My Final Blog Post

So the title pretty much says it all.

Due to the overall insane pace of this semester, I have decided that this would be my very last blog post. I'm willing to bet big money that the only person who will read this will likely be Harriette, which is fine.

I have decided to incorporate some Frida Kahlo into both my paper and my presentation. Three reasons why I have elected to do this (albeit quasi-last minute): 1) Frida Kahlo's bizarre sexual relationships in real life and their influence in her art are some of the reasons I even decided to do this project, 2) I figured some of Kahlo's blending of indigenous heritage with modern Mexican art would be a good transition in the presentation, and 3) I just purchased a super-sweet book on Kahlo from the discount section of Barnes and Noble.

I have enjoyed everyone's presentations and some of the projects have been incredibly fascinating. I wish everyone luck in their future endeavors!

Dilemmas and project

I really despise the fact that appalnet is not working right now. There were several people I wanted to either contact or hear from (including some for this project). Other than that, I am coming right along with this paper. I don't have too many more pages left, but I am also in the process of going over some minor blunders and strengthening the conclusions at the end of each of the chapters.

Time is running out, but I have an idea as far as how I am going to be demonstrating my thesis to the class and whoever else is coming on the 20th. Since art, literature, and film all play a big part in my project, I am going to involve all of them, but small selections demonstrating some of the themes that were discussed in one of my books. I definately want to feature Kiss of the Spider Woman, which is not only an Oscar winner (Best Actor), but it ties in with the theme perfectly.

New Additions to my project

As I have gone over material that I have put together for my paper, I noticed that I have left out a piece of work that I discovered in another one of my classes that inspired me to do the project in the first place. The book is True Tales of Another Mexico. It is a really good book, very fascinating and there were some poignant points about vestidas in there.

I have not heard back from Summer or any of the other SAGA people, but I am planning to announce the date of my speech, which is going to be 9:45 on 11/20.

In the meantime, I have found some interesting art books (relevant to my topic) in the library of my brother's school.
I also want to get into contact with Jessica Burke in the art department. I definately think that she will have some cool things to show me.

Little by little, I am moving on.

SAGA meeting and what I have been working on so far

Thursday night I met with the SAGA group at 8 p.m. in I.G. Greer. I did not have time to stay due to the fact I commute and did not want to get back to my hometown after midnight. I thought that my announcement was very clear and concise. I even had contact information for those that were interested in helping me. I told them that they were all invited to attend my speech.

In the meantime, I am working on bits and pieces of my thesis. So far I think that I am going to divide it up like this:

1) Cover sheet
2) Introduction to my thesis topic
3) Chapter 1: History of Homophobia in the 'old' world and the 'new'
4) Chapter 2: Poltical progress and special interest topics through literature
5) Chapter 3: Representing homosexuals and transgenders in film
6) [possible] Interviews with SAGA members or others who would add 'color' to my project
7) Bibiography

This is subject to change, but this is what I have to go by as of late.

Presentation comments

I wanted to say to everyone that I sincerely hope that I did not hurt any one's feelings with any of the comment cards. Anything negative was purely meant as a constructive criticism and not a mean, nasty comment. There were a few speakers that I did not want to put anything negative down, and everyone did well overall, but I wanted to be fair, so everyone had a positive and negative.

When I took a speech class, the main things my professor looked for were:
1) Volume
2) Delivery speed
3) Eye contact
4) Hand gestures
5) Anything special (i.e. humor)

So this is what I based my comments on as far as what I had to go through.

Maybe this is an asinine post, but I want everyone in this course to graduate and succeed immensely.

Finishing notes, timing myself

As of 10/14/07, I have finished transcribing my notes from the stickies to my paper. Now, in order to see them more clearly I am going to print them out. It has been fairly time-consuming, but enjoyable at the same time.

I have completed what I am going to present tomorrow, and have timed myself. I should be an ol' pro at giving speeches, and I am a lot more comfortable now than say, oh a high school freshman. My big problem would be going on too long, but as this has to be five minutes, I am obviously going to have to truncate and remove unnecessary information.

Bibliography

As of late, I have just updated my bibliography.

I am now in the process of reading my book on Latin American Masses and Minorities, which was available on Interlibrary loan.

10/09/07

Great news, I have finally finished with the Hispanisms and Homosexualities book. It was more information rich than the Ethnic Eye book, but both were valuable sources.

I have two books that I recently received from InterLibrary Loan. One of which happens to be from Princeton, so I know that it will be chock full of information as well as a very credible source of scholarship. I plan on tackling those two this week while finishing some more pages for the paper.

