I just can’t help myself

So I think I’ve decided to do more individual research. I don’t want to, all I really want is to chill and relax when I get home without the burden or stress of yet another paper to write. Publishing a second paper under the same IRB is only marginally more impressive than publishing just one paper, so there’s not a huge incentive there. I started college less than a month after graduating high school and have been in school, in some form or another, nonstop since that time over two years ago. I think it’s time for a break. I’m not burned out or frayed, but I do notice myself working less efficiently and taking luxurious breaks that I shouldn’t be, which is slowing me down overall. When I work, I work HARD. I think what I’m learning about myself is as far as efficiency, productivity, and quality of work is concerned, I need intense nonstop work, and then equally intense nonstop play. Mixing the two doesn’t bode well for me, I just end up being lazy all the time. So…a break would be nice so that I really can truly take a break and then pound dirt again.
But I’m just too damn curious. I’m absolutely dying to better understand why students are FDC and their parents are NRM (political parties) and what the heck implications that has on the political future of the country. FDC is newer and more radical, NRM is the old Museveni party. Museveni’s been around for almost 30 years, but the scrapping of the Movement system (single party democracy) ended only recently and there’s only been one presidential election since that time. So now all these new political parties are cropping up and younger kids, who can vote, seem to be eating it up. Why is that? And what does that mean? It’s so different here because in the states political affiliation is largely longitudinal, passed on generationally. Here, there seems to be a bit of a generation gap. Does that mean political affiliation is more lateral, coming from peers? I’m dying to know. I’ve got my professors talked into letting me slip in a survey with their research which will give me a sample size of about 400 students from a variety of schools in the district. Sweet. If that doesn’t work out, I might stay behind a couple weeks to go to the schools on my own and conduct interviews. Right now though, I’m hoping for the survey because not only is it easier, but if I use Likert scales, I can do a quantitative project, whereas last year I did qualitative. It’d be nice to get experience in both since they have slightly different methodological approaches. And hey, let’s be honest, running a chi-square test and a few regressions is a TON faster than sitting and transcribing every little word of an interview!