Top
Brink's story is not a traditional memoir that describes a horrific episode in her life and how she overcame the trauma; rather, "The Pot Wanted to Break" is a combination of memoir and ethnography. She studied clinical psychiatric nursing for her master's degree. Her entire experience with psychiatric nursing was as an undergraduate student, spending the mandatory three months at a psychiatric institution. Her classmates had worked as psychiatric nurses in psychiatric facilities, garnering experience in the field. She had little experience to fall back on during her clinical placements in graduate school.
One requirement for the clinical course was to keep a journal of her work, tracking her notes about the patients. True to the course requirement, she wrote all her thoughts and anxieties in her journal and submitted it for review. At the end of the semester, she was shocked to receive an "F" in her course. The next semester, the requirement was the same. Brink kept a faithful account of what she did with her patient but never wrote a single line about her personal anxieties, frustrations, or emotions. At the end of that semester, she received a "B" (the second highest grade!) for her course. The experience taught her to keep her mouth shut when it came to her emotions, for better or worse. This experience colored all her experiences when living in Nigeria. Don't let anyone know how you truly feel, just stick to the facts without comment. As a university professor on her first sabbatical leave, she faced many emotional difficulties as she tried to make sense of her circumstances. "The Pot Wanted to Break" illuminates the beautiful, brutal realities of life as a field researcher.
