All framework and no play make Crystal go crazy

This is hard. What tense to use? What to write about? What to leave for the viewer to read/hear in the interview? Who is the viewer? Who will look at our website? What website?

What can't Maria and I fuse our brains together in some Harry Potteresque wizarding fashion and write up a beautiful framework perfectly incorporating both of our writing styles and ideas for the project. But no, we are just a couple of muggles muddling about with lack of framework and motivation and six miles parting us from comfortably working together.

I hope this all comes together nicely, and all of our projects show off our talented hard work. Maybe if the snowstorm hadn't deterred me from coming to class last week, than our project would be further ahead. But the drive home on 93 at 10am was enough to send my car spinning sideways, so who knows what may have happened at 5pm. I'm alive, I have little work to show for it, but I'm alive, so long as Maria, Pavel, or Julia don't kill me.

Two links

http://uaf-db.uaf.edu/Jukebox/PJWeb/pjhome.htm

http://www.suspectmetaphor.com/kmz.html

(note that you'll need to download/install Google Earth for this second one)

Fourth Round... Ding!!!

The wind rushes by my left ear as an idea just misses, and another from the right, I'm getting tired but failure is not an option...
The amount of Idea's that have been presented for my introduction are all around and have more or less flowed from one ear and out the other without sinking in. I think too many ideas when pressed from time makes Jack not do so much.
The importance of reading; I'm flailing my arms but the only thing it's getting me is tired, after last Friday's fiasco I felt reasonably inclined to do the reading this week and it just offered more struggle. Jane Mace seemed to confirm that by changing things from one way to another we can loose valuable information, but she also said by writing or altering things you can replace the previous text with a new equally important meaning. So not to fear... chug, glug, glug. That's BRISK BABY!! As I continue working there is really no reason to worry, everyone is in the same boat and I'm sure if I keep swinging somethings bound to land, if Jane's right then I can't fail.

It's Times Like These I Feel Like I Should Pick Up the Habit of Smoking Cigarettes

Final project, the term just seems so... final. The End. If I were to compare this project to the structure of a book I would say it had a rather long and confusing introduction, quickly began to progress and pick up speed, the climax is past us (or me at least) and the ending is coming on in a very abrupt and rocky fashion.
Finding time to work together over Thanksgiving proved to be impossible. Crystal and I both like to spend time imagining what our web page will look like but neither of us have any idea how to go about making that happen... I have a feeling it is not as simple as "6 easy steps" and even Ethan confessed his title was incredibly misleading. My computer savviness begins and ends with pushing a power button.
Ah, and the contents of the web page, I almost forgot we had to contextualize our transcripts. Despite the cold, I think I am begining to sweat... how many weeks are left?

Transcriptions werent that bad just time consuming...

I had started the transcriptions a while ago but then i lost my computer to a virus and Cashea had also lost the laptop she was using so we were down to only use of the CRC computers which at times can be not as easy to get access to one. the first time transcribing was not very fun, the computer i was using had no sound card so i had to play the device, pause it, type it, play it , pause it , type it. and if i ever missed anything and tried to rewind it would go back to the very beginning... not much fun or progressive. so we did not transcribe often because it was very time consuming for the method we had. but eventually my computer was fixed i was able to play the audio over my computer and type at the same time. I how ever can not listen to audio and type at the same time o i would play a sentence or two pause and then type it, then rinse and repeat. I completed the first half of the transcription and Cashea finished it up much faster than i ever would have been able to.

Working together?!

The slick roads did not prevent Crystal and I from making a second and most valiant attempt at framing the future framework of our final project. That is not to say it was by any means easy, it was, in fact, quite painful. We plodded along at a torpid rate, one sentence for twenty minute long 'discussion'. In the end, despite the means taken to arrive at this conclusion, we felt much better about everything....including the project.
Seriously, synthesizing writing styles is much more difficult than I ever imagined, and my imagination is not lacking. Writing in itself is already most difficult for me, and that is why I am in this class. If there is any advice I can give my fellow classmates, it would be to start now, three weeks is not so long as it seems. It is has been my experience in life that the more difficult something is, the more I get out of it in the end. I trust I will be gaining a great deal from this class. ( Jack, or anyone else feeling slightly suicidal, we can get together and practice some yoga. Sometimes breathing helps.)

