EMC, for me, has been a ride. Going into this year was terrifying: last year's Attraction Reaction project went incredibly well, in my opinion. So, how do I top that? How do I keep moving forward?
The answer is: you just keep going. I've learned over the course of this year that I don't need to make my work a contest. If I'm getting useful information out of it and learning and growing, that's more than enough. That's something I'm glad I've learned.
When it comes to things I'm proud of, I'd say that my public speaking-based projects have always excelled when it comes to EMC. January Day this year was a big win in my book, and I'm so thankful that I had people to support me (especially my actors, who hung out for hours and choreographed a fight sequence for me on the fly). I'm also proud of all the different branches I explored in my research. The timing for moving from tabletop to video games, brain cognition and chemistry to philosophy/sociology/psychology gave me enough time to look into everything and get a little deep but still keep moving forward.
Some struggles I had along the way: the biggest one is always procrastination with perfectionism as a close second. EMC is a big time commitment and I have never been the best with staying self-motivated on a daily or even weekly basis. The fear of deadlines, which was exacerbated by my procrastination, made making deadlines even worse. That's something I hope to improve on. Another is definitely collaboration. Once quarantine started, it was much harder to continue reaching out to people (in general) which added to it, but I also struggled with the time commitment of contacting (possibly repetitively) friends/mentors/possible interviewees.
How I'm rounding out the year: My final project will be posted here on June 5th. I'm finishing the script today and starting to record some of the audio through Audacity. After the audio is done, I'll have to sync up the Prezi to the audio through timely screen recording, and then I'll be done.
I'm coming up to home plate - we all are - and while it's exhilarating, a part of me wishes the run would be a bit slower. I'll miss running the bases, and most of all, I'll miss the team I'm on. All I can do now is cherish it while I still have it.
Thank you, EMC. Here's to the home stretch.