My apologies for the lack of updates.  Life has been a bit of a (good) whirlwind lately.

I’m excited to report that I have an idea for a dissertation.  It will take me a while to decide upon the specifics well enough to be able to formally propose, but I have a big picture in mind and I’m eager to explore.

I’m also very excited to be collecting data again.  I’m involved in a couple of projects right now, and they’ve made my mornings a lot of fun.  I’m working with new tasks, and it’s been interesting to see how children are responding to them.  One of the projects has me working with preschool children again, which is my absolute favorite age group.  I love that they’re so young and open to opportunity, but that, at the same time they also offer glimpses into their future adult selves.  Not to mention that they’re adorable.  My day gets a lot brighter when I can hear them laugh.

I’ve been in and out of a number of meetings as well.  I took the opportunity of dissertation paperwork (which requires signatures from, well, pretty much everyone in the department) to start discussing career prospects.  People have offered up fabulous advice to me, and it’s times like these that make me especially grateful to be surrounded by fantastic mentors.  I was even able to meet earlier this week with a graduate of my lab who now works at a nearby liberal arts college.  It made my own personal goal of ending up at a similar institution seem more real.  I could see myself in her shoes, mentoring and guiding students along.

So life feels good lately.  I feel as though I’m making progress toward my goals, and I’m having fun in the meantime.

(For the record, I’ve stuck to my original list of summer goals.  Although I must admit that my “learn/try something new every week” goal has pretty much translated into “learn how to bake something new every week”.  Be sure to come my way if you need any freshly baked bread, blueberry muffins (from hand-picked blueberries), hand-tossed pizzas, or fried pickles!)

Happy summering, blogosphere!