Update #1

I completely spaced and forgot to post entries for last week, I will make up for those this time!

Entry 1 of 4:
I really enjoyed the guest speaker that we had on Monday - he was really informative and great at answering questions. It was neat to learn more about his personal ethnographic experiences and what he learned from his successes and setbacks.
As for my ethnography, I'm still working on field-notes and participant observation. I've also been re-reading my notes and culling the ethnographic field-note book again as I start to work on writing the actual paper. I'm also finishing up transcribing my second interview - express scribe is a godsend. It's pretty hilarious to listen to the tape slowed down about 50% - I sound ridiculous and all of my funny intonational habits are magnified. But I highly recommend it if you all haven't tried it - it makes transcribing much easier and this is amazing typing practice!

We're having our last bout of the season coming up here soon - we're reviving the original team rivalry - Homewrecker Hussies vs. Domestic Divas. These are rather tongue-in-cheek team names - it'll be interesting to see what kind of uniforms are out on the track...Since it's the last game of the spring season, we should have a big soiree afterwards to celebrate - I'm getting some responses from on online survey I sent out and I'm hoping to get some more group feedback from that party.

Fieldnotes, Interviews

This past Saturday I woke up early to make an awesome trip to Mary Hardin Baylor just north of here in Belton, TX. I was going along with the group I'm researching and found some good times to have informal interviews or just small conversations. I didn't go into my formal interview questions becasue I really wanted to wait for a formal inteview to ask them, but from what we did talk about I got some good notes on how they like the program. I'm at the point of possibley interviewing this Wednesday or Thursday, depending when the students are free. But as of this weekend I feel that I'm making some slow progress.

Oh Anthro, why must you be so.....undefined and boundless??

I'm in the process of typing out my field notes, it's interesting to re-read them and begin to find patterns. Also, I haven't been able to interview a Spanish professor as of yet due to time constraints, but hopefully I'll be able to this week. I have no other updates at this moment.

Anyways, I'm pretty excited about our speaker tomorrow...or rather later on today. I'm interested in the findings of his research and wonder his philosophy is on anthropology, especially since we established that Anthropology is an undefined, boundless type of subject. We'll see.

Interviews done;; I think

So I'm really looking forward to class tomorrow--both to hear from the guest speaker and to share some of my own experiences. I'm pretty sure I have ample information from my two interviews to really dig into the paper writing process. My interviews were emotional and raw and personal--everything I hoped they would be!! It was much more difficult than I had envisioned, but also much more rewarding. I'm now more convinced than ever that the interview is a process--something dynamic and interactive. It's nothing even remotely close to the static and uninvolved exchange of facts that was expressed by the IRB. I'm so so SO relieved to have this step all taken care of. Next on the list: hours and hours of transcription. :)

Thanks for your time!