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Journaling

After doing this first interview (see transcript 1), I felt like she was very self-conscious during the interview, like she was worried about she was being perceived, and like she wanted to say the "right" things. For me, this came up particularly in areas like when I asked her what sort of foods she liked to eat, and she had what I felt was a "typical female response" of "salads,...no sweets". I say "typical" not because that's what most females like the most, but because I feel like in Western culture that's what women who are concerned about their diet and weight want to be seen as eating; at one point this participant said she didn't want to "get fat".  Usually people on food stamps and worried about hunger are more concerned about getting "enough" to eat rather than worrying about getting too much to eat.

She also expressed how she didn't want to eat Ramen noodles, and I definitely got the impression she was particular about her food, even spoiled in her standards at times.  Her definition of acceptable food was restaurant-style quality-- I don't eat like that, and if I did I feel like I would become food insecure just because more money would be spent on meat, etc.  For most of my life I would probably call her spoiled, although when I was doing the interview I did think about one time when I tried a couple new recipes on sequential days, and then when I went "back" to eating my mac 'n' cheese and whatever, I could feel my body crave the nutrients from the earlier meals, and so I can see how if someone is used to "healthy" food, why they wouldn't want to downgrade to less satisfying food, so there were points where I could sympathize, although probably not overall.

I also thought when she mentioned her brother feeding her and his family, how he seemed to be more selfless than her-- on his meager amount he fed many mouths and still tried to think of her and what she would want to eat often, while she never indicated doing the same for him or anyone else.

Overall, I felt like she was hard to get to open up, and I don't know if it was her specifically or just because it was my first attempt at CCA interviewing, but I kinda feel like I failed a little bit at it. Hopefully the rest turn out better.

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