This blog post will explore Qualitative Research and Narrative Inquiry. 


   Qualitative Research was developed to explore the "Why" in research. Qualitative research allows us to explore issues, understand, and ask questions. After reading "An Introduction to Qualitative Research", by Beverly Hancock, I discovered that qualitative research is "concerned with developing explanations of social phenomena." Qualitative research allows us to understand our world and why things are the way they are. Qualitative research ask questions such as: why, how, and in what way? Qualitative research expresses people's opinions and is not manipulated. Most data is collected through interviews with people. 
    Narrative Inquiry is an analysis of narratives in human interaction. I read in "Situating Narrative Inquiry," that narrative inquiry is similar to qualitative research in that it is the study ofn stories or narratives or descriptions of a series of events. Narrative inquiry "embraces narrative as both the method and the phenomena of study." 

    This blog post will act as my reaction to a film we watched in class, titled Food Inc. The blog will include question and answers from the film.

3. Whose responsibility do you think it is to inform us about what is in our food? Is it our responsibility to find out, the producer's responsibility to make it more clear, or both? Why do you think so?

     I believe that most of the blame for consumers not knowing what is in their foods belongs to the producer. Sure, people should do their research before they make food purchases, but most people believe that their food is prepared safely and their should be no need to question the ingredients. Producers need to label all ingredients on their products. Human health should take top priority over industrial growth and profits. It makes me sick to see that producers are able to hide ingredients from consumers that could lead to possible illness or even death. 

4. Kevin's mother says, "Sometimes it feels like industry was more protected than my son." What do you think of her words.

    Kevin's story is so terrible and tragic. It sickens me that his story alone is not enough to force the food industry into changing procedures. I can understand why Kevin's mother feels as though the food industry was more protected then her son. It's the truth. The food industry has government officials in their back pocket, so of course they are going to be protected. This movie has opened my eyes to just how money hungry and greedy American industries can be. Their success and wealth is more important then the life of a two year old child. I hope someday Kevin's mother will find peace and that Kevin's law will go into effect. I can't even begin to imagine the pain and regret she must live with everyday. She has opened my eyes, and I will be way more aware of what I am feeding my own children going forward. 

4. Do we have the right to assume that our food is safe? If so, who do you think should be responsible for ensuring it's safety? 
    I do believe that we have the right to assume that our food is safe. We have laws and procedures that are suppose to be met to ensure food safety. Obviously, after watching the movie Food Inc, I feel ignorant for assuming our food is safe. Before watching the movie I assumed that the FDA and government were assuring that food in grocery stores were safe for consumers. It's sad that I can no longer make that assumption. Producers need to be responsible for ensuring the safety of our food. All ingredients must be labeled. 

     This blog post is all about how technology has helped or challenged me while creating my twitterive.

     I am by no means a digital native. I remember getting my first computer when I was a freshman in highschool. That doesn't mean I don't know how to use technology, I do, but it does not come as easy to me as it may for others. While I was working on my twitterive there were times when technology drove me crazy. In fact, weebly caused me some moments of insanity. At first, I could not figure out weebly for the life of me. I had to watch "how to" videos on you tube until I finally figured it out.
     Weebly was notorious for giving me error messages or not publishing when I asked it too. The most frustrating aspect was downloading my slideshow that I created for my twitterive. It took me almost two and a half hours to download the slideshow because weebly was up to it's bad tricks. However, weebly wasn't all bad, I like the aspect of dragging the different document elements into my twitterive. It helped me keep the project very organized. I love that I will always be able to access the site so that I can someday share my twitterive with my daughter. 
     While creating the twitterive I became familiar with new technologies like yodio and jing. Yodio is so much fun. You can add your own voice overs to pictures or videos. Jing is a great tool that I will use in all of my classes going forward. I used jing in my second draft of my twitterive so I could add screen shots of my tweets. 
     I didn't realize how much I didn't know about technology before this class. I love learning new aspects of technology and I know it will be beneficial to my career. Hopefully, I will learn even more before completing the final draft of my twitterive. 
    
     

     This blog post is about the response I received after presenting my twitterive project to the class.

     I have to admit, I was very nervous to present my twitterive to the class this past week. I am not sure why I was so nervous, perhaps because my twitterive is something I have worked really hard on and means a great deal to me. I was nervous presenting something so personal. Once I started receiving feedback my fears started to disappear. 
     The class and Professor Mangini gave me great feedback and opinions. I was happy to learn that the twitterive was not too long and that I used enough genres. I loved Erin's idea to bold or add color to the dates that were "good" days. I left the class with so many great ideas to add to my twitterive. I want to add more pictures of memorabilia from the NICU. I have pictures that the Nurses drew for Bella and hung up in her incubator when she reached a certain weight and pictures of her tiny footprints from the day of her birth that I want to add to the twitterive. I started revisions this weekend and started to clean up the journal entries. This project means a great deal to me. I want to create something that my daughter will appreciate and be proud of some day. 

  I am writing this blog as a response to the article's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," by Pollan and "The Pleasures of Eating," by Berry. For the blog I was asked whether or not the articles have impacted how I eat.

            I love food, all food, but food causes me a great deal of anxiety. I am always worried about how many calories I am consuming, or if the food is all natural. I worry if I am feeding my family the healthiest choices. I want to make sure I am teaching my children to make healthy choices. In today's society, it seems like all food is unhealthy. One week organic is in and the only way to go, and then the next week they say organic could cause health problems. In Pollan's artice, he claims that "deciding what you eat will stir anxiety." I couldn't agree more with this statement. When I go to the grocery store to pick out weekly dinners stress overwhelms me. 
          Pollan stated in his artice that Italy and France are healthier and slimmer then our country. He says "they choose their meals based on pleasure and tradition." I wish I could do this. Growing up, my parents always made homemade dinners every night. We never worried about low fat or organic. We ate meals like homemade spaghetti and meatballs, chicken cutlets, roast, etc. We had fabulous meals, and guess what? We were all thin and none of us have any health issues to date. This makes me wonder if other countries are on to something? I make all homemade meals for my family as well, but I am always adding margarine instead of butter, or organic eggs, and low fat milk. I hardly add any salt, and try my hardest to cut down on fats. We very rarely have fast food if ever. We will take the kids once every so many months as a special treat, but we avoid it as much as possible. 
         Both articles touched on the struggles that farmers are facing today. I feel bad for farmers, but at the same time I am ignorant to most of the struggles they are facing. I am what Berry would describe as an Industrial eater. In Berry's article he defined "the industrial eater as one who does know that eating is an agricultural act, who no longer knows or imagines the connections between eating and the land, and who is therefore necessarily passive and uncritical - in short - a victim." I do make some connections between eating and the land, I try to be aware of what is organic and whats not, but I am not overly aware. I go into the grocery store and I buy what's there. I am not worried about where it came from, the transportation costs, etc. It's either a healthy food or it's not. Berry mentioned that a great way to become a better eater is to "learn what is involved in the best farming in gardening." That just seems like adding more stress and anxiety into choosing what to eat. 
     The articles have not impacted the way I eat in any way. If anything, they have only caused more anxiety about food choices.  However, I may be more aware now about where my produce is coming from but I am not going overly crazy about it. I think I will just follow the French and Italians and eat based on pleasures and traditions! :0)