Project Update and Ashley's Visit to the Field

This week I was not able to post as much as I wanted to, but it was a important for my project development.  We had Ashley, the field studies coordinator, visit our group here in McLeod Ganj all week.  She gave some great feedback for all of the students, including me.  Unfortunately she ran out of time and we had to talk about my project as we meandered down the mountain, fighting off car sickness, in a taxi towards the Kangra Airport, but it was still really beneficial!  Here is what I learned from our conversation:

First, I have a lot of ideas for my collection of travel essays.  I think the general themes I am running into are ideals and disillusionment, displacement, something with life in transit, and I am particularly interested in sifting through my various motivations for traveling and why I do the things that I do, and how it has matured and developed throughout my various adventures-Hawaii to Ghana to now.  

So far I am thinking my first essay will be about my experience with the broken down bus to McLeod Ganj in the middle of the night.  I want to explore some of my frustrations and motivations for why I do what I do and try to represent it in a complex way.  

I think that this will give the following essays, dealing more with others stories and anthropological material, a focus if I am able to relate it back to some of these initial motivations and realizations (the personal essay part of my project).  I still have yet to figure out what the balance will be between the stories I gather and my personal experience, but that brings us to the next point.

Drafting.

Drafting Drafting Drafting.  Ashley’s main piece of advice was that I seriously need to schedule time out of my day to draft.  I have a lot of ideas bouncing around in my brain and they are just knotting up.  I’ve got to pump out some rough drafts, and from there I can go back and revise, find themes, etc.  

It is really difficult to write and synthesize in the field.  I experienced that in Ghana and now that it is here and more part of my project I am wondering what the best way to approach it is.  Writing itself seems to be something you do after the experience, the echo (from A Passage to India), the way to make meaning.  I guess it is difficult to do that mid-experiencing, trying to figure out how to juggle the two.

Any suggestions?  Is it just a matter of buckling down and drafting, or is there a reason why most people do this after the field experience?

Anyways, I will be gone to Amritsar for our mid-semester retreat until July 13^th.  It is the holiest place in Sikhism, and I have always wanted to visit the Golden Temple.  If you don’t know that that is, you should really look it up.  Or you can just visit your local Indian restaurant, note the waiter in a turban with a bangle, and have him tell you.