Another Project Update: The End is in Sight

I am very behind updating, but here are some highlights of what is going on with my honors thesis and eBook.

• ·          I submitted my thesis to the Honors Department. It is not perfect, but it felt great to turn it in with my bulky portfolio of undergraduate highlights. 

•  I am defending my thesis on February 27 at 12! My overseer is Professor David Laraway. My referee is Professor Gideon Burton, and Professor John Bennion is my honors faculty mentor.
• I submitted “Om Mani Padme Hum” to the Mayhew Essay Contest here on campus. I’m not sure when I will hear back, but I feel good about the submission. I changed my ending and feel a little more comfortable with it, though I still think it is the hardest piece I have ever had to write.
• I'm presenting this research on how digital technology can enhance cross-cultural experiences at the 2012 Inquiry Conference next week.
• Looking at options for publishing. Apple came out with a new self-publishing platform that is supposed to be easy to use. I need to look into this and other options. My friend Brett also started his own publishing company, so I want to compare and contrast the benefits of doing it myself or having him publish. I wasn’t planning on charging, but he would; I guess that changes things. I still have a lot to explore. I want to have this figured out by March so I can complete my project before I graduate in April.
• I also met with Professor Scanlon, the director of the Honors Program for an exit interview. I really enjoyed having an opportunity to talk to him about what I gained from my experience with Field Studies and the Honors Program. I believe the fourth aim of a BYU Education, promoting “life-long learning and service,” best describes what these two programs combined did for my undergraduate experience. If you would have told me five years ago when I was a freshman that I would have been to five continents, completed two Field Studies, presented at four conferences, published my work, helped on three undergraduate, peer-reviewed journals, volunteered to put on a conference, started writing a novel (I'm meeting with an agent in March!), established great connections with professors, interviewed for Teach for America, and had the opportunity to teach a class for a job, I would have laughed in disbelief. I want to laugh in disbelief now! I love that the Honors Program—the classroom education, as well as my thesis—helped me learn to think for myself so that I can go forth with a love for learning and a passion to serve.

I guess the end is in sight. A light at the end of the tunnel (and I hope it is not a train). I have had a fantastic undergraduate career. I feel ready to leave, but it is so bitter sweet.

Stay tuned to hear what I do about my defense and pending eBook!

(Photo credit to Seeking Equilibrium)

Mock Thesis Defense: Justifying Blogging When I Could Be Revising Essays

I have a serious need to repent.  I intended to write this post over a week ago, but here we are.  Let's be honest-I just collapsed after finals and fell off the radar.  But now it is time to get back in the game, and without further delay because my honors thesis is due January 16th.

I want to take a minute and comment on what I have learned from my mock thesis defense and from my latest post that goes over a draft of my final essay in my collection, "Snot and Untold Stories."  The mock thesis defense was done as a final presentation in my Thesis Writing class.  Another student who acted as my representative contacted Professor Burton and received some good questions to ask me, one of which was this: how do I justify spending valuable time blogging and focusing on the digital component of my thesis when I could spend that time doing much-needed revising?

It is a good question, and after my latest post highlighting concerns with my essay I am more equipped to answer it.

Since posting my latest draft, I have received a few great comments with invaluable feedback.  While I admit I have not had as many people comment as I would have liked, the comments I did receive were incredible.  Shara, who I connected with while in India, took a good chunk of time to give me some much-needed suggestions.  Had I not blogged about this draft, I would not have received that feedback.  In this case, blogging has actually aided me in the traditional revision process.

A second, less obvious benefit to blogging that I have discovered within the last few weeks, has been that I am held accountable to a "real" audience.  Within a day after posting my essay, the German friend I met on the bus mentioned in my essay, who I renamed Charley, contacted me and mentioned he read it.  My initial reaction was concern.  Had I really represented him accurately?  For all of my talk of authenticity, was I holding to it?  The truth is I fused a little bit of a later conversation I had with a history major friend to include a few of the Vietnam details.  By having this post I am acknowledging the fragile nature of storytelling while also being held accountable to an immediate audience.  This is not available in mainstream publishing.

