Sunday, March 6, 2011

Further Adventures with Nancy Drew

The passion I have for Nancy Drew books is definitely showing in my research habits. I've got half of my annotated bibliography done, I have a sturdy working outline, and I still have a multitude of sources to sort through... and I totally love it. Total absorption in a topic spawns hard work, which, in turn, results in quite possibly the best research paper ever. Or at least, that's what I'm aiming for. :)

However, while I am investing so much time in my topic, I find that the people around me aren't able to get nearly as much out of their's. My friend B, for instance, finally got around to actually choosing his topic, deciding to study Economic Success as a Result of Fame, or something, with a subject focus specifically hightlighting the Kardashian Family. Last week, he asked the teacher if he would be able to use their TV shows as one of his main sources. Another good friend of mine, A, is simply pursuing her topic, Book Banning in Public Libraries, because she thought it would be easy, and partially because I had told her I had gotten an A+ with that topic last year.

Meanwhile, they have to put up with me freaking out every time I find something interesting about the teenage sleuth in one of my sources. :)

It's a pretty good deal. I mean, I get to study a topic that I'm truly interested in, and its all for a grade. However, it is a little sad when I realize that not everyone shares the same enthusiasm for my topic. Take, for instance, my sister, The Cheerleader. I wanted to get a good look at how Nancy Drew is represented in various forms of media, rather than just the book series, so I've been doing things like looking up songs about her (there are several, if anyone wants to know), and watching some of the Nancy Drew movies and TV shows. Last night, The Cheerleader and I were watching the 2007 Emma Roberts version of Nancy Drew, and my sister asked a question about 10 minutes into the movie that completely threw me for a loop.

Nancy and her father, Carson, were leaving for California, and their housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, runs out of the house, to give them some snacks for the road. It was at this point that The Cheerleader asks, "Wait. Does Nancy Drew have a MAID?"

I responded, "Housekeeper. Hannah Gruen. Don't you remember her from the books?"

She shrugged. "I've never read any of them."

So now our mother has her reading at least one Nancy Drew book a week, over the summer. The Cheerleader complained a little bit, like how we had just got her to read the Harry Potter series, but we told her that she had been depriving herself, and we were just setting the Girl Universe right. :)

The research is pretty enthralling. However, I feel like I have to warn my teacher that I might never even end up writing a paper at all, after having spent all my time reading as much as possible. However, there is also more than my paper to worry about. I'm taking the SAT this coming Saturday, and I also want to reread Beastly before The Cheerleader and I take time to check it out in theaters. Too much work to do, but too little time to spend. My brain is constantly stuck on Spring Break, which is still about 3 weeks away. All I have to do is make sure my head is still on straight by the time AP Testing comes around. :)

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