Research log: week 5
This past week has felt really productive in regards to my final project. I was sort of worried that my draft didn’t have much of my own personal voice in the narrative, but my peer review group said they didn’t find that to be the case. I also am feeling generally good with the direction that the paper is taking, although it’s a slight tweak of what I initially proposed. But, I think it’s a lot more centered on the APIA pop culture connections than my first idea for my topic would have been. I also think there is a lot of room to add in my own voice, which I’m trying to be more conscious about.
The layout is taking this form where it’s framed by my “home”–the midwest–but I’m including “sub-homes” in the things I used to do growing up to keep myself preoccupied. I’m operating on the idea of the midwest being a really boring, uninspiring place where it is absolutely necessary to be creative to come up with things to do, or to have some sort of hobby to fall into, or else you kind of just get stuck. Most people just turn to drugs out of boredom, at least where I’m from.
Going forward with my research, I have to look more into Tastu Aoki, who I mentioned in last week’s post, because I’m going to start writing about my involvement with music as a teenager next. His music is perfect for the topic of crosscurrents in APIA culture, but I guess the thing I have to think hard about is how that connected to the music I was playing at the time. I already started writing this section in the workshop we did last week on Wednesday, so I think I have a general idea of where I want to take it. From what I wrote that day, I think it’ll have more of my creative voice, whereas the first section of my paper had more of my academic voice (although I did sprinkle in humor).
All in all I’m feeling a lot better about this project after writing the draft and getting the feedback I’ve gotten so far, which is a huge relief because I had been worried about where this project was going to end up. I’m starting to feel better about my own splendid messiness.