My list of things I've done

THESIS-IN-PROGRESS: 

The suspension of disbelief in both Shakespeare and Reality TV.  For Shakespeare he tends to break the fourth wall, frame plays in outside stories, etc. to remind the audience that they're watching the play. Reality TV likes to remind its viewers that they're watching "real" events and emotions. Shakespeare's process makes the plays seem more real, while Reality TV saying "this is real" makes it seem fake. How would Reality TV maybe showing sets/camera people/behind the scenes maybe change the way we view it?

SOCIAL GRAPH: 

Natalie McChesney, also known as my roommate, is a fellow English major and great at pillow talk. She's incredibly intelligent and hates the Bachelor, so I think it will be interesting to pit my research topic against her when developing my argument. It will keep me level headed.

Jeremiah Quinn, also known as that-one-guy-I'm-dating, is going on here since everyone seems to have a husband or wife that supports them in their thesis. We spend much of our time together, so we've talked about the paper quite a few times and he's really interested in seeing where it goes.

Corey Wozniak, also known as my intelligent friend, helped encourage me to chase the idea of Shakespeare and Reality TV. Being that he is partly responsible for when I am now, I feel that I will continue to discuss the topic with him and see how it develops. He was really excite about it when we first started talking about it!

Britton Parish, also known as fellow classmate, is also doing something a little pop culture related, and he passed the idea of video games being art by me about two months ago, so I've been following him with his thesis, and in return, he's agreed to help me with mine. It's nice to have someone in the class to discuss this with :)

Claire Shumway, also known as my best homie, graduated in philosophy and is incredibly intelligent. I think that her background will help contribute to maybe the more theological/philosophical aspects of the suspension of disbelief or what reality really "is".

NEW MEDIA:

I haven't had a chance to explore this topic, but I feel like not many people sit around comparing Shakespeare to "trash TV". I don't know if the actual show The Bachelor would count as this, or if it would count as a... primary text?  I DON'T KNOW! Overall, this category makes me feel a little overwhelmed.

SOCIAL NETWORKING:

Twitter: Holy cow did I hit a gold mine here! I figured I could maybe try and contact some past Bachelor/ette contestants to get their take on the "realness" of the show, and I even attempted to chase down Arie from Emily Maynard's season since he was in Provo, but Branbury required that I renew my nonexistent contract with them in order to even be in the same room as him (and while I am so excited about this paper, I don't have that kind of $$$ to drop right now). Thus far no responses from the few contestants I've tried to reach, but I'll keep at it. I also found some Shakespeare related Twitter pages I'll contact as well.

Probably because I'm a whiney nobody brat.

Goodreads: Like Nyssa, I've considered joining that one group everybody's joining, but I figure they'll most likely kick me out for the blasphemy that is my research paper (or I'll just get a lot of mean responses since that's mostly what I get from hoity-toity English lovers ;)

I'm still looking around for places to contribute, but there really isn't a lot of great stuff going on concerning the reality of reality TV. I WON'T GIVE UP THOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SCHOLARLY THINGS:

Bertolt Brecht: He use to write plays where in the middle of them, someone would trapse arose the stage carrying a sign reading "YOU ARE WATCHING A PLAY" (he was the original Captain Obvious). I've found some of his old publications and I'm starting to read through them to maybe get an idea of why he does this during his plays.

Reality TV: remaking television culture: AWESOME book I found in the HBLL. It has a bunch of critical articles regarding reality TV. I'm SO excited about readin through more, as I've already read a few of them. 

I'm going to look for some more articles on the suspension of disbelief in Shakespeare's plays, but I haven't had the chance to yet because I've been trying to actually figure out my thesis.