Week 1

I am officially a graduate student!  I've just finished my first week at William and Mary, and I have to say, it was certainly fantastic.  I love my classes and the people in them.  We've actually all started to get to know each other because we spent the first hour and a half of both classes interviewing each other and introducing each other to everyone else in the class.  Here is a rundown of everything so far:

Monday

After presenting my in-depth project with my group in journalism, I packed up my car and drove to Williamsburg.  The only education-related thing that I did was meet with two of the Graduate Education Association (GEA) leadership girls, my roommate Ashley and another counseling student, Amanda, for dinner.  Did some unpacking and homework to get ready for class on Tuesday afternoon, and then it was time for bed.

Tuesday

Met everyone at orientation in the morning.  It was pretty long, but it was all valuable information, and I met some great kids.  My first class was in the afternoon, a research methods class.  Potentially boring, but the professor is really engaging and makes the course interesting.  He knows that most of us aren't math people, but we all have to understand this material.  I never realized how important research is to education.  In reality, research drives education.  What is the most effective way to teach a subject?  How do children of different ages learn?  How much rest do kids need during the day?  Should boys and girls learn in the same classrooms?  It's really interesting.  I met with my GA advisor afterwards and we talked through my projects for the summer.  It's SO great to be able to do research on something and use the skills that I have to make an impact.  And, then I went back to W&L to be an undergrad again.

Wednesday

Was rather proud of myself because I presented my anthro paper with minimal notes and minimal nervousness, I just kind of got up and spoke for 20 minutes.  I used to be really afraid of public speaking unless I was teaching something -- for example, in high school I was terrible at oral foreign language tests, but did fine when "teaching" a unit in one of my history or English classes.  It's something I've worked on a lot and know that I just need to keep practicing for when I'm a real teacher.  Anyway, my presentation made me feel great, and this feeling was further affirmed when I went to my first Foundations of Education class that afternoon.  The class is all about equipping us to understand ourselves as teachers and how we relate to the public school system, the community, and the teaching profession itself.  It's very reflective and our prof really makes us think about important issues.  He's very engaging, which is good for a class that meets 5:30-9:30 at night!  I don't think I got bored once.  And he brought us donuts :) as well as a sign-up sheet for everyone to bring in snacks, haha.  It's rather like a Bible study, just with the focus being teaching instead of the Bible.

Thursday

I spent the morning working on the anthro paper, and then went to Research Methods again in the afternoon.  Where Tuesday sparked interest in the subject that I figured would be boring, Thursday added an ambiguity that made me realize how difficult it is to define research.  We spent the first bit of class talking about qualities of good research questions and investigating research studies that appeared to be good on the surface, but really had fundamental flaws.  Then we spent about an hour or so in small groups working on research questions and discussing different steps.  I worked with the two other social studies ladies, Acadia and Sara, so that was fun.  I had never realized that defining research was such an undertaking!  The class is more challenging than expected, but the prof is really good at explaining.  Drove back to Lexington for the LOST finale, and all I have to say about that is ... wow.

Friday

Finished the in-depth project at 2:30!  Also turned in my anthro paper and did a lot of errands, like picking up my cap and gown.  Relaxed in the afternoon in the bliss of no more undergraduate work.  It's a beautiful thing.

And now I'm going back to Williamsburg, for the next few days, and then graduation.  God is good.  :)  I'm tired, and glad that I got through the crazy week.  Hopefully I'll have more time to blog now.

Journalism

One of my best friends got married yesterday.  I miss her already, but I'm so happy for her and her husband.  They're great.  :)  I have two more weddings to go to this summer, and I thought that I would be freaking out more about the fact that my friends are getting married, but I'm really not, because I know that it's right and I'm so happy for them.  Change is part of growing up, but that doesn't make it easy.  :)

Grad school starts on Tuesday!

Okay, so the point of this post: my journalism major.  I've spent the better part of the last five weeks working on my capstone project for my journalism major.  This has at times caused me great frustration.  The journalism school at W&L has professional majors (like me) complete a six week in-depth journalism project to show off the fact that we've actually learned something in the past four years.  Each group of four has a topic that we're supposed to investigate in current events and especially in how it relates to Rockbridge County.  This year's groups are looking at alternative energy, emergency management, the mortgage crisis, and senior care facilities.  I'm in the alternative energy group.  We are supposed to report on multiple aspects of the topic, culminating in 15-20 minutes of video for the broadcast component, four or five print stories, and a Web site to tie it all together with fun elements and such.  My role has mainly been to build this Web site, so I've spent a lot of time learning CSS, HTML, and Dreamweaver templates, as well as going on interviews and all that jazz.

This is a good way to culminate the major in a couple ways.  First, it allows us to look at a topic over a period of time and really get to know it.  This is how journalism is supposed to be.  Granted, getting the story out on deadline, especially if it's a big story, is very important.  I'm not disputing that.  However, I feel that a lot of problems in contemporary journalism could be solved if journalists just took the time to sit down and think about what they're doing, and not just take information for granted.  Second, contemporary journalism is no longer separated.  Broadcast, print, and Web journalists all work together and journalists need to be able to produce content for all platforms.  This is an integrated project that helps to utilize all of our journalism resources.  Third, lots of contemporary journalism is done in groups.  It's better for your story if you can get a range of opinions on how to present it ... this helps with objectivity, and creativity.

