I am at a stand still right now with my interviewing because I have been getting very slow responses from each of the legislators. Luckily, I have heard back from both of them and if an in person interview does not work out, I can ask them questions over email and hopefully they will continue to respond to those. I have no time to interview this week because of finals and leaving for spring break early, so hopefully after the break I will be able to meet up with them after.

I have continued to send out the survey to my peers. I emailed two people who gave us their emails for comments and neither of them have responded. I plan to send another email on Monday, but I am not sure I will get a response from either.

I spent my weekend reaching out to these legislators I hope to interview. It took me a while to figure out how to word my emails and that was a bit frustrating but I believe I figured it all out. I am now waiting to hear back from them. The other part of work I did this past week was disperse our survey. I sent it to most of the Fraternity/Sorority groupme chats that I am apart of. I have also sent the survey to some of my professors in hope that they will also send it out to their students to take.

Some goals I have for the upcoming week-

• get in direct contact with one or more people about setting up an interview
• continue to send out the survey we made in class
• brainstorm ideas for the main story
• update my research about current house bills about marijuana

This week I spent time doing a lot of planning for my upcoming interviews. I did a lot of research on the legislators that I am hoping to interview. With this research, I have been able to come up with plenty of questions to ask them. I am hoping to reach out to them this week to see if an interview will be possible. Right now, I am kind of at a stand still until I am able to actually talk to these legislators.

In class, our time was spent primarily preparing the survey to learn more about the usage of marijuana on our campus. When I am able to get a hold of those survey answers, I will use that knowledge to come up with even more questions for my interviewees. Some updates on my research-

Heath VanNatter- (republican) has been a state representative for district 38 since 2010. Owns his own construction company. His main goal as a representative is to play an active role in economic development.

Karen Tallian- (democrat) has been a state senator for district 4 since 2005. Recently, her amendment to end jail time for small amounts of marijuana was rules non-germane to the bill.

I have decided to focus my article around Heath VanNatter and Karen Tallian. These two are going to be my main sources, whether I hear from them or someone who works with them. I am hoping to reach out to them next week when I have access to the exponents resources. If a third source is required, I would reach out to a purdue student to hear what their opinion is on the legalization of marijuana.

Some other things I have been working on this week are questions I have before writing my article. I think the main statistics I want to focus are the legalization in the states surrounding us and in the United States as a whole. I have also come up with the following questions I wish to have answered.

• How many students in 2019 got kicked out of Purdue for possession?
• In just january 2020, how many students have been arrested for possession?
• Dean of students, how many people have gotten kicked out for possession of marijuana
• Indiana or out of state, what details do they have on the students?
• What time of the year is the most prevalent for arrests? If they have it broken down by dates?
• Do they have a number for how many referrals they have?
• Arrests vs citations
• Do they have any information on staff arrests?
• Purdue students vs non purdue students
• Map of west lafayette vs purdue

This week I thought a lot about what I wanted my legislative article to look like. I think it is really important for me to reach out to Heath VanNatter and Karen Tallian. I am very interested in their motives to push the legalization of marijuana and I think this push could be the main purpose of the article. My next steps are to reach out to them and try to interview them.

I also thought a lot about the statistics I would use in the article. In this story we could have the basic statistics of what the neighboring states are doing as far as legalization. Another point Virginia brought up is a graphic of a map that shows which states have medical versus non medical legalization.

I continued researching about the topics and began to narrow down the statistics that I actually would use. Lastly, I began to write a list of questions of what statistics I would like from Purdue/West Lafayette police and also what I would like to ask my interviewees.

This past week has been heavy on research. I have been filing through articles from all across the United States. I have been taking plenty of notes and marking important articles that I would like to model my own after. I am focusing primarily on the laws that have been established state by state. Right now, I am just trying to get organized with my research and find what the most important things to focus on are.

I am a little lost on what I should do next and how I should reach out to the specific legislators. I am hoping to wrap up my research in the early days of next week and begin searching for people to interview. I am trying to find a good angle for my story about legislature but I am not sure I can truly set my mind on one until i speak to them directly.

As far as Purdue NORML, they never reached out to me after my initial email. I would like to write an intense feature article on them specifically and follow a couple of them around for a few days just to see what their days consist of. I believe they could be very beneficial to our package and I think they should have a whole article dedicated to them because a big part of their lives are dedicated to marijuana legalization. I also believe that they would be good help for me to reach out to legislature. I believe they are working with people in the Senate and the House already.

Getting back into the swing of classes after taking a month off has been tough for me, especially for this being my final semester here at Purdue. This past week, I did a lot of brainstorming on what angle I wanted to write my stories on. I thought a lot about interviewing city officials and getting their opinions, but I could not set my mind on what I wanted the interview questions to entail. I think I would have to go into the interview with very broad questions and then once I have quotes from them, figure out the best way to write the story. As I did more research, I found the Purdue NORML group and decided to email them late in the week. I am still waiting for a response from them.

Over the weekend, I was introduced to a couple of Purdue students who recently had their apartment searched by West Lafayette police and marijuana was found. I think their story is very interesting because they are all from the Marion County area and if this were to have happened there, the may have not been charged. I asked them if they were willing to be interviewed and they said yes, if it was anonymous. I think this could be interesting for our student life angle. My goal for the next week is to reach out to them again and see if they would be willing to be interviewed by one of my classmates for a potential story.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

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