SURF Experiences Summer 2011

I am a little late with this blog, however I recently went to Lawson, Oklahoma a couple weeks ago for my research.  This was not originally planned when I first started my project, however it seemed to be a great resource in terms of getting new specimens in which I could prepare myself. We drove out on Friday (was a very long drive, about 16 hours!!) and on Saturday we got up bright and early and went to the Dolese Bros. Quarry.  The Vice President of the company and the Superintendent of the quarry assisted us and showed us where the best places to find our permian fossils would potentially be. Working started early since the temperatures in Oklahoma this summer have been highs of 112 degrees.

We started out slow, finding a leg bone or skull fragment here and there, but eventually we hit the motherload. We started finding vertebrate, squamosal, femur, humeri, etc. These were all found in the rock pile across from where we had began looking around. The superintendent of the quarry who was helping us, had the best find of the day…a fully in tact vertebrate of what we think may have belonged to Seymouria, which lived long before the dinosaurs and was a small reptile that roamed the Richards Spur locality. The piece is very remarkable and it was an exciting find for us all.

After a rewarding day, we found it was well worth enduring the heat and the 16 hour car ride. We ventured over to the Sam Noble Museum later in the afternoon, which we found quite impressive.  They had great geology and paleontology exhibits for all to enjoy. We also were eager to see the display on the Richards Spur locality. It was really well put together and we were intrigued at what the site we are researching used to look like during the Permian period. It is not the dry, dusty limestone quarry that we see today and the display showed the fissures, species, and bedrock in a remake of its original, ancient habitat.  At the end of the day, it was nice to know we were going back to Wisconsin with some quarry contacts, a good experience, and lots of bulk sample and preserved bones to sort through and prepare. I am looking forward to a busy semester preparing and sharing what I have found!

Well, folks, I met with an expert. He is the director of the Center of Journalism Ethics based out of UW-Madison, as well as the assistant editor of a periodical that focuses on issues of journalistic ethics.

Dr. Stephen Ward was kind enough to agree to meet with me to discuss both the methods used in my research and provide any information he thought would be helpful and relevant to my research project.

I must admit, I was a bit nervous going into this meeting, because some professors are intimidating and you never quite know what they’re going to think of you, but in the first 10 seconds of the meeting, I could tell the meeting would go smoothly and he would be a tremendous help.  The initial focus of our conversation was just on the history of political journalism and some of the ways it has changed in recent history.  In the time of John F. Kennedy, any aspect of a politician’s personal life was virtually untouchable to the news media.  It is a well-documented fact that JFK was regularly involved in extra-marital affairs and there is much speculation that he was addicted to painkillers.  In modern America, it would take probably less than a week for a blogger to catch wind of the story and if it were validated, major newspapers would be printing front page stories every day.  These days, every aspect of a politician’s life is interesting to the news media, even stories which some find not interesting.

When asked about this phenomenon, Ward explained that journalism should, in its purest form, minimize harm, but that there is certainly an economic component to all things media.  If writing a story about Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits, Sarah Palin’s hairdresser, or Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith will sell papers, it is difficult for a paper to reject such a story, particularly in a time when the print media in particular is struggling to stay afloat.

As for minimizing harm, Ward explained that the primary component of this rule is to minimize, NOT eliminate.  Most stories will cause some harm to someone, but minimizing that harm is critical.  Ward used the example of a gang informant sharing information on a bike gang. To reveal the identity of the informant may be interesting to readers, but it could also lead directly to bodily harm for that informant, thus, the story should be printed because the public should know, but to reveal the identity would be irresponsible.

We also discussed the candidates upon whom I have based my research and his first comment was simply on the sheer volume of news media dedicated to Sarah Palin, which took approximately 20 seconds of research to determine.  Palin has become a figure of sheer fascination to the press, which Ward believes in based somewhat in her “sexual” nature.  While Palin’s conservative ideology does set her apart, most would conclude that Palin is indeed an attractive woman, thus, more interesting to the public.  Ward also explained that this much coverage can be beneficial and that Palin has likely learned the best way to use this coverage to her advantage.  As for the other candidates, Hillary Clinton has long been a figure of interest, but she is also an intimidating woman.  She is also not new to the national political scene, and thus, somewhat less of a novelty than Palin, whose position as Alaska governor did not provide nearly the national stage of a former first lady and US Senator.

