wilson_k's blog

This week has been hectic. I have several big projects for class coming up and I’m trying to juggle that with my internship. My assignment is coming to a close, but my supervisor and I both know there is still a lot of work to do. I feel I have completed a great deal though throughout the semester. I wish I had more time with putting all the elements together. I have the article written and certainly the photo essay, but I’m struggling with putting it together into one coherent piece. It doesn’t help that I’ve been trying to prepare to head out of town.

This week has been really productive. I’ve started work on the photo essay portion of my oral history. I finally finished the transcripts for the original interview, which was about an hour and 15 minutes. I also conducted my follow up interview with the woman, Sonya Hollins before I went on spring break. There is still much to do. Even though I have my working outline and I’ve started incorporating pictures into the Adobe InDesign draft, I still have the article to begin drafting. My coordinator warned me that conducting thorough oral histories would be time consuming and she was very right.

This week I interview Sonya Hollins. I spent an hour with her taking notes and recording her responses to my questions. I haven’t listened to the recording, which I need to do fairly soon, just to make sure I got everything. I went down town to meet with her and I’m so glad she was able to drive to meet me. If I had to go to Kalamazoo, I would have had to rearrange some things and I didn’t want to put it off for much longer. The interview went really went, and I feel confident enough to start working on the article. My only problem now is planning a design scheme for the photo essay portion.

This week has been an exercise in tedium. I’m still revising the oral history interview for Sonya Hollins, which was roughly an hour and 15 minutes long. I’m ten pages into my revision. I met with my internship coordinator to talk about my progress. I told her I’ve contacted Sonya Hollins and plan to meet with her next week for a follow up interview. I’ve had a little scheduling mistake. I originally told her one time and forgot I had something to do during that time, so I have to rearrange the time and day. She hasn’t responded to my email yet.

This week I find it harder to be motivated. I have so many reading assignments and certainly no shortage of writing assignments coming up. I am usually so very good about being motivated and getting my work done, however, when things start piling up, I feel overwhelmed and it’s hard to know where to begin. Prioritizing becomes difficult for me I believe because much of my work in my internship doesn’t have an immediate due date. I think I will begin setting more distinct goals for myself.

This week I kept plugging away at the transcription project for the Sonya Hollins interview. It was tedious work, but I finished it in the middle of this week. I felt relieved to have that out of the way. I have a grand total of 15 pages single spaced for the hour and 15 minute interview Veta (my internship coordinator) conducted last semester. I met with her this week and we discussed the current oral history I’m working on. She said that they’re more valuable transcribed and so my next thing to do is begin editing the interview.

This week I began transcribing an interview with Sonya Hollins, she is a rather remarkable woman who has won many journalism awards in Michigan and has written her own book. I met her last semester when I was in my internship coordinator's class. I thought this would be rather easy, considering I sat in on the interview.

My beginning week in my internship consisted mostly of writing the application for my summer scholars project. This was important because I will be working closely with my coordinator over the summer and I’m particularly glad I have found a multidisciplinary position that allows me to incorporate my writing and my skills with my minor (history). This week, I’ve spent it looking over oral history books. There is a great deal of information to consider when interviewing someone about their life. I suspect the hardest thing will be picking a focus when I begin drafting.