In conclusion, while blogging and adding this digital component of my thesis can be time consuming and daunting, I am glad to have done it.  At the end of the day I would rather have my ideas shared and available to read than have them be perfect.

(Photo credit goes to cs.cmu.edu)

General Update

I thought this Thanksgiving break was going to be magical.  In five days, I was sure I could get all of my homework done (including reading four books), catch up on Nanowrimo, draft another essay for my thesis, revise my five essays, write a chapter for my novel by Tuesday, and draft two final papers for class.

What can I say?  I tried.

Here is what I did get done in terms of this project.  I got more active on Twitter, made lists, and downloaded Tweetdeck to my computer to try and sort through all of my tweets. 

I got somewhat caught up on Nanowrimo and searched through different writing groups.  I've learned since starting my own group that joining one that is already functioning is a lot easier that trying to get people to be as excited about it as I am...

I'm now almost finished drafting the introduction to my personal essays for my honors thesis and eBook. 

I also started revising my essays on compassion, marriage, and untold stories.  My goal is to have new drafts of all five of my current essays to my professors by the end of the week. 

As much as I wanted to include seven essays in this project, time is running out.  I'd like to include one more, if possible, but so far I am at 70 pages in my thesis, all of which need serious revision.  My original goal was to have all of my essays in decent drafts by December 1st.  That is this Thursday.  Crazy as it sounds, I still think I'm going to shoot for that by having an intro, acknowledgments page, and six working essays.

Discovering Twitter

Talking with Dr. Burton last week helped me understand how Twitter is a great social media resource to help me get connected with a potential audience for my eBook.  It is also a great way to find out what kinds of discussions are out there so that I can stay in the loop.  Here is a link to my profile.

Until last week I have always been a little resistant to get a Twitter account.  Isn't it just a great big Facebook status update rave?  I’m no Pynchon, but I do appreciate a little anonymity.  No one needs to hear what I ate for breakfast this morning…

But that was the same argument that I originally had against blogging, only to find that academic blogging offers a whole range of possibilities that I had not considered.  So it is with Twitter.

While being real on Twitter and having a personality is important when Tweeting, Dr. Burton helped me realize that there are ways to ensure that I am posting valuable material that others would be interested in.  I just have to think of it from their perspective and try to Tweet valuable information.  There needs to be a healthy blend between personality and focus.  Reposting blog entries, links, videos, and retweets are a great way to start.   It is also nice to attend events and comment on them while you are there.  Photos, which are something which is pretty applicable to my interests, are also easily shared on Twitter.  This means I’m probably going to visit the gravesite of my old Flickr account and update, update, update.

Revising and an Update

I am up to my head in personal essays needing serious, surgical, life-threatening revision.  I was hoping to get around to more of that this weekend, but after pumping out a new draft, "Snot and Stories" that looks at the Tibetan situation, my thoughts on America, etc, I was short on time.  I'm glad to have a new essay out, but I'm noticing a few themes I need to work on.

First, as Professor Bennion said, I need to work on being more objective in my essays.

Second, at Professor Burton's advice, I need to include a lot more setting detail.  India is sensory overload, and I need to portray that.  I want to.  I can see it quite clearly still.  I just have to go back and fill it all in.  Hopefully that brings it to life a bit better.

And third, at my own personal critique, I want to have a nicer form for my next essay.  I've been poking around in The Art of the Personal Essay, an anthology I reviewed here, trying to find a potential form I could imitate.  Reviewing the intro was also helpful.  It confirmed what I have already discovered.  Personal essay writing is downright vulnerable!  I keep coming back to Virginia Woolf.  Even though I know I'm never going to be as cool as her, and that her style just doesn't fit my voice as well as I'd always hoped it would, I want to try it for at least one.  Just to see...

Another large, overriding issue I need to work out is the honors requirements for a creative thesis.  I thought I was on top of it, but after checking out two previous students theses from the library (Emily Davis "To England and Back" and Elizabeth K.M. Busby "Life Expectant") I think I'm supposed to be working more on a fancy intro and abstract than on a more research looking paper.  Hmm...

