress. This past week I have just been looking at papers about inflammation, CBD, and Parkinson's, but I think I want to find ore papers about CBD and other factors unrelated to inflammation. I've also been able to come up with a plan this week about the future of my project and how I want it to progress during the rest of the school year.

September 19th

I've started look at papers related to my subject! I haven't gotten very far as of right now, but I think the papers I have so far give me a strong base. I'm currently just going off of the bibliographies and trying to find papers that are specific to CBD and Parkinson's. I'm probably also going to continue updating my Mendeley to keep track of the information I need for bibliographies, and use an excel sheet to keep track of what I've read and record summaries. Hopefully I'll be able to finish at the very least compiling all of the papers by the end of the month.

September 13th

The speaker panel this week was really interesting and gave me a lot of insight into the importance of literature review and how research looks at a professional level. I was really curious to learn more about how their current research has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their input overall really helped solidify my decision to pursue a literature review instead of a survey. I'm starting to look for papers now and I think I'm also going include the effects of THC in the literature review as well. I'm really excited and I honestly can't wait to learn more about this subject!!

September 7th

This week, I have been focussed on both collecting more information about surveys and literature reviews, and also reorganizing my work and my papers. The reorganization process was actually a lot easier than I thought it was, and I think a lot of the apprehension was caused by me thinking the process would be worse than it was. I think at this point I need to start finding more literature, because I think the direction I want to take my project in is a literature review. Apart from that, I got an email from Buck Institute about a program they are hosting about aging and aging research. I was extremely interested and signed up right away, and I honestly can't wait to begin!

August 28th

Needless to say, this summer has been a very interesting time for all of us. My plans of getting started on my project and beginning to culture cells has gone completely off the rails, and even though that is disappointing, I'm staying hopeful that I will be able to culture cells at some point! In the meantime I want to try and focus my energy on doing a literature review about everything I find concerning Parkinson's and CBD. Hopefully this will give me some good experience and teach me more about how to write papers. This year I'm going to try and use the skills I learned last year about research, and apply them in more productive and organized manners so that I will be more efficient. Even though the year isn't going as planned, I'm still excited!

May 26th

Today, I presented my final poster for MARC. This year has been quite the experience, and although things didn't go the way I planned, I'm still extremely happy with the work I have done and the work I'm prepared to do over the summer and next year. The poster session was extremely nerve wracking, and sitting in my room and presenting over a computer screen in 85 degree weather was not how I imagined sharing my findings, however I still feel proud about my presentation and about the work I have done this year. I honestly can't wait to get started in the lab and conduct actual research for next year!!

May 3rd

This past week, I met with my mentor to clarify my methods and to revise my manuscript. The meeting went well, and I felt like I gained a lot of insight from it! this week I mainly looked through more papers for ideas on how to write out my manuscript and thought a lot about poster ideas and what I'm going to do for my final poster presentation. I also worked on editing my manuscript, but I'm still not done and it needs some improvement. Hopefully, COVID-19 will be less of a threat this summer so that I can possibly get a head start working in the lab before the start of the next school year.

April 20th

Once again, due to COVID-19, my plans to start the lab portion of my project has been delayed. On the bright side, this has given me a lot more time to read more papers about my subject and look deeper into how I can actually set up my experiment. My mentor hasn't responded to the emails I have sent. This might be because he is checking his work email less frequently and missed them, and I intend on sending a follow up email soon. Other than that, I have been working on an Intro paragraph for a possible research paper. I think it looks good so far, however I don't know what to add to it to differentiate it from my research proposal background.

March 23th

Currently, all of California has been order to shelter in place due to the Corona virus outbreak. For me, this has meant that the experimentation that was going to be carried out and the start of MA's cell culture lab has been paused. On the bright side, this has given me a lot more time to focus on the background and writing section of my MARC project. I have reached out to my mentor about writing a Standard Operation Procedure for my project, and I'm getting specifics figured out about how I am actually going to be conducting the experiment so that I can jump right back in when I am able to access the lab again.

March 12th

Good news and Bad news! I might be able to get the cell culture materials earlier than expected! I'm still going to be trying to learn how to culture and practice in established labs, but this mean I can start my experimentation started earlier! However, unfortunately, we have a bit of a corona problem. Because of the pandemic, the school might be shut down for an unknown period of time, which means I might not be able to use the MA lab. I can't experiment at Buck because they have a controlled substance policy, which means I might have to use another lab or find other solutions in order to start experimentation. Either way, this is turning out to be really interesting, and we'll see how it turns out.

March 7th

Right now I am focussing on how exactly I am going to bring the cells to MA and how I am going to culture them. I hit a little bit of a road block because I found out that I probably will only be able to get the resources necessary to culture cells in April. In the mean time, I'm going to try practicing how to culture and maybe after spring break I will be able to either get the materials or borrow some for Buck in preparation for when the actual materials arrive.