[suffering]

*bump*

How is school everyone? Let me live vicariously through you - I miss school!!

[faerietails]

Oooh, I'd forgotten about some of these movies! Thanks everyone! These suggestions have definitely opened up part of my brain.

I'm trying to pull out imagery of Mexican immigrant mothers in literature and film since 1965, so for instance, I'll point out the stereotypes of the suffering, selfless mother, symbolism tying mothers to the Virgin Mary, etc. And I'm going to try and find case studies of Mexican immigrant communities to compare "reality" so to speak with the representations being presented in texts. How to word that into an actual argument eludes me, but I'm working on it.

*sigh* Last night I sent an email to my thesis advisor about how horribly this is all going and she sent me back a somewhat-mean response, so I've been sulking on and off all day. And I know it's totally my fault because the email I sent her was worded quite badly, so she probably thought I was trying to bail on this topic, too, or something. But that wasn't what I meant at all! I'd told her I found all kinds of secondary sources but that the primary source thing was just not happening for me. So (of course, as is my luck), she responded with a list of possible primary sources and scolded me for not putting any efforts into my research. I really did try looking, though! I spent a lot of time on it, too, but I couldn't find any more novels for the life of me, so now I just feel incompetent. I should never have sent that email.

This has just not been my semester. I have complete faith in myself that I'll get through this thesis, but yeah. My brain and my soul want a vacation.