Whew! What a ride …

Well, as of seven minutes ago, my semester officially concluded! I’m finding it incredibly difficult to construct a group of words, let alone a deeply profound thought at the moment so I will stray from the norm and keep things short and concise for once:

Thank you everyone for such an amazing semester! What could have easily become a tedious and monotonous class developed into something much more, well, let’s just say it was an incredibly creative ride. I sincerely enjoyed watching everyone’s presentations and eagerly anticipate seeing what they blossom into at the completion of creative inquiry. I can honestly say I’ve never felt so liberated while working through the process of creating an academic assignment before. Below I’ve entered the link to my final project. Enjoy!

www.millijacobs.wordpress.com

 

Our varied voices

We all speak with varied voices. What is important is that we use voices that are honest to where we are in life. Thats something I’ve been learning a lot about lately, so when I stubled upon this website, put together by one of my favorite musicians, I felt knew it was something I wanted to share with all of you

Dust Jacket Project

Each persons work here represents (hopefully) and honest and creative way of expressing where they are in their lives at a given point. I really love this idea, it drips of integrity to me. I wanted to be sure I could share it with all of you.

Final Project, Invisible Children’s At Listening to the Marginalized Voice

http://knowournames.wordpress.com/

For my final project I created a blog entitled “Know Our Names”. It’s called know our names because there are thousands of stories that exist out there, each one belonging to people who have names. Often we forget that fact, that each statistic is a collection of real people. To say that thousands die each day from treatable diseases like malaria doesn’t do justice to the fact that Okello, and Mariana and Marideth died today because they couldn’t afford a net to put over their bed. 

What happens when we forget that these people have names is truly tragic and it turns development work into cost benefit analysis. A good way to know whether or not an organization is truly and effectively helping the people the claim to be helping is to measure the level to which they listen to the marginalized voices in that community. For my final project I interviewed three employees of Invisible Children to find out how they try to listen to those voices and presented my info in the form of a blog. 

I tried to focus on creating a succinct blog that aptly demonstrated the importance of listening to marginalized communities. My hope was that I would create something that was not overloaded with academic info, but did have enough to created a basic argument for why it was important to listen to marginalized voices. I spent the bulk of my time trying to find the best points that the people I interviewed made about their experience in development work. Much of what I found backed up the research I had done, and some of the info I found surprised me. 

If after looking at my blog, you feel a greater sense of need to not only be more involved in development work, but also to be very careful when you do, then I would say it was effective. Of course the blog needs to have sound argument tied into it, but what is truly important to me is that it is a creative and intriguing explanation of a communication issue that deserves much attention.  

You can find the blog by clicking here- Know Our Names

True Life!

One of my favorite shows is True Life (on MTV). It’s a series of documentaries that follow people such as cheerleaders, people who want the perfect body, people who lead a double life, people who cheat, etc. It’s sort of like an ethnography in that these camera people emerge themselves in their lives (except they don’t really fit in seeing as how they have these huge cameras and equipment) but they don’t make comments on their lives either way.

It’s also hard to believe these people can act like their complete true selves because they are in front of a camera the whole time. I think I like this show because I’m a reality show junkie. I love normal television shows but reality tv is more like real life because it’s not scripted…okay now I’m just stating the obvious.

Another thing I love is the follow up after the show. They talk about the people they were talking about a certain time after the show was taped like, “The two are still in a relationship.” I think all ethnographies should include follow ups because it’d make it a lot more interesting.

Project

If someone would have told me in high school that I would be doing my senior project in college on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” I would have laughed in their faces. Okay, that’s a trite expression, but still. I think that before coming to college we all have this idea of what it’s supposed to be like. Mean, sarcastic teachers that try to humiliate you, a workload that is impossible to do, and being just another faceless student in a classroom.

I was actually surprised when I came to Clemson and sat in a regular classroom and had a class very similar to my high school classes the first week. I was a little mad at my high school teachers, as well, because they did try their best to scare us. But maybe those ideas we have of college come from television shows and movies (Buffy was another faceless student in some of her classes) because that’s what the writers assume it’ll be like, or that’s what the majority of major colleges will be like.

