Texas, Detroit, Friend Visits, Summertime, and Beyond (Summer Review in Parts)

The last few weeks I've been having that feeling of "I don't want to write" which means I've been disengaged with my reading and writing. This isn't necessarily bad, it just means that my practice in writing, particularly for my blog, has been on hiatus. And now July is almost done and I haven't written barely anything about the first half of the month. And it was a wonderful and interesting first few weeks of July for sure. I'll first begin with my trip to Texas.

About two weeks after I returned from the Netherlands, I took a trip to College Station, TX to Texas A&M, aka AGGIELAND. I went there initially to present a paper I had written with my previous faculty advisor at Seattle University and another former student from my master's program. It was a great opportunity to present at a different kind of academic summit, and also gather some data. I decided a few months before I went to the summit that attending would be a great chance to collect some data because I will be taking a qualitative methods class in the fall and I want to be ready with a project already started. I was incredibly nervous, to say the least. Even though everyone there knew I would be doing what is called a "participant observation" I was so nervous! I had to both participate and scribble down notes and record everything at the same time (and remain ready to answer questions). It was indeed intimidating. But now I have hours, HOURS of data. And I will be transcribing for triple the amount of hours I recorded.

In addition to the presentation and research project, I was able to partake in some seriously good barbecue, and also see some new birds! (Scissor tailed fly-catcher, great tailed grackle, and brown thrasher).

BBQ dinner, the 'Merica flag at the Bush School of Public Policy, and Khanh, Maureen and I
in the super hot summer sun.