2024-2025

First week of my internship (June 7 - June 13)

I worked for my internship, and projects, had meetings for data collections. 

Wednesday, I handled the insurance for the car. 

I had meetings for thematic analysis, I have been thinking of the best themes and learning the method of it. 

Thursday, we had the watch party & drinks for  AJLT.

Friday, I made the amazing drawing that I am super proud of :)

Saturday, I went to Farmer's market, then I went out for checking the car essentials with my friend.

I spent my Sunday on working on the paper I want to submit, and went to a pool party. 

Got back to writing (June 30 - July 6)

I am getting back to my default settings, which is that I am trying. I realized how emotionally tired I was. Now, I can see more clearly that I needed to stop. Now,  I feel better since I accepted I am just doing my best, and it is okay. Sometimes I just do not appreciate what I have and I focus on what I am lacking. But that's okay, I am fine, I will be fine. Deeply I know and I believe I will always find a way, figure things out. That's my strongest part, also having people who loves me and I love so much. Love & support & resilience. Keywords of my week, and reflections. 

Monday, I was working in the office, and got a class from my advisor visiting the town, we talked about ideas over an hour. Body, narratives, emotions. Blended in my mind and waiting for me to entangle them. I loved it so much.  He taught me to hypothesis, create my own theories, and I was very scared to do that. Now, I am theorizing, doing mixed method studies, following my ideas. I am proud of myself. --Also this is my first day of coming back to 'driving'  and going back to Pilates. 

Tuesday, I worked all day, and then I met with my advisor for dinner. Talked about meaningful life events, and the archive in the campus. Learned about Peruvian cuisine hehe. I also walked in the evening thinking about "Tasavvuf".

Wednesday, I worked hard to finish testing my prompts before my meeting with my manager. Then, I worked on coding of interviews (read Braun and Clarke more deeply, it was such a well-written paper, I enjoyed it so much). 

Thursday, I worked and met with my manager to talk about my second project. Then, I attended a talk by Albert Schmidt, it was very insightful. I am very curious where AI will take us to. I also went out for a friend's farewell, it is so nice to see people achieving, finishing their PhDs. I feel inspired by them. I also feel like I gained a mental flexibility now about ideas, and not getting them as my identity, and thinking as fun tools that entertain my mind and caves to look and search for light holes in them. 

Friday, MY FLOWER JUST BLOSSOMED! I AM SO HAPPY. It is so crazy how little things makes me extremely happy hehe.

Everything is a human interaction! (May 5 - May 11)

Monday, I helped with the interview study for the UXP lab, and then I worked on my study setup. I also conducted a pilot study with my friend. Helped a friend to proofread their paper.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked on my presentation for the qualification. I got anxious from time to time, thinking if my papers are awful (hello cognitive distortions), but I got support from my friends and family. 

Thursday, I met with my advisor, thought about my quals, and research. I felt more assured on my interests in memory and reviewing and remembering practices of people. I also went out with my friends to celebrate their graduation.

Friday, I had a meeting with my cogsci advisor, we talked about the quals, he suggested I should practice saying no when I need to, challenge my cultural beliefs on respect and hierarchy--super hard-- but I appreciated his observation.

I also went for Yoga with a friend who is transferring to another school from IU, and enjoyed it actually. 

In my meetings with my advisors I shared my future plan as:

1- summer internship --> improving my skills

2-submitting to CHI & Cogsci during summer

3-finishing my classes in fall & work-intern-visit in spring & teach in 5th year and graduate--make my proposal in fall (around October)

4-having a study heavily computational (in addition to my qualitative study)

5-focusing on reflection, meaning-making, recollection habits-strategies, thinking about context

Saturday and Sunday, I kept working on my presentation, sent my cog sci paper; prepared my luggage for going back home. 

Get back to research (April 28 - May 4)

Monday  was about setting up the final week of classes, grading, and attending a talk by Alina Arseniev-Koehler titled "Meaning in Hyperspace: Word Embeddings as Tools for Cultural Measurement." She suggested that context and concept are not the same, and highlighted the limitations of language models. It made me reflect on “context,” a concept I’ve been constantly thinking about for my qual papers.

Tuesday, I set up a short survey on rumination and reflection based on factor loadings from the pre-survey of my memory study. I thought through interview questions and submitted a rationale for my AI interaction study. (to myself and my advisor). I also read about reflection in HCI and more broadly (Hao et al., 2025; Bentvelzen et al., 2022); and made edits for the C&C Consortium.

Wednesday, we had our last Design Theory class. Erik emphasized that having the right attitude is one of the most important things for success. He reminded us how much we’ve already achieved by getting to this point and that we’ll be fine as long as we keep our promises and do a good job on time. Knowing we’ve already done well can ease our anxieties, foster a positive attitude, and—sometimes—that attitude is all that really matters.

Thursday, I worked on my previous paper on visual imagery and memory, and revised the CogSci paper before submission. I continued reading about meaning and found Van de Goor's PhD dissertation fascinating, along with their papers  (van de Goor et al., 2022 and King & Hicks, 2009). I discovered that positive psychology is highly relevant to my research.

Friday, I continued working on my previous papers, met with my advisor in the lab to say goodbye before his departure, and spent time with my cohort at Lennie’s after a long day. It made me realize everyone struggles in their PhD journey, even people I find extremely successful. 

On the weekend, I finalized and submitted the C&C Consortium, and helped my collaborators create descriptive analyses for mobile app data in their project.

Sunday, I collaborated on project brainstorming, worked on finalizing my IRB applications, and completed my CPT application for the summer.

Throughout the week, I went to gym, painted, cooked with my friends, 

 Final week of quals writing (April 21 - April 27)

Monday, I went to Erik's class, and got inspired again. He suggested being visionary-think about future potentials not present technologies, positioning yourself, reading blogs that you agree with and disagree with, and having the courage to learn from people with opposing views to improve yourself for the better. Then, he pushed me to think about the broader picture, it was very on time advice since I was writing the final parts of my quals papers. I thought why I care about the topic to begin with. Here are the keywords I scribbled:

"smell, memory, authenticity, self and collective belongingness, make people feel belong, remember"

Then, I kept working on my paper with Ladik. 

Tuesday,  I worked on editing my second paper and went to gym, also went for a walk after gym, the weather was nice. Talked with Beyza about future studies on collective memories. 

Wednesday, was lab meetings, lab dinners. I also met with Erik, and talked about how to create potential collaborations, "not spending time on solving problems I do not have yet,"  my thesis proposal, future projects, how much I love thinking about ideas, and enjoying academia, internship updates (I got an offer from the company!!)

Thursday, I edited the memory qual paper, the first one, and reread, wrote the general introduction, thought about affordance, met with the amazing book called "How artifacts afford" by Dr. Davis, got inspired! 

