I'm shaking right now.

Reaching out to people I don't know is scary. I'm not really someone who likes to bother people more experienced and knowledgeable than I with questions they might think as trivial or stupid, frankly.

That being said, I managed to gather enough courage and write Andy Dehnart, creator and writer of Reality Blurred, an e-mail and ask him a few questions. I'm absolutely terrified of his response. What if he thinks I'm completely ridiculous for even thinking up this thesis? What if he tears it to shreds? WHAT IF HE DOESN'T RESPOND!?

But really, this was a huge step for me... I hope it pays off.

This doesn't qualify as "doing my homework"... right?

UPDATE: I also sent out an e-mail to Dr. Beverly Thompson, a professor who taught (is teaching?) a course on reality TV. We'll see how that goes too!

Revised Thesis Statement and Annotated Bibliography

Thesis Statement:

In his works Othello, Hamlet, and _______, Shakespeare addresses universally applicable themes such as communication and trust that are important for secondary students to understand.


After some thinking and reading comments on my last post, I have decided to focus my research on teachings secondary students about honesty and communication by using Othello and other Shakespeare plays. I am not familiar with many of Shakespeare's works however, and so would love feedback and some guidance from those who read plays with themes that could apply. I also am struggling a little bit to make my thesis argumentative, and would love to hear any thoughts/ideas. I want to explore these themes in two or three (I think too many more than that would be too large of a task) of Shakespeare's plays as well as explore the concept of how things are not as they seem ("honest Iago," for example).

Annotated Bibliography:
Social Graph
There are a few people that I think would be good to keep in contact with as I move forward on my research. One of them is my brother, Steven. We are close in age, and so have grown up together and have always bounced ideas off of one another. Another person is my friend Emily, who is an English major at another university. A third person is one of my favorite high school English teachers Dianne Madsen. She might be hard to get a hold of, but she would be a great resource.

I am on both Facebook and Twitter. I don't use Twitter as much, but I think I can work harder on that network because it is such a good way to reach out to a wider audience than Facebook.