Age vs. Hope

For my Dad's 61st Birthday last week I made this card (in the center) by melding an old photo of him from 1972(?) and the well know Obama poster from 2008. I meant it as an homage to my dad and a humurous reflection on the past. He took it as a parody, as in, he now has the opposite of hope because all he has is age. Woops. I even wrote a poem on the inside of the card explaining the drawing, but the print was so small that he couldn't read it.

Back from the woods

Returning from life in the woods with 10-year-olds is a rough transition. I spent last week in just such an alternate reality, which was lovely, both in its own right, and for its difference from the day-to-day goings on in my office, which are all-consuming unless you are forced to take a break. Four days in the woods will do anyone a world of good. Four days with 10-year-olds makes it magical if you let it.






This trip to the woods marks a end of sorts to my Thesis Fieldwork. I have much more material to write about than I initially anticipated. The structure of the writing itself remains a bit of mystery, but I have to get going on that before I get to far from the experiences. I just don't want it to be boring.

Incredibly dim light at the end of the tunnel

Moving into week eight of my fieldwork I took some time to sit down with the ol’ thesis proposal, which I have been evading since last spring. Today I attempted to chalk out the “Story” section, and to grapple with how I would differentiate between the content of the story section and the upcoming “Discussion” section. The story section is meant for describing literally what happened during your fieldwork. The discussion is reserved for analysis of the story. The difficulty will come in keeping my observations and opinions out of the story section, reserving them for discussion.

The good news, though, is that I can start to see how this thing is going to come together. There is an enormous amount of writing still to take place between now and then, but I can see a glimmer from the distant end of this long dark tunnel.

In keeping with my belief that all blog posts should include images, I drew you this: