This research paper has been the most challenging, exciting, life learning experience for me. Thinking back to the beginning of this process, I could’ve have saw myself at this point at all. It’s funny, because every time Mr.Liou brought up the forty page paper at the beginning of the year I would laugh in my head, like he’s not going to give us no forty page paper, he’s crazy. Yeah that was until I received the huge packet with all the requirements, I almost passed out. The first thing I thought to myself, is that I can barley write a three page paper, so I can I do forty pages. I panicked for a week, and I would avoid looking at the packet knowing the first section's due date was around the corner. Immediately I thought to myself, do I want to graduate or be a senior again, and from there I jumped right into the project, but with so many thoughts that my writing wouldn’t be what Mr.Liou was looking for, or if I was able to be able to blend all the different essays together so they actually make sense. I had so many problems along the way of writing this paper. First off, I felt overwhelmed because once a section was done, I turn around, and another section was due, which at the moment I thought wasn’t fair , because it was like we had no time to breath before we were giving another section to complete. My problem was that I usually wait till the last minute to complete an assignment, and try to do it the day before, or the actual day, and just crash. I kept getting writers block, and I would just blank out, and forget what I wanted to write, which upsetting me more, because I felt like I was being rushed into writing the paper, so I felt like I never had time to think. I wanted to put so much, but I didn’t know how to write my idea’s on paper. I also had problems with my internship site, because I felt like even though it was a great experience, I feel there wasn’t really a set plan for us, so we was always everywhere, or trying to come with a plan for us. Planning out how was I going to do this PAR paper, became a headache, because you have so much parts. You have surveying people, and creating a graph with all the data you collected, interviewing people, and getting documents from your internship sites. Over all my confidence went down when I got this paper, because I felt I wasn’t mature enough in my writing to do this paper. I really lost a great deal of self esteem, especially when the other students were flying through the sections, and I was still on the past one, but I couldn’t feel sorry for my self for so long, I had to make change.

 

        I made a promise with myself that I wouldn’t give up, no matter how stressed I felt I was getting, because I know this is just a dose of what college has to offer. I had to look at this as if I was getting a little preparation for college. My strategy was to take each section step by step, and stop trying to fit everything all in my head at once, and I did just that. Things begin to flow, and come natural for me, and before you know it I wasn’t feeling so much over whelmed. Some successes I had in writing, was being able to use my own creative thoughts and build from them, which is the best. I learned how to bring one essay in, and make that flow with the next paragraph. I didn’t think so much of the length of how much each section had to be, I just wrote, and I was surprise to see how much I could do, way more then I thought, which showed me that I could do things I just had to put my mind to it. Surveys came so natural for me, because once all the students, and friends, and random people from off the street aw the topic violence, they were quick to grab a survey. They all were interested the types of questions I put to together, and why was I choosing the topic gang life, and home live. Once I told many people, why I felt youth join gangs, everyone agreed with me, and started asking what things could be done, and I told them my ideas. Then I started asking what were there ideas on ways we can get parent relationships more tightly with there children, and the feed back they gave me was great, and very helpful. Which lead to doing my interviews, since they had so much to say about violence, why not ask them to be apart of my interviewing process, and they all agreed, and was awesome because each person had something interesting to say about the youth violence that’s going on. It was exciting to interview people I didn’t know, because I made them actually feel like the voices were important which they are.

 

          One important thing I could’ve done differently is plan my time better with writing my sections, because I staled so much, which pushed me back. If there was a section due on Friday, I would wait till Thursday to begin it, and then get backed up, because I know I have other assignments to do for other classes. I could’ve not been so lazy with this, I got really lazy since the school year was coming to an end, and I got comfortable with being lazy which wasn’t good for me. I think laziness was my weakness, because I would put off writing my paper, and do other things that were much simple. Something else I could’ve done differently was not put my own self down; because no one else is going to believe in the amount of work you can do besides yourself. Instead of me putting my own self esteem down, I could’ve believed in myself even more, because I knew deep inside I was capable of doing the work. Time management is a major thing I couldn’t done differently, managing my time so everything goes as planned, and I wont be overlapped with two sections at a time. I should’ve managed my time better. For example, from this time to that time I’m finishing up a section, preparing to write another one. Instead I was just doing things during times, I should be doing other things.

 

        As a researcher I learned about myself is that I am a very strong person when it’s researching a topic that is something relevant to me, or my peers. I don’t think I would’ve never been able to do this much research if it didn’t involve youth, and ways we can change the Boston area. I learned that I’m more of a person that wants to make some type of action after researching, then just knowing about what I researched. I learned about myself as a researcher is that I am determined, especially if I’m trying to get an answer to a question, and I need to do research for the answer, I am determined to get the research. I also learned that I’m not shy when trying to get different information, I will do what I have to do to get something done. I learned about the PAR process, one that you have to have patience in a major project like this, because it takes great quantity to time to finally complete the process. Two, is that it’s no project you can fake, because every bit of information that you collect counts, and you need actual information. three, is that you will learn so much from yourself by doing a project like this one, you will learn that you are able to do more then you can do, or you are more interested in learning about all the different things, then just having to do it, because its mandatory. The PAR process is not only something to just know, but something you can take into other things, bringing the knowledge you learned from this, and applying it to other things.

 

        This type of research can empower youth to be activist around important community issues, because so many different things will come out in doing research like this. This type of research we’ve done can show other youth, that you can start from somewhere, and work your way up, just think about how your community is now, and how there can be beautiful changes if doing research like this. Reading all of our individual papers, to see where we started till now, will empower youth to be activist in there communities, because we all have similar problems with in our communities, its just a matter of who’s going to stand up, and be a leader to changing there communities. I think this can be a wake up call for many teens, that see problems in there communities, that want to speak up but feel that others don’t agree with what they are doing. Also I think the patterns with the fact that many young males are joining gangs, and don’t have any support could get youth involved with making change. All in all I feel this has been the most challenging experience I’ve ever had to face in my all my years of high school, and through out the process I’ve learned so much about myself, how my peers view there community. I took a serious risk in writing this paper, and I have no regrets, because this project is going to help me in the long run. Writing this paper, I’ve become more of a string writer, which is a great skill to take on throughout life. I’ve also learned how to do research with taking action