A Conundrum

As I look back on it, I was not mentally prepared (or financially really, but that is another matter) for a field study. The wise thing to do, would have been to stay in Provo and just work. Not take classes, just work as much as I could to save money and prepare for the fall semester. I was not ready to just show up somewhere, establish my life, learn how to conduct research and then conduct it, as well as balancing an intense load of academic course work. Just going to India essentially randomly and trying to establish a life in and of itself was a titanic project. Because I was not ready, because I did not really know what I was doing, all in all, I would have to say that mostly I failed in the explicit goals of my project. That isn't to say that the summer was a failure, per se, or that I did not learn anything. It was incredibly difficult and a very stretching situation. But as to balancing course work and figuring out how to conduct research, success was elusive.

So really, it would have been better in many ways that I had not gone. I am not going to have some amazing paper to show off to future employers or grad schools. In fact trying to describe exactly what I did and why it was worth while itself is a difficult task. Trying to do this semester with the extra things I did not quite finish in the field and trying to pull together a summer that was so full and so empty emotionally, psychologically, and academically is something that is still beyond me (even as due dates sprint at me). Had I not gone I would not feel so unbalanced now. Had I not gone, I would not have been so distracted and so busy this semester. Had I not gone, I would not have near the stress I have had to deal with this past semester trying to work through and conceive of my coursework and my project.

But I promised a conundrum and here it is: had I not gone, I would not be ready to go again. Arguably there are better ways to receive this introduction. I could have waited for a program in which I would be someone's assistant. I could have looked for a program that was an already established project with established contacts and I just had to show up. I do not discount these things. Looking back, much of what I did was foolish and in many ways suffering as the result of being lazy in my preparation. However, the thing that I struggle with most in trying to communicate my failure is that I know now how to do my project. I know how to establish myself on my own in India. I know how to begin a project. I know how to structure it. I know the correct time of year to go. I even have a few contacts that could lead to other contacts. I do not suggest that I have created the foundation to just go next summer and create some field-changing study, but I know now how to start.

So what do I do in this case? How do I create a narrative that makes sense out of this experience? I have suffered much for this field study and most of what I suffered will not yield anything productive. I have no contacts in higher education. This is not my "in" to a prestigious program somewhere. In fact I honestly believe putting myself into a program I was not prepared for and thus being overwhelmed, taking on more than I should have will most likely result in lower marks which will probably hurt my chances of getting into a decent graduate program. But I would not be able to do what I know feel so much more capable of without this experience. Do I regret the problems I have created for myself or do I rejoice in my gained experience? Is it a case of x steps forward, y steps back? Is it better to say I am stable and dependable, send me on a stable and dependable program even though I am inexperienced? Or is it better to say I have no proof, but you can drop me off anywhere and I will try?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the correct answer is. What is done is done. I cannot take back this crazy summer and get back the time I spent this semester worrying over it and working on it. I cannot squeeze back in a productive summer of quiet work and preparatory reading.

Because the thing is there really isn't a way to prepare for international experience. It is international. The point is it is a different culture. If you do it by careful installation, if you try to maintain as much of your previous life as before, you will never succeed. You will always be met with petty irritations and annoyances. There will always be days when the air conditioner/heater doesn't work like the one in America even though you paid extra for it and it would be so easy for the natives to make it work. There will always be days when the people are acting completely irrational in the face of your carefully explained, science-backed rational ideas, explanations, and implorings.

But I guess you just have to be aware that the cost of jumping in with both feet can be incredibly high.

Status

Okay so this isn't going so well lately. I am getting back on the horse, I promise. Tomorrow afternoon I am going to draw up a to do list of absolutely everything to the smallest detail that must happen before the semester is over and then I am going to draw up a list of topics to blog about. Come hell or high water I will write a blog post every day, two or three times a day ideally. This isn't just to make this blog functional. This is entirely to just get me writing and producing again. I think have about worked myself through the road block I hit with my project and I am ready to jump back into action again. I don't have quite the sources I would like, but I have enough for what I need to do. So maybe I will be blogging about random India things like religion or food or something or maybe it will be aspects of my project I am exploring, ideas on methodology, etc. It will be a grab bag. It will probably be hard and there will be times when I absolutely do not want to write, but I will do it. It will work out in the end.

