I hate this. Unfair. The other groups received feedback regarding their theses and how they wrote it. We didn't and now we have a graded thesis with a MISTAKE on it. It was a really obvious mistake but what hurts more is that the committee didn't even point it out to us during the open forum. Granted we could have done a better job writing that part but it is also the committee's job to point out our mistakes. We even submitted a not to be graded version of our paper, a scientific poster and even presented it yet these mistakes went unnoticed by all. Really? Why? It's on the freakin' abstract for crap's sake!

The mistakes of the other groups were pointed out. Mistakes that could have led to the demise of their theses and these were pointed out and subsequently corrected. Now they didn't receive any deductions in their grades. I'm being GC but it is still unfair. We are undergraduate students writing research papers for the first time. We needed guidance and you didn't give us any when we expected it. My suspicion that nobody among the committee managed to read our paper thoroughly is true.

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To be clear, I agree with the comments and understand that it will make our thesis better but from a GC student POV, it really sucks. Maybe I should brace myself for more comments from the other members tomorrow. And if we were just being caught in a political play occurring in the college, argh!

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My dad's becoming stupider. Or may more stubborn. Or both. I really should be over the hating the parents thing but he's really pushing it. One thing is that they tell me to plan our vacation to Japan and when I demand certain stuff they won't give it to me because they think it's illegal. uh... hello? anybody there? And he believes that eating this weird salt solution will lower his blood pressure. Salt. Sodium. Lower blood pressure? He also doesn't believe when I tell him that ingesting two tablespoons of oil (regardless of plant source) is bad and will make him gain weight. Hahaha! Good thing I have my mother to call unto to help me fight his belief in quackery. I blame you Jaime Galvez Tan!

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Some old photos revisited...

I'm liking the colors and movement in these two. I guess I should thank the poor lighting conditions.

Survived the defense.
Our worst fears did not come to pass.
The committee was quiet. For some strange reason. Maybe they haven't read our full paper.
That would be unfair for us since it means their comments and inputs wouldn't be included in the graded paper we would be submitting next week.

No pictures. I didn't bring my camera. Tama na ang isang mitsa ng buhay.

I still have to "matter load" for our bioethics debate tomorrow. I have a grasp of the arguments I just lack the necessary cases and examples that would be our arguments better. I'm too tired so I'll just probably read more tomorrow. Hopefully, my groupmates would come up with more arguments and examples. Though they really should because I basically formed the blueprint of our defense alone.

I need index cards too.

Okay so I made a blog entry and blogger didn't do the autosave thing so now it's gone.
Shit you!
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I'm so tired. I spent the whole day making this scientific poster. It was supposed to be blue (water refilling stations = water = blue) but it ended up black. Blame good mistakes. I think it looks good anyway. All chic and science-y. It doesn't even feel like a paper on public health (which is a science btw). It looks more like a physics or chemistry poster.

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I need to read other papers. If I don't, I won't be able to properly revise our paper. Good thing I have dependable groupmates! More eyes, better probability to spot errors. Still, they're also tired.

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I really like how our Discussion chapter turned out. My contribution was really good. My BS skills are improving. Of course this illusion will end on Tuesday, the day we defend our thesis but I'll try to savor the moment.

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Who knew the abstract was so effing hard to write?! And we had to write 2 versions, one for the paper and one for the poster.

Good: The first draft is finished. Bad: The first draft sucks.
Worse: We only have three days left.
Good again: They won't be grading the paper will be submitting on Monday.
Bad again: If the argument is full of holes, the open forum will be hell.

It's the New Year and I spent most of the day on the PC doing checking and editing work. Way to start a year...

I'm on the verge of finishing encoding. I just need to encode three more sheets. Three out of the 100 we had(I encoded 19, scored ~30, checked 21 and collected ~50). Why I'm procrastinating? I don't know. I think it's the finality and fear of having actual data. And I'm having doubts about the quality of our data... no wait no... my issue is how the heck we are supposed to analyze the data. Some of the data basically shoves the interpretation into our faces but some are messed up. I also think that we should interview some more people next week; three would probably enough. I should be thankful that our data is for descriptive purposes (with some qualitative data that would be used to come up with testable hypotheses) because it would be hell if these were for analytical ones .

Though, I realized half-way through the collection that we could have done an analytical study, a case-control to be more definite. Maybe we could recommend it, I would also love to work on it. I even have a rough methodology thought up. If our professor pushes through with his plan(possibly an analytic study building from our data) I'll definitely volunteer to join the team even if it involves collecting data during the summer months.

I'm possibly talking gibberish to many people out there.

Finally finished pre-testing our collection tool! And with the use of the City Health Office endorsement, we got a 100% response rate.

Yay us!

And with that my sembreak officially starts TONIGHT and ends on Sunday. I finally get the chance to raise my feet and relax.

We're going to Bulacan tomorrow and I'll probably end up sleeping all day. But I hope I'll get the chance to take pictures(hopefully, the weather will cooperate).

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Playing around with royalty free textures from sxc. I think it looks too sad and contrasts with how I'm really feeling. Yayness...

I'm still alive and happy.

Our proposal presentation went well. No major issues arose during the open forum; in my view at least. Just many many revisions in the data collection tool and I really liked that.

During the small group discussion that followed, many issues poured forth. The issues weren't really surprising ones as we already anticipated them and made back-up plans instead they were brought up.

