04.16.10

Reflecting back to the actual writing, or typing, of the draft of the research paper, I decided that I will document as much information I need to fill the minimum required of 2500 words. To my surprise, I surpassed the minimum and went over the maximum of 3000 by about 500 words. My devious plan worked out getting all the info onto paper as a draft and now I just have to construct it into a masterpiece. I figured that reading the info first and putting it down on paper would be easier than going back and looking for more info. This way, I would only have to deduct and restructure instead of building up from what I had.

03.25.10

I believe it was my proposal essay that I speculated that a cause of transsexualism could be due to how one is brought up during their adolescent years. This was a long shot claim but when researching my topic, I came across a website which mentions my theory (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A830413). It said that researchers hypothesized the same claim I had although they could not prove it “conclusively.” This means that if it was not conclusive, there were still signs that this could have been a factor; they never actually rejected the whole idea. They also compared the size of dead transsexuals’ brains to that of the “real” sex counterpart and could not find anything conclusive because of the lack of specimens to compare.

03.12.10

I Google searched my question of Transsexuals: Nature or Nurture? and found an short essay written by Rebecca Kastl trying to establish the same thing. I skimmed through it and found some interesting things. She says that there was a doctor, who was performing a circumcision, accidentally cut off the penis! Since the doctor cut off the penis, they reassigned the baby’s gender to be female. Kastl says that this instance of transsexualism is definitely on the nature’s end which I definitely have to agree with. I haven’t done a background research of this instance, but if it were true, as a father, I would be extremely pissed.

03.04.10

After some preliminary researching for the Freemasonry question of why are there ridiculous accusations in initiation ceremonies, I decided to change my topic. In an earlier post in this blog, I proposed my backup question of why homosexuals were the way they were. As mentioned, I do not have any problems with gay people. This question probably lingers in people’s minds but do not have the courage, or contacts to ask directly. I already took note that this question is quite broad so I decided to narrow it down a little further: Are transsexuals the way they are because of nature or nurture?

02.25.10

I found absolutely nothing using this database. With a substantial amount of hits using Google to search “initiation”, I was expecting at least more than enough hits regarding my search. After trying my first search for any hits regarding “initiation”, I tried the other key topics, or words that pertained, and listed in question number 3, to my research question. Nothing.

According to the directions of the Library exercise, we were search “terms” in the database. I took “terms” as a one-word search for each of my topics. So I individually searched for “freemason”, “initiation”, “goats”, and “myths”. I think I’m going to check out how the other searched for their topics.

02.11.10

As I recall, there was something mentioned in class about gay people if they were born with that "lifestyle" or became that way. (I'm really trying to put those words in a manner that will not offend anyone.) This was a coincidence because for some reason or another, this was a topic of conversation I had between some peers in the not-so-distant past. I honestly forgot how the topic was brought up, which was during some imbibing, but recollect that it was due to the fact that I thought of my uncle, when mentioned, who happens to be a transsexual. The conversation continued to a psychological path: are gays the way they are because of nature or nurture?

Can this be my tentative back up for my research paper?

02.10.10

I feel the pressure coming down on my shoulders regarding this damn research topic. I know I have a strong interest in Freemasonry, which would help ease the load of having to do research. Ironically, there was some discussion in today’s class about some Freemason-related topics. English composition suddenly became a U.S. history class discussing originations of the card catalog and the invention of the library. Thomas Jefferson is known to have developed the card catalog and Benjamin Franklin is known to have started the first library. A question was posed in class if anyone knew who started the first library but no one responded, although I did know the answer. Franklin is one of the most prominent U.S. Freemasons next to George Washington. The movie National Treasure was fictionally based loosely on Franklin’s involvement with the Freemasons, which was also brought up in class. This reminded me of The Lost Symbol which had several references to Franklin’s involvement. I think I will read the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which was also mentioned.

I just had an epiphany: How do the Freemasons affect/impact today’s world?