Fieldnotes

Stuff...lots of lots of stuff (fieldnotes 1)
So far, I think I have a very good start on my project. I've found sites that have the archives for the papers I am using, Dallas Morning News and the Pradva. I have not had time to do any indepth analysis of either, but I have been able to browse around. As far as the experience I have had, well quite honestly, it has almost all been done from here in my room. Most of the time, there has been some sort of food involved, usually cereal, noodles, chilli, or cupcakes. At the same time the TV is on and its almost always on the History Channel or Comedy Central (interesting combo right?).

I have already started my WA4, and it's coming along alright. This is my first venture into the world of Window's Movie Maker, so it's not going to be theatrical quality; that said, it isn't going to be just some crap slopped together either.

Fieldnotes 2
While looking for the information that I need, I haven't had to go very far...physically at least. Just because the vast majority of my research requires me to sit in one spot, doesn't mean that I'm not having to go somewhere; I am and that place is Crazy. The biggest problem that I have had to this point is sifting through all the information on the web, and I'm not yet to the point where I have quality information to be shuffling through, just a lot of junk. Having never looked for 50 year old Soviet news papers before, I didn't realise how much crap (and I mean that with all the malice I can muster) is on the internet. I've found more one page, two sentence, half a picture and waste-of-my-time web pages than is possible to count. I may have found exactly what I have been looking for however, and I don't want to jinx it. But from the looks of it, I may have found a site with already translated versions! So and hopefully this is what I need.

=Fieldnotes 3 & Expansion
= 11/28/11

I spent the last few hours still looking for a way into the Pradva archives. I was unable to contact the library Friday, and the holiday travels lasted almost solidly through Thursday with either no time or no access to the Internet, meaning no way to email them. Further unfortunate events leading to car trouble meant I was out of town (Commerce) today. Last week I had sent an email requesting costs for the archive and for papers around the select date, but no response as of yet. To add the icing on the cake, the real kicker that just comes in as on of those insult to injury moments is now I can't even find info for the Dallas Morning News. I'm giving up for the night, and hoping that some sleep and returning to the search with a fresh start will make things much easier, and God willing, tomorrow I will be able to make a trip to the library.

EXPANSION

It would appear the proverbial excrement has hit the fan. Our final projects are due in around 2 weeks and I haven't found either of the two sources I need. If I take nothing else from this, it's that I hate research, and that picking an easy "BS" topic is much better than picking something your interested in but that is very hard. Now I'm very aggravated as I type this, so if it comes out sounding very cynical and angered, it is because that is how I feel. So "Yay to pressure!" and all that fun stuff...

=Fieldnotes (4), and a little bit of progress
= 11/30

Today I made the executive decision to change from the Dallas Morning News to the New York Times, if you read the little note by the link posted under the annotations category then you might already know that. The change was because I was able to find all the information I had needed from an American newspaper, and I had only picked the Dallas Morning News because I had believed it would have been much easier.

There isn't much to expand on this thought, but I thought this was necessary to mention.

Fieldnotes 5
12/7 Wrapping it all up.

This is a final note on the year, as it is all but over with a final day of class and the Celebration of Student Writing all that remain. This can be seem as my expansion on the the thoughts I have had while working on this project, and specifically as I have had the opportunity to go back over my work as I upload it to the wiki. I can say that I am very happy with the majority of my early assignments, and my 2 video projects, which despite driving me a little more crazy than usual, are something to be proud of (to anyone who thinks otherwise, I'd like to see you do better without ever having had taken a tech class). There was at some point a lull however, and as best I can tell it came in about two weeks before Thanksgiving break and I never fully recovered from it. I wish the cause of this would have been something I recorded, but self degrading material is few and far between, and I supose I was not for adding any of that.

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