Assessment Three

3. Describe three surprises or unexpected situations you encountered on your Drifts and in the days that followed. The surprise could stem from your expectations that conflicted with "on the ground" realities, cultural or social issues of which you were previously unaware, feelings and reactions that you did not expect to have, appearances and soundings of things you did not expect, good or bad outcomes of "on the spot" decisions you had to make, or the discovery of "deeper" realities in the materials you brought home. (Again, skip anything technology-related!)

I guess one of the biggest unexpected situations that I had was having to explain what I was doing, when people saw me walking around with my microphones. Most of my recordings from the first drift were done in a neighborhood that is packed with senior citizens and I think they all thought I was causing trouble.

Another unexpected situation was on my drift one when I was recording running water in a vent and I had to kneel on the street and put my microphones in the vent. This old guy came running out of his house yelling "are you ok, are you ok?". He thought I was dying.

Finally, when I was out filming for drift two I was trying to capture things before the sun went down and I was crossing underneath this bridge on Jean Nicolet. On top of the bridge is a train track, you have to climb up this hill to get to the track, and go on private property. I made an "on the spot" decision to go up there anyway and I ended up getting really good footage.