If you’re wondering where I’ve been the last few days, no worries, I am alive. I have been working on my senior research project for AMST 490 allllllllll weekend. I did spend some time doing other fun stuff, like going to As You Like It with the Honors College (where a UMBC alum performed with the guy who played “Geoffrey” from Fresh Prince of Bel Air), paintballing with my BFF, and seeing the Mama’s Boys perform at Festivus Accapellius (the annual A Capella festival at UMBC, yay!). Still, as much fun stuff as I did get to do, I also missed out on a lot while I was watching approximately 30 HOURS of Star Trek: Enterprise!!!!!! Needless to say, I’m going a little stir crazy and I may have kirked out at someone when they asked where I’d been all weekend …. so I’m taking a break to complain about how mind-numbing television research can be …
For all of you potential American Studies majors out there, let me preface the following with this: AMERICAN STUDIES IS AWESOME AND FUN! But it’s also a lot of work. Ugh! I am analyzing … ahem …. drum roll please … “Shifts in American National Identity in a post- 9/11 context as seen through Star Trek: Enterprise’s Xindi plotline.” Ta da!
Pretty cool, right?! Yeah, I rock; it’s an awesome project. Still, it takes forever to watch all of these episodes. For those of you who may not know (aka non-Trekkers), the average television series has about 15-20 episodes a season, but Trek generally has about 25 episodes … sigh! Not to mention that the Xindi plotline begins at the end of Season 2 and goes into Season 4. Let’s just say it is a LOT of episodes for me to watch and analyze. If you’ve ever thought it would be fun to watch basically an entire show in one sitting … don’t do it, you’ll burn out! Or maybe not, I might just be burned out because I know that I still have to watch every episode at least two more times before I finish this research. AAAAH!
SO, in an attempt to prevent future kirking out, I vow not to watch any more ST:E until at least tomorrow! 