Friday, I reread my second paper and wrote the conclusions of each paper again by editing. Then I submitted my papers around 7pm, enjoyed the rest of the night by watching Turkish TV series (guilty pleasures...) Also, I got accepted to Creativity and Cognition's doctoral consortium!

Saturday and Sunday were full rest days, when I hung out with friends and went to a local exhibition by a friend on AI. Had a goodbye dinner with CNETS girls on Saturday. I spent time outside, went to coffee shops with Raquel. Other than that, I have spend my weekend on thinking about what I want in my life, questioning my decisions, hoping for the best, breathing, stopping, writing poems, lying down under the sun.  --see my struggle in times i did good-- 

Another cute note, I received a letter from me (FutureMe) from last year via FutureMe--it is a website that allows you to send letters to future-- I do it all the time especially in very high and low moments of my life--So in the letter, it was saying I was also very tired and busy last year -lol-, asking my future self whether I am dealing with my quals now (what a good guess I did exactly one year ago--crazy) and telling me I can do it and I believe in myself. It was very sweet and dorky to validate myself by coming from the past. I felt happy hehe. 

These are all my big week's summary. I wrote my previous week's notes today, so this Sunday was devoted to journaling and laundry. Hope to be more consistent in the next weeks!

 Getting back to gym (April 14 - April 20)

Monday, I worked on my quals with Ladin (surprisingly), then went to Erik's class. 

Tuesday, I worked on my quals, went to gym. Heard from a summer internship position. I sent emails to professors I met previously to be in touch, work briefly on editing a previous paper. M

Wednesday, I prepared for the internship interview, completed gradings for the class. I also met with Erik, and talked about the paper, saying I do not know how to edit, and it feels like endless edits and rewriting I need to do. He suggested me just finish it, although seems simple it was such an on time, good advice for me I can't believe. 

Thursday, I worked on my quals again, had the interview with the company, went to gym and kept working on quals more. The company invited me for the second round of the interviews.

 Friday,  I had a meeting with Fritz, and we talked about the scope of the quals paper, and he shared good tips with me for cross-referencing others in conversation--also suggesting the aging area is a nice, safe career focus--! Then, I had the interview with the whole team at 3pm, it went very well and enjoyable. I felt like when you feel confident, it reflects on others, and it is easily visible. I was also thinking how much I enjoy learning methods throughout my career. Then, I talked to my family and met with Raquel to hang out and celebrate the good news with nice weather in Bloomington! 

I kept working on Saturday, then took a break on Sunday and celebrated Easter with my friends. I went for a long walk in the nice weather and got ready for the week. 

My thoughts lately have been influenced by the impact of technology on human growth, and I thought about the metaphor of a magnet that pushes things apart. Technology is almost like a magnet that pushes people with lack of resources to learn less, do not improve the quality, of their work but just help them to be mid, left them in their own eco chamber, while the other side is getting better  --if they have an advantageous start, technology and especially AI help them to tailor their job for better. Also, it means that these two ends are getting farther and farther apart from each other.

Another self - note: when I envision future goals, future me as a professor and answering questions, talk about my quals ideas as a professor--I feel confident and it motivates me to go further.  Future thinking is a lifesaver.

Things are getting serious  (April 7 - April 13)

Monday, I have been working on quals in the morning from 8am to 11 am, then 7pm to 10pm. Then I had a meeting with Berfin about statistics, and talked about the paper.  I started working with Ladin since she is also writing her thesis, it has been very helpful.

Tuesday,  I met with Dr. Agapie and discussed the method of my recent project. Her questions helped me define my reasoning for the study (suggesting labeling rumination, reflection, focus as behavior change/attitude change, also focusing more on the technology side). I sometimes struggle with situating my research in HCI. Thus, it was extremely helpful.  I also had meetings with people, wrote my quals in the morning and evening (3-hour chunks). 

Wednesday, I worked on my quals, and talked with Erik, and he suggested that I add disclaimers to my work to show my focus in the papers, and highlighted the importance of writing well. As all good researchers are also good writers. We also talked about trying to teach, and he suggested that I talk with a professor to design the curriculum. What a broad set of skills is needed to be a professor, crazy. 

Thursday, I had a meeting with Colin, and we talked about Critical Interview method, and talked about my resume. Then, I worked on my quals, went for a walk to mail my taxes. I then worked on the statistical analysis of the ToM project. And downloaded Finch app for self-care. I had a meeting with Meaningful project group.

Friday, I worked on editing the analysis file of ToM-ABM project, had a meeting with Anne. Then, I went to CEWIT's poster competition as a jury, kept working on my quals after the day.  

Saturday, Ozgur and I went for a walk in the  place where people were running a half marathon. It was a nice slow morning, then I kept working with Ladin on my quals.  In the afternoon, I joined CNETS' barbeque and catch up with friends.

Sunday, I continued working on quals and edited interview questions for the project. I also completed the grading of assignments and went to the gym after a three-month break with Cristina.

 Illusions of science, saying goodbye (March 31 - April 6)

Monday, was amazing I met with very nice and brilliant researchers. Our Cogsci alumni was visiting, and I met with Dr. Dye and talked about narratives, emotion flow in texts and scenarios.  I also worked on getting documents for CC doctoral consortium, worked on the document itself. Also, I did my taxes, got documents from Princeton for that. 

Tuesday,  I met with a professor from Germany online to talk about memory and internet research, it was very fun to talk with someone about topics I am interested in. Dr. Hutmacher and his colleagues developed a new model for autobiographical memory (Amedia Model), it was very helpful for me during my quals process.

Same day, I completed my taxes, yay! Gave feedback to my lab member on her project, completed tiny things. 

Wednesday,  I had meetings and classes, then I worked on my quals paper.  Got ready for my trip to Denver (CRA - WP event). 

Thursday, I had meeting with my mentee and then I had a coffee meeting with an amazing professor (Dr. Carter)  visiting from UK who works on smell and collective nostalgia, I was so happy to meet her (thanks to Colin--he introduced me!). Then I immediately went to airport to catch my flight.  So it was a little crazy morning as 9am meeting with mentee, 10.30am 11.40 with professor, and getting my Uber at 11.45am. It was an emotional day for me since my partner was going back, but also it was nice to be flying somewhere, especially CRA is one of my favorite places to be in. 

Friday and Saturday was the CRA event, and I met with amazing scholars, presented my work talked with others! I got feedback on my resume, it was amazing. Heard about ARDIN, talked about reflection and memories.

Saturday, on my way back home, I met with a very inspiring Uber driver, coming from India. He was suggesting me that any limit is in our minds!

Sunday, I rested and got ready for the week, and full speed writing.

 (March 24 - March 30)

"Design is appreciation of other point of views."

