The first quarter of my Junior year has been the craziest yet. Not necessarily the difficulty of course load and work, but dealing with life in general while simultaneously thinking about my research and being occupied with work and staying involved with student orgs. The tardiness of my blog is attributed to everything going on. It has been difficult to focus on anything related to academics and being away from home since one of my cousins passed away. So lately I have been trying to get reconnected with my sense of motivation to get me through the quarter and revisit my work on my research. Though I have not been editing my summer research paper this quarter, I have been spending my time going to a conference, networking, researching summer research programs, and more NETWORKING. On November 5-6 I was given the opportunity to attend the first Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference at DePaul University in Chicago. Although, I was not able to present, I took advantage of being able to meet with leading scholars working on mixed race issues from across the country. It was a historical event that took place and was critical towards my own research and the near future in terms of having contacts for summer research programs and graduate school.