This week I ordered a book called Big Fiction by Dan Sinykin. This particular researcher is a big help to my thesis because he’s already done groundwork about issues within the publishing industry, and having his work as basis for mine will be incredibly helpful. I read an article by him and Lee Konstantinou called “Literature and Publishing, 1945–2020” that discussed the heavy influences that neoliberalism has on contemporary publishing. They are asking questions about who’s writing gets recognized. I’m already a fan of what I can read via open access. Writing-wise I’m still going somewhat slow because I haven’t managed to organize where I want everything to go yet. That’ll be my goal for next week.

I’ve also started on my third trashy romance novel via BookTok’s recommendation. The other two made me drag my feet, maybe the third time is the charm? This one is sadder than the others, and while the protagonist is childish, the way she narrates as if she’s speaking with regret and introspection makes me want to see where this goes. I’m really hoping the payoff is worthwhile and I cry over it. I haven’t read or watched something sad in a really long time.

I guess part of being in an accountability club is admitting my faults and my fears, so here I go:

There have been plenty of academic and social stressors, but this blog, in hopes of making myself feel a bit better, I want to highlight the things I have done.

• Read a bit more of “Teaching to Transgress” by bell hooks
  • I went to one of my fav independent bookstore (Montclair Book Center) and they told me it’d cost $50+ to order it :0 (I didn’t buy it, but I did use the opportunity to pick up “All About Love” by Bell Hooks (which I was glad to learn wasn’t solely about romantic love)). Instead of paying $50, I downloaded a free copy on my Kindle
• Two or three weeks ago I found this reading: Identity Affirming Classrooms: Spaces that Center Humanity By Erica Buchanan-Rivera.
  • Rivera talks a lot about environment and how your identity matters to the space you create as an educator:

I guess part of being in an accountability club is admitting my faults and my fears, so here I go:

There have been plenty of academic and social stressors. I won’t dwell on them too much. This blog, in the spirit of making myself feel a bit better, I want to highlight the things I have done.

• Read a bit more of “Teaching to Transgress” by bell hooks
  • I went to one of my fav independent bookstore (Montclair Book Center) and they told me it’d cost $50+ to order it :0 (I didn’t buy it, but I did use the opportunity to pick up “All About Love” by Bell Hooks (which I was glad to learn wasn’t solely about romantic love)). Instead of paying $50, I downloaded a free copy on my Kindle
• Two or three weeks ago I found this reading: Identity Affirming Classrooms: Spaces that Center Humanity By Erica Buchanan-Rivera.
  • Rivera talks a lot about environment and how your identity matters to the space you create as an educator:

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• Through Rivera, I found The Hundred Languages of Children by Carolyn Edwards, Lella Gandini, and George Forman. It’s an early ed framework more than anything, but I’ve discovered that it’s quite influential.
• I’ve kept readings from my Writing Theory & Practice class in mind
  • Alexander & Gibson on uncovering understanding of identity & its construction—the more difficult process
  • Huber on how there is no singular voice, but many we encompass when we write. Understanding all are imperative to understanding the self—voice as a flame
  • Chung on expressive writing and how everyone wished to be heard, how processing helps the self become more embodied, conscious/mindful, and open.
    • (This are all just rough summaries of the readings)

Two weeks ago, during my meeting with Dr. Z, we made a plan to start writing blogs after a work week at College Steps (my inspiration for this thesis project). I can’t say writing them have led me to too many discoveries, but it has reaffirmed one thing: when we ask students questions about themselves, task them with creating projects with those things in mind, and tell them to share them with the class, there’s a sort of glimmer in the air that simply wasn’t there before. I hear their voices. I learn more about them. We learn more about each other. There’s a new sense of connection. And it’s all motivating (for them as students and as people to continue forth & for a motivation for inspiration—if that makes any sense).

I don’t know what my project will be yet. The question that I am going to ask (and yes, that is making me panic!), but I have a strange feeling that when I figure it out, it’ll be great.

(In other words, help me!)

Adamari Peralta 10/19/2026

How joyous. I didn’t get any real work done besides the presentation for this week. I did do thinking on how many characters I forgot for my disability list. I wrote at the top “basically all X-Men” but only had two on my list. When making my presentation, I looked up “Marvel disabilities” and apparently someone did group photos of action figures they have with disabilities. And I forgot a ton of people. Noted, some I wasn’t going to include cause the list would be forever long. Like Dr. Strange has nerve damage but so far I haven’t found another character like that, so he is the only one on the list. If I wanted to include that. But Cable is disabled with his disease that makes him have a metal arm, forgot about him. Not even sure what category that is, science gone wrong? Amputee?? Callisto has an eyepatch, forgot about her. Forge, another idk if it is science gone wrong or amputee, but has metal limbs as well.

