Return of Weekly Posts!

[rax]

• I am currently in the Seattle airport; in 20 minutes or so I get on a plane to Portland, and fly to Houston, and then fly to Indianapolis. Then I take a 90-minute bus ride home. Ah, my life. <3
• Early this morning, I packed out of the furry commune where I was doing ethnographic research for the last three days. I decided my motto was "Take nothing but fieldnotes, leave nothing but consent forms." (I also took some vegan corn muffins, though.) It is also true that I spent the last three days at my boyfriend's house, but it is a furry commune and I did do ethnographic research and that sounds so much cooler. The process of having my boyfriend being one of my ins into this community is really interesting; I mean, yes, I'm a furry myself, but my practices are very different from many of the people I've been talking to, and I wouldn't have had the ability to talk to them if it weren't for the specifics of my being embedded in the community through romantic relationships. It will be an interesting thing to write about at some point, although right now I am trying not to do too much "me-search" in my research, and the stuff I am finding that has nothing to do with me is way more interesting anyway.
• I am done with all of my classes for the semester. YESSSSSSSSSSSSS. I am not as thrilled with my final projects as I would have liked to be; one paper in particular I know that if I had read books X, Y, and Z I would have been able to make it even better, but I got up to book W and was exhausted and decided "You know what? I think this will be OK." I may read book Y on the plane, so this is still something I can work on. it's just... I like to hand in things that are perfect, you know? Not that this ever happens, and this tendency totally prevents me from ever submitting anything anywhere. So I need to get over it.
• Conveniently, the paper resulting from my ethnographic research is getting submitted to a conference next week. I am not sure how to spin it yet; it's a conference about queer fashion. I guess I play up the fursuit angle a bit more? But I have a draft, and I am already thinking about how to integrate the seven interviews I did this week, and it's awesome, and I'm hoping to get it to a journal after that too. I hope. I think. Miao.
• In what may or may not be my gradual descent into fandom, I had to sign out of twitter yesterday to avoid spoilers for the new My Little Pony episode, which I'm not going to get to watch until tomorrow. I sort of looked at myself, and went, "Really?" Then I realized I was interviewing folks in a furry commune, said "Yes, really," and moved on with my life. <3 I'm really looking forward to the episode, though! I am hoping it ties up some loose ends. (Don't tell me.)
• Speaking of which, hi new friends from the My Little Pony LJ community! I unfortunately don't have any sort of introduction post, and I have to get on a plane in five minutes, but hopefully this gives you a general sense of what I do: Mostly academia, a bunch of job work that I usually don't talk to, some ponies or Pokemon or what have you. Oh and cats!!

Comments

[dreamsofpaprika.livejournal.com]

I wish I was done with all my classes. Oh well. Two more months and I'll be done forever till next year.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Wow, two whole months? That's a long semester. Good luck with the rest of it!

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Yay you finished your papers yay you win YAY!

<3

[niamy-tak.livejournal.com]

Hey there! I enjoyed the last MLP episode a lot! I won't spoil it for you though.

And I find the idea of doing research on furries really intriguing. It must be good studying something that really interests you!

[rax.livejournal.com]

I got to it last night, and it was pretty great. :)

It is great studying something I care about! Which explains why when my semester ended, rather than take a break, the very first thing I did was get on a plane to do more ethnographic research. It's a little tricky to negotiate my own relationship to the subject, since while I don't always do the same things as the folks I'm talking to, I do sort of have an agenda. On the other hand, people are willing to talk to me and tell me things that they wouldn't tell someone who wasn't, you know, a pink-haired furry wearing a shirt with a picture of a fox on it. Now I just need to convince academic journals that they should publish the work I'm doing...

[niamy-tak.livejournal.com]

trying to get it published? wicked.

And I think it's okay to have a bit of an agenda, you probably get more "inside info" and all. It think in a lot of ways being part of the community means your findings will be more accurate.

(also, pink hair. cool.)