Project Progress

Woah. So this thing is due fairly soon. But I'm not as worried about it as I was a few weeks ago. At least now I know basically what I want to be doing. So here it is:

I have decided to focus my research on the life and death of my great-grandparents on my mom's side. They died in 1970 because of a head on collision that completely destroyed the car they were driving. And most of their bodies as well. It was apparently one of the worst car accidents in Elkhart County history. At least that is what Mom tells me. This may sound incredibly morbid to you, but there is definitely a more noble cause behind this subject.

It is my wish to display the importance placed on the existence of grandparents. I have a lot of memories of my own grandparents on both sides, and I know my mom has memories of her's. She has told me many times how she used to love watching her Grandma Kane (one half of the people I am researching) undo her little hair bun and watch it all fall down to her feet. My mom was pretty young when her grandparents died, and it's amazing to me how she can have such a vivid memory at such an early age. But how much of that is embellishment, and how much is true memory? I have a feeling that we remember things with an incredible amount of bias when we are younger, because we have very few references for comparison until we're well into grade school. That being said, are those biases wrong?

Absolutely not. They are OUR memories. And if I get nothing else out of this class and the stuff we are reading, it's that memories make up a large part of how we perceive ourselves. By delving further into this idea, and by talking with my aunts on the same topic, I can more fully understand how I may have inherited MY perceptions of grandparents.

It's all very Freud. Well maybe not him....but he's the only psyche psychologist I know by name.

By the same token, understanding our memories allows us to further explore how we operate on other levels, most notably in writing and communication. I want this project to memorialize my great-grandparents, but I also want it to evoke memories, perceptions of how we view elders, and ultimately, how we view ourselves BECAUSE of those memories.

In order to do this, I have decided to work on a multi-genre research project. I expressed my desire to try something different early in the semester (I think in my first blog) and this is definitely it. (side note: I spell "definitely" wrong EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!) The other genres I intend to use fall heavily on narrative and playwrighting. I have a great interest in playwrighting (I've actually written a couple things but am just too afraid to see them criticized) and I feel that this would be a perfect genre for delving into thoughts right before the accident happened, or in showing how my mom related to her grandma. Another genre I want to incorporate is music. I feel that using lyrics to popular songs at the times I am discussing can put the lives of my great-grandparents in yet another context.

Honestly, this is probably a project I could work on for four or five years. And even more honestly, I don't really care if I get an A...so long as it makes my mom cry. :)

With happiness in remembrance of course.

Again, feel free to make any other suggestions on things that might be cool to see in this kind of paper. I know at least a couple of us are doing this, so maybe we can help each other out.

Peace, love, and firecrackers.