Reading these theses was a great experience though.  Both were former students of my honors advisor, Professor Bennion.  I identified more with Emily's work and themes, but in each it was nice to see just what kind of subjects I can take up and play with in a personal essay.  It's also fun to turn the pages between the blue covers, knowing that if I finish this and do it well, maybe some kid in the future will do the same with my thesis someday. 

Feedback from Professor Bennion

Well, I now have four rough drafts of some personal essays to include in my upcoming eBook and honors thesis.  The first essay, a bus ride to McLeod, but also through my thoughts and motivations to travel; another essay on my disillusionment with Buddhism; one on the complex nature of charity; and another on making sense of marriage.  I've been working closely with Professor Burton and Professor Bennion on revisions, and so that is the goal of this week.

But I've learned something in the process.  Personal essays are hard.  Vulnerable, embarrassing at times, soul mining, and more.  All of the ethical questions I explored in Ghana regarding creative nonfiction are staring at me right in the face.  Yet, I have to be honest.  I have to be accurate if they are ever going to get off the ground.  This is a unique opportunity for me to revisit India in a way I never was able to with Ghana, to make sense of it and create something that others can read and understand something of what I have experienced in a way that is meaningful.  

Here are some sections of general advice that Dr. Bennion gave me this week that I found extremely helpful, particularly on how to be more objective in my writing of a personal essay:

Talking with Dr. Burton: Project Updates!

After talking with Dr. Burton, my faculty mentor for my field study project and overseer or my Digital Civilization course contract, I've learned a few things about where I am and where I need to go from here:

First, I need to draft, draft, draft my personal essays!  So far I have been able to do two, but I have a tentative date to be semi finished with them by December 1st so I can get on to the digital aspect of them and create my eBook.  I've been a terrible perfectionist lately, and Dr. Burton had to talk me off the ledge and let me know that I should be sending him stuff early on in the process.  Personal essays are just so vulnerable, and I think that it is scary!  I'm overcoming that though.  It should be a good exercise in general to stop editing like mad, especially if I am going in the wrong direction.

I also learned that as I am drafting these essays, I need to be thinking about audience and basically market my essays- sell my product before it is finished. 

To do this I need to first, believe it is possible, and second, figure out how to do it.

Back in the Game

Me?  Why no, I'm not overwhelmed at all.

I've been really good at letting India take a backseat to all of the rest of the madness going on in my life right now.  Taking classes while trying to tackle course work while simultaneously making meaning of an experience like India is not the easiest load to juggle, but what do you do?  Deadlines are approaching, and I know I will feel a world better once I start.

Starting is the important thing.  After meeting with my faculty mentor, Dr. Burton, I've realized that I need to get my travel essays done a lot earlier than I anticipated.  If I am to publish an eBook, I need to leave myself a lot of room to find an audience, learn formatting, find outlets for my work, and just figure out the logistics of it all.

The cool thing is that this is much more than a honors thesis.  The hard thing is that this is much more than an honors thesis.  But it is going to be so much more rewarding knowing that I am establishing my writing presence on the internet.  This, right along with my novel writing class, has gotten me very excited about learning the ropes of self publishing.

So here is a brief to-do list:

• Email Professor Bennion two solid drafts and my coursework
• Start drafting more travel essays so that I am ahead of schedule
• Figure out if I am going to try for an ORCA grant
• Decide what final outcome, other than my eBook, I would like to have to show what I have learned through my experiences with emerging media.
• Get my personal writing group together to start talking about these topics
• Balance coursework with my current classes
• Keep this blog updated!

Photo credit to comerecommended.com

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.

Project Propsoal: Draft 1

Okay, so here is what I have so far.  I have two serious holes, my literature review and my methods, because these are still in the making, but everything else is here.

