So, for my data metrics class, Joey, our awesome professor, has asked us to start a blog and keep updating it throughout the course. After many weeks of trying to do this via Github, I’ve given up and decided that this would be less of a chaotic mess of thoughts. Still chaos, but just less. SO. This is the place. This is the place where you’ll be able to find EVERYTHING DATA METRICS.

There was a moment of pause, more like a few weeks of inaction, where I really thought "I have absolutely no idea, no clue, what my thesis will be about. I don't even know what it will relate to specifically." There were though, a few knowns that I knew I had to dive headfirst into if I wanted to get anywhere at all. 

What it all comes down to. A class presentation:

A few ideas and concepts emerged last week when trying to nail down a concept to protoype. I knew some concepts were a bit easier to prototype than others, but I wanted to make use of 1. my weekend at home and 2. the prototype that, although a bit more difficult, also would have a greater effect.

"How might we better create a way for my sister to live out a healthier lifestyle?"

This has been the overarching idea since getting to the root cause of why my sister wants to live out a healthier lifestyle. Had she said "I want to be healthier because I want to lose 5 pounds" I feel like my work may take a whole different direction and potentially be much easier. But, alas, it is never that easy. 

When talking to a 2nd year grad student in my program, he brought up a good point. I told him my project was focused on helping my sister be more "healthy." He asked "well, what does healthy even mean to her?" and I couldn't really answer that. It could be a final goal of losing 10lbs or it could be a whole lifestyle thing, I wasn't sure. So I set out to better define what healthy even means to her, and to understand why she wanted to be whatever definition of healthy she had for herself. 

The follow chart I created in an attempt to better lay out and understand (perhaps) what direction this research is taking me. I chose to focus on three objectives and build from there:

How did we get here? In the matter of a year I have had more conversations, bordering on arguments, about things that I never thought in 2018 I would have to be defending. Gay / Trans rights, equal pay and treatment for women, CONSENT, Immigrant and Refugee rights, and the list goes on and on and on. Last  weekend was the one year anniversary of the Women's March as well as one year since hate, racism, intolerance, xenophobia, and ignorance has taken office and a hold on this country. Some days it feels exhausting to fight, but fight we must. 

In my intro to thesis class my professor asked us to keep up with a blog in order to demonstrate our growth as we go through developing a thesis as well as a way to document improvement as we work through the DSI program.