Research Topic

For my research topic I am focusing on Princess Diana. I am not sure what my argument is yet because I have not researched it enough. However, I am interested in looking at what ways Diana manipulated the media. Or, how the media manipulated her. I don't know which side I am going to take yet. I have a lot of books on Diana that will be interesting to read and see how different authors view her differently.

Research Journal 3

Even though I was assigned Lost in Translation I enjoyed Meatless Days the most. A lot of my classmates found trouble understanding it or just plain didn't like it. I however really liked it. The way it is written in stream of consciousness really appealed to me. I thought that all of the transitions from story to story were so smooth you didn't even realize the author was telling a new story until she was halfway through it. Stream of consciousness seemed to make the story flow better and helped me understand it better. It reminded me of when my class read James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man last year. The entire time I was reading meatless days I kept thinking of how similar the structure was to portrait of an artist.
When comparing it to Lost in Translation or Coming of Age in Mississippi, Meatless Days' style was much more effective for me. In both Lost and Mississippi I felt like I was just reading a bunch of incidents the writers went through while in Meatless Days it seemed to be one large story. Something both Lost and Meatless Days did however was use an overall theme throughout the story to connect all the events. In Meatless it's food, and in Lost it's language. This idea that we talked about in class might be a possible topic for my paper. Both have a thread that is woven throughout the story, making specific events in the authors' lives come together and flow better. In my opinion, Meatless Days does this better than Lost in Translation though.
Another possible paper idea would be to compare Mississippi and When Heaven and Earth change places. They both have this huge problem going on in the world around them and become involved in it. In Mississippi it's the civil rights movement and in Heaven it's the war. Both of these events affect the author greatly and change her. It would be interesting to look at how the author changes and when and where we can see it in the text.

Research Journal 2

The blog I chose to read over the semester is called "I am Dr. Laura's Worst Nightmare." It's a personal blog written by a mom. One reason I chose it is because the woman who writes it is from northern California, where I was born, so I feel like we already have a connection! She refers to her husband as "the hubs" which I think is really funny. There is a good mix between her personal life and current issues. All of the entries are humorous whether they are about how her family is cleaning out the bookshelves, or her views on the president. She posts a lot of pictures to illustrate all her entries which are very fun to look at. When she mentions something that has a corresponding website, like a book or a bag she owns, she always links the sentence to the website. It is fun to click on the website and look at what she is talking about. When I was trying to decide on a blog to read, I clicked on this one and the first thing I saw was- "blogging since 2004, mothering since 1991, badass for 50 years." This immediately caught my eye and made me keep reading. It really sums up the blog perfectly. This woman reminds me a lot of my Aunt who also lives in Northern California so in a way I feel like I already know her. Although, you never know what she is going to write about next!