I am glad to say that all of my books have been helpful so far, which is more than I can say for another one of my classes. I mean, those books were wonderful, but they strayed away from my original topic and many of them were written in 1985 or before.

In the meantime, I am going to contect SAGA and alert them to my project. (Thank you again, Jason)

Hope everyone is doing well.

10/5/2007

I have started writing the first pages of the initial draft. I have had to go through a lot of different pages of notes that I have written down and that has taken some time, but not as much as I thought at first. I continue to find more items to aid me in this project.

Two things are on my mind: Does anyone know anything about SAGA? I contacted someone on the board of student diversity about a GLAAD group or some group that Harriette said I should inform about my presentation, but she (Kathy, I think?) said she didn't know anything about a GLAAD group, but she said try SAGA. I was wanting to know if anyone knew anything about SAGA.

The other thing, has anyone seen Cade Raper's blog yet? I was very curious to see his final project and have not yet been able to find it.

About one of those novels

I was re-reading my last post when I saw 41 as an example of a novel that I found. I wanted to point out that 41 was the title of the novel. I have not actually found 41 novels, although that could possibly be beneficial.

Moderate alterations...maybe a little more than moderate

Umm.... I think that I am going to change my focus from media to art and film. I thought that I would be able to find more television shows/transcripts and journals as media, pero fue muy dificil tan tarde, aunque hablo espanol.

In other words, it was difficult so far, even though I could read/understand the Spanish. I don't think that an article in People en Espanol would be a credible source. I have found some interesting novels about Homosexuality/Homophobia (such as 41) that I could greatly use in my paper as well as presentation. Of course I was already going to use film, which I need to mention that I found more films focusing on my topic.

So I'm on the lookout for a lot of books, films, and possibly songs/poems to be used.

9/30/2007

Alright, so it is the last day of September and I have some more news.

I have been doing a lot with the project off and on this week, but have not really taken a seat and written down anything about it until now.

First off, one of the readings I did in my Development and Underdevelopment class was actually right on par with my subject matter. It was about "Queering Development" and Latin America was mentioned by not just the paper but by Cynthia herself. She even mentioned the term 'marica', which I am sure most of the students did not know, except for Mark Cormier and myself, because we are both in LAS.

That class reading assignment was the perfect way to open up to Cynthia (who happens to be my advisor) about what I am trying to do with senior seminar. I followed her back to her office and she gave me a sheet of what she thought was approriate based on her research. (which was very good) Then she handed me a book of her's about sexual diversity, which turned out to have some excellent information inside. It was an excellent thing to read when I took my mom to Carolina's Medical Center in Charlotte the next day. I read enough that I could give the book back to Cynthia the following day.

I have some notes I have collected from some books I found at the Patrick Beaver Library in Hickory and Lenoir Rhyne College, also in Hickory. L-R actually had a better selection of what I am looking for. One of the books, which I plan on using to open the paper, is so large that I still am having to go back and look at it, because you need an L-R I.D. to check it out. So I am probably going to have to get my younger brother, who goes to L-R, to check it out for me.

My big thing now would be taking all of the notes and trying to organize them in a flow on paper.

Progress as of 9/24/07

Well...

I did get some reading done, however this is a good and bad thing at the same time. What I mean by this is, the books I meant to "finish" by this point I have not quite done so. The good thing is I have found about three or four more books at the Lenoir-Rhyne (L-R) library which have been beneficial to my topic.

Which reminds me, this is going to be a little personal, but two/three things have been affecting my performance this semester. One, I no longer live in Boone and I commute from Hickory. That obviously makes group meetings of any kind tremendously difficult. Two, my mom had foot surgery (Dwyer Calcagnial Osteotomy to be exact) back in July, but has been somewhat of an invalid ever since. If anyone has ever had this done or knows someone who has, it is very difficult as far as mobility. Thirdly, I have a 20-year old brother who does not drive for reasons unknown to me or anyone else. The good thing about that is he goes to L-R, so I get to use the library there after I drop him off. Hence the collection of books I have aquired from there.

I have also found two or three books at the Patrick Beaver Library in Hickory. I might plan on using some of the media, as they have a large video collection.

Tips

Hello again,

I don't know if this will benefit anybody, but I personally believe in the power of Post-Its, sticky notes, stickies, whatever you want to call them.

These minuscule pieces of paper have really not only helped me in retrieving information, but have helped me to collect thoughts on paper and thus (most of the time) granting me a B+ and higher on any paper I have done.

