The fieldwork thing, it often is no fun.

Especially when you're watching a band in the cold, cold rain for seven hours as they attempt to eke out a living and you're not feeling like being there, you keep having visions of hot showers, fireplaces and soup. When there's a break for lunch you are shocked and angered to realize that THEY'RE GOING TO EAT STANDING UP OUTSIDE and the nerve of them how dare they not go inside somewhere so that you can both eat and take notes, now you have to keep taking notes, in the rain, and not eat because you only have two hands for Christ's sake. And you go back to the makeshift stage they've set up on the street for this second day of the festival and the sound doesn't work very well and everybody seems pissed off but maybe it's just you and then the Stupid Fan that you Hate decides to show up and make your life even more miserable and after another set it begins to rain even harder and you're drowning under your stupid hat and as usual you have not dressed for the occasion. And the lead guy calls it quits and everyone's helping to put away the equipment but when you try you can't even get the damn cables coiled into a circle because your hands are too cold and you feel like you're getting in the way more than anything and you wonder why anybody even tolerates you, why you even thought you had a clue as to what you were doing when you got into this whole participant observer role, because clearly you are not participating very well. And the lead guy takes you back to your friend's house and you throw your clothes in the dryer and stand under the shower for about 24 years. Then you have a beer because you deserve a beer and write whiny field notes because you deserve to write whiny field notes. And you're not sure it's going to get better but when you get home you realize you have more to work with than you thought you did, to the point where you have a pretty solid outline for all 9 chapters of your dissertation, divided into three potentially awesome publications. Finally, when your super sweet digital voice recorder arrives you are all better and chomping at the bit to get back into the field.

Note to self: Next time, bring a raincoat.

Cultural awareness

My husband, Dr. Cuy, sent me this little gem. I especially love the culturally sensitive comments at the end.