It is greater than one, it is being a part of a bigger, greater thing.

This is one of the inspiring quotes Erik told in the class... 

Monday-24-, I arranged meetings with Colin and Priya,  started my second qualification paper (created a file for it), read my first paper, then thought about the future of my rejected paper. 

Tuesday-25-, again I worked on my qualification papers, had my lab meeting and decided to postpone app review but focus on collecting data.

Wednesday-26-, I had UXP lab meeting,  had a meeting with Erik, worked on finalizing the data preparation and data analysis with ToM and Abm project.  Also, Erik suggested me to get feedback on my papers from my friends, so I did and send my papers to Cristina and Eli. read I also read this cool paper from MIT Lab. 

Thursday-27-, I had my mentee meeting, read my collaborator's paper for drafts. Worked on my quals (reading tom paper again), worked on my doctoral consortium application. Also, sent an email to MIT Lab for their new initiative on Advancing humans with AI.

Friday,  I worked on my quals, heard about a cool databank for online human behavior. 

Overall, it was emotionally challenging week for me. 

Welcome back to the semester (March 24 - March 30)

Monday, I got back to my second qual paper, had some meetings in between, then went to a class, examined reflection apps (thinking about the level of reflection in them and how to improve it), also talked with professors about the paper rejection, and how to make it stronger.

Tuesday, had the lab meeting, talked about the paper, and worked on the quals paper. Had co-work sessions with friends, and went for a walk with my partner -got ice cream and strawberries to enjoy our evening -instead of a movie we planned to go- Blade Runner.

Wednesday, I joined a new lab and had an early meeting with them. Then, I met with my advisor, talked about the paper, and he suggested that I collect more data and write better, which is always an issue, I think. Also, he told me to ask for reviews from my friends for my first paper, and I did. I also worked on completing data cleaning and analysis for one of my projects.

Thursday, I met with my mentee, and we talked about some statistical concepts and her poster.  I worked on my quals paper and gave feedback to a friend for her paper. At night, I worked on a doctoral consortium application; then I saw a lab was open to collaborations. Then I drafted an email all night.  --We also tried to cook an amazing Golden Curry for the first time!

Friday, I received a no to my collaboration email; it was quick.  I have also been working on my quals paper and try to stay on track (I am easily lost and get distracted by other things). After being down and distracted, we decided to go to a lake, get ice cream on the way, and hang out with our friends. 

Saturday, Life is tough, but I motivate myself by thinking of the broader picture, the bigger goals I have. In line with Construal Level Theory, thinking generally, from a distance, more broadly motivates people and increases self-discipline than low-level thinking. 

Then I spent time with friends, got dinner, and felt better. We also hanged out martinickas to the tree to make our wishes come true. After trying to work for 3 hours, I decided to get tea with a neighbor, chatted a little, then we got ready for dinner, cleaned, cooked, and baked stuff with my partner--it made me feel better. 

On Sunday, we spent the day walking, doing groceries, walking in nature with our friends, playing Overcooked, and doing laundry. I did my taxes, then prepared for the next week. 

Insights: 

1- I think more about what I want from my future. I want to be in academia.

2- I am thinking about the potential project, which involves both an experiment and interviews, on memory and reflections with different agents, and their potential influence on remembering. 

3- I want to go back to my previous projects, but I need to plan better-I will try to schedule better.

4- I will focus on one review, one experiment, and interview study write-up during the summer.

Chill Spring Break (March 17 - March 23)

Monday, I had meetings  for our project and I emailed a professor about their topic and model on autobiographical memory.  I read about reflection: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3517233

Tuesday, I had a meeting with a collaborator, talked about autobiographical memories and technology. Worked on editing my quals paper. Completed some gradings, and played pickle ball (at least we tried).

Wednesday, was  my partner's birthday--and --chaotic day in Turkey, I only completed some parts of my quals, completed gradings, and watched the news. We finished the day with an amazing Korean food at KBap.

Thursday, I worked on the paper again. Got a rejection for one of my papers--felt super down for the whole day.

Friday, we worked at a coffee shop with my husband --then  got some local raviolis and enjoyed a good meal after a day long studying/working. 

Saturday, I worked super light, then played pickleball, go to a mall, enjoyed nice weather.

Sunday, I worked and completed some errands for home, went for a Tibetian dinner for pre-celebration for our anniversary with my partner.  I completed the first quals paper as a draft.

Hello USA (February 24 - March 2)

I was extremely sick so I canceled all my meetings, and just recovered and get ready to be back. 

On Thursday, I worked slightly, had a meeting with my previous advisor from Sabanci, talked about PhD, job market, funding news in US. 

Friday, my husband and I had our flight back to Bloomington, I also applied to a travel grant on my way to USA, it was hilarious. 

We spend our weekend to do grocery shopping, rest, and adjust to our new time zone.  We realized how much we missed walking in B-line with our coffees, we tried Hopscotch and enjoyed it so much!

Life will get better (January 20 - January 26)

This is the week I was slowly returning to my normal--defining normal is challenging in any case, but anyway.-- I had back pain, woke up in my sleep due to pain, struggled with sitting straight for a long time, and could not carry things. Within this situation, I did my best to get back :) 

I worked on our HCI paper on negative memories to write the results starting on Tuesday. 

I met with my advisor, Erik, on Wednesday, he was so nice to tell me to get rest and not work so hard by thinking I recovered fully.  Today, I also received an internship interview invite from Microsoft (Whaaaaat?), and receiving an invite after these all processes made me feel like I had lost touch with my academic or industry life. At the same time, I felt happy and grateful that I experienced so many things lately that made me very down to earth, and not going wild over these achievements yet feeling lucky and calmly happy. These medical problems made me realize (and we will see for how long it will last) that life is not all about achievements or academic challenges. 

On Thursday, I only worked on data analysis (it was so beautiful, and I missed it so much!).

Friday, I met with my other advisor, Fritz, to discuss my PhD planning and our project; we also met with our team to discuss further project steps.  I also met with Cristina about our project and future steps. 

Saturday and Sunday, the weather was beautiful; we went for a walk in Sahilevleri and met with our friends for a while. I felt lucky again -the main theme of my life.-

So, everything passes, everything is good when we have our family and friends happy and healthy. 

P.S. Saturday night (25th of Jan is an important date for Seyit for quitting smoking)

Recovery (January 13 - January 19)

I did not do anything but just rest. I have been drinking mint tea, apricot tea, and fennel tea everyday and night. I was able to walk by myself, stand up by myself. I went for check-up on Thursday, got my pathology results clean, sleep with the relief it gave to my body. 

I went outside for the first time in Friday night, then in Saturday (without walking but with car--it hurts to be in the car if there are bumps in the road), and Sunday I walked a good amount of distance for the first time (approximately 700m). I spend an entire afternoon to understand the situation, plan my career, next steps, current feelings with my husband, it was lovely. 

