Qualitative Camp—Our weeklong conference

Greetings! For those following along closely, you may have noticed that I haven’t posted a new entry in awhile. I am happy to report that I am back online and still alive and well. This last week, I was up in Kjerringoy at the pre-research conference. This was the event where we covered some of the basics on how to conduct qualitative research, discovered similarities and differences between the American and European systems of higher education and presented on our intended research focus for the summer. In some ways, the presentations were the most intimidating portion of the event. We each had an hour. In that time we each spent about 20 minutes providing background and describing the research concept we wanted to focus on for the summer, and our plan for how we are going to go about doing that. For the remaining 40 minutes, the floor was open for questions, comments, suggestions, and critiques. I have an audio recording of my hour if anyone really wants to “nerd out”, I’ll be happy to share this recording. J

When we weren’t in sessions, we were soaking up Norway and having fun. We definitely played as hard as we worked and I, for one, was exhausted by the end of the week. During our time there, we lived in shared cabins.

Now, when I heard ‘shared cabins’ I pictured something out of boy scouts. One big common room with bunk beds set up barracks style with a common group shower, etc. It turns out, this was more like a condo or townhouse on the coast. There were 4 guys and 3 bedrooms. I managed to look intimidating enough that I was one of two guys who scored his own bedroom.

My daily routine that week was pretty much the following:

• - Spend the day in the conference working and thinking hard until we got out of our conference sessions around 5 p.m.
• Skype in to work and help handle the Dana Center issues of the day. I would typically do work-stuff until about 7 p.m.
• Cruise over to the hotel bar and drink a pre-dinner cocktail with the group.
• 8:30 – Dinner is served. We sampled a cross-section of Norwegian fare. We had Moose on a couple occasions and a variety of fish dishes for most of the rest of the time. And potatoes. Lots and lots of potatoes. In a variety of forms and styles to be sure. Certainly enough that several people noted, “Wow, that’s a lot of potatoes.” So, it turns out potatoes are a big deal here. In fact, while doing some background reading, I was looking on the website of the Norwegian Agricultural Extension Office and I saw that one of their senior positions is “Potato Coordinator”. I can think of fewer more fantastic business cards to collect than the one for the Norwegian National Potato Coordinator. Dinner typically included a beer, a glass or two of red wine, and a glass of Aquavit.—Several have asked what aquavit is, and I’ll be happy to share a bottle with those who would like to give it a try when I get back. Aquavit is a hard liquor that is not to be underestimated. Think of a cross between Irish whiskey and Bacardi 151 with a hint of some sort of spice. It will definitely cure one of his or her sobriety. I asked the bartender what the base of the liquor was (Is it wheat based? berry based?). It turns out…of course…it’s a potato based liquor.
• - Dinner usually lasted until about 11 p.m. and then the group slowly moved out on to the deck overlooking the water. This is where we continued to drink and socialize until the bar stopped serving at 1 a.m. At that point the party moved back to either the guys’ or gals’ cabin.
• Socializing and whatnots continued for a while after that until things slowly wound down for the night.
• I then slept for a few hours, got up, showered, wolfed down some breakfast, and wandered into the morning sessions.

Rinse and repeat. That was the formula for the week. I’ll admit that I haven’t pushed the envelope that hard in awhile. Now take the mental picture you have after reading all of the details above. Get that image firmly in your mind. Now insert this detail—it never got dark. The sun got close to the horizon. By about 1 a.m. it was as dark as it was going to get – think of the early stages of sunset. So, by 3-4 a.m. when the last vestiges of the hardcore party was winding down, consider that it was light out like it would be at 10 a.m. in the U.S It’s fair to say that the ever-present light was why the party often went as late as it did. Everyone’s biological signals were screaming that the night was young and that there was still “a long row to hoe” before bedtime. At the end of the week, we piled into two cars and made our way back to our dorms in Bodø, which is where we are staying this summer. As soon as I got back to the dorms on Friday afternoon, I dragged myself up to my room and slept for, something like, 10 hours straight. It was Sunday afternoon when I started really getting back up to speed.

Hopefully, this helps paint a picture of why I went a solid week without posting to the blog. I am back now, settling into the summer routine and ready to dive into the heart of my summer research.