The end approaches...

I have re-learned an important lesson about procrastination again this past week, however, like an amnesia patient I'm sure I will forget what I have learned about not putting papers off until the last minute.

This past week was marked by writing about 45 pages of research for four of my classes' final papers. I got clever this time and based all of my papers around issue framing so I only had to write one lit review and recycle it three times. My first paper was for my Drug War Policy class. This paper examined possible theories for state action. The paper focused on LB 234 (passed in 1999) which removed an ex-felon's right to vote in the state of Nebraska. I examined the theories of state autonomy, pluralism, agenda setting, and political elite framing to see if one theory best explained why the state acted on LB 234. The paper I wrote for my Speech Communication cap-stone course was really a glorified lit review. This paper examined two models of opinion change caused by issue framing. Finally, the last big paper I had to do was for my General Semantics class. This paper was an inter-disciplinary study that applied five General Semantics techniques to deconstruct issue framing. I am planning on revising this paper over the summer and submitting it to et cetera, a General Semantics journal, for publication in the fall. I had a small music paper due for my MUS 100 class that reviewed the historical accuracy of Shaffer's Amadeus to the real life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

With all of my papers behind me, I can take some time to relax, study for finals, and look for a summer job.