Nothing academical happening in my life but I scheduled meetings for next week with my advisors to plan the future. 

Life became interesting, gave another layer of perspective, and I felt different after these situations, less eager to be stressed about things, sad but also tired--realizing now, more focused on what I want to do in life. 

Also, very important point is everyone should get HPV vaccines! 

A Break from Everything (January 6 - January 12)

Monday, I spent my time scheduling my classes, working on my quals, and having a meeting with my project group. It was a normal day. Then, we talked with the doctor about my MR results and heard that I need to have surgery immediately. After that, everything almost immediately lost its meaning. I was nervous about taking a break, telling people about this situation—even though I am working with the most understanding people on Earth. But it was almost like tunnel vision. It was scary; we still did not know what was going to happen. We thought it would be an easy surgery, then visited the doctor on Tuesday. He told us we needed open surgery to ensure the removal of the thing would not cause any problems later on. Meanwhile, I had been giving blood and undergoing tests every day. It was such an interesting experience for me. I have been working on negative autobiographical memories and how people do not remember the peripheral details in negative memories. I forgot the facial features of the doctor, and I was shocked at how it was the same case for me. I did not have the attention—or energy—to focus on these details because I was trying to process the situation and understand/estimate.

Wednesday, I went for the anesthesia checks to ensure there were no risks in taking anesthesia. I learned I had a suspicious result for something, and I would be checked again during the procedure, building the tension of uncertainty more and more. I went shopping—since I did not anticipate staying in Turkey longer than two weeks, I did not even have basic sports pants, pajamas for the recovery period, etc. My mom and I spent quite a while finding what we needed. I also let my professors know about the process. My husband and I rebooked our tickets to US. 

Thursday was my sister's birthday. We had a cake, but everyone was anxious and confused. Still, it felt good to be together; I felt lucky.

Friday, I had the surgery—everything went great. I was shocked at how I immediately lost my ability to do anything. How the gas in my body could hurt my chest, and every tiny (taken-for-granted) everyday activity (peeing, walking, standing) was a huge milestone for me. I could not stand up by myself, stand without pain, or breathe without any pain. That was wild to me.

Saturday and Sunday, I was able to go home but still not able to do anything by myself. Quite weirdly, I felt very lucky. I was loved, supported, and taken care of; I had my parents, my husband, and my friends. It was just very sudden and very unexpected. And we were still waiting for the results from pathology after surgery.

First week of 2025- Nineth week of qual prep (December 30 - January 5)

Well, this was definetely one of the most interesting weeks of my life. I was working slowly by taking meetings with my project groups, writing my first quals question, talking with my committee, creating diagrams. 

I read papers on Monday, Tuesday was the New Years we spend time in my sister's in the day, baked a Tiramisu for the night with my husband, and had dinner with my parents and watched an old TV series (Yabanci damat) while 2025 is starting. 

At January 2nd, I had an doctor's appointment that I heard various things about my health, potential negative things, I was quite shocked. They scheduled an MR session for tomorrow (Friday 8:20 pm). I had meetings, codings for the meetings in the meantime.

I worked in the day on Friday, emailed my committe members for my timing, and indicating my intention to start my second question, ended the day in the hospital.

Next day, we submitted my husband's MBA application in Bostanli, Starbucks. We met with our close friends with my husband; Atakan & Busra -tried crumble dessert-, did some shopping for my conference outfits-which will be canceled due to my situation-, then met with our friend from Istanbul, Umut. Also, we got the MR results.  (See how fast the Turkish healthcare is- gozunu seveyim).

I have no memory of Sunday.  I got back to my schedule notes in Notion, seeing I worked on my quals. 

Seventh week of my Qual Prep (December 16 - December 22)

Hello babies! I am very stressed, thanks.

16. Monday, I sent the paper for the class assignment (I was writing an introduction for both negative memory, and meaningful memory studies). I went for a run.

17. Tuesday, I sent emails to my committee for arranging the timing, drafted outline for my first question and second question. I had a meeting with meaningful group. I went to a doctor's appointment, and a foosball tournament.  I wrote the first paragraphs and the introduction for my quals paper.

18. Wednesday, I started working on my memory question. I read a bunch :) 

19. Thursday, I had a meeting with meaningful group. Then, I worked on my reading list, and talked with my advisor. Also, got rejected from my third round of internship interviews, went for proctoring a class, and studied. I felt bad but also it was okay, it means I should develop myself for better. I read for three hours at IMU at night. 

20. Friday,  I read papers, then I went to a dementia care facility for a Christmas celebration, spending time, and observing the experience of lack of memory was eye-opening and very interesting for me.  I went for a run. 

21. Saturday,  I studied. That's it, that's the all day :) I ate Indian food, it was very yummmmmmy!

22. Sunday, I studied, started writing, had a mental break down and did some changes as a surprise. 

What a week captain. I hope to finish my memory paper's draft before I go back to TR and then I will focus on the other one.

I felt frustrated, sad, anxiety, happy, energetic, tired, bored, it was a week of emotions. I struggled with the uncertainty, imposterness, also not knowing if it is good enough. But this process is a learning time, it is a time I can truly devote my day to reading--I enjoy reading papers on memory to be honest-- I think only lowering my standards (just starting to write a paragraph but not try to write the most amazing paper on eath) helps, also talking with family and friends <3

First week of my Qual-Prep (November 4 - November 10)

Well, well, welcome to the start line, dear readers! This week is the official week I start preparing for your quals (qualification exam), and I hope to finish them at the end of January. It will require me to write 30-page long answers to my two questions -which I wrote with the help of my committee. I am pretty excited about reading papers and thinking deeply about them. Even in two days, I was in a more profound thinking style. But let me iterate my days separately -as I always do.- Also, it is crazy how easily I forgot about my week and I went back to my Google calendar and notion to see what I did.

Monday,  I started my day at home, and after reading for two hours, I went to the office. I worked on my quals until the online lunch date with my partner.  One important note is I started reading with spontaneous writing. Hopefully, in the end, I will just edit my writing and notes. This week, I aim to read ten articles (based on my list) about the human theory of mind. Then, I went for a lab meeting where we discussed political narratives, and I attended a colloquium Qiong Zhang was visiting from Rutgers. She presented their work on the modeling of human memory and comparison with optimized memory models. I was working on an analysis we needed to do, and I realized that we could convert SPSS data to CSV in R. I also talked with a friend, who offered me to be a referral for internship applications --fingers crossed.-- At the night, I went for a walk with a friend and completed my class readings. 