Transcribing was HELL!!

This process is inhumane. Nina and I worked on this project for long enough for me to think of 18 different ways I could use the surrounding Items in the CRC to end my life. Luckily for this class I was worried none of them would do an adequate enough job and I would end up writing one handed. Of course as I neared the end of this project, Nell's headphone where used and I could here every word perfectly but that's just the way these things go.
As I continued through the recording, I can look back and see the changes as we moved from the inclusion of every cough to a slightly more laid back approach of including everything but coughs. While writing there was plenty of time for me think about the importance of trying to include every detail...
I thought about people that are going to listen to the shaky interview and need to words to tell what is being said but I also thought about this as a form of retaining generations of information so that several hundred years from now some old town historian is going to say, "Yeah that's where the old family used to live that got interviewed by president Powell way back in the old oil burn'n days." Trust me I had plenty of time think about this interview.
One things for sure, with this project over, I can continue my existence doing one of the other hundred projects that accompany life here at Sterling.

Done.

We're Done.

Transcribing Is Over. We Have Finished The Long Process With Only Minute Things To Finish And Fix Up. Now We Have Got To Figure Out How We Are Going To Set Everything Up. I Too, As Nina Said, Have Not Had The Road Block Like Crystal And Maria Have Reached, But I'm Sure It Will Come, Since We Have Already Had Our Fair Share Of Trouble With Getting An Interview. But Now That We Have Our Interview Done, We Have It Transcribed, I Think That The Hardest Part Is Behind Us. But For Now, We Can Be Thankful That Thanksgiving Break Is Here. We Can All Clear Our Thoughts And Minds. I For One Need A Break. Not Of The Project, But Just Everything. But It Will Be Great To Actually Be Done With Everything And See The Finished Project. I Think We All Can Agree On That.

Trasnscribing is almost DONE!!!

Yesterday Jack and I worked for hours on transcribing our one hour and five minute interview with homeschooling mom Carol, and her almost thirteen-year-old son, Liam. We had been procrastinating up till then, (who wants to sit in front of a computer screen for that long?), but realized that we couldn't put it off any longer. We bit the bullet as they say, and got it done (well, maybe we have five more minutes to transcribe, but...)! Responding to what Crystal was saying about working together in our pairs, I couldn't give any advice yet, since Jack and I seem to work very well together. Even sitting there, transcribing together (two hours per every 15 minutes of recorded time), we didn't have any problems. Jack fidgeted through the whole thing ("If there was ever I time I was going to kill myself, it would be now..."), but we made it through alive. I can definitely see how there could have been friction, though. And we haven't started framing yet, so we'll see... :)

Snowstorms and writers block

Yesterday was the first meeting day for Maria and I to really get down and dirty and discuss how we wanted to frame our project. I feel like for the first time in our partnership we hit a wall. I had some presumptions that writing alongside someone wouldn't be easy, but now I am feeling that it is just impossible. The start of our project, and the interview process had been so fun, and a nice cohesion had formed, and now I feel stuck. I'm curious how others perceive the co-writing aspects of their projects, and if anyone has any advice for Maria and I. I think the two of us have the potential to create one beautiful project, but as to how we incorporate both of our ideas and writing styles, well I just feel lost. I think a vacation will do everyone a bit of good, and there may be a fresh outlook on all of our projects.
Meeting number two for Maria and I is tonight. I am hoping the snowy dark roads don't prevent it from happening. Maybe this wintery mix will inspire us to converge our storming ideas together.

On the topic of fieldwork...