It has helped me

Blogging and (Preliminary) Timeline

Hello to all,

So, I guess I am now known as the "comment king" (and yes, for those of you in development class, despite the nature of my topic, I did mean to say king!) The majority of you guys' topics sound really cool, so I cannot help but read what everyone is planning to do. But, as Harriette pointed out, I should post a little more regularly, so sure,
I'm happy to oblige.

I need to make a time line (among some other things) so here is what I have so far:

By:

9/24 -I will have finished my complete readings of the Ethnic Eye and Hispanisms and Homosexualities, and a proper thesis.

10/1 -I will have written up not only a proper proposal, but also a draft of the paper, just to see how things flow. Possibly meet with my advisor Cynthia to see if she has any relevant material (and I know she will!).

10/8 -Mostly depends on what Harriette says to me after my 10/2 appt. w/ her. Definately by this time I need to talk with someone in both ASU and L-R (my hometown) libraries to see what kind of media they will lend me to aid in my presentation and work. I will also present my material to the class on 10/16.

10/24 -Hopefully by this point I will start to actually do the final draft. (fingers crossed).

11/6 - More work on the grammatical points of the paper, which means a visit to the writing center. More meetings with people who will help me with my presentation, which at this point remains a surprise to everyone on campus.

Again, this is not set in stone, but these are the gaols I have set for myself.

Progress as of 9/17/07

Well, things are going great....so far.
I have found many great books to help aid me in this big research assignment. Some of them have really been diamonds in the rough. One book I found in our library, Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, has proved to be more useful to me than I could have pictured judging by the sound of the title. If anyone is doing any gender studies or even social and cultural anthropology, I highly recommend this one.

The Ethnic Eye, also found in our library, has been THE treasure trove. Not only does it emphasize the topics that I am looking for all in one book, but it mentions films and documentaries. Some of these I am planning on using in my presentation(s).

OK, here is the bad news: the books are due back to the library Friday. I have two or three books checked out for another class that are do on Thursday, so I have been trying to bounce back and forth between the books. Trying to get as much information out of them as I can. I have four or five big papers this semester, people...blegh!

I hope everyone else is having the luck I am experiencing with finding things.

Progress as of 9/4/2007

I am pleased to say that I have found a lot of excellent resources not only at Belk Library, but at other libraries, including my hometown of Hickory. I have to give a LOT of credit to Glenn Ellen Stilling, for her wonderful work prior to my RAP session. I highly recommend her for those of you still in need of a RAP session. She is a brilliant librarian and a human search wizard!!

Glenn sat down with my on Friday and she showed me all of the different databases and catalogues that I could use for my research. We went down the list of what she had for me based upon her technique of putting my ideas in clusters. The idea of clustering ideas in and of itself is a wonderful idea, and I plan on doing that with other papers from now on. She found several items that I could use. I say items, because she said that since I was having media in my paper, I could include some form(s) of them media in my presentation. I plan on using video, and possibly a few songs.

I have to say that there were a few books that from the descriptions sounded great, but were not able to access them from interlibrary loan. This is a a shame, but I am glad about what we did discover together. I have even checked out three or four books and am getting into the process of reading them before having to turn them in on the 21st.

Project proposal

I have to say that one of the greatest things about the IDS dept. would have to be the creative liberties that each person takes. Not just in choosing courses, but also a lot of the work that we do in those courses. That said, I wanted to come up with a topic that would be a little out of the ordinary.....well, at least for me.

I have chosen to do research on discrimination against LGBTs (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transsexuals, for those of you not familiar with the acronym) and homophobia in the Latin American media. Being a Latin American Studies major, I knew I was going to have to do something on Latin America. However, I wanted my research to include other topics in order to make it 'interdisciplinary.' I chose this so I could use my historical background in Latin America, and combine it with Gay/Lesbian Studies, Gender Studies, and Media Studies in order to make the paper and presentation more interesting.

I said that this is a little out of the ordinary for me, because I have never done research on LGBTs, especially in the media. I have had a little background in Gender Studies, but with the exception of one of my Psychology courses, this topic was primarily a personal interest outside the classroom setting. I think what inspired me to do this topic was actually the bigotry of some of the members of my former church. Even the minister conspicuously "gay-bashed" from time to time. This got my mind thinking, "I wonder if this type of behavior goes on in predominantly Roman Catholic Latin America?..." I thought that it would be an interesting topic even though I am not a gay or trans-gender myself, nor am I a Roman Catholic Latin American either.