My time here is supposed to get me the equivalent of 12 credits back at MSU. In order to do that, I have to write some kind of paper or mini-thesis on a topic of my choice about what I’ve learned and experienced. It has to be academic in nature, so I can’t just spend 10 pages writing about the funny times that I’ve had. Rather, I have to take all of the stories about the funny times that I’ve had and apply them to something about culture that they’ve taught me. I’m a cultural student, anyway.
The plan is to take my nutritional work and studies about food and apply them to what they’ve taught me about food culture. Ideally, whatever I’ve learned from focusing on food in North India will tell me something about North Indian culture as a whole, or at least the culture of Himachal Pradesh. To do that, I will be spending the next couple of weeks going over all of the stuff that I’ve written for this blog and picking out several main cultural themes that stand out. These stories that I’ve written for almost 3 months now really do offer a special insight into culture and society, not necessarily pertaining to just food studies.
I’ve started today with a sort of outline, and began to go through all of my blog posts, when I realized something. I write a lot. Way more than I used to be comfortable with writing. This is the 69th post that I’ve written for this blog. If you want to talk about length, each one is at least half a page (single spaced), most are a page, and some go on for two or three pages. If you want to talk about time, I write at least every day. If you want to talk about ease, most of the time the words seem to just flow from my fingertips. If you want to talk about enjoyment, I love doing it. Why else would I be writing every day? I certainly don’t have to.
As recently as last semester, I dreaded writing. Couldn’t stand it. Every time I finished a paper, I did it with the thought that I was just scratching one more detestable chore off my list. So what’s the difference now? Well, it’s obvious. Writing comes much easier when you actually care about your subject matter. I write because there’s interesting things happening to me that I want to record as I experience them. Furthermore, I care about it now. It’s something to do that I enjoy, so I look forward to going home and spending some time with the paper clip guy from Microsoft Word.
It’s just difficult to have to go through 68 blog posts to find common cultural themes that I can write about. Yet I don’t foresee too much difficulty in that area. When it comes down to it, I can’t wait to start putting everything I experienced and learned onto one or two (or ten) pages, because when I do that, I know that I will have accomplished something. Even if I didn’t analyze the diet of everybody in Palampur, even if I didn’t open up an American bakery in the area, even if I didn’t get everybody to start eating right, I learned something. Actually, I learned a lot.
This paper is the first one of my academic career that I can’t wait to write, because it’s something real that I know and have experienced. Thesis: Analysis of nutrition for a particular area can help one learn more about the culture as a whole in that area. Do I believe that this is true? No question about it. If you want proof, just take a look at me. I learned a hell of a lot in such a short time just by focusing on food and nutrition, and it certainly taught about more than just culture.
But can I turn that into a good argument for an academic paper? Um… give me a couple of weeks.
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