All Good Things Must Come To An End

Hi All!

My apologies to begin, this may be a long winded and frazzle dazzle blog on my part.

396A has been a lot of things this semester. Boring is not one of those things. I feel like this class and the cultural artifact project has been so helpful in developing my skills as a researcher and scholar, but also so much more. I do not mean to sound all flowery, that is not my intention. There have been moments when this project seemed ridiculous. In reflection I am able to see what an amazing journey Film Noir and Phyllis the femme fatale have taken me on.

I know this final blog is about my presentation and a self-reflection on it, but I cannot help but wander off a bit for the purpose of a more thorough and self-aware exploration on the cultural artifact project as a whole.

To start things off I must say I have been convincing myself first for, then against, my artifact all semester. It was so difficult to pick one subject, one book or literary-esque piece of culture, and then commit an entire semester to working on it. I feel like my choice in artifact was directly correlated to apprehension for/on research over an entire semester. I must say here and now that an entire semester is such a short amount of time. After everything was said and done, I felt like I had too little time to actually look in depth at Film Noir and the femme fatale. This is all so silly in retrospect.

The Presentation, oh so scary!

For me, this was terrifying. I am not one to enjoy speaking in front of people, and I can firmly say that my “stage fright” or fear of public speaking got the best of me during this presentation. I spent such a great amount of time over the past few weeks attempting to piece together a coherent and insightful panel presentation, only to realize too late how much information I had to share.

I feel like my research has come a long way from the initial “I don’t know what to do” stage into a great dialogue on women in film. I almost feel like I stumbled, half blind, cold and hungry, into a gold mind of feminist criticism and research. Film Noir is fascinating and complex and dripping with double meaning. Honestly, I feel like I hit the research gold mine. I loved this and really wanted to present everything I had become so excited over during the semester.

So, with my over enthusiasm out of the way, back to the presentation and all this research. I simply ran out of time. I really prepared too much to share with the class in 10 minutes. My note cards were full of information that I glossed over or did not even touch on as those little numbered cards kept flying up from Emily’s hand.

Slight side note: The timing and card display was so awful I felt like fainting. Every time another number would appear I would lose my train of thought and have a mini panic attack thinking about all I still had to say.

I feel like my power point was a good representation of my progression from Noir, to Double Indemnity, to Phyllis and finally to the conversation of the public verse private sphere of the Cult of Domesticity. There were some points that I did not touch on, but again it all came down to a time issue. It seems there is just never enough time.

Looking back, wish I had been able to better articulate how exciting this research and my own project progression was. I really feel that I started empty handed and completely lost. My focus was obtuse at best. It was a real struggle at the beginning of this project, but I feel that after my review debacle I narrowed everything down and really came into my own as a researcher.

Several different reasons are to blame for my frazzled state on Monday and during the presentation, but like Ben, I am at peace with it all. I loved the experience of presenting and I was in awe of my classmates and their kick butt presentations. There are some truly amazing undergrads that have so much to add in the academic world and the “parlor conversations” taking place.

The experience of this class is invaluable. I can honestly say that I have learned far more about research, methodologies, the progression of scholarly learning, etc. The list could go on and I feel very accomplished knowing that I have these tools in my arsenal now. My undergraduate academic career may be coming to an end, but I feel like I am ready to begin “baby steps onto the bus”(thank you Bill Murray) towards my own scholarship. YAY!

Okay, one final note.

This has been my first semester blogging for a class and it was amazing. I love the openness and accessibility for my own research discussion, but also that of my classmates. I think it was so wonderful to have constant feedback from my peers. I learned so much about my research from reading suggestions and questions from Ben, Courtney and Becca. It is amazing to be engaged regularly in conversation about my research methods and progressions, as well as that of others. Ben’s blog was amazing and I learned a great deal about my own project through his. So, I sincerely appreciate each and every blog comment. I would not have been able to finish this project or progress forward the way I did without this format.

I will miss this blogging business and my classmates.

Love and gratitude to each of you,

Kara Elizabeth Brennion