Hello again!
It has been a while since my last blog post, so I’ll begin by catching everyone up to speed: it’s been a busy two weeks! The pace of the semester finally picked up, which of course means that all of my classes got exponentially harder. I have had trouble finding the time to sit down and do diligent research for this course, what with the other readings and the map test that Eric and Zhihong assigned us.
However, I am still excited about this project! All of the interlibrary loans that I requested for my research have started to come in, and seeing them sitting in a cute (albeit towering) pile on my desk is certainly inspiring. The team that I am a part of is also chock full of really intelligent and fun people, and every time we meet (even if we just end up talking about the reading that is due that night) I am reminded of the potential we have as a group.
In the sparse amounts of research that I have been able to get done, I have been finding commonalities of various shamanic traditions throughout our chosen region. Many of the books I have on Shamanism are actually more focused on shamanic figures on the western world, so I of course have had to filter those out. Hopefully our group will meet this weekend and we will discuss our new knowledge of storymapping.
Moving forward I really plan on pushing myself to find balance with this project: even when I’m feeling overwhelmed I still need to take the time to sit down and get a little bit of research done every few days.