It's kind of hard to say exactly what the difference is between homework and fieldwork. Some of it depends on one's personal definition of what each term means to them. I don't think that 'home' and 'field' need to be taken absolutely literally. Fieldwork can be homework, and homework can be fieldwork. In a way they are exactly the same thing, but in another the are different and refer to very specific things. In terms of this class, homework is the reading we do outside of class from The Oral History Reader or other sources, and fieldwork is the actual interviews we have conducted as a class at the CCC and the Meeting Place and in small groups. I think of homework as the study or practice, and fieldwork as the action the hands-on experience. I was apprehensive about this project at first because I didn't know what to expect. Many of the readings were wordy and dull and hard to learn from. Also my first attempts at interviewing did not go so well, but once Ben and I came up with a concrete research topic and found relevant people to interview the process went very smoothly. Our informants did not have to be pushed and prodded for information because they willingly told us all we wanted to know and more. Sometimes homework can only be an introduction. Sometimes the only way to really learn anything is through doing.

another example of a creative oral history project

http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/lightsscript.html (note that we read an essay by Portelli early on in the semester)

Color scheming

When Crystal and I packed up the recording equipment for the last time, shook hands with Carol and forged our way out of the general store, brief case in hand, I could not help but feel a tinge of depression creeping in and plaguing my thoughts. My mind was not directed on the future framework Crystal and I would mount Carols words on. I did not think about the web layout and and potential color schemes. Instead, I thought about what feelings were underlying the features of Carols face when we told her this was the last interview. I almost feel cheated by the fact that the interview process is already over. I feel like we have just begun and there is much left that has not been communicated.
I understand that, not having engaged in any of the final steps of this 'overall' project I cannot fairly say I got more out of the interview process than anything else. I will say it anyway. The experience of talking with Carol, interacting with her personally cannot be replaced by anything I try to convey on paper. I know that what lies ahead of me now is, hopefully not an entirely futile, attempt at bringing that experience to the general public. But what can I do but be honest? I am a selfish person. I would rather spend my afternoons with Carol, Crystal and cookies than in front of the computer screen.
This is not to say that I am not excited about the project....understand that I realize my thoughts are scattered, to say the least. I only wish there was more time to spend with Carol, and more time to make the project into something that I can feel more than simply satisfied with.

Week 7

It's getting to that point in the year when everyone needs a break but Thanksgiving is still two weeks away. Maria and I had our last interview with Carol on Tuesday. It's a little bit sad, and scary, cause the fun is over and we now need to venture into the matrix of designing a web page. I'm exited though, well, as excited as I can be about a school assignment in week 7. This is the one time of year when I wish I went to a big school, with an indoor track, and fully equipped gym. It's the lull time when there is no snow to play in, but is too cold to dare to be active outside. Afternoons scoot by dangerously fast when watching movies and napping take the place of doing work. I find myself wishing I had a hobby, or an instrument to play. Knitting never works out for me. I inevitably get half way through a hat, screw up, and am left with what looks like a bad neckwarmer to line the floor of my closet. Maybe once the website gets underway I'll become addicted to it, until then I guess I am stuck in procrastination land. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be in the Sterling pool doing some laps, maybe we can talk some more at the juice bar later ; )

Osmosis as Hannah Mcharty arrives

As I think about people and place I am reminded of something a friend told me some time ago: "Sometimes you don't know how great a place you have until you have an experience away from it." Reflecting on last week, this is THE reason I feel it's important to get up and adventure outside your comfort zone.
Maybe more relevant to the topic people and place, I once tried to avoid school entirely. Luckily some interaction from people I trust made me interested in trying to study in a place I might be able to relate to, low and behold I am now here. What I think I'm trying to say is, we have the potential to create huge changes in other peoples lives and maybe I'm just drunk with energy but thoughts in this mind are flowing on how to make those changes.
After thinking about my interview in Wolcott, I remember one post recorded experience as one of the kids told us that he enjoyed our visit and would love for us to come back. This makes me wonder why interacting with people outside of the classroom isn't made standard in other classes; isn't the point of a degree to make change, why wait?
There is plenty to do right here, so keep in mind we are people in this place.

Re:How can we engage these issues of center/margin, home/field, and informant/interviewer in a meaningful way?

