JOURNAL

Tuesday 12/2- Tonight I was exhausted from swim team, we got home around 7 and I did my homework. I did some background research on our bacteria, Leuconostoc Mesenteroides and discovered its main uses, such as fermentation for plants and foods. After this, I thought a bit about the research I would do later on in the week and looked for helpful websites. I talked to Jessica about what we should have to make a good timeline and just plan out what we should be thinking about doing. Then I turned in early for a good night’s sleep. 

Wednesday 12/3- Today was St. Andrew’s Day, so I had a lot more free time at home than I normally do. I looked through the online databases to see which resources would be helpful, and found that Gale Group looked to have a good amount of information on it, just like Ms. Jansen had said. My partners and I worked out a timeline of what we would be doing for the next two weeks (when we would research, when we would work out the format of our site, etc) and who would be researching what. My job is to research extensively the beneficiary properties of Leuconostoc Mesenteroides and some recent news articles about the bacteria. 

Thursday 12/4- Today we got a chance to work on our research during class, and I took this advantage to look up what I could find on Gale Group. I learned about Leuconostoc Mesenteroides’s use in alternan, which is used for adding flavor and thickening foods, medicines, and industrial products. I also conversed with my partners a bit about what we were going to do and how we were going to manage our time and research.  Then when I got home, I was so exhausted that I decided my time would be used better getting rest than trying to do work when I knew I wouldn’t get much done when my brain wasn’t very alert. 

Friday 12/5- Today I didn’t have swim team, so once I got home from a doctor’s appointment, I decided to search the free web a bit and see what I came up with. I found many informative sites that I think will prove to be quite useful for our project. I sited the sources and took some notes on the sites using noodletools so I could later incorporate them into our wiki site. I’m not too sure how well this project will be, I’m starting to have doubts that I’ll have much time to work on it, what with having swim team on top of other homework. So I’m planning to really work on it this weekend to try to get as much as I can done. 

Saturday 12/6- Today I decided to look up the web to see if could find any recent news stories about our bacteria. I found some things relating to the use of Leuconostoc Mesenteroides breaking down sugars in foods to form lactic acids, which are, according to an article I found, responsible for sour milk, yoghurt, and muscle cramps. I recorded this and other information I found on noodletools and realized with relief that if I continued to work like this tomorrow, I would have most of my research done, and assuming my partners were doing the same, we would just have to worry about the layout of our site this week.

Sunday 12/7- Today I plan to contact my partners to see how they’re doing with their research and incorporate our ideas. Any missing information we have, we’ll talk about and decide who should find it. This way, we can make sure we do a thorough job in our research and have as much detail and as many topics as we can. I also worked a bit on my bibliography so I wouldn’t have to worry too much about it later. I feel a bit better about our project, since I’ve gotten a lot of work done this weekend. Now I just need to see how my partners are doing. 

Monday 12/8- Today we got another day to work on the project in class. Geoffrey showed us the information that he’s found so far and I sent him the information I’ve found. We pretty much just dumped all of our information on our site after that and I guess we’ll sort it out soon. Then we reviewed it and planned on writing it in our own words and take out all the superfluous information. I realized that we had more research than I thought, and I’m thinking our site should be pretty rich and full. At least, I’m certainly hoping for. 

Tuesday 12/9- I did some more research on the bacteria, looking at things like the structure of the bacteria and just basic things about it. I’m kind of starting to worry about our project. My partners and I haven’t really talked about it very much, because there isn’t really a good way to get in touch with them. I don’t really know how much research they’ve done and what they’ve found. I plan on talking to them about it tomorrow and figuring out what else we need to find, still. Or if we already have all the research that we want, we need to decide how we want the layout of the site to go. 

Wednesday 12/10- I didn’t have swim team practice today, so I took advantage of that to really get some work done on our project. I took a look at all of my research and separated it into sections for the wiki site. I re-wrote all of the necessary information I found and tweaked it so it sounded good enough to put on the wiki. I talked to my partners today and we discussed our progress on the project, and things are moving along a lot nicer than I thought. I decided to just work on getting all of my information together and ready to put on the site today, then deal with actually putting it on the site and making it look pretty and interesting tomorrow.  

Thursday 12/11- I finally began putting my information on our site today. I added the necessary pages to our sidebar so people could find our information. I put down my information on it and played around with the font and color a bit, but I’m not sure how to change the background, so I asked my partners if they could help with that. I made a word search with some words relating to my bacteria, and added the pages “structure”, “habitat”, “beneficial uses”, “word search”, and “how it works”.   

Friday 12/12- I looked over my wiki site today in study hall and added a few extra details as I saw necessary. I’m not too sure how much more I can do without my partners putting their own information on it, adding to mine. I’m really hoping that they’re all ready and are able to put it on the site tonight so we don’t have to use our whole weekend working on it. I’m sure that it’ll be great, but I’m just under a bit of stress right now and don’t want to mess up this project, since it’s worth so many point. I have a big swim meet tonight and I probably won’t get home until about 10:30, and I’ll probably be exhausted, so I’m hoping my partners will do some work on the site tonight. 

Saturday 12/13- I woke up today and after breakfast, I started working on the project immediately. I looked over the site and realized that my partners haven’t worked on it yet, so I emailed them to tell them to please put their information on it. Tim is running out and I can’t believe that the site’s not even finished. I looked over all my sources and made my bibliography and note cards to be put on the site. I had some difficulty finding the Authors for some of the sites I used, but I decided to just move on and not worry about it too much. I changed the design of the front page, though I don’t think it’s too good. I also added color to my notes and bibliography, and I don’t think there’s really much more I can do to the site. I guess I’ll just try to get a hold of my partners and pray they respond… 

After I waited a while, I decided to make some of the pages they were supposed to make, just in case something went wrong with their computer or something like that. So I ended up making a page explaining how a gram stain worked and what the gram stain of our bacteria was. I also put up my bibliography, notes, and journal entries. I also uploaded some youtube videos I found that I thought would help further explain some points that I wasn’t too sure how to describe, like the process of fermentation. 

Sunday 12/14- DUE DAY I woke up this morning at about 8 am, and checked the site to see if any work was done to it. I was delighted to see that Geoffrey had got on and added his information to it, and it is now much better and more informative. All I have to do is go through it and make it look a bit more appealing to people. I think we really did a very good job, and I'm excited to see what we'll get on the assignment.