On Tuesday,  I worked on my readings for qual and completed some readings on another project about meaning; I deep-dived into the field of meaning and meaning-making; it was fascinating. One of my first observations was that all meaning-making studies focused on output/ retrospective reactions, but only a few focused on present meaning-making (it is also a very subjective and hard topic to study). I will keep reading about it! I initially aimed to go to the gym today, but it was raining, so I came home directly.  Tuesday was an eventful and impactful day since it was both the announcement of acceptance for CHI papers and the American elections. Sadly, we were rejected for our paper, and my American friends were quite upset about the election results. Well, it was not the best day for sure, but the good part of the bad days is that they are going to end as well.

I took a note on Tuesday.  Apparently, I was in the zone of thinking: 

"Sometimes I wonder if anything can be deduced from language and statistics. But then I remember language is not enough to express things, and I feel super excited about the future of multimodal systems for anything. "

Wednesday, I had meetings, then I kept reading about meaning, and tried to modify the procedure of  my project (Memory-Modality-Emotion). I went to a coffee shop I like,  --I think it can be my nostalgic coffee shop in future. --It was such a good day for me. After studying, I went for a run with friends. Thanks to their company, I run almost 5k (mix of running and walking of course) after a very long time.

Here some notes for myself from Wednesday: 

There are bulks of “unprocessed events” or “things” that we try to make it coherent with us as it is discussed here. I sometimes feel like we are a chunk of play dough, and life keeps adding very unshaped pieces of play dough, and we try to combine it with the rest of our body/self.  Through aging and making sense more, people ask “why” questions more—maybe their construal level changes with life (it gets even more abstract over time). How far you go in life -your age-—influence your reasoning and maybe making you like a “high level construal person” who is full of “why” questions, and eventually it leads people to have more semantic details in their personal memories.

I am also realizing that, I am back in my main question, how does technology influence human memories. Why do people share things, what does it mean for our memories or memory practices? I am very intrigued by them.

Thursday, I kept studying on the procedure of the memory project, and I did some readings for my class. I met with my advisor, talked about the updates of the procedure, edited the survey and shared with my team to distribute it. After that, I went for my class, had fun in between classes and enjoyed the fancy study rooms of IMU. 

Friday,  I had a meeting for Theory of Mind - Robot project, we discussed our next steps. I also met with a friend for another internship and get insights about the company. After that,  I caught up with my family, and then went to the office, studied for the quals, got my lab meeting, and met with a colleague shortly. 

In the evening, I went climbing (bouldering--super hard) with one of my close friends and ended up eating very good Korean food and spending the night studying tea together at Kelley. So, I kept reading for my quals and completed some internship applications. When we were about to go home, we realized there is a painting event, we went there last minute and paint plates because they were out of canvases. It was one of the magical Friday nights :)

Saturday, I again went to my coffee shop, studied in light mode --finally finished one of the tedious tasks of the week--, met with my partner, watched IU game together online. IU has a 10-0 non-defeated standing for the first time. I had a quick pilates session in the evening. Then, I went to the show of Gianmarco Soresi and Liam Nelson with my friends. They both were awesome. 

Sunday, I studied a bit but realized it was overwhelming for today. Then, I went to the gym (after a very long time), cooked, spend time with my roommate and myself. As one of friends/sister say, you cannot go further if you do not stop and rest. So, I rested! I am hoping to start my week fabulous :) Also, I just got a notification from Google Scholar about our chapter on autobiographical memory; it was so sweet :) Such a good event to end my week!

Work Hard, Rest Harder (Week 9: October 28 - November 3)

Monday started with working, then followed by the lab meeting where we discussed the ethics, and a new grant idea. Then, I worked on writing introduction of the review paper till 11pm, then when I got home; we as a lab edited the grant proposal (very short one) together at the google docs, it was very fun and I felt so belong :) Doing things is good but doing things as a group is better. 

On Tuesday, I started the day with amazing cookies baked by our HCI director, in HCI coffee hour. It was sooo good, and such a good event; where we discussed IRB, participant recruitment. Then, I attended robot lab meeting, thought about my credits left--try to figure that out with a friend--. Following that, I went back home and write discussion and edited the paper to submit. I was able to submit after 7 hours of non-stop working and editing. It was also the Republic Day of Turkey (the day Rebuplic has been established), so we drank one glass of raki to celebrate the day with my roommate, it is almost becoming like a tradition for us now. 

Wednesday,  was finally the end of the submission deadline for the review paper. I was happily attending my meetings, sent my qualification questions to my committee; met with friends for coffee. I had smooth meetings and at the end of the day, we went out to get food with my friends & spending time with them was very recharging. Meanwhile, I completed some analysis, applied for travel grant, finished some TAship duties. Oh how did I forget about this? Our chapter (with Sabanci-CLAM Lab) got published on book "The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Memory Studies" Here you can access to our chapter.

On Thursday, I worked on an abstract for a special issue—fingers crossed! While I feel more motivated to write, I also feel somewhat overwhelmed by the intense pace of writing so much in such a short time. So, I was only able to submit that and finish some readings for my class. I also talked with my committee and finalized my questions. Let's see how it will turn out to be. I feel happy but also stressed about it and I decided to rest a bit till the beginning of the next week. In addition to these, today, we amet in our professor's house with our costumes to discuss "Horror" in narratives. For the first time, I saw kids were visiting the houses for the trick or treat. Witnessing that in real life was such an interesting experience :) 

PS. I dressed up as a cowboy. 

PS2. I feel more hyped about Halloween every other year.

Friday, I went to a lab meeting; then co-worked with one of my close friends -Ladin- over Zoom. I coded data, calculated interrater agreement and went for the celebration dinner for Turkish Republic's 101st year. I was happy to eat good Turkish food and talk with my friends in Turkish. Then, I went for the preparation of the party we want to throw on Saturday.

Saturday and Sunday were eventful, since my friends and I organized a halloween party (dressed up as a cyborg). We spent time on decoration on Saturday, and on cleaning on Sunday. Taking a break was very helpful. 

As my advisor says, good ideas requires taking breaks. After the submission marathon, I was also feeling the need for a break --although I pushed myself harder. 

On Saturday morning, I had planned to work and catch up on some work, then I felt extreme stress. When I feel very stressed for little things, now I realize it is a signal for me to do something for myself.  Thus, rather than pushing myself to finish things up I went for a coffee and just talked with my partner on the phone. I felt relieved afterwards. I am learning how to read my own emotions and find better ways to regulate them. I do not know if it is PhD or just growing up :)

Another self-observation I have is my tendency to clean and organize things when I am in the beginning of a new period. I always to want to  move furnitures and relocate them, change the design of my bedroom. It is a clear physical sign for a change for me, I wonder if it is common for other people --or why it is the case for me :) So, because I am starting to study for my quals, I reorganized my books-- and clean my room. I spend all Sunday for myself; cooking, listening a podcast, cleaning, skincare,  organizing my desk, writing my new goals, planning my next month. I missed spending time by myself --now I lighted up a candle, listening music, and writing my reflections. 

