Contribution

I am not sure what I can give to my subculture.  I could possibly help students make their decisions as to whether or not they want to work during school.  I would be able to give them facts and statistics to back up my recommendation.  I don't think I could help people that are already working.  Maybe I could help them figure out how to balance their work and school responsibilities.  

Survey

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Groundwork

When I first moved into my dorm, I had no idea what the people at the front desk did. After we were here for a little while, I started needing information and such and whenever I would ask anyone, they would tell me to go ask the front desk. After a while, I finally went down there and found out that some of the people that live on my floor actually work the front desk. This was the main reason I started going down to the front desk and talking to people. The more time I spent down there, the more I got to know what all went on "behind the scenes". I have become good friends with most of the people that work the desk. This makes it easier for me to get information and have the truth come out about what they really do.

I feel comfortable when I'm down visiting the front desk. There are couches down there that makes it feel more inviting. There are always people down there as well so it makes it feel normal to be down there. When there aren't any people down there and I don't really know the person working the desk, I feel somewhat uncomfortable. When I know the person, I can come up with things to talk about; when I don't know the person that well, I feel like it's tough coming up with topics to talk about.

I am still an outsider because I do not work the desk. Even if I interviewed everyone and attempted to get to know everything there was to do, I still wouldn't have the full experience because I am only observing, not actually having to do the work. They normally have a 3-4 hour work schedule so that means they have to sit down there and, at some times, do absolutely nothing for 4 hours. Even if I stayed down there the entire time someone is working, it still wouldn't be the same. Another aspect of working the front desk is when you have to work from midnight to 7. This is different than the normal working routine because they have to sit out in the lobby area and swipe everyone's card in as they come back from partying or whatnot. This also means that they have to deal with drunk people on a pretty normal basis.

Culture Shock

I haven't been out of Indiana very much but one place that does stick out in my mind is when I went to Phoenix, AZ during winter break of my freshman year of high school.  This trip was a trip of many firsts.  It was the first time I had ridden an airplane and really the first time I had been away from home for an extended period of time.  When we arrived one early morning in December, I remember looking out the window on our ride back to the hotel and thinking that I was definitely not in Indiana any more.  There were a lot more homeless people and just the overall feel of Phoenix was different.

Finishing up

In order to finish my mini ethnography, I need to interview more people.  I have a few done but I need more to make the paper more interesting.  I'm not sure what kind of research I can do for my paper.  There really isn't any information other than interviews and observations that would help me.  I'm a little concerned about using this as my subgroup.  I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to complete all the assignments if I don't have anything to research.  Yet I don't have a back up to write about so...I feel kind of stuck.  I don't know how I'm going to complete the annotated bibliography if there is nothing I can research.

The band room

As I walk into the band room, the all too familiar smell hits me.  I can't quite explain exactly what the smell is, most likely because it is a compilation of many, many smells.  This smell usually appears half way through the season which is July to October.  It is a mixture of dirty socks, moldy notebooks from all the practices out in the rain, old water bottles left behind, among many other things.  The smell never seems to go away no matter how much you spray or attempt to freshen it up.  It just comes in different intensities.  At the beginning of the season it appears to be dormant, but really it's just not a prominent.  Once it has become strong enough to recognize, it doesn't go away until bout mid January after the room has been thoroughly cleaned over winter break.

In addition to the smells of the band room, another thing you would notice almost immediately is what looks like an explosion of clothing all over.  People seem to constantly leave articles of clothing in the band room, never seeming to remember to get them the next day.  They just sit there and gather with the other lost and never found clothes.  This ranges from socks to shirts to nice dress shoes.  I don't understand how people can forget these and not know it, but they never seem to go away and it happens every year.  The piles just move around the room in an attempt to "clean up" the room.

Depending on when you enter the room, the sound can be overwhelming.  When all two-hundred-some students are in the band room, the sound is almost deafening, and this is when they are simply talking and carrying on conversations.  When we all start playing, the sound is amplified by at least one hundred percent.  It is not possible to carry on any form of conversation while the band is playing, you must simply wait until we are done.

Dogtown and Z-boys

I think this is an ethnographic study because they went and interviewed people and researched the past behaviors of them.  They did rely heavily on interviews but there was still some research involved.

The people being interviewed were the people that were part of dogtown.  They were more or less the creators of it.  They moved the story along by telling stories of their experiences in chronological order.  They would tell a story and then progress a few months then tell another story.  They gave us an insider's look into that culture.  This documentary would've been completely different if they hadn't had the first hand accounts of what happened.  It made it more believable hearing it from the people that were there and involved in it.

Most of the people interviewed gave off a sort of "I don't care" attitude at the time.  They did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted and they really didn't care what anyone else thought.  At one point, one of the guys said that if they got caught skating in an empty swimming pool, they would go back the next day and figure out how they could get away with it again.  I thought that the fact that no one else was allowed to join them unless everyone agreed on it was interesting.  It shows that they have rules and that no just everyone can join.

The documentary is structured in chronological order.  They were telling a story but incorporating interviews and research into it to make it more interesting.  I thought this helped my understanding of it because, again, having the interviews made it seem more real and true.

Some of my stereotypes about skateboarders held true throughout the movie.  I think that they are more free spirited and live on the edge more than other people.  Some of the things that they talked about reinforced my thinking such as trying to avoid the cops again and not caring what any one else thought.

Assumptions?

There are several general conclusions I have about my subculture right now.  One of them is that they are all older than freshman.  To work at the desk you have to be a sophomore or older.  Another conclusion would be that, with a few exceptions, everyone that works the desk lives in the building.  There are a few people that work there that don't live there anymore but lived there previously.  I think that these few general conclusions would apply to all of the other front desks in the other buildings.  There is criteria the workers have to meet so that would make it nearly the same everywhere.  One thing that could change or differ would the friendliness of the people that work the desk.  Some places may have more friendly people than others.  Another reason they would differ would the that the people hiring them are different.  They all have different personalities so they would want to hire people that work best with their personalities.  this would cause each building to be slightly different.

Privileges

My privileges by my own effort:

• being accepted to a good teaching school thanks to my hard work and good grades during high school
• money to buy things because of working during high school
• good teaching connections because of my persistance and work ethic
• good reccomendations for jobs and scholarships because of my personalilty and reputation
• good friends because of an effort on my part to socialize

Privileges with no effort:

• 19 years old
• born into a financially secure family
• going to a good school system during grade school
• being born an American citizen- all opportunities and rights available to me
• living in the suburbs- neighborhoods and feel safer
• living in a lower middle class family- more opportunties than some but not as much as others
• being a female in the US- much more freedom than in other countries
• not being forced into one religion or the other- ability to make my own decisions

These privileges may effect my fieldwork by letting me understand some of the people I will be observing more. The people I will be observing are about the same age as me, they will be about a year older. This may help me because I have some of the same interests as them and understand some of the things they will talk about.