Weekly Recap 10/31-11/6

What I did:

2 hours:  Outlining the new format of my project.
2 hours:  Filtering through the department of state's glossary of visa terms and renaming/redefining.  Also adding to the glossary what I believe is necessary.
2 hours:  Flash Tutorials on Lynda.com
2 hours:  organizing all of the information I have into clearly defined segments for my reference and into what I think of as a "logical order"
3.5 hours:  mapping out more specific processes:  U.S. Citizen wanting to petition their spouse and U.S. Citizen wanting to petition their child.
.5 hours:  getting printing quotes.

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered:

The format the navigation I have in my head would best fit a Flash format but I think it is so so so important that it be in print.  It is much more accessible.  Here is how I am currently trying to outline and organize the process into 3 different kits.  Kit 3 clearly needs more research.  I think with this I am really making progress with the voice and narrative I want to use for the point of view my project will take.  It is really important to me to make sure that viewer is put into context with this process.  I don't want them to feel disconnected or displaced from what they are going through.  It was an intuitive decision to format this as questions because these are all of the questions that I wrote down while going through all of the information they currently have.  These are, as of now, what I think are the more imperative questions.

Here are the Terms and Phrases I took from the I-130 form, Petition for Alien Relative.  The ones that had definitions in the department of state glossary are shown with a black dot.  The white dot is my re-definition.  Some of them are so ridiculously phrased.  The department of state's definition of beneficiary makes absolutely NO SENSE.

I've also come to the realization that petitioning children is so complicated that the only way I can understand it is mapping it out.  I have no idea how anyone is able to go through this process without mistakes.  I have serious empathy for these people.

Organizing my binder of all the info I have was a serious task.  I printed out as much as possible of the current information the USCIS website has for each specific type of petition.  I have specific dividers for the glossary, family of U.S. Citizens, family of Permanent Residents, my contacts, course material, statistics and a few other categories.  I find that I'm constantly referencing it, its the only way I can keep myself sane while going through the dense info.

I promise to post more pictures by sunday night.  I'm in a super rush today because I'm flying to D.C. for Exhibit Design!  Hannah is taking us to a bunch of amazing museums.  My guilty pleasure is the museum. Any museum and all museums.  I went to probably 50 or more while I was abroad.  I'm so so so so so excited.  Aside from the museums, I love DC.  A few reasons that I want to get involved with policy design is 1) I love DC and would love to spend more time there and 2) I have a strong belief in this country and the way it is organized and I want to contribute to it in a creative and useful way.

Whats Next:

DC!!  But aside from that, more mapping, organizing, and defining.  I feel like I am heading in the right direction.  But i do feel torn between digital and print and I need to find a way to transition between the two.  I also feel town when I map things out to start defining things but also when I go through the glossary to start mapping things so it's a tension that I need to resolve in one way or another.

I also need to get everything together for the grant proposal.  It's looming in my mind!