After spending a summer doing interviews with people who have recently moved, my head feels like a melon filled with puzzles that I will never solve and patterns that I will never be able to uncover. I am humbled by Genevieve and scores of other qualitative researchers who are able to process information and see patterns in small sets of different interviews... who are able to see profound things in personal stories. Ine a way, I almost feel handicapped by my very much quantitative background.
I am done interviewing... this is probably an important moment, but I can only think of a headache that I got from my last interview - it was wonderful as an experience, but every interview requires so much concentration and so much attention that it really takes a toll on me, especially if I am already tired and hungry when I arrive. Then I feel like I suddenly start missing pieces and I panic...
Tomorrow I get to give a talk that integrates everything together. How, I haven't figured out yet... I can't see patterns, I don't have a coherent whole neatly laid out, sown together from the 11 interviews I've done in a month and a week. I feel like I am too close, like I haven't had time to step back yet... I need to talk about this with people, bounce ideas off, play with thoughts. Unfortunately, I doubt that will happen as I have to go back to the icy castle of CMU, where few people would care... I had a great time here in Oregon though, I need to remember what that felt like.
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