The return:

So, after a week away, I made my comeback. I’m not going to lie, I was slightly nervous for the class, as I’ve missed a couple of classes. I looked at the presentation the night before, and I was getting that feeling that I was going to feel out of place during the class. Luckily, that wasn’t the case, and as always, it was a very interesting class. Now, we’ll get down to business and discuss what happened in the class.

My (sort of) late arrival:

As if it wasn’t already bad enough that I missed two classes, I arrived to this session 2/3 minutes late. You have Ireland’s public transport system to thank for that. At first. I feared I would arrive later, but even still, I would like to make it on time to class. Hopefully it won’t happen again, but you never know with Irish Rail…

Correcting the blog:

This was my first time correcting someone’s blog, so I was excited to see what the process was going to be like. I corrected Katie’s blog, which was really good. Well written, photos in the blog, and humoured. On the contrary, Katie didn’t correct mine as I hadn’t published it yet since I was away. I told Dave this and he said it was fine. I’ve completed it now so I’m not behind anymore! I listened to everyone else giving their opinion on their partner’s blog, which was a huge benefit to me as it helped me on how to write a blog.

Being demoted to the back:

Due to missing previous classes, Sheila, Katelyn and I were sent to the back. Dave told us to look at the previous presentations so we could see what we missed out on. While we were doing this, the rest of the class were put into pairs and discussed their hypothesis/research question. On their own, they presented it to the rest of the class. I didn’t have mine prepared yet, so there is no photo of me presenting it. Instead, here’s a photo of Matthew talking about his research question. I really liked everyone’s topic, as they were interesting and each of them had a uniqueness to it. After this, it was time for the break.

Returning back to reality:

And so, Sheila, Katelyn and I were allowed to join the rest of the class, as Dave started to talk to us about secondary research, and why it is important. It was time for us to start doing research for our topic, by looking online to see what we can find out about our topic. We have to place all of our research in a single blog post so it all stays together and isn’t mixed up with the other blog posts. Dave then told us to start conducting our research, except for the infamous three, including me…

Since we didn’t present our topic to the class as we missed previous classes, we said ours to Dave afterwards. I said my hypothesis, which was originally “Despite the difficulties, people that are born in developing countries are still grateful of life”. I thought this would be a good Hypothesis as I have been to Zambia for voluntary work and have seen how happy the children and adults are, despite living in such a rural area. Dave said while it was good that I have been to Africa and have seen what it is truly like, he mentioned that there is not enough news value in it, which I understand completely. Luckily, I had another hypothesis, which was titled “Social Media has had an impact on Ireland’s society in the past 5 years”. He approved of it and said go for this one, so I began my secondary research.

Reflection:

It was nice to be back in class. I have completed the two blogs from the classes I missed, so I am happy to say that I am currently up to date, according to the project management plan! This was a really enjoyable session, and I am looking forward to the next one. I learned in this class that we see less violence on TV, but the violence we do see is very gruesome. I also learned that Dave too notices the loading bar that RTÉ use on the news! While nothing actually happens when the bar fills up, it is still satisfying to see. Dave also said to me to try narrow my hypothesis, so I am thinking of just talking about how social media has had an impact on people’s mental health in Ireland. I’ll talk to him about it next class and I’ll see what happens.  I am looking forward to the next class but first it’s time to do a bit of secondary research!