Down the Rabbit Hole...

One of the central requirements of IB is the Extended Essay. Basically, you have to write a 4,000 word essay on a topic of your choice, and you have something under a year to do it in. This has been a major issue for all of us, as we've been floundering for ideas. Thankfully, our simply fabulous school librarian arranged for us IB Diploma victims to head to a nearby university's library. It was awesome because A) I didn't have to go to classes or go to Latin that morning. And B) because the university library has an incredible 3 million volumes on any and every subject you can possibly think of. It was fantastic. They let us loose in the library and like hounds on a hunt we chased after our prey: knowledge. There were so many different areas of interest I chose one at random, and immersed myself in books about the Holocaust and WWII. I wasn't planning on doing my EE in that area (I would love to, but I had other things in mind), but those thick, dark volumes with titles like Double Jeapordy: Gender in the Holocaust were just too tempting to ignore.

Libraries are the best and this one was HUGE. I am of the opinion that this library ought to supply shopping carts, because there were so many books I liked and only so many I could carry. Eventually I began focusing on my potential essay idea: The politics and terrorism in The Dark Knight trilogy. I'm seriously going to write my high school thesis on Batman? Yes, I am at this moment, or unless the muses of IB strike me over the head with a better idea. But think about it. Villains like Ra's al Ghul and Talia al Ghul want to destroy Gotham because they believe it is a broken center of corruption and vice, and think it is the mission of the League of Shadows to do the task. Remind you of anyone? And all that revolutionary, power of the people stuff in The Dark Knight Rises? Do the French and Russian Revolutions ring any bells? What about the fact that Bruce Wayne is filthy rich, and all the good characters are capitalist fat cats? See, it is a good idea. It tackles global issues that are forefront in politics right now, and it gives me a legitimate excuse to watch The Dark Knight movies over and over again.

I spent a great deal of time wandering through the political sections and a friend found me a great book about the philosophy of Batman while she was in the comic sections. Lunch was awesome. We got pizza from cafeteria and ate outside, soaking up some sun after hours bent over dusty tomes. The afternoon was spent on laptops searching the databases. I was successful there too. I think we all got lots of valuable information, and had a fantastic time.

But this is the beginning of a very long and arduous process. We will spend the next several months delving into our topics and becoming experts on minute details. Who knows? I may be sick of Batman by the time it's all said and done. But at least we got one final sunny day out of it.