The last day of 'class' in our one room corner of the Spinhuis in Amsterdam felt quite impossibly the ending to a long year of anthropological digging-in.
It's not an ending, but a beginning to the formation of an anthropologist, actually. For, while classes have officially ended, our work has just been planted.
Proposals for research are being turned in. We are scrabbling for last-minute readings, appointments with advisors, and making sure we have our things sorted. Our things, as it were, meaning the pieces floating around unattached in our heads, or hands... research questions, what to pack, who to meet, where to go, and when. What questions will we ask of whom, and what will be asked of us in return?
The class has ended, but school is just beginning...
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Personally I am slightly haunted by the fact that my master's thesis will barely scratch the surface of its intention. I want, I long, to dig in... deeply delve into my subject matter. But, with a short time for research, and still in the process of learning how to conduct it, I cannot ask this of myself. I can only ask that I do the best in this limited framework that I can.
In the end I will return home the richer for this experience, the more knowledgeable on ADHD in the Netherlands, and still longing to deepen and strengthen research that is just beginning.
The formation of an anthropologist...
