The Bully Project

Hi all! I started on my project that will be an addition to the written paper. Mrs. Wiener (the health teacher) runs an anti-bullying campaign for the freshmen each year to expose them to the dangers of bullying. For my project, I am going to work with her to revamp the program. This will be an extension of my project, which focuses on the two definitions of beauty. The first definition defines beauty as something pleasing to the aesthetic eye. The project will build of societal standards and the need for all to fit in. Bullying is another form of people suffering in order to fulfill the requirements set up by society's aesthetic eye. The program will hopefully be taking place in February and will be for both freshmen boys and girls; if anyone has any interest in participating let me know! For now, here's the trailer for The Bully Project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1g9RV9OKhg

Beauty Contest Lyrics

http://www.metrolyrics.com/beauty-contest-lyrics-no-doubt.html

Here are the lyrics to Gwen Stefani's song, Beauty Contest. They describe her feelings towards the idea of how modern beauty and how they have turned women's looks into an assembly line product.

The Two Definitions of Beauty

When typed into google, the word beauty is defined as followed:
1. A combination of qualities such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.
2. A combination of qualities that pleases the intellect or moral sense.

These conflicting definitions will be the focus of my paper. The jumping-off point will be the modern societal perception of beauty and how many women today feel like they are being forced into a cookie-cutter ideal of what they should look like. After addressing these issues I will move to the idea of internal beauty as the ideal beauty.

Topic Change

In light of the recent storm, I have had a lot of time to sit in the dark and contemplate the meaning of life. The result of all of that meditation is a new topic for my research paper. My old topic included mythologies and different cultures and how they were ultimately manifestations of the local beliefs. My new topic has a slight twist, but still maintains the central idea of exploring different cultures.

The Art of Beauty.

This new topic will allow me to explore different cultures of different locations in different eras and monitor how the concept of ideal beauty differs among different civilizations. It is more focused on a particular idea but still gives me plenty of leeway to be creative.

Paper Topic

My final topic choice is mythology based off the society of the time. What aspects were valued during a time period or in a culture that caused certain myths to emerge. I wish to address Egyptian, Greek, and Hindu culture and put a modern spin on it in my conclusion by mentioning the Victoria's Secret "Love Your Body Campaign" and the Dove "Real Beauty Campaign."

Organizing An Idea

When first contemplating my topic, I believed that I would approach the stories of mythology through art.  I thought this idea was a good place to start because it covered my topic of mythology while providing a pragmatic way to express the subject without just listing tales.

Then Mrs. Wiener recommended a book for me entitled The History of the World in 100 Objects.  She proposed that I use the book as a foundation, discussing the history of mythology through art.  We spoke more about the topic and eventually the conversation strayed to different directions.  Suddenly, I knew how I wanted to organize my paper.  I explained my epiphany, stating that I wished to explain mythology through culture.  In other words, I wished to address the cultures of different ancient societies and analyze how such communities gave birth to what became the myths of that culture.

And so, over the course of ten minutes I had three different directions in which I could take my paper.  This project is exhausting.

To Choose a Topic...

Finding a suitable topic for this project is practically impossible.  Either the topics are too general that they cannot be simplified towards a simple goal, or there is not enough information on a topic to produce a twenty page paper.  In short, the process of choosing even a few options for this paper was no easy task.

My first idea for this project was the use of mythology in art by the Norse, Greek, Egyptian, and Hindu cultures.  I was immediately informed that this was too wide of a scope for a paper and I had to narrow my culture choices down to three.  After taking an art class this summer, I became very interested in ancient art and the stories behind the pieces we both observed and discussed.    There are so many directions I could take this project, and so I thought basing it on mythology and art would give me a good jumping point.

A friend recommended that I write about my food allergies, because this was another topic that I knew a lot about and one that was close to my heart.  I originally thought this would be a good idea for I have been living with allergies for my entire life.  However, while thinking this idea through I realized that there are a lot of technical aspects to this issue.  I did not believe that I would be interested in writing an extensive paper on the minute details of food allergies.  I already passed AP Bio and did not want to revisit it.