| Report on Field Trip: The very last assignment of this semester was really a culmination of all the previous pieces mixed into one final work. We were given the choices of either a non-fiction paper, fiction paper, or a field trip report. I, being the lazy one, decided that a field trip report would be the most fun and easiest method to complete; and I was right. Not only did I get the opportunity to visit the farmers market at Kapiolani Community College, but I also had fellow classmates who had personal experience of the market too! I have previously only been to the farmers market in Kailua with my grandparents, and i thought it would be a wonderful experience to visit a different market and see the similarities and differences. The unique aspect of this particular assignment was that we had to interview and jot down field notes from vendors that we have never met before. This required us to already know what questions to ask and to also improve our communication skills with strangers. I ended up waking up at 7AM to make it over to KCC and I was very stressed and frustrated at the time as a result, but the energy and aura of the market and its customers' cleared my conscience. I am so fortunate that I decided to participate with the field trip instead of the other possibilities. Hopefully you enjoy reading about the KCC farmers market and my experience there! Learning: When this project was first assigned to us by Professor Jim I had no idea as to which genre I wanted to write. I thought long and hard until I got word about the KCC farmers market from my other classmates. And since the Board of Water Supply field trip could not be completed in our time frame, this was really a blessing in disguise. I had no plan to fall back on if the Board of Water Supply field trip didn't happen, and trying to comprise a fiction or non-fiction paper on sustainability had no appeal to me whatsoever. Thankfully a couple classmates offered me to tag along with them on this field trip, and to even work on our class presentation together too. The only downside to the KCC farmers market was that it was very far from my house in Salt Lake, and that it required me to wake up around 7AM on a precious Saturday morning. But once I saw the campus and the filled rows with parked cars, I realized that this market was a pretty big event. The crowd of locals mixed with tourists was an astonishing sight that I totally did not expect. Sadly, one of the vendors I wanted to interview thought I was someone with the government or something, and he gave me the cold shoulder. But after a while he came around and I learned a valuable lesson to introduce myself for future interviews. I focused on the fruit and vegetable vendors since I did my last research paper on maintaining a healthy diet while keeping the idea of sustainability in the back of my mind as well. I learned how eccentric and diverse the farmers market was, and also how to communicate with others without offending them first. I will definitely make arrangements to go back in the near future. Click Here to view my KCC farmers market final draft |