Fieldverk
Life on the field is hard, man. Today I got here, and today I conducted my first interview. At the end of the interview, since my interviewee really wanted to know what it was exactly that I was after (and he quite insisted on knowing), I sorta explained that I was attempting to track language change with respect to katrina... and he told me I was going to find nothing. Which, based on his completely contradictory answers to everything I asked him, isn't a horrible guess. GYAH!!!
On the bright side, I had a totally delicious and unhealthy po'boy for lunch with a crapton (no, really, I do mean a crapton) of fries, which are going to be my dinner, with a Tulane grad. student who was hyper-nice to me and showed me how to talk to a bartender and got me a trillion names of bars that I need to visit for data by day. Furthermore, she brought me to my first interviewee. Seriously, seriously a nice gal. She claims she needed an excuse to get away from her dissertation, which I have no problem believing, but she was seriously encouraging and immensely kind. Tomorrow I'm on my own, and I get to plan it all tonight... I'm so tired!!!
Also-- drove on the freeway for the first time in my life today. It was rather scary and bumpy (oh, LA infrastructure!), and I missed a million exits and went around in circles for 30 minutes longer than I was supposed to. Thank God my uncle loaned me his GPS for this trip-- had he not, I would still be out on the road trying to figure out how to get here!!!
On the bright side, I had a totally delicious and unhealthy po'boy for lunch with a crapton (no, really, I do mean a crapton) of fries, which are going to be my dinner, with a Tulane grad. student who was hyper-nice to me and showed me how to talk to a bartender and got me a trillion names of bars that I need to visit for data by day. Furthermore, she brought me to my first interviewee. Seriously, seriously a nice gal. She claims she needed an excuse to get away from her dissertation, which I have no problem believing, but she was seriously encouraging and immensely kind. Tomorrow I'm on my own, and I get to plan it all tonight... I'm so tired!!!
Also-- drove on the freeway for the first time in my life today. It was rather scary and bumpy (oh, LA infrastructure!), and I missed a million exits and went around in circles for 30 minutes longer than I was supposed to. Thank God my uncle loaned me his GPS for this trip-- had he not, I would still be out on the road trying to figure out how to get here!!!