Weekly Report #14: “Reality” (Week of 4th December 2023)

I feel like I am lost. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I feel like if I admit to that I’ll be a disappointment, especially to myself.  I don’t know what to do anymore, but I don’t know what to ask either. I keep on asking Ms. Russell the same thing about the Original Work Project because I don’t know what exactly I want to ask, but I know I want the answers to something, I just don’t know what. I don’t want to do anything anymore again and I feel useless. I’ve been focusing on college so much that I like to search for stuff about the future or what I need to do in the future to avoid what I’m doing today. Compared to many people, I don’t have the best extracurriculars or the best grades, and I’ve been really worried about that or just feeling useless because of that. I think I still feel that I haven’t done anything. I haven’t won any national medals but I have spent time in whatever I was interested in, but because of college applications, everyone here makes everything that you do for fun an activity that was time wasted. We can’t do anything just as a fun hobby anymore, everyone needs you to be at the top for everything that you do. Maybe I won’t do much with my research, maybe I won’t win any science competitions, maybe I’m even too late to apply for ISEF, but at least I’m getting the opportunity to do what I’ve always wanted to do, and what I love. I don’t care anymore, at least currently, about whether my research will affect anything, but at least I will be closer to answering my questions. It may even take me 10 years or more to do what I want, but at least I’ll be one step closer. Now, reading back on what I wrote it feels a bit cheesy, but whatever college I go to, even if I don’t get into MIT or NYU or UT, I can still contribute somehow. Why did I want to get into ISM? To research? Why do I like to research? Why do I want to research? Why do I want to ask questions about DNA or Bioelectricity? What motivated me in the first place? I’m still motivated, and I still like the research that we are doing, but after changing my topic, I don’t know what to do. I want to give the best quality assessments and at least try, but sometimes when I start I feel like I’m too dumb to understand the concepts, even though eventually I do. I want to know how dysregulation in the bioelectric networks between cells affects cancer. I’m very interested in this topic, and because it is not very talked about, it makes me want to research about it more. So, as I said before, I’ve restarted everything, it’s normal in the research process(right? hopefully…). After finishing the first Original project assessment(finally), I’ve been getting more in the mood to do this. I still may not know a lot but I’m on the path to do so, and want to talk about it more and more. I still need to find out whether there is already a computational model made for the bioelectrical network between cancer cells.? If there is, then how can I access it? If there is, then how can I develop one? I’ll have to see how scientists have made them before between other cells. I was thinking that with the computational model I can see how the K-Ras protein affects the bioelectric network, or how we can change the network through optogenetics or other systems. This has been quite a long blog, but I feel more invested in the topic of bioelectricity again. I went a bit over and annotated a 20-page article, so that’s interesting. I got an interview with the pathophysiology teacher at the CTE center, so hopefully I am allowed to use the lab there. Wherever I hope I can get to use a lab for my research, but we’ll have to see. Also, I got selected to be an associate member of the team that creates and plans the first International Research Olympiad, for which I wasn’t expecting to be accepted. I think looking at all of the MIT requirements and RSI requirements demotivated me. While I may not get into MIT, I shouldn’t be discouraged by that. While MIT may have many resources, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a college. I will still try to apply, but I can calm down a bit, stop stressing about it, and focus on what I need to do now.