It is the second week of my senior year and I am already swamped with work. In just the first five days, I have already managed to redo my junior pre-calc final as “review” for my AP calculus class, read three chapters and complete a lab for my AP biology class, and for the cherry on top, spend my back-to-school weekend reading The Death of Ivan Ilyich in its entirety for my AP English literature class. So on Thursday, when my lit. teacher informed us we would be meeting with the other AP section for a joint assembly the following day I was ecstatic–because as a general rule, assemblies mean no work. But alas, my class is the exception because at said assembly I was informed of a 20-page research paper that will be expected of me come March.

March.

March of my senior year.

March of my senior year, when I’m in the middle of applying to college.

March of my senior, when I’m in the middle of applying to college and while I’m already writing a 20-page paper for my directed studies class.

Shortly after the assembly, I realized through discussion with my fellow classmates that this assignment is not new; in fact, everyone else had apparently known about the paper prior to signing up for the class. Oh well, poor me (the first child at Frisch with no older siblings to provide inside information).

I decided to combine the research I am doing as part of my directed studies course with my AP Lit. paper.

As part of my directed studies course I will be researching Mental Health and Halakha: What is a Shoteh? Who is a Shoteh? And when is s/he a Shoteh? Using halakha and psychology I will be exploring various mental health problems (e.g., depression, OCD, schizophrenia, among others) as well their treatments in the context of contemporary Jewish law. Hopefully I can use a significant portion of my research for my lit. paper. Maybe I’ll look at how individuals with mental health problems are seen throughout literature, or how they portray themselves in memoirs,  or try to prove that characters in certain works had mental health problems. I can’t say as of yet; I have to discuss this further with my teacher.

Bottom line: I am not thrilled about needing to write a 20-page paper, but high school is not a democracy, so I guess for now the goal is to just plug away at a topic that interests me and get over it.