Regardless, I like the personal level of Clemson, and I love that Dr. V tries so hard not to be like any of the other teachers. Completing the comic book of Buffy was one of the most rewarding projects, and I hope she sees it that way, too.

Tera’s Final Project Link

Hey! I just wanted to post the link to my final project for everyone.

Look around, feel free to comment and add your input!

http://terarclem1.wordpress.com

Participant Observation Without Realizing It

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, I found myself in the crisp mountain air that flows into Charlottesville, VA at UVA.  I was there for the Clemson/UVA football game that afternoon and then was driving over to Richmond after it was through.  I was excited to see some of my friends and family at the game, with Charlottesville being just over an hour from my hometown. 

It was the last home football game for the year there and at UVA, that is known as the “fourth year fifth” where fourth years (seniors) try to consume a fifth of alcohol before the game.  The school tries to control this by putting the game at noon so the students do not have all day to get sloshed.  However, I found that that still did not stop everyone…

I arrived at about 10:30 for the noon game and my friends were just waking up.  They got dressed and we went to another person’s house where those students had been up since 6, just to participate in this subcultural phenomenon that is the fourth year fifth.  I found myself turning into qualitative researcher without realizing it, asking those who were sober (and some who weren’t) what this fascination of getting wasted at 6 AM was all about.

The students responded that it was something that had been earned through the 4 years of hard study at the prestigious college, known for its intense academic curriculum.  Since the fourth years were also over 21 by now, it was a celebration of being old enough to drink and going over and beyond to relish that fact.  It was also a celebration of the last home game of the season, and for many fourth years, the last home game of their time as an undergraduate at UVA; a bit of a farewell party if you will.

Later, my friends and I departed for the stadium, which was clad with blue and orange all over, and a number of those orange shirts were Clemson fans!  The football game itself was pretty poorly played with a low score at the end, but I became more intrigued by the fourth years in the student section, being loud and happy at the site of their team losing one more time.  They didn’t care; this was their last game and they were going to live it up.

Before leaving the game, I went up to meet some other neighbors from home – two sisters who one had graduated UVA already and one was still attending as a third year.  I asked each of them, one who had experienced it and one who had not, what the big deal with the fourth year fifth was.  The older sister said it was just a little thing that is done “just because you’re a senior,” and had simply become a tradition to be honored.  The younger sister said that the younger students just sort of acknowledge that it is going on and go about their business.

In the end, I might have been making a mountain out of a molehill, but I was curious about this event that was going on around me that day in Charlottesville.  I was effectively being a participant observer (I didn’t drink the fifth but had a beer or two to help me gain access to those I was observing) and gained new social knowledge by the day’s end.

How Important a Vantage Point is: I finally see the light!

This semester as we were learning about doing proper qualitative analysis, our professor, Dr. V., stressed how important establishing a vantage point was.  At the time, I really thought it was not as big of a deal as she was making it out to be.  However, I just came back from my English 414 final and have to say that I was wrong to diminish the importance of a vantage point.

English 414 here at Clemson is a class entirely devoted to the author John Milton and his works.  What they don’t tell you in the class title is that there is an extensive portion of reading of his contemporaries’ works.  The argument for many readers of this 17th century British author, which was reiterated on my final this morning, is that John Milton is extremely dry and writes in a dead language.  What these readers do not understand is John Milton’s vantage point, which when a reader has a grasp on can see the vibrant messages that the author brings to the page concerning government, politics and human relationships.

By studying so many of his contemporaries and learning about the historical climate of 17th century England, our class was able to understand John Milton’s vantage point.  Once we had this knowledge, we finally began reading Milton’s works and had a toolset of how to read his famous writings properly.  Looking back, I know I would not have taken away significant lessons and messages from the works of Milton if I had not understood his vantage point and for that, I must apologize for ever doubting and underestimating the importance of a vantage point.

Falling Whistles

I’ve been doing my research on Invisible Children this semester… The experience has reenforced a lot of ideas that I had assumed to be true. One of those ideas leans on the power of story telling in changing the lives not only of people living in Africa, but the lives of Americans as well. This is a fundamental principle of Invisible Children and there are others who are starting to catch on. 

