I was able to write a solid 2 1/2 pages today. After developing decent paragraphs supporting both cases I am genuinely torn at what I think is right.
Also I asked my sister, an 18 year old currently a freshman at IU, if she would answer similar questions to the ones I sent to Ms. Unger and Wes and she said yes but only after she comes home from bloomington. So, I won't be able to include her thoughts in my expository essay but hopefully she can contribute a actual college students perspective in my final draft.
I need to find a non electronic source soon, I thought I could interview the Butler chairman, but my sister said she really wasn't in contact with his son anymore and that it would be "weird." So I guess that is not an option. I am struggling with this because the controversy over the law is pretty recent eliminating many book sources, but also isn't really written about in newspapers that I receive. Hopefully I can find one soon!

I wrote my introduction last night, and was also able to find more support of sustaining the law. Senator Lutenberg, the person who drafted and fought for the law to be raised in 1984 from 18 to 21, has dedicated a website to calling out and publicly condemning all college faculty members who are in support of the new drinking age. At first I found this to be kind of extreme, but after reading many of his web links included on his site I found numbers related to alcohol-related auto accidents. I was even more outraged at the number of deaths that were a result of underage binge drinking. Before tonight I had already established my position, but after looking at concrete numbers I am questioning whether or not the decision would be in benefits for the health and well being of teens and early adults as an entirety.

I drafted 5 questions and asked Wes and Ms. Unger if they could email me the answers by the end of this week. Hopefully this will add a more personal perspective and from brief conversation I think they support the decreasing of the drinking age.
Also, when I was researching before I found it hard to find logical arguments against the laws passing. But I found a lot of credible arguments on the MADD (mothers against drunk driving) site last night. I am definitely going to use this for my draft due on friday. Tonight I am going to work on the essay, and hopefully finish at least 3 pages.

Surprisingly most of my research from this weekend was strongly in support of the law. I need to find an adult with some sort of credibility and logic to their argument. I found a bunch of ranting parents but no accounts that are against the law for justified reasons. I'm going to ask a few teachers around school this week their thoughts. Although they don't teach at the college level they can relate and are in a field very similar to ones of professors at colleges.

I haven't really done much more research, but I did call my sister because her friend's father is a Butler faculty member that is in support of passing the law. She said I could most likely interview him so I am planning on contacting him this weekend and asking to conduct a online interview over email. If this is plausible, I will draft some questions soon. That is really all that has changed since I posted last, hopefully I will start my first essay this weekend.

I'm writing my paper after I post this blog and probably should be doing it now instead of doing this. I plan on basically fleshing out what I had listened to from the interview and then coming up with two questions that my paper should address and answer. I don't really know how that will turn into 2 pages but... I guess I will have to make it work. I am thinking about whether or not to consider broadening my subject to the entire matter over the law passing or only in the atmosphere around college, I am leaning towards everything because I don't think the college perspective is enough to write a whole paper about.

Tonight I was listening to an interview, that my mom asked me to watch about underage drinking. Her intent was to scare me about drinking and driving but I got a bigger and more helpful idea from this radio interview. These ladies and mother's of college students were irate at the fact that some college staff was promoting a law that would decrease the drinking age to 18 years old. Instead of listening to them jabber on and on about how the colleges were only trying to decrease legal liabilities they face and not the well being of their children, I searched for the interview where a college chairman was telling us how we should consider the benefits of a younger alcohol consumption age in the atmosphere of a college campus.

The stream got all screwed up and stopped working, so I couldn't listen to the rest of his explanation and position, but I think I would rather do this than my previous ideas. The other ones are kind of typical, and I feel like I could find many papers discussing those issues that would similarly imitate my paper. I haven't heard much about the controversy over this law, but I believe it to be interesting and it is a little bit more relevant to my life considering I will be 18 in less that two years and hopefully attending a college.

So after I came up with four, I thought to be decent topics, I was listening to an interview on the radio and I liked what they were talking about a lot more. My other options were okay, but I think I would get bored with them quickly.
My new idea was sparked from a radio station interview. The station was interviewing a Butler chairmen, I didn't catch his name, about the perplexity colleges are facing in supporting laws that would lower the alcohol consumption age to 18. Surprisingly to me, many college board members, presidents, and chairs do support the change. The specific man being interviewed also was a supporter of the age limit being lowered to 18. I haven't heard much about this either way, pro or against the law, but the subject matter is fresh and this is my initial account of the issue as a whole, hopefully this will help the whole getting bored factor. It also is becoming more and more relevant because I will be going off to the "big bad party scene," some refer to college as, soon enough.

So I haven't made a final decision about what I want to "propose," but I am throwing around a few topics. I think media influence among teenage girls could work but the topic seems a little bit cliche. And then I thought about the accessibility of birth control/contraceptives to teens or people in general, but I'm not so sure I want to spend 2 months thinking about that. I could write about the degradation of women popularly apparent among rap lyrics and music videos. And my final thought was the massive amount of pressure placed on young athletes from coaches parents and trainers to succeed. I know all of these are random and hold no substantial relationship to one another, but I feel like I have a small tie to each one. So now I need to figure out which one I want to spend 2 months researching and writing about. And that is really all I've got.