Alex-Reflection Post

Every person that arrived here today is leaving having learned different things, that is the whole idea behind workshops such as this, that everyone gets out of it what they need the most. For me personally that is the solidification of my project. As anyone who may have read my personal blog posts would know, I was rather terrified that upon arriving here there would be zero interest in my topic from the other students and that it would be disbanded. This thought actually effected my work, leading me to have a highly analytical and statistic based blog for the first few weeks, and I did not want to schedule interviews with people in these fragile times in their lives, only to back out and leave them out in the cold, alone. Now that I have completed this retreat however, I am ever more passionate about this topic, as now I have others to be passionate at my side. We have formed a strong group out of people who were originally doing five different topics, coalescing ourselves into one team with one mission, to bring the truth of the foster system and the reality of the inner workings of the DCF into the limelight. Other than that, the biggest discovery for me was in the usage of technology. I was a novice when I came in here, I had no idea of the proper lighting for a picture, and could not have shot a solid documentary video to save my life, but now I have enough knowledge to at least send me on my way into that terrifying void that is "technology" with a fighting chance and you never know, I may love it. Looking forward into the future of this endeavor I see a better project than ever before. The ability to have five people interviewing, five people researching, five people putting their individual voices into this will make it infinitely more diverse, but with this diversity comes problems. With so many voices and so many passionate ideas, it is easy for things to become muddled. Unlike other groups we are spread far and wide across the state, and this sets us up with unique problems. We will not be able to physically meet and talk things over, instead we will have to rely on technology to converse. Sadly though, one cannot truly communicate as well online as in person so we will have to simply deal. Other than that, the biggest issue will be interviews. It is not that we cannot interview people, it is simply that our topic is extremely delicate and personal for many people and we will have to be truly patient.