Assessing my progress

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I was having coffee at the Student Center a couple of days ago, and Lisa (she's in the class, too) came over and joined me.  Her topic is interesting; her real first name is "Brittany," which she hates, so she is researching the connection between names and self-image.  Lisa is worried about the research project (I have the feeling that she's always worrying about school), even though I think she may be further along than I am.  So, thanks to Lisa, this seems like a good time to figure out where I stand in terms of deadlines.  I feel like I have a good sense of what I want to do in the paper -- but I know I'll probably do a lot of adjusting before I even start writing.  The due dates seem far away, far enough that I have to keep making myself work on this; if I don't keep cracking the whip, I'll wind up the same way I did all through high school, working like a maniac right before things are due and never being happy with the way they turn out.
Okay, so today is Valentine's Day (despite having a chocolate lunch, I'm not really feeling the love right now), and here's the schedule: 

• Research proposal is due 3/5,
• the annotated working bibliography is due 3/26,
• a draft of the essay (for a peer review and then a conference with Dr. Toffee) is due on 4/2
• the final revision is due on 4/23
• the complete research journal is due 5/7

Lisa told me a couple of weeks ago that she made up a "Master Schedule" as soon as she had the syllabi (or is it syllabuses?) for all her classes.  When she said that, I thought, if she just had disinfectant wipes, she could call herself "Monk"; now I think that she has the right idea, so as soon as I finish this post, I'm going to make one for myself.  I can already see that there is a conflict with poli-sci in week 12. 
The research proposal is no big deal; I could even crank that out now, probably, but it'll be better if I can get some more reading done.  The bibliography seems to be the toughest thing before the paper.  In English 101, I was always getting back papers with corrections all over the works cited page.  I've set up a file where I'm saving the results from my searches, and I've already got a folder going with a couple of articles I printed out (yes, Dr. Toffee, I did buy myself a stapler!).  If I can just keep that stuff organized, I'll have the info I need for the citations.  I'm also going to set aside an hour on the days I don't work to read and search some more.  When I have a better idea of what I need to know, I can -- I hope -- cut that back some.  And, I have a Word file going of ideas, more like random thoughts, really, for the paper.  I can't think of anything else I need to do right now, so I guess I'll sign off.

I Still Need a Hero! (or at least some information about one)

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I've been doing some article and book searches for the past couple of weeks, and it's been interesting, but I'm not sure how helpful the stuff I've found is going to be.  I started looking at heroes (the Library of Congress subject heading) in Academic Search Premier, then in the MLA bibliography, and finally in WorldCat.  So far, I've ordered a few interlibrary loans (the college library is really tiny, bookwise), and I hope they arrive in time for the annotated bibliography assignment.  Anyway, some of the books and articles look really interesting.  I ordered:
Tasker, Yvonne, Ed.  Action and Adventure
       Cinema. London:  Routledge, 2004.
This is a collection of essays about action films, and a couple of the essays turned up in my MLA search.  I think that those will count individually on the bib assignment, so this is great.  Another book I found has a pretty intimidating title:
West, Russell, and Frank Lay, Eds.  Subverting
       Masculinity:  Hegemonic and Alternative
      Versions of Masculinity in Contemporary
      Culture. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000.
I'm not too sure what that even means, but it sounds good for my project (I think I have to deal with the gay subtext that RD put on the table during promo interviews).
I still have work to do on the Sherlock Holmes searches, but more about that later.  I was pleased to see that I'm already doing what the professors who wrote the tips below say I should do.

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A QHQ?

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I got a little behind this week (from what I heard in class yesterday, I'm not the only one, and our first checkpoint is next Friday!), so I'm doing two entries in one day.  This one is supposed to be a Question-Hypothesis-Question, and (according to the assignment page) "the first question should be whatever initial research question you've formulated. The hypothesis is what you think the answer is and why you think that. Once you have your hypothesis, you should be able to tell what the next question you have about the topic is."  I'm not sure how this will work out.
My first question was "is the Ritchie/Downey Sherlock Holmes the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes, or is it a serious distortion?"  Now, my hypothesis.  From what I've read so far, the R/D SH actually fits ACD's SH in a lot of ways.  The big difference I'm seeing has to do with the presentation of SH as a man of action, and a really quirky one at that.  Is that a distortion?  Maybe, maybe not.  I've been reading "The Six Napoleons," and in it Holmes and Watson are constantly on the move, going all over London (from the best to the worst and back again) to ask questions.  So, there's a lot of that kind of action.  I'm also thinking that SH -- or Conan Doyle -- is always secretive about his background.  We never find out much about how he came to be a detective or where he grew up.  His brother Mycroft doesn't turn up in the early stories (I think, but I'll have to check that), and when he does, he's kind of mysterious, too.  In the stories, the focus is always on the mystery at hand, and description of SH is doled out in small details here and there as they occur to Watson (who is usually the narrator).  The film can't help but provide lots of information, since the audience is seeing everything (well, almost everything) of Holmes, and all the visuals suggest many things about SH.  For example, the way he dresses is obvious in a film, but in the stories, his clothing is described most often when he is in disguise.  I also think that the Holmes of the stories is of a higher class than in the film, but I'll think more about that later.  So, I guess that the film is not a serious distortion, but it does have a point of view that is different from a very conservative reading of the stories.

And that leads me to the last question:  Is Sherlock Holmes an action hero?  I ask this because that is the thrust of the film and it appears that the stories support that idea.  Now I suppose I need to begin thinking about what an action hero really is.