A Portrait of Dharamsala:
A Field Study Proposal on the process of Collecting Stories and the Need to Tell the Tale
By Rachel Rueckert

Intent:

    We all tell stories.  It is part of the human condition no matter when we were born or what culture we belong to.  I am interested in learning more about this process going on in Dharamsala, India—a refugee community composed of Tibetans living in exile with their leader the Dalai Lama, forced to flee their homeland because of Chinese invaders.  My purpose is to collect the stories of the many different people who make up this unique location and to compile a creative writing project consisting of short stories and narratives about their experiences as well as my own.  I will also document the process I go through to collect these accounts in order to learn more about the nature of storytelling and documenting experiences.  On a personal level, I am fascinated by the Tibetan culture thriving in this distinctive location, and am anxious to learn more from the personal accounts of the people who live here.  I want to further develop my writing skills, immerse myself in another culture, and learn more about the diversity of Dharamsala.

Ethics and Approval:

    Ethics is something I will constantly keep in mind while conducting my study.  Because I intend to share the information and personal histories of the people I meet, I will need to change the names and any information that would make them easily identifiable in that community.  I plan on documenting a lot of my process on an online blog as well, and I will need to be careful about what I post and again change the names of the people and sift through all of my material to ensure I am not posting anything sensitive without permission.  If needed, I will obtain informed consent to be as ethical as possible during my stay in Dharamsala. 
    In order to minimize risk and maximize the benefits of my study, I will make sure that I am up front with what I am doing with the people I meet.  I will always ask them if they are okay if I share their stories, and I will not press them on sensitive topics.  It is my job to let them know that they are participating voluntarily, and that they can stop at any time.  Other than some potentially touchy subjects, I think that the risks are fairly minimal as long as I am careful and respectful about what I am representing.  I will facilitate sustainability, practice appropriate reciprocity, and be mindful of the people who are helping me with this experience.
    In order to keep my ethics in check, I will receive approval from the IRB (Institutional Review Board) if necessary to ensure that there are more benefits than risks to my presence in Dharamsala.  Since I am planning to have a creative project as my outcome, I am hoping that I will be exempt from being a “research” project, but I will still need to be mindful of ethics.  I have been through the IRB process before and I am confident that if I plan well I will receive approval for this second time in the field as well.

Preliminary Plans for Post-field Application:

    My goal is to have a creative writing project by the end of my study to submit to publishers, including the BYU Inquiry Journal.  I would also like to present at the Inquiry Conference at BYU.  If I am able to gather enough pictures, I would also like to have the option of having a exhibit of my photography.  This study will help me gain more writing experience and make me more eligible for graduate school. 

Qualifications:

20 Social Situation Triangles... Dun Dun Dun...

In class last week we were challenged to make at least 20 social situation triangles.  The idea behind this is that on each corner you have three key elements-the players, the activity, and the location of things we could possibly study in the field.  Here are some of the things I came up with for my project.  With a topic as broad as mine, I have a lot of options


Players:

1. Me
2. Nuns
3. Monks
4. Bus driver
5. Western travelers
6. New immigrants
7. Indian tourists
8. Indian shop keepers
9. My group members
10. The restaurant workers
11. Guy who sells stuff on the corner 
12. Community leaders
13. NGO workers
14. Older generation from Tibet
15. Hindi teacher 
16. Original inhabitants of Dharamsala
17. Host family members
18. Other researchers
19. People waiting in lines
20. Yoga instructor

Activities:

A Talk with Melissa: Informal Interview Method

Since my last field study, I think I have always known that informal interviewing is the method I enjoy the most-or the kind of interviewing that does not look or feel like an interview.  Especially if I am going to be collecting stories while I am in India, there is no better way to kill the details than to try and direct the questions in a way they do not go naturally.  For my methods practice, I decided to talk to Melissa, who was the facilitator last spring/summer to McLeod Ganj, India, and based on her insights I think there a few things I am going to have to rethink.  Here are just a few to help me organize my thoughts.

 Population Range- I think that when I walk talking about my project and formed my previous project question, I wanted to collect stories within McLeod Ganj.  Melissa told me that the Indians and other peoples who inhabit Dharamsala are kept separate from the Tibetans in order to preserve their culture identity.  If that is the case, I want to modify my project to look at Dharamsala instead of McLeod.                 

