As it says on the Frisch leads website, October 26th is the when the topic and goal are due. But thankfully, I seem to have a formulated topic and goal! I've decided to stick with my Tikvah Topic of exploring familial relationships. I intend to do a bit of research on the psychological aspect of relationships but make it more of a literature based project. Mrs. Wiener had the brilliant idea to discuss the family-dynamics in the works we read this year. This blog would be a journal of my analysis of each work.

My original idea was based off of the Tikvah summer reading, East of Eden. There are TONS of relationships to choose from, plenty to discuss. I definitely intend to include it in my project.

I could use either of the summer reading novels.
Family is a key component to White Noise - Jack's three wives and assorted children are crucial to the message of the story. I could definitely use White Noise.
If I wanted to, I could use Brave New World as a contrast to the impact of family. I could discuss why the lack of family figures has stunted certain aspects of development.

I also intend to use Medea, which I already read according to psychoanalytic lens (which is very related to familial relationships.) I would be able to talk about her relationships with her father, brother, and children.

I'm not entirely sure what the upcoming books are about, but the syllabus dictates that we will be reading Cold Mountain, Hamlet, Crime and Punishment, Things Fall Apart, and Atonement. I'm sure that I will find sufficient psychoanalytic criticism and familial influences in those novels. I'll have to play it by ear.

Choosing a topic makes this project feel real. It's not like I'm in denial - I've accepted the project and even started brainstorming. But somehow writing a blog (a public statement!) about choosing a topic makes it seem like the project had officially begun.

Alas. I guess it has begun.

Alright, to business. I have no idea where to begin. My first thought was to use my Tikva topic. Why not? I'd be able to use the same research for both and, therefore, go into greater depth than would have been possible if I had TWO huge topics to research (that's right, it's not just sheer laziness that attracted me to this idea). For Tikva, I currently plan to research the impact of familial relationships on religion. I would focus more on the Jewish aspect in Tikva and the psychological impact for English. But I was slightly disheartened by Mrs. Weiner's speech yesterday. . . I'm fairly certain she does not want us to overlap topics.She does make a fair point about intellectualism (how the Tivka paper must be intellectual and this senior project doesn't have to be). Maybe it would be more interesting to research, oh I don't know, synesthesia. Or I could copy the brilliant FrischLeek-ers and make a satirical blog about my research on, umm. . . school social structure. Yeah that fits. School social structure! It could totally work!

For now I'll just stick to brainstorming. . .