Ward, who is the author of global journalism expert, expressed great interest in the project, particularly because this type of research has not necessarily caught up with modern political figures and ideas.  Blogs, cable news, and constant wall-to-wall coverage, has changed the news, because in order to stay afloat, papers need to provide different substance than other sources, without violating the concept of what a newspaper should be.
I was planning on sharing some pictures with you from my adventure to Madison, but I have to be completely honest. I got very, very lost on campus.  If there were a way to teach someone how to have a sense of direction, I would pay a great sum of money for that opportunity. I thought it was probably better to find his office on time than to take pictures, but I can tell you that it’s a beautiful campus.  That being said, I still prefer Whitewater and its small town charm. 

I am planning on taking Dr. Ward up on his offer to continue providing support and information as my project evolves, as I’m sure it will long past the conclusion of this summer research experience.

Take care!

7 weeks later and I am now back home. It is amazing the difference that the dance program has made in the Land O’ Lakes Community. This last week was the last week of the second session and the students and families were not shy about expressing how thankful they were that they could be a part of the LOLA Summer Dance Program. I believe that helping to fulfill this task was a truly amazing and unique experience. Most of the time when you do something to make a change for the better, you don’t get the chance to hear the thank you’s and how much you made a difference, but that was not the case up in Land O’ Lakes. I received more acceptance and gratitude than I could have ever imagined and it makes me even more excited to make sure that the program is able to continue in years to come. Not only am I excited to keep it going for the community in northern Wisconsin, but  also to give more Whitewater students the opportunity to share and be part of the wonderful experience that I had. Barb and I have already talked to board members of LOLA on ways to keep the program going and possible funding/grants, but there is still much to do. The teaching aspect of the project is over for summer and now it is time to continue working on how to sustain such a program in a smaller community where there are limits on funding and monies. I have encountered several amazing people this summer that won’t be forgotten. I would like to end this blog by giving one more warm thank you to Seth for taking time to stop by class. It was great to see a familiar face and be able to talk afterward about different experiences. Hope you enjoyed the area! It is one that I hope to see again

Hm, Once again I tried to upload photos, but it is saying that it exceeds the amount of space for this site. Is anybody else having this problem?

I am sitting here at the school and am about to teach my last Monday/Wednesday classes for the summer. We have our final showings and I can tell the students are really excited. Now that I am nearing being in Land O’ Lakes for 7 weeks, I almost can’t believe it. I have met so many amazing people, got to know the town, and worked with such wonderful students who have challenged me to be the best I can be.  Two weeks ago, I participated in a powwow with Lawrence and Jackie and tomorrow morning I am heading out to the reservation to teach a jazz/hip hop workshop to anybody who is interested. I learned so much more about their culture and life than I could ever imagine and I am excited to offer them a free workshop to get them moving. I heard a rumor that within the next couple of nights that the northern lights might be coming out so I might try to check them out tonight down by the lake! I am so glad that I have been given this opportunity that I will never forget! Until next time!

Greetings Readers!

This week, in addition to the scrutiny of many newspaper articles, is all about expert input on my project and its various facets.  I will be meeting with some experts from different places, including two experts from Canada.

UW-Madison will be providing insight from two of its professors, both of whom are actually in the Department of Journalism.  Initially, I had expected to spend more time in Political Science offices, but in reality, much of my research has more to do with journalistic ethics and practices.

The Canadian experts actually appear most likely to provide the best information for the project.  Their specialty lies in gender bias in media, which has proven to be the turning point of this research project.

Just thought I’d provide a brief update (My goal to myself is to be better about blogging!).  Once I have more information from the experts, I will provide some more insight!
Thanks for reading!