I hope this week is going to be a great start. I am hopeful about future, I can improve myself, learn more, appreciate what I have. I will do my best, and dream bigger. These are my reminders for myself :)

Get Back to Reality (Week 8: October 21 - October 27)

Monday morning I said goodbye to the big city, and went back to my campus town (aka Açarca köyü). I just tried to get back to my schedule and complete the papers for my review. Of course, I decided to complete something fast and I need to fully focus on it. 

Tuesday, I started my day with reading chapters for my class, and conducting some analysis. Then, I spent time with my friend, and got -kisir- from a Turkish neighbor, I felt happy! 

Wednesday, I met with my advisor and he again helped me to form the review paper structurally, and suggested me to review the structure to give feedback. I kept working on the paper later on. I also met with my other advisor and discuss my qualification exam questions and how memory is influenced even just by the existence of some online systems (e.g., social media).  At the night, (1 a.m.) I had a presentation in Materialising Memories Lab, and I got very detailed  feedback for my project, it was extremely helpful! They reminded me of the possibility of controlled experiments in qualitative studies, and we discussed the ethical aspects of working on negative memories. They simulated my mind!

Thursday, I only wrote. -What a nice feeling to say I did one thing hehe- In my germanic studies class, Robert Schneider was invited as a guest speaker and he talked about his book "The Return of Resentment: The Rise and Decline and Rise Again of a Political Emotion." He was such a good writer and a speaker I was mesmerized, and I learned a lot about the American history in that class, we also had a chance to discuss such an interesting emotion, resentment. He suggests resentment can be a positive emotion, very interesting argument and a well-written book. 

Friday, I again worked on making sense of my data, editing graphs, writing for my review paper. I also collected pilot data for emotion modality project with other lab members, and we discuss the downsides-positive sides of the new design ---I am still editing and thinking about the experimental method after the feedback I got after my presentation-- Then I kept working till midnight (wow, time is limited moves).

Saturday and Sunday was also full time writing, I wrote method and edited all graphs on Friday, and worked on results for Saturday and Sunday --including making sense of it, and writing discussion as bullet points. For the first time (Saturday), I got gummybear for me to motivate myself with sugar --well it was fun-- Also, I started to listen a very bad musician (Turkish, I am not going to spell the name); but I liked the goofy, gummybear-ed, study nights with my bad-ass Turkish songs. And of course, nothing finishes at the planned time. Meanwhile, I talked with my family members, friends, and my partner. 

 Last sunny BTown days: Running, Lotus Fest, Barbecues, Friends  (Week 5: September 30 - October 6)

Monday started with planning for the week; I like planning what I will do. Then, I edited some existing surveys for the pilot testing of a social media study. I coded some autobiographical memories—-manually—and worked on my Python script for getting embeddings. I read a chapter for my class and went for a seminar talk. 

At the end of the day, my husband and I looked for a place to play pickleball. Unfortunately, our poor timing, coinciding with the tennis team's practice session and a sunny day, meant that all the courts were full. 

On Tuesday, I continued working on my data analysis of meaningful memories, had a robot lab meeting—yay, the first time—and a class. 

Wednesday started with a group meeting in which I presented some interesting findings. It was followed by another meeting with my advisor about my quals. He advised me to be efficient and reminded me of the importance of narrowing down my focus and the plausibility of the timing. Then, I met my second advisor, and he suggested that I change one of my quals questions a bit. Then, I had a meeting for memory-coding training.  

In the evening, my love and I went for a cooking event which turned into getting Mother Bear's pizza on the way + a Pickleball event :) 

Thursday, after the meeting with my advisor, I decided to work on my overall picture, try to start writing my dissertation, and see the generic idea in my dissertation. As a perfectionist who tries not to be, starting to big things stresses me out so much at the beginning but also helps me soooooo much to start early to get rid of the first wave of procrastination. So, I wrote down my ideas, looked for literature, read the people in memory-technology area. I  also met with a new faculty member who is a mixed-method researcher with a psych background as well. It was very nice to see new faces who open the way for us :) 

Then, my husband and I walked around in the campus and saw the beginning of the Lotus Fest in the town, get hotdogs and tacos and walked around the art museum and the downtown. At night, I had an intense reading session about my research questions and quals areas. It was fruitful, I love grabbing my tea and read everything I want to, I feel lucky in these moments :)

Friday, we had the first REMIND Lab meeting (I was excited); we had promising findings and discussed how to submit an IRB amendment. I also attended a lab meeting and met with two mentees and my committee members to discuss my quals. 

At the end of the week, I went to the IU volleyball team's game with Michigan State University, with my husband. Then, we joined our friends in the town for the Lotus festival grabbed some drinks, played games. 

Saturday, we went for the Hoosier Outrun Cancer event and run 5k, saw very nice community of people, got bagels & coffee, teamed up with Luddy, and be cheered up thanks to volunteering cheerleaders during the run <3 The same day, we went to CNETS traditional barbecue and met with new people and old friends :) On the same day, I got addicted to a Turkish TV series- and a fruit-merging game. --Very dangerous--

Sunday, we met with our friends and cooked some pizza at home. It was yummy! 

What a week!!! All week, I thought about the bigger picture, read about the construction-level theory, and had a higher sense of abstraction in my thoughts.  When I read these things, I became hyper-aware of my thinking style, which was weird and funny at the same time. It feels like a researchception when you observe the research concepts in your life, social psychologists must feel it all the time! 

Big "Vuslat" and Quals are approaching! (Week 4: September 23 - September 29)

After a day trip to Kentucky yesterday, Monday started with very high pace. I met with one of the most influential scientists --J.P. de Ruiter for a coffee during his visit to Bloomington. We talked about consciousness, human-machine differences, gestures, scientific practices and I enjoyed the natural flow of our conversations. As an interdisciplinary researcher, his honesty on the challenges and the advantages of being interdisciplinary, or switching research questions made me feel good about the future trajectory of my questions. In the afternoon, he gave a talk about the problems of scientific practices and their remedies. First, he pointed out the problematic nature of p-value, frequentist statistics and suggested a switch in Bayesian statistics. Then, he mentioned the issue of rejecting null-hypothesis. I found it very interesting. 

I do not exactly recall his example on the null hypothesis rejection but it was similar to the below:

H0 = I lost my phone in Gobi desert.

H1 = My phone is in my car. 

Rejecting the null hypothesis that "I lost my phone in Gobi desert"; so I did not lose it, does not mean that my phone is in my car.  To see that H1 is right, rejecting H0 is not a good practise. 

