Fishbowl

Lately, I have having a lot of fun writing my papers. Last week I finished a 15 page paper analyzing a case study of a particular community development strategy. I chose myregion.org's "How Shall We Grow?" as an example of "community visioning".

I wrote the paper pretty fast, I surprised myself even. I think the reasons that organizing ideas and writing them down in a coherent format is coming to me easier now are, 1) practice (of course), and 2) I try to look at the task as a creative one. Sort of like creative writing, or composing a song. In my high school years, I put a lot of time into playing guitar and writing and recording multi-track, multi-instrument songs. It may seem strange, but when I am writing a paper or envisioning the outline and how my sources relate to the points I make and to one another, I am reminded (a feeling) of writing songs, of hearing how the parts of the song fit together in my head and then attempting to make it come out on cassette tape (this was in the mid-1990's, before CD burners were widespread) the way I heard it in my head. I feel the same pride (or frustration) in a well-composed paper that I used to feel in a gem of a song.

Lately, I have thought a lot about how playing music in my youth helped me to "get along" in the emotional malaise that characterized those years. I have wondered if I shouldn't take it up again. But perhaps research and writing ("written art", though neither poetry or prose) is my new creative outlet. I don't have much time anymore for playing music now that I am in school, married, working full-time, etc. But I have to make time every week for writing (for class). How convenient?

Posted by Brian at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Becoming confident in a field is related to identifying with the field, its objectives, its vision - being proud of being a part of it.

Posted by Brian at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March was light on commentary, but heavy on reading and writing. To my surprise, I wrote a 12 page paper in just a few days. Well-written, too, in my judgment. I have another paper, same length, due this week. I also need to make a PowerPoint presentation to present during class next Monday. The audio will be pre-recorded into the document. I think it will be strange viewing my own presentation, broadcast live over the Internet to my classmates, listening to my own voice in the same way I listen to the professor's every Monday. Anyway...

I am pretty proud of my work thus far this semester. I wrote a paper about a local GLBT organization. The professor gave positive comments. I also sent it to the person I interviewed from that organization and she seemed to like it as well.

In order to allow myself time to work on my paper/presentation this week, I did most of my regular homework from this week, last week. I was surprised I did all of that. Let's hope it will help. I have not done squat for my paper yet.

I guess I am fishing for things to blog about. So I will go now.

Posted by Brian at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the last streaming lecture I watched, the professor made a comment that he thought most or even all of us (i.e. me and my classmates) are already practitioners in our field of study. I am not, and hearing this kind of dampened my mood that evening. I knew going into the program that it was intended more for professionals seeking in-career development, rather than fresh undergrads or people seeking a career change (that's me). Doing the coursework is challenging for me, because I do not have the real-world experience in helping communities, designing and implementing public programs, etc. that my classmates have. Also, I go to work and do stuff that it entirely unrelated to my coursework. There is no overlap. Sometimes I wonder if I would have more free time if I had a job that related to my coursework, and so I could effectively "do homework" on the job: research related to current projects, speaking informally with colleagues about class assignments and topics. Working full-time and going to school part-time is very disruptive for the rest of your life. I try to confine homework to week nights so that my weekends are free to spend quality time with my wife, run errands, do chores, etc. But this is problematic because sometimes, quite frankly, these things cannot wait until Saturday or Sunday. I do not even have children and I still feel overwhelmed sometimes. I would recommend to anyone considering enrolling in a program like the one I am in to start seeking a job within your chosen field of study. If you cannot (because of qualifications, like having a specialized degree!), then try to network in that career community in other ways – go to conferences, volunteer in that sector, keep current on events and trends in the field, etc. I have my tickets booked to attend the Community Development Society this year. I am hoping this will be an opportunity to start getting a "leg in" to a career in community development. We'll see.