This has been a fantastic month for my project, a good month for me (had a great Birthday on the 29^th) and I hope it has been for everyone else too. With that said the project continues to be a great experience. Thus far and looking very far forward even beyond summer. This project has brought a variety of things to my attention, including projects that I can do separately and as continuations throughout this year and further.  On to the posts below: 

(Backlog and catching up to speed)

My project in brief is about how changes to the interest rate of time deposits impact the demand of the certificates of deposit from financial institutions through elasticity. The literature required for the project has ranged greatly, although the literature in use can in general  be summarized to Elasticity (Supply and Demand studies), Time deposits, Currency studies, and a variety of  studies of goods (Commodities, inferior, superior). In addition much other literature was required for other regards (double checks and possible concerns) with the project.  The literature review has been extremely useful in nearly every way it could have been.

(Exert from Interm Report: By develop a literature review I’m referring to using sources available to find research and literature related to the project. Then reading to make sure that the literature found is relevant and understandable; followed by cataloging the articles with excel, and including brief summary of particular information in the article to quickly find articles. When gathering a lot of literature different articles may have very similar names, since a lot of the literature is going to be intertwined and or related, which is why cataloging the articles is important. After gathering and going through the literature then checking to making sure the literature review covers the key information in the article, such as how their project was done, the formulas used, sample used, and much more. Then using the information as an advantage to improve, add value, and save time on my own project. Then the final step of the literature review is writing the literature review, by putting all the useful information together making it readable, understandable and has a constant flow of the information.)

More recent

The data due to the massive size of (the file containing) observations and information has taken longer than expected to go through organize and then even longer to get results. (Referring to the hours it takes to open certain files and from hours on up to days to run the files with programs.) On the better side the model has been developed, although is still subject to possible changes.  The results from the current model have been very interesting and show the potential that there are important happenings with the market of time deposits that can be looked into through the elasticity. The current results have provided a lot of information that has furthered the project and work. There is still a list of things that are heading towards completions. 

The things currently being worked on and finished are running the data, using the data, getting more statistics from the data and interpreting the results that have already come through and been gathered. After all the information is gathered and interpreted and there are a lot of checks as this is still another lengthy part of the project.  Overall the project is going well and on track. Even though there is a lengthy-ness to working with the data, working with the data and interpreting it is a part that I enjoy very much. Also soon I should have a computer that will be able to work with the data in a timelier manner (there isn’t a computer on campus remotely fast enough to work with the data for: technical reasons).

Thank you for reading (or scrolling down to read this),

-Neil

I am sitting in the school, where I just realized that they have internet, and thinking about how quick this summer is going. It seems like just yesterday that I was packing my car for the great journey to Land O’ Lakes and now I only have 2 weeks left to go until dance is over. I am really proud of how smoothly the second session is running.  All of the dancers get along, have fun in class, and love to ask a lot of questions. It makes class that much more enjoyable! Last Thursday night, Barb and I headed to the reservation in Lac du Flambeau to participate in a powwow. I think I danced just as much as the actual dancers. I learned no much not only about their dances and regalia, but also how every dance has a story and how it relates to their overall culture. Well I must peace out. Class starts in 10 minutes! Until next time! Hope everyone is well!

Greetings Readers!

I have learned from this experience so far that I am terrible at blogging, so I intend to remove that from my list of future career options.
Right now, I am in the process of reading and coding hundreds and hundreds of articles about the various politicians upon whom I have chosen to do my research.  Along the way, I have encountered a few unexpected road-blocks in the process:

