Research Log #4 - Solutionary Project 2020 (Documentary)

 
 
Date: 24 February 2020
Name: Micah Watanabe
Essential Question: How does depression affect society?
 
Three Points to Prove: #1: Depression reduces productivity in student’s classes.
                                     #2: Depression encourages substance abuse in students.
#3: Depression affects their relationships with other students and teachers.
 
Point that this Source Proves: #1 Depression reduces productivity in student’s classes. 
 
 
Excerpts (These should provide insight into the Point to Prove): 
  
Matthew Lim describes the decrease in motivation while he was in school at Rice University,
“...bad days are when I get up late and say I need to get out of my bed and then I don’t for like an
hour, I get out of bed and get back in bed because it feels like I can’t do anything.”            
 
Matthew Lim goes more into detail, “My fall semester I stopped going to my classes; start
sleeping in too late causing like a three-month long depressive episode.”
 
He later quotes his mindset during the depressive episode, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t
know, it must be because I’m an awful person.”
Analysis (How does this source support the Point to Prove?): 
 
This documentary follows the ex-Rice University student Matthew Lim, who experienced
severe depression while studying in the Medical Department. It became so severe that he
dropped out of school in concern for his health. He describes how he as a depressed young adult
felt undervalued to a point where they didn’t do anything but stay inside. To make matters worse,
he never told anyone about his problem thinking he is the only one that understands. It can be
assumed that during his daily life while he was still a student, he had to ignore his sadness and
pretend to be okay which took a toll on his already busy life. 
Matthew Lim later states, “My fall semester I stopped going to my classes; start sleeping
in too late causing like a three-month long depressive episode.” Lim was living as a lifeless
corpse who put on face paint to hide his true feelings taking a toll on him. For 3 months, Lim had
no motivation to study or pursue his dreams. Barely being able to get out of bed, he fell behind in
his schoolwork, trying to hold down all his feelings of anger and sadness. Him being used to
always succeeding, he couldn’t handle not being the best, sending him into the depressive
episode. 
Matthew Lim’s mindset before being depressed already wasn’t healthy, he always
thought he had to be perfect. So when the situation arises of him not being top of his class,
negative thoughts flooded his brain. To a point where he thought something was wrong with him
and that he was a failure. Reducing his motivation to continue thriving and throwing all of his
hard work away. His parents never knew about it for a whole semester, deeply saddening them,
wishing they knew his details. School became a secondary thought for him, so the thought of him
failing a class wasn’t even on his mind.
Work Cited (correct MLA format): 

Jubilee. “College Student Opens Up About Depression And Anxiety.” Youtube, 3 Sept. 2017, 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2ZTi5NIkc8. Web. 27 February 2020.

 
This is a reputable and reliable article because Jubilee is a well-known media group that invests a lot of
time and money into understanding human emotions. They have many other documentaries on how
humans act and how feelings affect their daily lives.  
Journal on next page
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Journal 4
 
         As a group, we collaboratively created the idea to help temporarily reduce student’s stress

and hopefully depression. We want to post funny memes that are popular between teens among

the country that many of our classmates find humorous. IF the student laughs, serotonin will be

released into the brain calming and improving their mood. We are still debating whether to create

a scavenger hunt with food at the end of the tunnel by having QR codes to scan that gives a hint

to the next meme. So far, we have created both a written proposal and proposal video. The

written proposal highlights what we hope to accomplish with our project and how we aim to get

there. Since stress has become more and more common within schools especially, our idea to

post memes around school is aimed around making students laugh. In our video, we talked about

how common depression has become in our society and how we plan to combat it with laughter

within our school. 

         Individually (Micah), I helped with the overall idea of the meme around school. I came

up with the idea since I was a former victim of depression, so I wanted to help others that are

going through what I went through. I am still debating whether to create a scavenger hunt in

addition to the meme, but as a group we are still debating. I also helped on the proposal by

coming up with the title to our project, and with the central solutionary idea which was number

1. The group and I are still trying to find school appropriate memes that will make people laugh

and reduce anxiety. This is difficult because many things today are considered offensive so we

might have to run it through Mr. Madriaga to be sure it is school appropriate. As a single person,

I haven’t done much other than the research log alone. As a group we have collaboratively

bounce ideas off of each other to be sure this project is the best it can be. We are still finding
locations to put the memes up around the school. Lastly, I have done research log 1 on

depression in students, finished research log 2, and just finished research log 3. I worked on my

outline for my solutionary project outline, and just finished my research log 4 which was a

documentary.