In other news I have no idea what the heck I should do for my other class during the summer. If I don't take another English class I will probably have to graduate in April instead of December because I don't really think I am capable of taking four English classes in one semester. Having three is hell, four would be awful. Maybe it will work out. I will have to check what will double count. If two of the classes I think  will double count will double count then everything will be okay, but if not, I will have a possible small problem. Although if I don't have to take two English classes that could cause another problem in that I will need to really brainstorm what subject even to do the other one in. Is it wrong that I want it to be something awesome? Like I mean, go out and explore ruins awesome or something. My one class will be reading/writing, so maybe I can rig something up like that.

I Am Alive

Blah, I kind of fell off the horse there for a week or two, sorry about that. I had a small existential crisis about my project and got stuck in a rut for a little while there. I have talked to a few people about (thank you Rachel) and I think I know where to go moving forward.

It was the literature review that kind of made me panic. Not the literature review itself, but how it applies to me. Looking at reading and writing in India from a sources point of view has been really, really difficult. Mostly because there are two sides the the problem and they rarely meet. The English major side is obsessed with the post colonial. There are hundreds of papers and books on the topic, but as they are coming from the English academia perspective, they are all about the themes and writing methods that are in a given text. No one ever really talks about why the book was written in the first place or who might actually be reading the book and what that means. On the anthropological side, it could be that I just do not know quite where to look, but from all the databases I have searched and what not, it seems that anthropologists have not thoroughly studied reading much. I was not even looking specifically for India. I just was looking for ethnographies or studies about reading. I am sure that anthropologists study this kind of thing, but I have the feeling that all the sources that would be useful to me are subsections buried in the chapters of specific ethnographies or general anthropological texts. I have a few books about literacy in India, which will hopefully be helpful.

I am coming to terms with the fact that I may not be able to use my sources to focus/narrow my topic. I was kind of hoping that I could feel my way along with what others have studied before and pattern my research methods after them. However it seems like I am just going to have to make it up as I go along.

To make up for this, I am going to see if I can work the network of Indian people I kind of know who live here in Provo. I am going to do some super informal interviews with my friend and any Indians he knows to talk to them about my project. I want to ask them a few questions about reading and just sort of point blank ask them what they think I should do or how I should approach it. I figure in the field I can try to be all subtle and sneaky, but here in the U.S. with people I know, I might as well just come out with it and ask them what they think of my project. Hopefully this will guide my efforts as I redouble my efforts on getting my project set.

As my three English classes start getting heavy, I am falling behind in my reading. I am not too worried though. There are about eight more books that I am absolutely determined to read. All in all a few thousand pages. I can manage that. Basically a few covering different topics on the history of India, an analysis of India's current situation, some texts about religion, a travelogue, and a book about the history of New Delhi specifically. Also the one or two books I have been able to dig up that in some way discuss the literacy and reading in India. And if I have time I have a history of Indian literature in English. I feel that at this point, considering that I am not going to find some great studies or ethnographies about studying the reading/writing habits of an ethnic group, the most important thing I can do to prepare is to increase my general knowledge about Indian history, culture, geography, and religion. I hope focusing on orienting myself to the location rather than my specific method first will help me to think on my feet and develop things as I go rather than try to adapt my specific methods that someone else came up with to my location. I don't know.

Also I am working on my Hindi via Hindi films. I can begin to pick up words, but I can't follow when they talk at normal speeds. We will see what I can do in two months. Not that I plan to try to operate in Hindi to any degree, but I feel it would help.

Also, also, I am working on memorizing the major gods and goddesses, which is going well, as well as state names and capitals, which is going...not so well, but I will master it!

Blocked

I think I am currently encountering something that I may encounter in the field, so maybe this is a positive experience in retrospect. I just have kind of been stumped on what to write about. A few days ago I had like three or four posts bouncing around in my head that I should have written down and now they are gone. Having the experience of needing to press on and do stuff with this project when I am not feeling terribly inspired has been enlightening. I sill don't know quite what to do about it, but I am learning about it at least, for what it is worth.

My reading mood died somewhere about three-fourths of the way through January. I was on fire. I am so sad. I have so much to read still that I want to read. Just when I sit down to read it is like pulling teeth to make myself do it. I blame everything else I have to read. I also think I need to go through and logically organize which books I am going to read first. It has been kind of random so far. I have a backlog of about forty sources I have identified. I have started going through some of them I just feel mentally flat lately. I can't get my mind around them. I have narrowed down my project ideas, I think. I just need to really make a decision and start pumping stuff out.

I just need to sit down and ponder India for a little while, I think. That is what inspired my ideas. Maybe I will get them back that way. Right now my mind just feels dark. I don't even understand