• Bristol Palin: Much of my research centers around Sarah Palin’s claims that she is treated unfairly by the media. In fact, she frequently refers to them as the “lame stream media,” which is part of how we were inspired to investigate just what kind of coverage different figures receive from different news sources.  During the 2008 campaign, Bristol’s pregnancy fueled a national discussion on teen pregnancy, abstinence and raised questions about Governor Palin’s ability to lead.  During that time, much of the press attention given to Bristol was the result of her mother seeking political office.  Since that time, Bristol has become a media figure in her own right, appearing on “Dancing with the Stars” and releasing a book.  The media coverage in these situations has little to do with Palin and is thus not all that relevant to the research.  In sorting through the articles, we deemed that any article about Bristol that refers to Sarah Palin only in regards to being Bristol’s mother would be excluded from the statistics, but that any articles about Bristol detailing her relationship with her mother or discussing her mother’s political ambitions would be included.
• Media Attention: While I did expect to see some variation in the amount of coverage given to the different figures, I did not expect it to be so wildly noticeable.  Both Palin and Clinton appear in print much more frequently than their male counterparts, which must be taken into consideration when drawing conclusions about the statistics.
• Grammatical and Title Differences: In my literature review, I spent some time looking at the different ways men and women are treated in regards to how they are referred.  In terms of generic pronouns, all men are referred to as “Mr,” while women have multiple of these titles from which to choose.  It is also important to look at the frequency with which these figures are referred to by political office instead of simple generic pronouns.  I initially expected that Hillary Clinton would likely be referred to by her title more frequently than Sarah Palin.  What I am instead discovering is that, not only is Hillary referred to as “Senator” very infrequently, she is very frequently referred to as “Mrs. Clinton,” while Palin, who is again not frequently referred to as “Governor,” is often called, “Ms. Palin,” removing her husband from the equation.  In referring to Hillary Clinton as “Mrs. Clinton,” it is impossible to forget that she is married to a former President, and may detract from the fact that she is a former U.S. Senator and current Secretary of State.
• John Kerry: Kerry, while continuing to serve as a US Senator, appeared very little in the news media, even immediately following his defeat in the 2004 Presidential election.

What I am beginning to envision my final project as is more of a discovery of a gender bias in news media than a bias that is solely against Sarah Palin.  While the statistics do point to different treatment for Palin, they also suggest that Hillary Clinton is no stranger to this different level of scrutiny and treatment by the press.  Palin and Clinton both appear in the “Style” sections of the newspapers where fashion critics assess their ability to dress themselves, apply makeup, and use accessories, while neither Romney nor Kerry appear in this section of the newspaper.  While there is something to be said about how little variation there is in the clothing worn by these male political figures, it also seems irrelevant to either a national election or to reflections of either Palin or Clinton as individuals whether their wardrobes met what was expected of them.  An article referring to both Clinton and Palin was entitled “Politics and Pantsuits.”

I also realized very early in my research that I would have to compile separate data for articles appearing in opinion sections of these papers versus articles appearing in the sections of the paper meant to report strictly on news and am, at this point, curious to see whether or not there is as strong a presence of gender or party-based bias in hard news as there could be in opinion articles.  While there may appear to be a bias in editorial writing, it is just that, editorial, and meant to be a reflection of the opinion of the individual writing the piece.  That being said, if an editorial page only runs (or mostly runs) negative editorials about an individual, perhaps the hiring or publishing processes themselves are inherently biased.

I’m home, well fed, and up with the times ( I watched the new Harry Potter first thing when I got home).  This is my final post from my journal but I will post at least one more as a reflection in a few days to a week.  Basically once I get some down time from family and work.  I would like to thank everyone for the positive response that I’ve received and also to thank everyone that donated money to allow me to go.  Also I’d like to thank you for dealing with my non proof read posts, I’m sure they were rife with unintended words and grammar infractions.  I’ve learned so much and have grown not only as a musician, but as a person as well.  I hope that you all enjoyed reading my daily happenings as much as I enjoyed living them.