Posted by Brian at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been tossing around ideas in my head on how to combine my passion for history, genealogy and culture with a career in communtiy development and urban planning. For example, using prosopographical or genealogical research to understand the power relations within and between communities and stakeholders. I am thinking along the lines of "applied genealogy", in the same spirit as "applied anthropology" – i.e. research undertaken and applied in the service of bettering communities and people's lives. If I could do this, I would really enjoy my job. Really. I wonder sometimes though if it will be practical to combine genealogy, history, anthropology with the everyday practice of community development and urban planning. That is when I think maybe I should choose a career in academia instead of in public or private practice. It is theories and research problems that I enjoy, not solving everyday problems and interacting with community stakeholders, playing politics, etc. But this activity is surely a part of academia, too. What to do. What to do.

Posted by Brian at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The reason I enrolled in this program was because, essentially, I wanted to become a city planner. I wanted to become a city planner because I wanted to have a role in changing the way my society, culture, country and planet live. To improve the quality of life. Locally, for me, that means "reducing sprawl" and creating "livable public spaces". The New Urbanism first peaked my interest in this career. As did my memories and current experiences of living in the vast, pseudo-urban landscapes of Orlando and Tampa. My experiences living in spaces that I considered very livable (Chicago and the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands) also set me on this path.

I tuned into the streaming lecture for my class last night. The professor's daughter was substituting. She talked about "Third Places", places like coffee shops, pubs and central squares where people interact outside of a home or work setting. She showed a list of books and articles that dealt with this phenomenon. After a semester and a half of reading mostly boring material that does not give any sense of direction, any theoretical framework with which to analyze my situation, this was refreshing. It reminded me that I need to remember why I enrolled in this program. That is what will keep me going through it. Once again, this underlies the importance of reading outside material.

I have believed for a long time that real learning does not happen in a classroom or come from assigned material. For me, the real learning happened when I went to the library to look something up from class and followed the thread of my curiosity wherever it took me. Those are the times I remember the best from my undergraduate days because those are the times that I grew…intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.

Posted by Brian at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From: Mark H. Rossman. (2002). Negotiating Graduate School, Second Edition. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA.

"...times come when you are faced with situations over which you can exert little or no control, such as not knowing what material to study for the final exam or what will be on the comprehsneive exam, sitting through a terribly boring course with an instructor who rambles on forever, or working in isolation on online courses" (p. 43).

..and...

"Graduate students constantly face uncertainties commonly associated wth almost every graduate program that ever existed" (p. 42).

Sometimes I just feel so uninterested in what I am reading. It sounds like the same thing, over and over and over again. The same vague, nebulous concepts that pass for theory. How can I possibly use this to help me get a job in my field? These concepts are so booooring! It is not that I don't like the field of community development. I agree with the principles of it, as opposed to the top down approach of traditional planning, wholeheartedly. I just think that I would make a better technocrat than I would a community organizer. Being a community organizer requires building relationships, something at which I am inadept, and always have been. How to overcome this?

Posted by Brian at 09:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am a little upset right now because my first paper for one of my classes is due sometime tomorrow. I have not started it. Not that I don’t want to though. The only guidance that I have found on the class website is a single sentence! I don’t know how long or short the paper should be. Unlike many of my classmates, I am not a professional in this field and I don’t have any life experiences that I can pull out and start writing about competently.

If there was any guidance on Paper 1 in the streaming lecture from Monday I do not know about it. I missed the live broadcast, it is not archived at the website and my DVD copy has not arrived in the mail yet.

I noticed that the discussion boards are lagging the past week. I don’t know if this means my classmates are busy writing their papers or are as disoriented and frustrated as I am. Sometimes it’s as if there is no instructor for the course. Aside from lectures (which, as I mentioned, I cannot also view), and one email response, I have not seen/heard from him. I do not recall that he has posted feedback to our discussion board comments.

I emailed him just a few minutes ago with my questions about Paper 1. Hopefully his response will come before tomorrow (even though the syllabus states he will respond within 48 hours) so I can finish my paper in time.

We’ll see.

