I have a few thoughts concerning what we talked about it class today. For one thing I am grateful that Spanish does not seem to be quite such a complicated language as Tamil- however, I'm sure that it comes with it's complications. I was thinking about my own Spanish and while I am not fluent in it by any means- I can get by here. However, I'm sure that there is lingo that I can't learn here and I will only hear when I get there. I was thinking aboput that article that we skimmed over in class- where different groups of people had different language that they used and the researcher, without knowing what those words or phrases meant could get really lost. Already I know that there will be times that I get lost just because it is in Spanish- but I'm sure that there will be other times when someone uses a word that I've never heard before that no one uses anywhere else. I know that this happened to me quite a bit on my mission and sometimes it could be quite frustrating. I think what helped me the most was when I wasn't shy about asking for clarification- I had to be careful because sometimes people weren't patient with me- but for the most part if I didn't try to pretend like I understood but I respectfully told them that I didn't understand- things went a lot better. In addition, I had to be patient with myself. that is pretty key.
I was also thinking about some of the suggestions that I was given from my journal entries on how I am going to cope with misunderstandings that occur. Right now I don't really have a great answer. I think one thing that is important is again- patience. I need to be patient with myself and with the people that I'm with. I have to make sure that I don't get mad or offended- I don't feel like I'm the type to do this anyway. I also have to not get frustrated to the point that I don't want to continue or work through it. Taking it with the attitude of "this is a learning experience" rather than a "this isn't what I thought it would be" attitude can make a big difference when in the middle of turbulence.
I have one more thought- I have had issues with whether to do a questionnaire or not. I talked to Amy- she likes the questionnaires and didn't think that they took up too much time. I do think that they can be a good way to take into account more of the cultural aspects of physical activity and health in Mexico. However, looking at the questionnaire- I can see that it is probably not the best anyway. So regardless of whether I use the questionnaire or not for the study, I think that it is important to make observations and take notes regarding physical activity in Mexico in order to draw my own conclusions as to why they might have the posture or body composition that they do. I'm not sure how it will fit into my project- or even if it will- but I feel that the information that I gather could help us modify or tailor the project a little better to whatever locations we might go to mext. It could also bring up ideas or questions that we hadn't really thought of before.
So I'm not sure exactly how I will do this, but it is something that I am going to think about a bit in order to make sure that my project is looking at as many aspects as possible and not just those physical aspects contained within the study.
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