Sept 25th, 2016

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It seems like every week there's something crazy right? This week's drama!? Flood. Friday and Saturday were filled with sandbags, moving furniture and exhaustion. I started teaching in Cedar Rapids in 2009. This is the second time I’ve helped sandbag the Newbo area since I moved here. In 2008 I was working in Iowa City, helping the furniture consignment store I worked for move out of their store in the flood zone. In 2006 the house I was living in was hit in a tornado that tore through downtown into residential neighborhoods. Through all of these natural disasters, the amazing thing is that there were always the church groups handing out bologna and American cheese on white bread, the moving companies who donated their trucks, their storage and their drivers. During these times, when people’s homes are being destroyed, when they’re going through this again, when they just started to feel like things were starting to look really good and now it’s all gone, those gross bologna sandwiches and the smiles on the faces of volunteers as they lift sandbag after sandbag, somehow the whole thing is so calm, so matter of fact. No one complains, no one curses mother nature, or God, or the weathermen. We all just kept on working.

 

So, in the meantime, I’ve finished reading the required readings, worked on taking notes from the book, and organized the notes in the form of an outline, which I think will help me structure my paper and will also help me focus some of my data collection. I focused on the ethnographic examples in the book, since I think my research will be heavily focused on that.

 

I realize that I may have missed the boat, taking detailed notes on how my role has been changing from outsider to insider. I also realized during the last chapter, that it is a common practice to start observations by simply observing, or taking limited notes, to become more comfortable with the cultural environment. I have recognized that I am having a significant amount of trouble trying to take notes during meetings, because I’m not able to split my attentions between facilitating, my students and note taking. I also have not been able to pin down a group to focus on, maybe I’ll stick with the way things work amongst the co-workers, and the process to choose how to be innovative?

 

I know that I’m running out of time, is a month of data collection enough? There’s just so much to do, so many things to focus on, and my days are chaotic. I guess the process of writing will help me narrow my focus. Ah!