So, while I thought about the X-Men, I somehow forgot about them at the same fricken time. I saw those action figure group pics and went “… OH SO TRUE”. Disappointed in myself. Literally watched all of the X-Men cartoon this summer cause Natalia decided, thanks to Marvel Rivals, she likes Gambit and Rogue. This is why I said the list wasn’t finished.
When going on Reddit, I saw names and went “who…” but then looked the character up and remembered that character after seeing them. I will show it in my presentation, but I knew I forgot about people. Cause apparently I need to see them to be reminded of them. I guess those X-Men aren’t in Marvel Rivals so I don’t be thinking of them much, but man oh man did I forget a ton of people it seems.
Also, I got no clue who some of those people in the photos are. Not to mention I do know Jubilee but I have no clue why she is considered disabled. Which is why I was using Reddit or other social media lists, as the people would sometimes explain why they are there or put the show/movie/comic they are talking about.
But yeah so. I guess good on me having presentation week so I could realize an entire group of people I included but forgot at the exact same time. Joyous.

Anyway, Presenation

I couldn’t find if we needed to do a reaction paper or not. I spent a couple minutes trying to find that out. I couldn’t find that on the syllabus but to be honest I also couldn’t find the end-of-semester e-portfolio that we do so maybe I was in the wrong place there. If we do need that paper I will obviously do it, I just wasn’t sure how to do it since there aren’t readings? And that is usually part one of that paper, talking about the readings.

But yay! Presenting week!

I am actually excited this isn’t sarcasm. I love presenting.
I do wish there were more time in the week to get more work done but sadly I do not have time powers. So sad.

Hello Dear Reader, has it been an eventful week.
So, the great lock in has begun. *YAY* 
I'm at the point where the bibliography is starting to come together and actually look like a bibliography (and not just a bunch of mismatched links thrown onto a google doc). I have about 15 functioning sources that I have at my disposal, and the summaries are loading. I'm also totally stealing Hunter's idea and breaking it up by sections (still alphabetically, of course) so there's a bit more cohesion. I've really got 3 sections for the break down right now: The Linguistics, The Psychology, and The Politics. As I have read more, I'm realizing that there is a lot of overlap between pairs, i.e. psychology and linguistics, but very little domestic scholarship on the three all together. 

This has lead me down a rabbit hole of foreign scholarship. Isn’t it weird that a lot of relevant work is coming out of Russia.

Anywhoseits…

On top of landing on several FBI/CIA watchlists, I’ve also began the first draft. Now is it a lot? No. Is it official? Also no. But, do I have a really academic sounding title? You bet your bottom dollar I do.

“The Language of Violence: A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Censorship in Online Discourse Spaces“

Now, you try to tell me that doesn’t sound like I might know something. (This is all an act, I’m trying to gaslight confidence into myself.)

Again, right now I’m still doing as much research as I can(and putting my swiftread subscription to good use) so aside from some insane notes I don’t have a bunch to show right now, but I guess I’ll definitely need to have something by the 9th.

Wish me luck, Dear Reader.

Hello everyone. Finally being done with the presentation really eases my stress.

Another week has passed and some progress had been made on this project. Last week I continued to work on my Literature review. I focused on reading some of the literature I’ve been stacking up over that last two weeks. My brain may have slowly turned to mush on the way but we made it through. I think I found some literature that really connects to the points I want to make on the project. I feel like my system of organization has helped me really stay on point and not get lost in the sauce for lack of a better word. Having to code through each article and really break it down is very time consuming though. Like I feel like I am getting through this stuff at a snails pace some nights. I wonder if there was a better way of doing things, but it is what it is. Overall I have added 7 more things to the list of sources. This literature review really has been a grind, but I’m happy that I am finding my way to the end of the tunnel.

This coming week I want to start getting to the finish line with the literature review. I know it wont really be done until I submit this project in the spring, but I want to close the book on this part and put some time into the ethnographic side of my project sooner than later. I also want to look at the proposal sheet and begin nailing down some things on that front. Its crazy to think that we are more or less half way through the semester. Time flies when your working hard I guess.

One last thing I want to mention is how I looked back through my main points, I kind of felt like I was missing something when thinking of the student and tutors experience. But I just couldn’t articulate it. While I in a meeting for work, I feel like I found a little inspiration to reassess some of the ideas I had before. I want to look into where tutors draw the line. While tutors are doing everything in their power to get to the student, I want to begin to think about when and how the line is drawn and the responsibility solely rests on the student. I don’t know where this inspo will really go, but I may have a new thread to use down the line.

Another eventful week down. Another one to go.