When thinking of a topic for the research project, I had no idea what direction I wanted to go or where to start. As I was skimming across news articles on the internet, I came across multiple terrifying articles describing Venice under water from recent floods. While I knew Venice was sinking, I didn't know how often it flooded. Venice has a particular significance to me, as I visited there two summers ago. My family and I went on a tour across different cities in Europe, and Venice stood in stark contrast to the other cities we visited. Venice is so full of history that is patent right as you step off the boat on to the island, and the fact that it's on an island also strongly juxtaposes other landlocked European cities seen earlier in the trip. I was shocked with how beautiful Venice was, from the ever abundant canals, to the charming city shops, and astounding architecture. Yet as we stepped off the boat, we were greeted with the sight of thousands of tourists bustling around the city's main square. This observation combined with the articles piqued my interest on how these flooding incidents affect the tourism industry, and this helped me to develop my essential question. My essential question development process was not difficult, for I am passionate about the topic and very curious to see how the situation transpires. My essential question became dedicated to discovering to what extent Venice's flooding affects the tourism industry, with my initial prediction thinking that it would slow the tourism down. Yet, as I was researching, I found many sources contradicting this, saying that both flooding and tourism are destroying Venice. I was shocked at how extensive the problem was, and disheartened to find that I contributed to it. This insight inspired me to change the focus of my research, dedicating hours of perusing databases and making notecards to find support of why tourism and floods are both mutually destructive to the city. The challenge came in finding current articles to support my statement. Many sources expressing the notion of tourism's devastation were outdated, so carefully choosing good articles was necessary. Other than that, many current sources recounted November's floods, while also providing insight into the situation of Venice as a whole. After my note cards were complete, composing the essay was smooth sailing, as the information was straight forward. The most nerve-racking part was finally hitting print on the essay, after several rounds of editing and stressing by me about the quality of it. Finally, I turned the essay in and felt relieved to have closed a chapter in my ongoing study of this amazing city.