Field Notes = Blegh

After a long, long day (up at 7, at school by 8:30, not home until 8:30 pm), the last thing I feel like doing is writing field notes. I would rather catch up on my pop culture guilty pleasures, like how i met your mother.

Alas, jotting down the observations from my day, recording the presence of themes and anomalies, remembering intriguing quotes; these are the throes of field research and participant observation.

I get so wrapped up in the actual work we're doing that I forget to take a step back and look for emerging themes or contradictions! And then, trying to recall things when my brain is saying, "are we done yet", becomes synonymous with trying to run through mud.

One of these days it is bound to get better, I suppose. After years of this stuff. I would turn to one of my academic heroes, Laura Pulido, for guidance in taking field notes when working directly with an organization. She's had many wise words in writing about being a scholar activist. If only I could just knock on her door...

In other news, is it really almost Halloween? As I described to a friend of mine today, "I'm feeling so uninspired that if I were a painting right now, I'd be a blank canvas hung in the modern art wing, to which passersby would sneer, 'how is that art? my 2 year old could do that!'" ::shrug:: maybe I'll just carve a pumpkin and give candy to the neighborhood chill'un.