2023

In our final week, I crossed the rest of the items off my Puerto Rico trip bucket list and said goodbye to the country in which I'd spent two months conducting research and learning to live in an apartment with roommates. I planned a Sunday outing to the Museo de Arte...

Our last week in San Juan was spent saying many goodbyes. After two months, you would not expect to become so integrated into a community, but el calor puertorriqueño makes it impossible not to. The friendly faces are truly what have made this experience so special,...

My seventh week in Puerto Rico was full of plenty of fun activities. Since Monday was Juneteenth, the university was closed so we could not schedule any participants, so I took a beach trip to Dorado instead! A friend and I stayed until sunset and then headed back to...

We did a lot more this week than in all previous weeks in terms of going out on new and different adventures. I was able to cross several trips off my Puerto Rico bucket list, which made me very happy! Our first two participants (during whose session we made a mistake...

Today, I had a participant in their 60s. The most time-consuming aspect of our research involved the participant typing out what they heard from the audio. Due to their age, the participant was slower at typing, which resulted in the study taking much longer than the...

Last night, I ran into the biggest spider I had ever seen. As I was killing it with bug spray, I couldn't stop thinking about how long it must have taken to reach that size. In just 10 seconds, I had taken its life. I understand the benefits of spiders, and I feel so...

Week 6 was full of lots of participants, delicious food, and beautiful sunsets!  On Sunday, Katherine and I went on a shopping spree at Plaza las Americas, a mall in our neighborhood that also happens to be the largest mall in the Caribbean! It felt very similar to a...

As mentioned in my previous post, we had three sessions back-to-back on Thursday. Compared to Monday (the same schedule but an hour earlier), the wind was very strong and with the windows open and fans on, we were much more comfortable. We had a fun bunch of...

Such a busy and amazing week. Worked a lot, and managed to get lots of participants. The week went by faster than expected which is great. I am starting to feel homesick and cannot wait to be back to PA. Today, I found out that we could be experience a storm...

This week like the previous one started slow, however, I have found some participants for the end of the week. I also had some also for net week. The project is finally moving along and I am excited to continue working.

This week was slow. We are still struggling to find participants. And not much has happened.

Week five was kind of boring. I honestly don’t know what to write about. I did found a Krispy Crime store near our place. I’m thinking maybe for week six I should go out more, not just to work but also check out more places before we return.

What an incredible week! There has been much excitement recently, as we have been continuing to recruit participants and explore the island. We are still having a hard time finding students on campus that we can recruit, since not many people take summer classes, but...

In the last few days of my mom's visit, they took us to La Parguera bioluminescent bay in Lajas, where the water contains microorganisms that glow when agitated. It was so dark in the lagoon you could see the stars, which already made for an impressive experience to...

Each week I fall more in love with this island. It is easy to understand why we were sent to San Juan to study bilingual code switching, as seemingly everyone here is bilingual (and very friendly). With each new person I meet, I learn something new about the culture,...

It seems like all that rain was leading up to a week of Excessive Heat Warnings. The high temps have risen from the mid-80s through 90 °F to the low 90s. I've been staying inside during the day as much as possible, and Cat's been enjoying the beach during this...

This week felt like an interesting week. Although, we are having some struggles recruiting participants, I was able to schedule for three individuals. However, my last person scheduled never showed up or emailed back saying they could not make it, which was a bit...

Oh how the time flies! Three weeks have gone by incredibly quickly, and with each passing day I fall more in love with this beautiful island and become more eager to explore everything it has to offer. This week was a bit slower with participants, with some...

Honestly, not much happened during week 3. I feel like I'm on autopilot now. Unlike the first two weeks, I feel more comfortable with both life and work here. Things seem to flow naturally. Life is great when it's steady, but at the same time, excitement is also...

We conducted our first four sessions this week! We've also had three cancelations, but two out of three have already rescheduled. I was also relieved to learn that summer classes will start up soon, so students will be back on campus and we'll be able to recruit again...

This week was a bit calmer and quieter than our first week in Puerto Rico. I focused more in recruitment and putting up flyers. One thing I could not stop thinking about when walking around campus putting up flyers, is how quiet and peaceful the campus feels. A funny...

During the second week, I finally had my first participant. There was a mix feeling of excitement and nervousness. To ensure a smooth experience, I arrived at the lab hours before the scheduled time. Unfortunately, I did run into some technological difficulties, but...

Our second week in San Juan has brought lots of laughs and a few challenges. After spending the entirety of our first week recruiting participants, we took this week to contact and schedule their sessions, but this proved to be more difficult than we had anticipated....

Our first dyads of participants are scheduled for this week! I'm very excited to begin conducting sessions, but I'm reminding myself that we'll have to continue recruiting in order to accrue enough participants to make meaningful data comparisons. On Saturday, we went...

¡Hola de San Juan! After months of preparation, we have at last arrived in the sunny and beautiful capital of Puerto Rico and have had quite an exciting first week. After saying goodbye to my friends and family last Sunday, we departed from State College as the sun...

On our first day on campus, we printed out our flyers and started pinning them to bulletin boards around campus. As we put them up, I worried that they wouldn't get much attention on the busy cork boards, especially as we hadn't printed in color. We noticed a lot of...

First week in Puerto Rico was filled with lots of memories and new experiences. Starting with the day we travelled in two planes, up to Mother's Day which I luckily got to spend with my mother. The university was bigger than I expected, enough to get lost while...