But there are some drawbacks to this capstone.  There's not much room here for people who want a journalism major but who aren't actually going to be journalists (like me).  Also, many of these topics are so big that they're hard to cover, even in such an in-depth fashion.  Groups also don't always get along, and that can really put strains on friendships.  The biggest thing, though, is that this is a spring term, the six weeks before graduation, class, and everyone really just wants to be done with it.  Even the kids who are going into journalism.

Either way, it's been an interesting class.  I'll be VERY happy when it's over, in the very near future, but it hasn't been a bad way to spend the last five weeks.  Regardless, I can't wait to go to Williamsburg tomorrow!

Winter Term 2008: Latin American Environmental History

I've been promising write-ups from my classes for the past five months, so here is the first in an installation, a write-up of Latin American Environmental History.

This class was fascinating because I got to study an area of interest that I hadn't yet studied in college (Latin America) in a way that I wouldn't have expected to study it (a focus on interactions with nature).  Environmental history can mean a lot of different things, but in this context, it refers to how people groups interact with an environment, and one another, over time through their lifestyle and how they use resources.  It can be measured in the ways that people groups treat one another geographically, how people groups trade commodities with one another, how people groups directly affect the environment through resource extraction or their living, etc.  It can really be interpreted in a lot of different ways: economically, politically, socially, culturally, religiously.

Why is this a good way to study Latin America?  Because many of the squabbles that people have about Latin America have to do with resource allocation (bananas, sugar, rubber, trees, etc), land distribution (Amazon Rainforest), and indigenous peoples (where they are allowed to live, what they are allowed to do, etc).

We looked at resource allocation and land use in these contexts over time, from pre-Columbian indigenous use to the coming of the Spanish and Portuguese to modern day Communist states.  A few things that struck me about our conversations were that most of the articles we read were written by so-called "Westerners," non-Latin-Americans.  Having family in Brazil, I felt that I had a unique perspective in understanding their point of view that the Amazon belongs to them and not to the world.  One perspective that I had not considered is the idea that a lot of members of the Global South have that we have no right over their environment just because we messed ours up -- they shouldn't have to change their consumption patterns because we didn't plan ours economically.  Now, there are debates on both sides, and I don't know which one I agree with more, but I can definitely see their point.

I was also struck by how many differing ideas there are about Latin American history and interpreting it.  A good way of looking at this is seeing where authors placed blame: on indigenous peoples, on the European conquerers, on Christianity, on governments (both colonial and modern), on capitalism, on communism, on the poor, on the rich ... I think every possible group of people was blamed somewhere in one of the articles we read, but the overarching blame was really placed on the Western world, especially the United States.

The thing that stood out the most to me is how our tastes and whims affect everyone else around the world.  This is especially visible right now with the use of corn ethanol.  Because we're using corn for fuel instead of food, thousands of people are starving worldwide because there is now a food shortage.  This isn't affecting us in the United States so much, but it's affecting developing nations to a large degree ... and corn ethanol isn't even that environmentally friendly ...

Anyway, this was a great way to look at history.  It provided a lens through which to look at events and really see why they matter.  I think one of the main reasons people don't like history is because they don't see why history matters.  Looking at history through a particular lens shows how history has affected people groups and continues to affect us today.  Every article that we read said something about Latin America in the past and Latin America in the present, and about the rest of us.  Understanding these truths about the past help us make more informed decisions for the future, and decisions that include the whole of creation, and that won't just benefit us, the Western Americans.

Forward motion

It's cliche, I know, but the coming of spring has always been one of my favorite times of year (despite the inevitable sniffles that accompany the pollen). Spring came in March in California, but in Virginia it doesn't come for real until April, and even then, you still get some winter weather. :) I think I like spring because it doesn't last very long. Everything is in full bloom for only a few weeks, but it's a lovely few weeks while it lasts. I haven't blogged much this spring because I had finals, and then spring break, and I've been back at school for the past two weeks but have been pretty busy with six spring term credits, registering for grad school credits, and arranging everything to move to Williamsburg.

My Caribbean cruise was everything I expected it to be. The seventeen of us had a delightful time, and we most certainly because "those kids." We were really the only college students on the cruise. I read through two books, ate way too much food, went swimming, saw some shows, and just generally had a great time. Could not have had a better senior year spring break.

Every day closer to May 26 and the start of grad school makes me anticipate this change more and more. I'm just really excited to see what God has in store for me in Williamsburg. I'm really excited about my classes, my jobs, my flat, my roommate, and just living in this historic area, and it's hard because I am not really that "into" either of the classes that I am taking right now. But I know that I will miss everyone here terribly.

Today was a good day. It was good to spend time with some of the people whom I will miss the most after leaving school. My past two weekends have been fantastic also, both at home. This past weekend I went home to support my Mom in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and the weekend before I went home for my grandfather's 80th birthday party. I got to see a LOT of family, so that was fantastic.

Things I am hoping to blog about in the near future:

1. Latin American environmental history
2. Remembering acts of God and Christ in worship
3. Anthropology and violence
4. Global church as the hope for the world
5. Jim Wallis' new book "The Great Awakening"