The most recent example I’ve come across comes from the story of a friend, activist, and former assistant to Jean Paul DeJorio (Fig. 1), Sean Carasso. Sean had the opportunity to spend three months in the Democratic Republic of the Congo last year looking for the story of children who had been victims of one of the longest running civil wars in Africa. 

Sean’s story is compelling to say the least. Once he arrived he quickly built a relationship with a group of boys he met that were being held in a dingy prison. They were in prison because of their involvement in the civil war. They were “soldiers” in the sense that they had been taken from their homes and forced at gun point to fight in a war they had no personal investment in. Soldiers… War criminals?

He spent hours with them, listening to their stories and, hanging on every word, finding out what had lead them to this place. 15 years old, standing all night long in a prison camp. Not long before their conversation with Sean, the boys had been taken from their homes and were taught to fight… sort of… In stead of being given guns though, they were given whistles and were told that if they had enough faith, the bullets wouldn’t harm them. They blazed trails with their whistles while their friends who didn’t have enough faith stayed behind, casualties of their great grand parents war, stacked to one on top of the other, side by side, to make proper barriers from the bullets for the rebel leaders. One has to ask where the leaders are placing their faith. 

Compelled to not just leave these boys in his past, as characters in a crazy story, Sean decided to write a book about his experience, which ultimately lead to day with the charismatic rebel leader who was responsible for the boys abduction. Now he is working on programs that will take the resources that are raised by the book sales and place them back into the hands if victims. In this way Sean is giving youth in the Congo what they need to live and youth in America what they need to live for. By sharing their story, he is bringing other people into their lived experience and in so doing, makes the world a smaller more connected place. Sean is changing the world by telling the story of people who’s voices are on mute and encourages us to do the same.

If you want to find out more about what Sean and his friends are doing to help the boys they met, and lots of kids like them, check out FallingWhistles.com. The site is still under construction, but it does have the first chapter of the book on it. I recomend reading it because he’s way better at writing than I am, plus he actually went through the experience. No doubt that he is a better source than me.

(Fig. 1)

My walk around Clemson

Sunday afternoons in Clemson are usually a boring time for me. The activities of the weekend have commenced, the pending school week is looming over my head, and the last things I want to do are school work or stay in my dorm room (yes, I’m a junior and still live on the Quad)…so I get this extreme sense of boredom. I usually drive out to see my friends who live at the Retreat but they are always doing school work and are no fun…after unsuccessful attempts at getting them to go on a walk with me, I resort to going on a walk or run by myself (sounds fun, doesn’t it?). It’s usually not the most fun part of my week but it definitely gives me a chance to think to myself. I either walk around Perimeter or go to the dike and look out onto the drought-laden Lake Hartwell and watch the sun set. Sounds pitiful, doesn’t it ha?!

Last Sunday was the last time that I would do this walk for a while since I am going abroad next semester. This made it a somewhat bittersweet walk that time. As I walked around Perimeter I really took in the sites of Clemson and the feeling that I get when I am here. It really is a special class and I think I have taken for granted lately how lucky I am to be here. This past fall I have spent so much time planning my trip abroad, getting all the details worked out, and thinking about the future, that I have not stopped to think how fortunate I am to be at Clemson right now. My walk made me realize the quaintness of Clemson and what a good college town it is. Waking by the Fiesta Grill parking lot made me recall all the fun times I have had tailgating at “Explorers”. The next time I am back in Clemson will be football season again–how nice! As I’ve walked around the campus lately I’ve also taken in the architecture that makes Clemson unique. Tillman, the bell in the Carillion Gardens, the amphitheater that serves so many diverse purposes such as an ice skating rink, Death Valley stadium, our little downtown, etc. etc. I know that no matter where I end up after college or where my life takes me that I will always have Clemson to come back to. It is a special place to me eventhough at times I get bored with the repetitiveness of days at college. Before I know it I will be looking back and longing to have another boring Sunday where the only thing I have to worry about is how to entertain myself for the afternoon

I hope everyone realizes how lucky we are to attend this great institution and that you will always cherish Clemson in your hearts no matter where your life leads you…

I have really enjoyed reading everyone’s posts on this “Super” blog, as Rich calls it!

Merry Christmas,

Maddin