Last winter I had the wonderful opportunity to go to st. Johns Island in the Caribbean. I was taking the natural history of the north woods class during this time, and decided to spend much of my vacation doing a natural history journal entry on the plants and animals I observed. This experience was wonderful, being a new climate, seeing new plants, etc., but the most interesting part of it was the new perception I gained when I came back to Vermont. The trees in the Caribbean seem to have exaggerated many morphological and physiological adaptations that are found here, and seeing this opened my thought process up to make more in depth observations and analyses of the trees of the north woods. The distance I gained by leaving Vermont, and then coming back armed with information from another environment, was invaluable to research process

Distance is an important factor in any research, be it humanistic or scientific - if indeed there is any distinction between these two disciplines. Separating ones environment from the environment of what is being researched contributes to objectivity; a un familiar place holds more interest and complexity than a familiar one. However, if we apply this view not just to the tangible environment that is being researched (i.e informant, setting, geography, etc) but also to the intangible ideology that comprise a researchers framework(values, biases, expectations), the question of distance becomes more intriguing. While it is possible to affect an intellectual distance from our research without ever leaving the physical environment that we a researching, this act still ignores the inherent bias that we bring to out project. I am brought back to the ideas we discussed in our essays, that the researchers own bias can be a tool in the process. If shorten the distance between ourselves and out subject(s) to make them more familiar, we can imbue these seemly mundane things with the same fascinating complexities that we perceive when thrust into a new environment. Homework therefore becomes preferable to fieldwork, we can learn more by reconstructing the places we know than by deconstructing the places we don’t.

DeContextualizing

Thinking about this project in context has been difficult for me lately. I find myself often lost in the reasoning and meaning behind the words, so much that I miss the importance of the words themselves. All of our contextualizing(not to de-emphasize it, Pavel), has drawn my focus almost exclusively on reading between the lines, but ignoring the lines themselves. This is particularly frustrating because the focus of the experience is the collection of words. I find myself getting lost trying to decipher intentions, subjectivity, context. But all of these things are FRAMEwork; not intended to be the focal point of the picture, simply something pretty to hang around it and accentuate its colors. The point of oral history is not to get lost in all the interesting nuances and semantics involving in "decoding" the historical document(interview), but rather to collect and preserve the historical document itself. Keeping this in the forefront of my mind will help me contextualize it as well, for a painter does not create the frame before he has finished painting his picture.

Field"work" vs Home"work"

When we go out into the "field" we aren't blind, we are usually working on a project (the goal has already been determined or idea thought of). Unless you are traveling without direction you are only continuing the homework in a new location.
As I read the above statement that I just rewrote 5 times I can only make sense of saying that fieldwork and homework are almost the same. What if we mix things up by calling a few strangers and have them come to us for the objective of collecting data, if we are seeing this person for the first time is it fieldwork or homework? How much do things need to change as far as visually, emotionally, and physically before we have confused ourselves enough to call it fieldwork?
I'm very confused, please help me because the only other similarity these two words have is "work", and it's a work I care not associate with at 10P.M.

Re: Distance, Spatiality, and Disciplinarity

To me, all of this seems to be not so much an issue of distance of the fieldworker, but rather an issue of academic qualification. The more "scholarly" the fieldworker, the more respected he or she will be in academic circles. If the respected fieldworker happened to do a porject on his or her hometown, I don't think that anyone would think any less of the project. However, if an "unknown" or "unqualified" local person decided to collect the same information into a similar (yet possibly less "itellectual" or "academic") project, it wouldn't be as respectd. I don't know why we have this prejudice towards less "scholarly" academic things. But if would get away from that mindset, we would realize that local people are experts in their own right, and that they have much to contribute to the preservation of thier own local history, whether or not they are "academically qualified".

On another note: Jack and I went to our interview yesterday (October 31). It went surprisingly well. The family that we interviewed is just another example of how AMAZINGLY INTERESTING homeschoolers are. I wanted to post some pictures that we took, but they're on Jack's camera.... Ah well, all in good time.