Mid-semester Retreat- Most groups have gone to the Golden Temple for their trip, which sounds fantastic to me.  I wish I could remember the names of a few of the other cities mentioned... but I was relived that a few of my group members really wanting to see the Taj Mahal will be able to get both, because the city with the Taj is located right outside Dehli.

Expectations- I need to recognize once and for all that this is not going to be anything like my experiences in Ghana.  Here TV's are blaring everywhere I go, tourism really is the industry of the place, and this is a city, not a village.  I will not be dressed in any old thrift store clothes, and I might even be packing my makeup this time around.  I think it is going to be another great adventure, but I need to remember that it will not be Ghana.

Why am I going here?  Melissa asked me why I wanted to go to India to begin with (probably because she was surprised that I do not like TVs).  I told her that I always have been fascinated with India and eastern religion in general.  It is unlike anything we seem to have here, and it is a whole new realm for me.  I think I was more interested in Hinduism at the start, but after taking my Peoples of India Class I am convinced that Hinduism is so complex that a 3 month field study probably will not even scratch the surface.  Buddhism on the other hand, has also been fascinating to me.  I used to have a Buddhist temple near my house when I was a kid, and it always had that lure to it.  In my World Religions survey class I took last year I was also fascinated with how Tibetan Buddhism has been able to sustain itself despite the threat of dying out completely, and it would be cool to see that in action.  However, I think more than anything though, my decision to go to North India was that it felt right.  Living in the ridges of the Himalayas amongst these people just sounds so amazing, and I am excited to learn from them.

Melissa also shared her interpretation of the "Middle Path" with me.  After reading various eastern texts, the whole concept of not being attached to people did not make a lot of sense to me.  Based on her experience, she said that it is not about being a hermit, and far from it, but not letting your happiness depend on others.  I like that...

General Recommendations?  Melissa says to befriend a nun, take a Hindi class (to make a friend, not because the teaching is supreme), and say a quick prayer before I have to pick where different members of my group live for the next three months with only a few sentences of background on each family. 

So yes, informal interviewing means that there is minimal control over the direction of the conversation on the interviewers side, but there are things I want to know that I do not know I want to know.  For this reason, even though it has down sides, it is the most appropriate for the project I will be conducting.

Wow.  I am living in three months!

January 26, 2011: Learning Journal 2

It really has been quite the week in developing my creative writing project in Dharamsala, India for this spring and summer field study.  In many ways I feel like I am experienced in what field work looks like, but at the same time this new project I am constructing is so different from what I was studying last summer in Ghana (looking at attitudes towards literature).

What I am most excited for is that unlike my experience in Ghana, McLeod Ganj will be less structured.  Before I was waking up everyday to go to school where sometimes my time was spent well, and other times it did not do much.  Because looking at the different stories that make up the community will be so much more broad, I will have the freedom to spend my time hunting down the stories that will be most meaningful to me.  Do not get me wrong, I think that structure is good in a variety of cases, but for me, this time I think that going with the snowball sampling is really going to be most beneficial.  At the same time, without that structure getting access to the community and finding my audience could be a lot trickier than it was in Ghana.

So here is where I am at.  After reading Emily Bell's project proposal and final project after doing a creative writing project in the same location I will be going to, I am confidant that this is what I want to be studying.  The most heartening thing I got from her papers was that the Dalai Lama has encouraged newcomers to the community to share their stories with the world.  In Emily's experience, Tibetans were more than willing to share their personal stories.  This is good news for me, but there are also others people dwelling in Dharamsala that I want to include in this portrait I am doing of the location.  I do not know how willing they will be to share their stories, and of course, ethics are going to be something I have to keep in mind the entire time.

Also, as far as my avatar method (different lenses and mediums I experiment with to show the nature of narrative), I will have a different experience this time around.  In Ghana, I had five that were looking at different aspects of my own personality.  The first three worked out really well.  They were a photographer, a romantic anthropologist, and a postmodern writer.  However, my native avatar and "experiencer" avatar were not quite so successful.  I think that my "experiencer" has some potential, I am just not sure what to do about it yet.  Here is a basic sketch of what avatars I think I will bring with me to McLeod Ganj, India.  I won't take them all, I just have to get my ideas out there.