Big changes in the sample size and study population and some re-arranging and revising of the tool is all that we need to do. And we need to write down our operational definitions of study variables. Fortunately, we already made operational definitions, we just didn't write them down.

Tomorrow is proposal presentation day.

I just found a glaring error in our methodology chapter. Instead of saying we would be asking them to perform a demonstration, we wrote that we would be asking them questions. This is inconsistent with the data collection tool that we'd be using. I just have to ask my group mates to explain it during the presentation proper to avoid long discussions during the open forum.

Crap. And I still have to worry about explaining to the committee regarding the probability of making our study analytic in nature.

Good news: Tomorrow Up Dharma Down will be releasing their sophomore album.

Bad news: The launch is in Taguig and I can't go. Sadness...

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Yes, it's brown and orange. I feel that purple is too happy for this blog, not that this isn't a happy blog.

2nd draft and counting...

I'm really excited about going around Manila. Collecting data. Commuting.

Getting burned under the sun or wet under the rain or just plain dirty under the not-so-blue sky of Manila.

I even got a map!

But seriously, we have 36 days(12 whole days and 24 half days) to collect data and I am not sure if we're going to finish on time.

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New template. Still temporary. Goodbye yellow dude in uniform! But the black-white-green remains. I'll clean up once I have some free time. Most of the features are built-in features(so much for designing a blog) but we still have much freedom over the final template. And I like it because now I don't have to fiddle too much with that dreaded "position" tag. I just have to brush up on html, css and learn some xml(since blogger is using it).

Hanging out with classmates outside your special studies group is really great. Because of one group, I learned about the amazing Google docs and Zotero.

Google docs allow me and other people to work on the same document at the same time. It can even be used as an online messenger. I really love it. The only downside is you have to be online to use it and the laptop I use at school seem to have issues with connecting to public WiFi.

Zotero is a cataloging tool. It makes researcher lives so much easier. It allows a researcher to create "bookmarks" of papers he read and at the same time creates the proper citation entry for it. It even comes with the option to change the format of citation which is really handy considering there are tons of formats out there. The only issue I have with it is it doesn't work with Opera, the browser in the laptop I use. And you can't transfer information from one computer to another because it is attached to the browser installed in the computer.

Unfortunately, I learned of these tools AFTER we finished writing the first draft of our proposal including the reference. But, I still transferred our docs to google docs and used zotero in order to clean up our reference section.

Now I need to go back to work. I still have this nasty 4 question exam. Three years in UP and I am not used to essay type exams anymore. *sweat*

Surprise! No pictures! Well... maybe later. I'm using my PC and the laptop is where the pics are at.

Thesis writing.

It is a really good thing that our thesis is a group effort. Right now, I'm lounging around and waiting for the output of my group mates. My main job is compiler and editor and our deadline is 5pm so I still have plenty of time before I have to go crazy.

I do have some writing jobs but I have done them and I really need to see what the others made so I could finish it. I fear for the Data Collection tool that I am not writing because I really don't want to edit that thing.

Minor rant: It sucks that so many journal articles are behind paywalls. I hate Elsevier and Blackwell Synergy and all so publishers who demand payment for things they just print and not write down. I hate that knowledge has a high cost and the money for payment do not even reach the researcher. I hate it that articles which we crave to include in our RRL are behind paywalls. If I ever become a full-time researcher I will never publish in those journals.

I've been doing a bunch of stuff for our special studies(aka the thesis) and I realized how low the quality of research is in the Philippines. I guess there are good papers but you have to sift through tons of papers before you find them(if you have the access to the papers or the database at least). Even the papers written by members of UP Manila and PGH are no exception. Some are so bad that even us, undergraduates, find holes in their arguments. The worst papers, I find, are those touting the beneficial effects by these alternative modalities of treatment(eg acupuncture).

You really want to go to those authors and tell them,
"If you cannot do a study properly(insufficient sample size, insensitive and non-specific tests, etc), then don't do it! You are just wasting time and resources."

Examples:
1. change in itchiness index as measure of efficacy of virgin coconut oil against dandruff(a hospital in Makati)
-> Can't you just culture some fungi? You can't? Then do something else. Their Lord knows I have dandruff since high school and I only experience itchiness at certain times and not all the time. Meaning, itchiness is not a good measure of efficacy of something. Washing my hair takes away the itch but it doesn't take away the dandruff. Hello?

2. acupuncture effective in aiding smokers to quit BUT the treatment group contains a disproportionate number of females compared to the control. And there is that placebo effect.(PGH no less)
-> This study sucks. In its defense, the paper is written in a way that you'd have to read the whole paper before you notice something is off(no blinding and unsuccessful random allocation). I wonder why the editor didn't notice such a glaring error.

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Yes, I will work hard in order to make sure that our thesis have no huge holes. I will try very hard to make something good enough that it could be published and important enough that CPH and DOH can make use of it.

It begins. We finally learned who will be our groupmates for the PH 197/199 Special Studies course aka the THESIS. I feel no hard feelings about my groupmates. I don't hate anybody and I am not super close to anybody. I don't know if this is good or bad. The only thing I'm worried about it what our research topic and problem will be. And I ended up in health promotion and education not in any of the "hard sciences." Is this a foreboding regarding my future career?