Coincidence.

So, here I am, just trying to do my homework like a good little student.  However, I was just assaulted by a massive coincidence while reading one of our chapters for tomorrow, so I think that's sign that I should write this post.

If you've been following my blog since the beginning, you know the origins of my title, "Initial Impressions." For those of you who haven't been and are too lazy to scroll down, I'll give a little recap.  There's a quote from this novel called The Locket that has always stuck with me: "...the initial impressions we accept of others are usually as flawed as the one we seek to project."

Well, this week we're learning about the basics of researching and actually putting ourselves into the field to study and start developing researching questions based on our observations.  We've all started field notebooks.  This article I'm reading now gives very detailed instruction on how to take notes and what your notes should reflect and right there on page 26 it says, "First, ethonographers should take note of their initial impressions." I didn't add the italics.  Kinda blew my mind for a minute.  I'm really overwhelmed with the prospect of this project. I have a ton of ideas, but I'm not sure if any of them are good and doable or logical even.  But it makes me feel a little better that I'm at least doing the first step haha.

We had our first day of class today! It went really well.  Total, it was somewhere between five to six hours.  We go to the university for three hours in the morning, and have class with the Bolivian students, who were all incredibly nice. They all speak English really well, but they're really willing to speak Spanish with us all the time and help us out. I noticed today that my thoughts are coming out a lot easier. We just spoke with our housekeeper, Fortunada, for about ten minutes.  She brought in an adorable dog and we played with him for awhile.  She's great to talk to, really interesting, very amicable, and relatively easy to understand. Even if I don't get every word, I can always get the gist of what she's saying.  During the break in the morning, we all had our first taste of salteñas.  They are very tasty but very difficult to eat haha. They're crimped like empanadas, but on the top instead of the side. And they have a lot of juice, so you have to bite the top off and then attempt to suck out all the juice without it dripping all over you.  Needless to say, I was unsuccessful at this task haha.

We ate at this pizza place for lunch.  That's one thing I've noticed that I don't understand. There are several Italian food places, well pizza and pasta places, but there aren't any Italians. Lots of immigrants from other parts of Europe, but Bolivia has never had a history of significant immigration from Italy. So I dunno whaddupwitdat (@Colby Woods).  After the pizza, we went to this place across the street that has ice cream, because Sarita wanted some.  The girl working the counter starting telling us she was taking English classes and speaking to us in English. She said she wanted to go to America, and then she asked us what our culture was like.  Emily, Sarah, and I just kinda looked at each other.  We were stumped, and then we tried to explain that cultures differ greatly in different regions of the states.  That was quite clearly a foreign concept.  We could see that the other night at one of the museums too. There was a band playing in the courtyard.  They were a popular band, but they started by playing songs that everyone knew and everyone knew the dances to.  It was incredible to see all these people, all different ages, some in indigenous dress, some dressed modernly, all singing and dancing to the same songs.  I can't think of anything like that in America, except maybe the national anthem.  And that doesn't have a dance. That I know of.

I should probably go do my other reading now. And write in my field notebook. And my journal.  Its getting kind of difficult to separate all of my writing haha.  Also, I'm supposed to somehow link this to the group's Tumblr account, but I'm Tumblr illiterate. I spent like half an hour trying to figure it out earlier, and all I did was successfully create a individual (blank) page.  The last thing I need is another place to write my thoughts haha.