Thanks again and best wishes

-Ryan

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Day 38

Today I will get the rare opportunity to travel backwards though time.  In fact I get to experience what basically everyone asks for at one point in their life more hours in a day.  My day today will be 31 hours.  As this blog is about my travels you will not get my full day today as I will be done traveling by 5pm (Chicago time), exactly 18 hours after my day started.  The three of us who stayed together in a hotel room had 3 separate wake up calls starting at 5am (Rome time) and then one ever hour after that.  I made sure that the only thing that I had to do when I woke up was to pack my bathroom materials and then go.  It meant that I was up later than I wanted to but that was probably a good thing because, as I was extra tired, I was able to sleep almost 4 hours on the plane which means that I began my time correction on the plane.(I was wide awake by 8am Chicago time after my nap. So it worked out well.)  However, before I get to the plane ride I got to add one final chapter to my already bountiful compilation of this trip’s “Travel Travesties!”  The first shuttle left the hotel at 7am, I arrived 25 min early so as to make sure that I did not miss this bus. (a good thing too because luggage room filled up fast.)  I arrived at the terminal around 715 almost 3 hours before my plane had to leave (the number they recommend.  As the shuttle was coming in I saw that terminal 1 held my airline and in huge letters stated “INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS”.  I thought “great there is no way I miss that.  The line to check in was very very long and took me a good hour and a moved at a pace that would make my stepfather look like The Flash (for those unfamiliar with my stepfather I will inform you that he jogs at the speed of snail, Women with strollers have passed him).  An hour and a half later I arrived at the check-in counter only to see the cheery eyed desk worker’s expression switch to concerned and apologetic.  This “INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT” terminal check-in point which was of my airline was not for international flights going to the US.  She said she was sorry and that I had better run to terminal 3 as my flight now left in an hour and a half.  I did indeed run to terminal number three, a good 8 min away (every min felt like an hour and added 5lbs of stress to my heart),  and luckily found the small area far against the wall devoted to U.S. flights and advertised almost nowhere, huzzah.  The line was shorter but would have probably taken a good 45 min to wait through.  There was a man on the same flight as me who had arrived moments before me after experiencing the same difficulty and I was about to try and jump to the priority check-in lane to see if they could open it up for us when a desk worker came down the line to make sure that everyone on the 10am flight to Chicago was checked in.  We quickly told her no and she took us to our own private station where we were checked in, well he was and I got half way and was told that I needed to go to the ticketing counter to pay for my second checked bag and that she couldn’t do it there for a reason that I did not understand.  The ticket counter had no line but the lady behind it must have previously worked for the DMV.  I came up to her about a min after she answered a random persons question on where to go and the conversation appeared to have ended so I made my presence known.  I was received with a glare and “just a moment gesture” confused I waited a moment as she stared at him and then tried again.  She then snapped at me that she knew I was in a hurry but that I had to wait; I wanted to say “wait for what? For you to finish admiring the back of this mans head?” but instead I apologized and waited until she become content that the conversation between them was over, a good 3 min.  Finally, she was free to deal with me and I explained to her what I needed and about half way through she picked up a phone call which lasted another 3-5 min, great!  I thought it was odd how I can’t interrupt a nonexistent conversation but a person on the phone can interrupt me.  Once she had finished she took my info and my credit card and began entering it into the computer.  She had this wonderful 2 finger poke technique which really sped things along.  Not to mention she had to keep hitting the arrow buttons backward to fix what I assume were mistypes, which blows my mind as she only had to think about one finger on her left hand and on finger on her right.  She began making confused faces after 5 min and I was interrupted by another phone call which took another 3-5min.  By this time it was all I could do to keep a mask of patience and pleasantness when all I wanted to do was to ask her to just tell me what need to be typed in so I could finally move on to checking my bag.  Finally after she filled out 2 receipts (because she filled the first one out wrong) and after printing 2 forms (because she had typed in the wrong information) I was all set and I got to receive the information and receipts after she received a 3^rd phone call, if I had a cell phone and was smart I would have just called the desk after the 1^st call and I’m sure I would have been out of there will plenty of time to spare.  Finally I had everything set and paid for and after a quick stop at the check-in counter from before I was given my boarding passes and was told that she had sent my other bag along already because if she hadn’t it would not have made it to the plane.  I thanked her and got on my way.  Security was surprisingly quick and I had 45 min before my plane left.  There was a final passport checkpoint that I had to cross and wouldn’t you know it, the line I was directed to was the one that people in the fast lane got to jump into.  This was especially fun when a vehicle full of  old ladies pulled up and the man behind the counter took 2 min straining his neck to examine the women a good 40 ft away from him.  I passed though quickly and ran to my gate, only stopping briefly to pick up peanut M&Ms because I did not have time to grab breakfast.  I arrived at my gate with 25 min to spare and found that almost no one had boarded, in fact they had gotten quite delayed for some reason.  I counted my blessing and found 2 friendly faces in the crowd.  One was a lovely soprano from the program who lives in Cincinnati and the other was the relived face of Brian Leeper.  I told them about my adventure and shared a few laughs.   We were all boarded by 10 and took off a good 30 min late but I was just glad to be done with the stressful part.  The plane flight went well.  As I said before I slept for  a good third of the trip, watched a few crappy in-flight movies for another third, and read for the final portion.  We had 2 meals served.  The first was a very tasty lunch with a braised beef with potatoes and peas.  The second was, I think, supposed to be a square of pizza but it looked more like garlic toast topped with baby vomit.  I ate it anyway because I was hungry and it tasted like a mixture of green beans, unsalted bread, and soap. (My Italian neighbor and I exchanged equally disgusted looks.  The coffee which came after was only better by a small margin and only because I dumped sugar into it.  The grounds had been so burnt that it tasted vaguely like it had been brewed with an old cigarette in the grounds.  Oh well, food is food and caffeine was the important part.  Before we began our decent into Chicago I got up and chatted with Megan (the lovely soprano) about her time in Rome.  I headed back to my seat as the seatbelt sign was lit up and I was ecstatic to see the familiar ground beneath me.  I was not looking forward to the rest of my flights and layovers from Chicago to Detroit and then to Milwaukee, finally arriving at 8pm (I had asked Delta if they could just end it in Chicago and they said they could but it would cost me $300 more dollars!), and became optimistic at a possible change of plans.  This optimism came from the newly gained knowledge that I would have to receive my baggage and recheck it after this flight.  My thought was ok screw them I’ll just leave my seats unused and take a bus to Milwaukee.  This is exactly what I am currently doing.  My father is enroute to pick me up and I am miles away from my home town, life is good.  I think I may try to see Harry Potter tonight before I make my rounds to see family tomorrow and then it’s back to work on Tuesday.  This trip has been absolutely wonderful and I’ve learned so much! I will miss all the new people that I’ve had the pleasure of working with but I’m sure I will work with many of them in the near future.  I’m more excited to keep at my practicing and growing my voice.  This is the final day of my journal and I hope that I one day get to continue my travels in Italy.  So long for now!

