Observations and Field Journals

A few class period ago we read about field notes and field journals. A few days ago I bought another journal. This journal had nothing to do with going to India or my project, I'm simply addicted to journals.  I have practiced a lot of journal writing techniques, and reading about writing field notes was excited, but especially exciting when it got to the part about keeping a diary. One of the first things I thought of buying for my trip were a bunch of different notebooks and dry bags to keep them in - to avoid any potential of them getting destroyed.  I don't know how similar the weather will be to the Philippines, but if the rain and humidity gets even half as bad I will want to be protecting paper. One thing I've been concerned about, however, is that my journal writing style may have made me too informal and sloppy in my writing.  I guess that's what re-writes are for, right?

Today in class we discussed our participant observations. In my write-up I definitely felt more like I was telling a story than anything else, but I felt slightly restricted because I wasn't sure it was supposed to come out in story form, the way I create final expanded notes will need some working through, but something said in class truly opened my mind to some of my own writing blocks.  Thinking of a research paper as writing a story instead of writing research sounded so exciting. I sometimes feel lost and unsure about what I am going to learn about teaching, and about English, and about Tibetans and their language and their use of English; but when I realize I will have every day to focus on talking with people, observing people and observing communication styes I can see it all coming together. 

Days of notes and revelations will pile up and be ready to be compiled in the end into the big story of my journey through language and people.  The idea of writing a large research paper when looked at in this way seems exciting and I can hardly wait to get started.  I suppose this is what all my English teachers have tried to have me do, work through my research over the semester and write my paper in the end. It has never had such great appeal, or seemed to happen so gradually and seamlessly, however.  Maybe things will be different with some of these new perspectives on research. I do love to learn, and observe, and write - who knows what's been missing all these years if not the wrong perspective and maybe a lack of passion, I'm trying to develop the one and definitely have the other when it comes to this project.