I have been involved with my field site, the Bloomington Community Orchard, for years, but this is the first summer where attendance at work & learn days, when their volunteers gather to do site maintenance, has been my top priority. This week, when temperatures hovered around 90 degrees Fahrenheit with oppressive humidity, I struggled to claw my way back out of the house & over to the Orchard. Within minutes, my body was tired. I was flailing & fading. My back ached, & the fabric of my shirt clung to it, heavy with sweat & humidity.
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I previously posted about trying to pack as much of my "equipment" into one device as possible. I mentioned that this doubles as an effort to save both materials and, more important in the short term as a graduate student, cash. Getting ready to do fieldwork and playing around in the apps, I became really frustrated. Basically, the Internet doesn't want to give me endless recording options without making me pay. Understandable. So, I've started a list of other applications I think would be great for researchers doing field work while I continue my search for the best voice recorder for the least cost.
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When I received the Odland scholarship to support my fieldwork this summer, I knew I needed to make the entire trip to Berea fit into that budget. I also knew that I wanted to see how much of my life I could bring with me--and here, I mean my daily practices and my eating habits. I try to live as simply as possible, consuming as few resources (particularly water, plastics, and foods from outside my local community) as possible.
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