I feel like I got a good deal accomplished this week. By Tuesday I had completed the 1st draft of my essay on satellite TV in the Middle East. Along the way, I had some really interesting conversations with people on the topic, which apparently strikes other people as interesting too. I got back the 2nd draft of my essay on the headscarf with comments from my mentor and hope to have a revised version done sometime next week. At the moment, I'm holding off on starting a 3rd essay, but ideally I will start working on it late next week. Whether that happens is highly dependent on when I finish my college application due next week.

This afternoon, I will be meeting with Alex Cromwell for feedback on my essay. I hope she can point me in the direction of stylistic improvements I can make to my writing. Although the English component of my product (and grade) is smaller than the history component, I'm taking it very seriously and hope this experience will improve how I write.

All told, I think I maintained a good level of progress during what has been an unbelievably busy week. I need to keep up this kind of pace if I want to have my product in on time. This pacing, rather than any roadblocks with content, continues to be my single greatest issue, but this week, at least, I seemed to have improved.

I'm going to be honest here. I accomplished very little this week. On top of having Monday off, I've been sick all week. However, I did get to finally meet with Sally Booth! She had some good suggestions for book and articles to look up. On the topic of technology entrenching dictatorships, she recommended looking at how police hacked into text messages being sent by protesters and the WTO and therefore were able to anticipate their moves.
I also wrote my personal progress report. Although concerned about the fact I only have 1 essay done, I feel I can pick up the pace (especially since I have extensive research done on 2 other topics). I still feel I'm on track to get my project done.

Anyhow, I'm giving myself a very strict deadline: by next Tuesday, I must have a 1st draft of my 2nd essay done.

This week, I feel as though I made progress on my project. I got back the first draft of my essay on the headscarf and, hopefully, can finish a second draft by early next week. I did a lot of research this week on the effect of new media on the middle east, including several sources on how satellite tv has changed the political and media landscape over the last decade and an interesting TED talk on how access to the internet can, contrary to popular belief, strengthen dictatorships rather than undermine them. I also completed my product rubric, so I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do to get a good grade on my project.

Additionally, I confirmed Sally Booth will be my outside consultant. I'm really excited by her enthusiasm. Her expertise in ethnography and anthropology will be a very valuable resource.

Over the next week, I'm hoping to keep up the pace and, hopefully, be a little speedier. My goal is to have my first essay completed and my second essay drafted. All in all, I'm not extremely concerned about whether or not I can finish my project on time, but I do recognize I need to work faster.

This week I focused on writing a draft of my first essay. I've written about 3 pages, and I think I now have down most of what I want to get across. The problem is that, so far, my writing is pretty disjointed and the thrust of the essay isn't entirely clear. I have two long cross-country flights Fri. and Sun., so I want to work this weekend on finishing and editing the essay to make its progression more logical.

TO-DO
Finish first draft of essay on women in the middle east -Tues
Start drafting 2nd essay (move forward on urban landscape idea?)-Tues or earlier if time allows