#aplit15research

I’m done. I’m done with school. I’ve finished my project, and I’m most likely going to graduate from high school. The feeling is incredible. I feel on top of the world. I put on sunglasses to block out all the haters and I started to dance. How am I supposed to put in any effort for the rest of the year? Doesn’t matter to me because I’ve just finished my AP Lit Critical Research Project. Oh wait, I’m not done. I still need to post my blogs. Even when the project is done, it’s not. It’ll follow you everywhere, forever. Some may call it a curse, others a blessing. I’d like to think of this project as my Guardian Angel, always looking after me.

I’m starting to come to the conclusion of my paper but I still need to write my general introduction. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to write. I was actually pretty lost when it came to starting my general introduction but I found that when I actually started and got to writing this part, it was actually pretty easy. Out of seemingly nowhere I suddenly knew what I wanted to say, how I felt about this book and why other people really should read it, and the ideas just flowed. I believe it came so easily because of how much I had actually invested into this book and project. I knew so much about this book and author now that I felt like I had a personal connection to it, so finding a way to share my connection with others only seemed natural.

Okay so now that I’ve gotten all of my criticisms that means that I need to actually do something with them. I started my abstracts and what I enjoyed the most was reading my criticisms and going through all of them and comparing them to one another. It gave me a greater appreciation for Melville and the book and what he was trying to do and did accomplish. In regards to actually writing my abstracts I felt like it was pretty routine, nothing special really. I was more invested in reading and learning from my criticisms rather than summarizing them and saying what was good and bad about them and criticizing my criticisms. But I did what had to be done and completed my abstracts.

This is me at college. I did my best to fit in. Spent a good amount of time in the library and nobody questioned me, except to ask if I was going to some sick party later that night (that was a joke, OU doesn’t have sick parties). But overall and all in all my experience in a college library was just fine.

I went to the Kresge Library at Oakland University to find my literary criticisms. I went to OU with my friend Adam Gongol and after spending much longer than it should have to find the library, we made it in. I asked the research assistant on duty where I could find what I was looking for and she was very helpful. Writing down the numbers of a couple of books that could be useful to me. I got a general idea of what I needed from there, but since we were on a time crunch I didn’t stay that long. I went back on my own later, and spent some time at the library with whatever books I wanted to use, and since it was a quiet floor I could stay focused and get some of my work done there as well. I became familiarized with university libraries, so that was one objective completed.

Wow. Okay I’ve finished reading Moby-Dick, so now how do I find inspiration to start my actual project? Where do I even begin? I knew that I couldn’t just do this entire project in order, I wanted to do it the way that I wanted. I think that’s the only way that I could get through it. So I started with my background sources. I felt like that was some of the best research that I could do after finishing my book. Finding my background sources was actually very easy for me and helped me get a much understanding of the book, as well as information about Herman Melville who I honestly didn’t really know too much about. And I was shocked at what I found! Melville was actually a whaler, captured on an island and lived with cannibals! His stories were actually loosely based of his own experiences and I found that extremely cool.

Here's a picture of me at the OU library. And no I'm not winking at the camera, it was just very bright out