I was surprised by this perspective, and thinking immediately about the importance of control groups - although his main point is not having a proper control group- it reminded me of it to make sure H0 and H1 makes sense. 

After the great day with discussions and new thoughts, I went back home. As one of my new resolutions I went back to baking since it felt like home to me. I baked cookies for my friends and we drank Turkish tea. :) 

Tuesday, I read the chapters from "I am a Strange Loop" for my class with Dr. Hofstadter and worked on my memory technology/quals/repository readings. It is insane how easily I am down in readings and the readings match with my various goals. It is both confusing, attention distracting and extremely helpful. I am in the stage of "making sense" and plan for future and it affects my easy/basic decisions for my projects. It is like seeing everything from the one big dissertation frame :) In my calm evening, I kept reading more about my research with a piece of cake baked by my dear friend Elif, companied with tea. PhD life is amazing when you have loving, supporting, and super smart friends around you :) 

Wednesday, I met with my advisor, and a research assistant for starting the coding of new and more autobiographical memories :) Prepared the framework for practice codings. I also did some readings about the science behind "being moved" and think about texts that makes me moved.  In the evening, my friends and I went for axe throwing and we killed it with zero points with one my closest friends. Apparently it is not that easy to throw axes :) 

Thursday was a mix of working and preparing because my husband is coming to town after 4 weeks of LDTR. I cooked, cleaned, read, attend to lab meetings (PSNL --Princeton) on spontaneous thoughts and brain regions. I had classes and had great discussions on emotions. I read papers on daily emotions and their frequencies (e.g., Trampe et al., 2015), thought about next steps of my project. 

Then, at the evening around 8pm, the time for the "vuslat" came. Vuslat is a Turkish word means reuniting/meeting with the loved one. So it is not just meeting, but it is a specific meeting that you look for for a long time, with your lover. I love this very specific and emotion-laden word. I took him from the bus stop at Bloomington after his one day long trip to Btown.

Friday,  was very nice and chill work day that I had meetings, and preparing my computer for computational analysis -e.g., downloading required tools, packages-. My husband helped me to tailor my resume for specific jobs, since he is an HR specialist he is extremely helpful to modify the information for industry.  Hopefully I will have an industry experience this summer! One funny observation we had during the process of editing text with ChatGPT - resume, that we have been using the same ChatGPT account and when we ask for a resume template from it, poor system *immediately* produced a resume for a person who has PhD and works in memory technologies (das me) and also has HR experience as previous job experiences (das my love).  I am very curious about the future of these AI tools and their *unsatisfactory* user experiences. 

At the evening, we played games with friends --who is the faker--, --murder trivia-- and this fun night lead me to think about theory of mind in game performance. 

Saturday,  my husband and I went for IU - football match. Hoosiers won and we enjoyed the atmosphere and the Hoosier spirit :) 

Exploring and Thinking (Week 3: September 16 - September 22)

Monday, I started with reading about the memory technologies and compiling a reading list for my quals. Then, went for a talk about reward and fear mechanisms on rats. Completed memory codings for a project we started during my master's. 

At the evening, I went for swimming with one of my very close friends, as a beach person -who thinks of swimming as a hobby or just existing in the water- I have never swum that much in one day in my entire life (approximately 500m). But I really enjoyed it!

Tuesday, I sent my reading list to my committee members! 

Wednesday, I went for a lunch with colleagues to catch up, and also met with cognitive science cohort in tea time. We ended up discussing about quals, procedures, and possibility of passing :P I am truly excited about this process; being able to read and write. I already have different ideas in my mind. Meanwhile, I had a meeting with my advisor and he is always very helpful for me to remember my goals, what I want to achieve with my PhD, suggesting me to write things down, gives me books whenever he sees me...Loving this interaction and the space he creates for me "to be me" and explore my space. 

Thursday, I was working extremely efficiently at the office with my fancy whiteboard, my monitor, and coffee machine. But then I realized I forgot my charger at home and I had to go back. I kept working in my bedroom --another fancy place with cool pictures and vision boards--but not fancy as my office :) --. I checked some data qualities for another project and read the memories people share with them. I like the nature of my main task to be "reading personal memories." I enjoy how different, emotional, surprising, and familiar stories people have. 

Friday, I met with my undergraduate and graduate research assistants, and we build our lab as REMIND Lab, I hope to build my research group when I get a faculty position in a great university. This is like a prototype of my future lab :) I am also getting more aware about the fact that I love teaching and communicating. I feel refreshed, and I feel like I am thinking more clearly with them.  At the end of the week, I also went for the departmental party for the incoming students and catch up with professors, friends in Butler's Winery. 

My weekend was a such a good mixture of light work and enjoying the last nice weather of fall and relaxing. I went to a tiny and cute town "Nashville" to co-work, drink coffee, and took a -infinite- trip to Lake Lemon with my friends, then went for a party for drinks and dancing. 

On Sunday, we went to Kentucky - Mammoth Caves; enjoyed the immense darkness and silence 380 feet under the surface, had Ethiopian food for the first time in Louiville -yummy!- It was the first but for sure not the last time for me :) 

Overall, I had new experiences, had great company and I feel like new ideas are starting to shine in my mind! 

Back in B-Town (Week 2: September 9 - September 15)

Monday and Tuesday was about the CHI paper, I worked in the day time, get rest between 6-8pm then kept working. 

On Tuesday, I submitted both CHI paper and the SPSP abstract! 

Wednesday, I met with my advisors on my updates and project plans. I am still thinking about my memory project and evaluating the best way to go, I feel like I need to read more on it, but I will be working on compiling a repository. Other than that, I went to CogLunch talk an it was mesmerizing, it was on Heteroclinic Networks and very interesting. 

Thursday, I worked on collecting a pilot on my memory study, participated in a Visualization workshop, then went to my classes on consciousness with Dr. Hofstadter, and emotional narratives with Dr. Breithaupt. We have been discussing about the transformer models, and what is hero's journey in narratives, and what is meaning / meaningful for people. (Various and intriguing topics!)

Friday, I had lab meetings with Dr. Krendl and collected data for a project, checked quality of it in Prolific. Also, helped a friend for their interview study as a participant. I finished the day with a nice dinner with friends.

Saturday, was an off day with friends. We walked from Switchyard to downtown, went to Pride festival, drank some coffee and catch up. It was a lovely Bloomington day. Then, my roommate and I went for shopping and hung out. 

Back in B-Town (Week 1: September 2 - September 8)

Are we ready to party?? Of course, after surviving from the jetlag. I do not know how but somehow I manage to have jetlag everytime I fly to U.S. or Turkey. But at least, flying to U.S. is a better one that just makes you wake up super early -as suggested to all of us to be a billionaire.- 

Anyway, this week I got a meeting with my advisors about my quals on Wednesday so I got ready for it on Tuesday. Then, I talked with both of them and actually it was the first time they have met. They suggested me to narrow down my questions and send an email to my committee members. I am trying to ask and answer everything in one question as far as I get -not ideal- :) But I am excited about this process!

