AP SP 2023 Day 2 - Tuesday May 9

 Today was both a huge success and failure. I had a late start to my morning as I was swamped with doctors appointments and a long drive, but I finally arrived in Woods Hole. I'm glad my first handful of interview spots were places I'm very familiar with. It certainly made it a lot easier to comfortably walk around and find people to interview. Not only was Woods Hole 10 times quieter than usual but I was definitely hesitant to "bother" people at first. That all went away when I stopped an older couple. They were on their way to an appointment, but I was able to get a solid amount of time talking with them. Unfortunately, they didn't give me much figurative information that I was looking for, rather just complaints about the traffic in the area. It was still good to break the ice and my nerves and talk to them. After I talked to them, I walked down to where all the ferries dock and leave from. I figured there would be enough people down there, and I lucked out. I talked to Jeff for a long time, and he finally gave me some answers I was more looking for. I spent so long engaged in conversation with him I didn't even realize how much time had passed. I was very happy with my interview with him though. And I was lucky both interviewees had let me voice record them, which will make writing later so much easier. I then drove 5 minutes to Main St, a large retail and restaurant street in downtown Falmouth. This is another area I'm very comfortable in, and it's usually swamped with people and you have to park a 10 minute walk away. Today though, this wasn't the case, which was somewhat unfortunate as I was still looking for people to talk to. I walked around outside for a while but struggled to find anyone who wasn't busy or on the phone. I decided to get a bit more creative and begun to enter businesses. My first interviewee was a middle aged woman business owner, and I was very excited to talk to her. I was all prepared until all of a sudden she shut down and changed her mind. I was confused and a bit frustrated, but I made sure not to express it and thanked her for her time anyway. After that, I spent more time walking around, struggling to have productive time with anyone. I finally stopped to pet a friendly looking chocolate lab tied to a bench. I was just happy to be getting some puppy time when a small woman came outside and talked to the dog. She was the owner, and she worked in the store the dog was tied outside of. I figured I might as well ask, she seemed friendly enough. She said yes and we entered a small overcrowded store I'd actually never been in before. She was not a fan of my request to record her, which was okay because I just took more detailed written notes. I quickly found she was not a huge people person, which was part of her reasoning for the lack of recording. However, she was super easy to talk to and gave me great answers. Some of the customers in the store even chimed in sharing information which was really helpful for getting many different perspectives. My former frustrations disappeared following my conversation with Melanie and the customers, I was reminded of the kindness I came looking for. Although I had struggles today, I was able to successfully begin to identify some of the themes I was looking for, and got 3 interviews done. I planned to do some writing today, but my struggle to engage in actual conversations with people prevented me from having time to do so. I'll definitely being doing a lot of organizing and writing tomorrow, but I'm really excited for that! 

Todays hours: 7

Total hours: 14