This year's renaissance festival season here in this part of the Midwest has come to a close, and along with it the data collection portion of my thesis project. I have had an incredible amount of fun and learned a great deal--about my research subjects, myself as a researcher, and how this whole process works. I have collected a notebook and a half full of field notes and many, many hours of recorded interviews. The photographs alone could be used for more than one entirely separate content analysis project as well.
Now comes the long tedious winter of transcription, analysis, and writing. It is my intention to have a completed draft of this paper by March, if not sooner. My biggest problem now is to make myself sit down and continue to work on this project instead of staring another. However, once older weather sets in that may not be as much of a temptation. I may be happy to be able to sit at home and write instead of braving the elements!
I got a lot of encouragement from my professors, my friends, and even those rennies with whom I spoke about my project. And it seemed like so many conversations produced new ideas for potential future studies that I could write about this for years to come. I certainly feel like I have enough data to sift through for a while...
I'm sad to see this part of things end, but excited to finally see the finished product (and get my degree!) when this is completed. There will be updates posted to this blog still as things happen, or as fun insights might emerge from the data that seem appropriate to share. So don't lose the link.
