That's right, lit review . . .

... that was me that just rocked your world.  I bet you never saw it coming. 

You might want to picture me jumping around throwing punches in the air as I have just conquered an assignment that has been weighing on me all week.  For my master's program we have an option of doing a research project instead of writing a thesis.  Now, as interesting as writing a thesis about food recalls and 24-hour food diaries might be (bleh) I chose the research option.  It sounded really interesting and I love the idea of discovering something new that helps all kinds of people.  And bland writing about boring topics really makes me want to roll my eyes and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

So one of the first classes I have is about setting up your research proposal.  Making sure you have an appropriate idea with measureable objectives.  And for this week, we needed to do a literature review to show what research had already been done, and identify an area of need.  Normally this would excite me.  However, I don't know exactly what I want to study.  It changes every week!!  So I had to pick one of the many topics I have an interest in.  Then I had to look up current research on the topic, and put it together in a short review which read like a story as opposed to a book report with lots of quotes.  Ick.  I didn't want to do it.  It's that first sentence that kills me.  That first one that gets the mental engine to turn over and gets the ideas flowing. 

But I did it.  That first sentence came pretty easily, and it was amazing how I was still staring at a basically blank word document, but my brain had already drawn lines from my research notes to the place in the review where they would just naturally fall into place.  It was as if I could see the whole review outlined in my brain and all I had to do was to just sit down and give my fingers a moment to put it together.  It's done!  And not to pat myself on the back (which I'm doing anyway), but I think I rocked it.  I think if I wanted to choose this for my topic,  I put together a fantastic case for the research's need.