Posted by Brian at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While for looking for random material relevant to my field of study (Community Development), I came across an article titled "The Myth of Social Capital in Community Development" by James DeFilippis. It caught my attention because "social capital" (as one of the 7 or so "community capitals") is one of those concepts that is central to nearly everything I have read in my courses thus far (those being, Community Development I & II and Community and Natural Resources Management). In these classes, I cannot recall ever reading critiques or hearing criticism from the professor(s) about this concept, so I have never seriously entertained doubt as to their validity. The concepts have always been a little conceptually "fuzzy" to me, but I attributed this to my unfamiliarity with them, assuming that as I matured in the discipline I would internalize them and come to understand them better.

Is understanding a concept merely internalizing the logic that underlies that concept? Or does it involve re-shaping the concept so that it fits into your own dominant logic? Whatever the case, James DeFilippis' article reminded me that I need not be uncritical of any theory, concept, even any fact, that is presented to me in class, especially in the kind "social sciences" classes that comprise my program of study.

Sometimes it all seems too easy, even if I don't always understand what I am reading, that I can't believe I am spending thousands of dollars on classes and books to learn about it. If it seems too easy, it probably is. And if it probably is too easy, I am probably doing something wrong. I have always believed in "independent learning" and seeking out answers in seemingly non-relevant sources. That is the source of "eureka moments" – or call it a Zen moment, with all the connotations of mystical enlightenment and humorous wisdom that it holds for someone like me.

It is the source of real learning. So make time for it.

Posted by Brian at 02:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...My name is Brian. I work in the legal field doing "conflicts analysis", which just means helping attorneys determine whether a conflict-of-interest might prevent them from taking on a case. I am a fish in a bowl right now. By that I mean that I am removed from my natural environment, an environment that I have never actually experienced (like a fish born in a bowl, if you will). I received my undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of South Florida. As you can imagine, my current job has nothing to do with my education. This can be frustrating and is one of the reasons I chose to enroll in the distance degree program in Community Development at Iowa State. Just as a fish belongs in the ocean, my “natural environment” is learning about and working to better the society in which I live. And like the fish born in a bowl, I have not yet experienced this type of environment. This, of course, is where the degree in Community Development will come in handy. In two years, give or take a semester, I hope to flop over the edge of the fishbowl and into the vast ocean that is the rest of my life. This semester (Spring 2007) will be my second semester in the program. My first semester was a sometimes frustrating mixture of the expected and the unexpected. I consider myself a good student. I do not procrastinate (much) and I do my readings, sometimes extra reading so that I understand the material more fully. But I did not foresee how easy it is to fall behind. Even postponing one assignment a few days can send the most organized mind into a spin. I learned to maintain a detailed list of homework items in a spreadsheet, graying-out each item after it was completed. I also found a way to organize my time so that my personal and work lives do not suffer. I decided early in the first semester that my weekends would be homework-free. While I have, out of necessity, not held strictly to this it has helped to push me to get my homework done and submitted on time. My self-pride hurts to admit it, but the online learning environment is more of a challenge than I first thought it would be. By contrast, something I did foresee was the ease with which I could communicate with my classmates and instructors. I am not a talkative person and in undergraduate classes I rarely participated in class discussions. But online I feel free to give my opinions, be they off-the-cuff and naïve or studied and well-worded. I am helped in this by the openness and friendliness of my classmates, many of whom are already professionals in our field of study. I think I have learned as much from the dialogue between classmates as I have from the instructor and the assigned material. I do not believe this would have happened for me in a traditional classroom. In fact, were it not for the untraditional format of distance learning through which Iowa State offers this degree, I would probably be even further away from my goal of leaving the fishbowl of “conflicts analysis”. Cheesy metaphors aside, I sincerely feel that my participation in this program will change my life for the better. I am 30. I am over working temporary jobs, dissatisfied with the euphemistic status quo that I call my career and tired of identifying myself as a “conflicts specialist”. I am ready for something else.

Posted by Brian at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)