After a long hiatus from blogging, I'm excited to make a triumphant return. It's hard to know where to start after such a long absence, but suffice it to say I have come a long way from where I was in September. In order to compare progress between where I was then and now, I'm going to make a short list:
In September I....
-Was working on finishing my trabajo de invesigacion (still had to finish the discussion and conclusion)
-Still had not transcribed all of the videos from the corpus that I had recorded the previous academic year
-Had no idea how I wanted to extend the DEA project into the dissertation
-Had not presented my work at any conferences
-Had not even presented the paperwork for my homologacion (application for the validation of my American degrees here in Spain)
In May I....
-Am the proud recipient of the DEA (Diploma de Estudios Avanzados) having completed my entire trabajo and presented it in October
-Have a completed (and transcribed) corpus that I am working with for my dissertation
-Have formulated research questions and a project plan for the dissertation
-Have read more articles than I can count and am in the midst of writing the (dreaded) literature review
-Have begun coding my transcriptions in "real time" (measuring motivation the way that the MOLT framework intended), which is time consuming though gives a much better picture of what is happening in each class.
-Have presented my pilot study at two conferences, with a third coming up in Barcelona next week
-Presented my homologacion papers and am nearly finished with the requirements for the degree (I have been taking a German language and literature class this past year).
After so much time and so much work, it's nice to reflect and see how far you've come.
