The past month has been an intensive foray into ethnographic research methods, based on some very fruitful participant observation notes at a workshop, and also learning the hard way that a one hour interview takes about 4 hours to transcribe properly. Emerson’s guidebook to ethnographic methods has been indispensable, and learning the process of coding, memo writing and analysis is making me very excited about writing the paper for submission next week. Themes are emerging, connections are being made, and the end result will be as much of a ‘surprise’to me as it will be to my professor upon first read.
Although many of my fall obligations had been fulfilled, I still kept myself busy with frequent visits from friends, participating in events such as their scholarship awards ceremony at the Heliconian Club, and catching up with some of my community obligations. The Alumni Association of the Faculty has a holiday party tomorrow for students, and a deadline coming up for conference grant applications. The Sneak Peak Orchestra has a concert coming up in January that requires some music preparation, and I finally completed their logo design.
In December I will continue with posts that picks up from the ASIS&T thread that I started, as well as many of the insights and ideas on musical knowledge that have been generated based on the ethnographic research I have done so far. There are some CFP of conference that I’d like to follow up on (check out this one in Oxford with the theme “musical knowledge”), and I finally have time to edit and submit my community informations paper to JCI. I also hope to take some time out to learn to cook a few more dishes. I was shocked to discover how easy Sheppard’s Pie is to make (the same shock I felt when I realized frozen yogurt is, well, frozen yogurt), and wonders what else out there is easier to make than I initially thought.
My personal library also needs a bit of organizing. This past year has accumulated into many printed articles in stacks in disorganized piles, and what use are they if I can’t find them again or remember that they are there? Let’s ring in the new year with a clear view of this past year.