The Photographer (though may need to do some modifications based on type of photography)
The Romantic Anthropologist (because someone needs to tackle the student portion of the project)
The Tourist (could be very effective, especially with being in a tourist community and being a foreigner myself)
The Postmodern Writer (someone with my own voice who will tell stories creatively)
The Poet (a new one! but I think it could be very viable)
The Experiencer (can I work it to make it worthwhile?)

Any other ideas out there?  I am so excited to get started!  Maybe a methods practice will be beneficial for me....

January 19, 2011: Learning Journal 1

Wow, our workshop in the facilitator prep class yesterday was really useful for me.  Each of us looked at the different aspects of our project to make sure all of the pieces fit together, and surprise surprise, I have some work to do.  I now have a better idea of how to be grounded and to trim my project accordingly.  Let me just show you what my initial question was, and then what it turned into...

First, I'll like to say that before I went to class my question was even more different.  My beginning project idea was to look at how both Indians and Tibetans retain their religious identity in a tourist community.  I still like that idea, but I guess it just did not spark.

Initial Question for Class: What role do stories play in preserving cultural identity in Dharamsala, India?

By the end of class I came up with this new project question: "What populations and stories make up the current identity of McLeod Ganj, India?"

It needs some work, but it is more where I want to be.  I will be continuing the method that I used in Ghana using different avatars to explore the nature of experience and the authenticity of our narratives abroad.  How does this method fit my  new topic?  Well, I think that while I am gathering stories and putting together a creative writing project that gives this sort of conglomerate portrait of this unique location, I need to show the selection process that goes along with that.  Yes, stories are incredibly important, but I still believe, especially since my work in Ghana, that we need to raise skepticism about how they are produced, and recognize them for what they really are.  Limited, subjective interpretations of our fragile memories and experiences.

So that brings us to today!  I guess my apprehensions at this point come from not knowing what I will be doing day to day, or what collecting stories looks like.  Ashley said that I lose my focus and grounding when I start exploring the literature culture in the location, and I totally agree, but I was reassured this does not mean I cannot attend a poetry reading.  Haha, still.  After all this reading of different populations in India with their oral traditions I have a peeked curiosity. 

Here We Go Again!

I should have started this blog awhile ago.  It is a continuation of the research I began in Ghana, Africa with the field studies program at BYU experimenting with different mediums and methods in travel writing while exploring the authenticity of experience.  My time in Ghana was amazing, and that project can be found here.  This time, however, I am continuing my research in a very different part of the world.
McLeod Ganj, a suburb of Dharamsala, India.

This is a town nestled between the ridges of the majestic Himalayas.  It is the home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama along with the Tibetan government living in exile, still trying to win their homeland back from China.

After completing my first field study I recognize just how much I do not know about this community.  Going as a field facilitator also makes that experience a little more interesting.  I am, however, anxious to learn more and to have yet another great experience abroad while exploring my topic of interest.

Here is where I am at so far... just to document the exploration phase of my project.  I am going to stick to my avatar approach where I looked at how different mediums and viewpoints altered the my experience as a single traveler.  My framework will essentially be the same (except I will polish it up based on my conclusions from Ghana), but this time I am exploring a different topic while in the field.

At first I wanted to look at how both Tibetans and Hindu's maintain their religious identity while in a tourist community.  After reading the book Nine Lives In the Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple, however, I am looking at two other topics that could be of interest.  First, what is the literacy culture like.  So many of the stories found in this book looked at poetry, ancient texts, and story telling, and I am curious how those play a role in raising awareness for the Tibetan cause.  Another idea, based on the format Dalrymple wrote this book in, would be to have a creative writing project as my final product in addition to my blog.  What I think would be interesting would be to get a kind of portrait of Dharamsala-just talk to different people and hear their stories and get a sense for this community.  It was only after reading the chapter on Dharamsala in this book that I was really able to stop objectifying the Chinese invasion of Tibet.  It made it more personal, more real, and it ignited something in me that I would like to take a part in.

So that is where I am at the moment.  Stay tuned, because like field work, the project always tend to evolve the more you dissect it and put it back together again.