After that week, I met with Dr. Tamir to discuss the next steps of the project we started on summer and catch up :) It is always nice to talk with her. We decided to submit it to SPSP and meet at Denver! 

Rest of my week was meeting with a colleague for the CHI paper we work on it together and adjusting back to my B-town life! :) 

My Princeton Days (Week 8: June 22- June 28)

As I was reaching to the end of my internship, my pace was getting higher. I have been working on the optimization  and presentation. 

On Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I met with a collaborator who works on networks to walk over my code and make it more efficient. 

It was a great challenge for me to share my ideas with someone outside the field and ensure that my code was clean and accessible to them. It was also a good practice for me to ask for help when needed. He solved the problem I had for two weeks in two meetings, and his expertise came in handy during my frustration points.  If I had not asked for it, I would have lost even more time. So, as a person who tends to solve the issues alone, I want to remind you that asking for help when in need is a good way to learn and connect. It is what makes academia a better place :) Come back and read it when you need to hear and feel too shy to ask questions. 

On Thursday, I practiced a mock presentation to the lab and got good feedback. Friday, I again worked on modifying the code based on the changes we made in it. Friday evening, I went to Asburry for a concert with Mia, it was lovely to see the ocean. 

Throughout the week, I also had meetings for one IU project and worked on writing a piece I had been postponing on Saturday. 

My last Sunday in Princeton included a short workout in Dillon gym, a visit to my favorite café, Sakrid, and a walk around Institute Woods --a famous and historically important place for the scientific studies on nuclear bombs/displayed in Oppenheimer--.

The time passed so quickly, I cannot believe it is my last week next week!

My Princeton Days (Week 7: June 15 - June 21)

The week was great for setting goals and working towards them. After the meeting I previously had with Dr. Tamir and Dr. Smith -who gave advice and direction on how to create networks and brilliantly suggested to work on 2D networks, I wrote down each step I need to complete and worked toward them. 

This week was mostly working on optimizing the code, making it more efficient and controllable. 

I also had meetings on Monday for the theory of mind part of my research with IU people :)  We also worked together with Eli and Leigh for the literature review on Monday; we sat together on Zoom and did our work together. Summer work is very fun if you work simultaneously with colleagues. We also worked all week with Mia in the office by doing Pomodoro -which is 25 minutes of work & 5-min break. Her support was invaluable to me! 

On Tuesday, we had the lab social where we went to do some pottery together, and grab a bite. It was so fun, and it was my first time doing it, I enjoyed it a lot. 

Wednesday, I met with Dr. Sahi to discuss emotion regulation, memory, AI, and everything else. It was a fun meeting! 

The rest of the week, I have been working on my presentation, and the optimization of my code. I had a relatively relaxed Friday when I worked at a cafe and had a break to go out for record shopping; it was very nice to take a break and do something fun. I also worked in the library for the first time. I loved its atmosphere :)   

My weekend was also very nice; it was one of the first weekends I did not see my laptop at all, and I was just hanging with my friend in NYC. One of the best sides of Princeton was the accessibility to NYC in 1.30 hours. My weekend was a mixture of Whitney Museum, High Line, Williamsburg, Japanese festivals, nightlife, and city life had a lot to offer besides the company of my friend! :) 

My Princeton Days (Week 6: June 7 - July 14)

The week started with the great company of the lab postdoc Laetitia. We worked together in her office, grabbed a lunch, and talked about research planning and collaboration decisions. She was such a good example for setting goals, and working in different projects but managing them. She suggested a yearly planning which can be accessed here.  It is a good reminder to that there is a bigger picture, there are years ahead of us, and setting goals can help us. 

I also had a meeting with Dr. Hills, who is currently in UK, about foraging models and mind wandering. His expertise and guidance is too good to be true, I feel likely to be in touch with him. He was very generous to share some chapters from his upcoming book, and it was the best written explanations for the forager models in this area. His work and the project I am working with Dr. Tamir inspires me to study search behavior for memories for my Ph.D. thesis, and trying these computational tools and giving myself time to learn them actually is helpful. This is one of the biggest lessons I learned with this internship: when you channel your attention and energy to one project, and be patient with yourself you can do any project you want. I feel like I need to work on my organization and planning skills and make one project a current priority at a given time.

On Tuesday, we had a dinner with doctoral students and VIPS interns, it was so much fun to talk about the same words exist in different languages (e.g., Romanian, Persian, Turkish, Punjabi).

My Princeton Days (Week 4: June 24 - June 30)

The fourth week was very fruitful. I have been working on fitting my data in individual level to various distributions to see which distribution is a better fit. 

Then, I worked on deciding on when people had a topic switch in their spontaneous thoughts. One paper (Nath et al., 2024) was very helpful and I followed their pipeline. Turns out, creative thinking tasks are very similar to our data, structurally. I also connected with different people (from IU and alumni), read more about foraging models to take a step back and understand how semantic memory people decide on switches/clusters in their data. Dr. Hills' upcoming chapter was a gold to understand the basics of these models. Then, I developed a different switch algorithm combining Hills' similarity drop model and Nath et al.'s hieararchical clustering and using a different word embedding space.

Meanwhile, I was so hyped about the new algorithm, I met with Dr. Tamir about the project, then I realized I am answering another question. I was assuming there is a "switch" in the data, however this is the second question. First, we need to understand the structure of spontaneous thought flows, and we need to test the distributions of the similarities/or distances between each thought that is visited and the previous thought. 

Although I learned a lot, and improved my coding skills my focus was not in the correct place. 

In addition to this main project, I met with Dr. Nook and discuss their ongoing projects. We had a lovely talk about the role of visual imagery in emotion regulation, VR-technologies, and dystopic scenarios. I learned a new term about "cognitive reappraisal" and different methods for it such as mindful acceptance, discounting in addition to psychological distancing.

The questions for VR was coming from my side as a HCI person, I did not miss the chance to see the perspective of a clinical psychologist. Dr. Nook mentioned a couple papers. For the emotion regulation, also it would be nice to keep note of the following researchers: Katie McRae, Kevin Ochsner, Emily Falk, Emily Holmes --for visual imagery.

At the end of the day, I was thinking about memory and emotion relationship. My findings on the memory modalities study was also showing an interesting connection of emotion on people's remembering practices. I met with my advisor (Erik Stolterman) to discuss these new ideas to form an interview study. I also have the help of my peers in the development and literature search of this area, and we want to conduct a group interview soon. 

Overall, this week was inspiring, challenging, and satisfying for me. I have weaknesses and strengths, I am making mistakes, developing ideas, trying my best!