I am in the process of translating the interviews and it takes time and patience. As I mentioned before, the interviews were made in their people’s houses, which now that I am translating into English. I found some information that passes through unnoticed the first time. For example, one of the interviews said, “my son was told that I went to “quebrar cania” maybe it is an local expression to say that they went to work.

The story of this family is very interesting. I could see some issues in the family because of the parents absent. The family consists of the mother, father, a daughter and a son. The grandmother also lives in the same house.

Firstly, the father came to the United States later on the mother came too. The father went for a visit, but he came back to the U.S. again. After that visit, Noela got pregnant. When his son was one-year and a half, Noela came to the U.S. Her husband, Angel, did not know his son until he went back home five years later. Their daughter was 8-years old when they left. She is 15-years old and is pregnant. Angel and Noela left their two children with the grandmother.

In the paragraph below I summarized what Noela said. This family experience is one of many that are heard in Oaxaca.

Noela

5 years in Columbus Ohio we spent,

Our two children with grandma we left.

To any school I did not attend.

To read and write I knew a bit.

To do laundry by hand I knew pretty well,

To make tamales I learnt to sell,

Obliged to leave my country I was.

When I interviewed the grandmother, she has a strong character but also a positive attitude. You can tell when you read this other paragraph below. When I asked the grandmother a question about her feelings when her son and her daughter-in-law left, she said “nothing,” “I felt nothing.” I was expecting a sort of touching answer, but she was stoic in her response. What was I supposed to do? I kept asking questions and this is what she said:

Grandmother

Nothing I felt when they left,

Decided to work they went,

In charge of the “chamacos” (kids) I was,

No changes, no nothing I felt

Take care of my “chamacos” they said.

Sickness showed up sometimes,

To the doctor the children went.

Gisela Sanchez-Lopez