I plan on using my hearing essay for my process set essay for a couple of reasons.  This is the essay I used to prove to myself and my teacher that I could do all the steps for the writing process.  So I have brainstorming, how I started my essay,feedback, revision, etc.  I did the writing process for this essay so this is the one I want to use to show that I have used what I have learned in this class.  I also picked this essay because it’s the last essay I have done and with each essay I do, it’s starting to get better and better each time so I don’t want to use one from the beginning of the semester.

     I plan on using my autoethnography for my stand alone essay.  This shows that I can use a resource to help me write a paper.  I’m using my own writing to describe what is I.  I have to hand in a final draft of this paper without any work with it so I figured this would work out the best for me to choose.  This is also the final paper I did in class so I’m hoping it’s one of my better essays.  It shows that I put a lot of thought into the essay and that I can write about using my own resources.

Autoethnography:

What Is I?

       Throughout my life up to this point, I’ve never really thought about the single letter word, “I”.  At the beginning of the semester I was asked to describe what I meant to me.  I was a bit thrown off by this question.  Something that sounded so simple really wasn’t.  When I started to type what “I” meant in my blog I said:

“The term “I” is a word that is used to describe myself to people.  It describes my personal uniqueness: what I like to do, who I am friends with, where I like to spend my time, what my favorite movies are, who is most important to me, etc.  I use the term “I” to let the world know who I am and to describe myself to others.”

       I was a bit skeptical after I had written this.  I wasn’t exactly sure why we were doing this but just like everything else in school, we always do everything for a reason.  I was soon to find out why I had to describe the word “I” in my own words.

       If people saw me around campus they would probably see me running in my short shorts during cross-country practice.  They might laugh but I would keep running and not let it bother me.  I would probably be talking and laughing.  People might see me as optimistic, especially if they see me in the classroom environment.  I like to make learning fun while still focusing in the class.  People may notice my eclectic taste in fashion and realize I have an interest in the fashion world. These are some of the obvious observations that would be made about me.  I believe reading my essays, my blog entries, and observing my behaving in the class can help describe whom I really am.

Vision

       The process of finding a deeper meaning to the word “I” started with my first essay vision, which was a narrative.  I chose a picture of my running idol, Steve Prefontaine.  He’s known to just about everyone in the running world.  I chose him because he is inspiration to me for my running.  I love the sport running.  If someone doesn’t run it’s hard to explain to him or her, the feeling it gives me.  The term, “runners’ high”, sums it up.  Running races makes me feel like I’m on top of the world.  It’s my high. Whenever I have a bad race or practice doesn’t go well, I think about him.  He never gave up, no matter how many bumps in the road he came across.  Many on the team say I run just like him, which is with guts.  I work hard and push my physical and mental limits to the max.  People who have watched me race will tell you the same thing.  My pace is suicide pace.  Running is something I tried in eight grade but quit after that.   I reunited with it in eleventh grade.  The main point of this was to address my last state meet.  I ran one of the worst races of my life.  But I didn’t achieve what I wanted to yet, so I’m running here at IUP.  I’m devoted and I’m chasing my dream of taking my running where people think I can’t.  I can see myself now, placing in the top three at nationals.

       What I’ve learned from this essay is that I’ve grown through high school and have become more mature.  I’ve learned how to be self-disciplined not only physically but mentally also.  I’ve noticed, as I became a better runner, I also grew in the classroom.  It gave me the self-confidence I needed to believe in myself and work to my full potential.

Taste

       After the vision essay, I had to write an essay about taste.  I had a hard time picking a topic but the first idea that came to my mind was Dr. Pepper.  The taste of this drink brings back my middle school years.  Although I didn’t write about the memories it gave me in my actual essay, this is why I wrote about Dr. Pepper.  During my junior high years, my life was my friends and skateboarding.  That’s all I could think about.  In the summers, my mom would drop me off at the skate park right before she went work, which was at three o’clock p.m.  Then she would pick me after work, which was at eleven o’clock p.m.  I would only have five dollars with me the whole day and the only thing I would by with that money was Dr. Pepper.  I didn’t care about being out all day without a lot of money.  My friends kept me going.

            I believe after writing this essay, it dawned on me.  I realize that I was very independent and I didn’t depend on a lot in my younger years.  I was this was my adolescent stage.  I didn’t want to be around my parents that often.  I just wanted to skate and be with my friends.  I valued my friendships and what I loved to do.  I wasn’t a materialistic type of person.  I didn’t care how nice people’s houses were, what kind of clothes were they wearing, and did they have the latest technology.  I judged people from how they acted.  I never made of someone who couldn’t help him or her self.  I made fun of the people who deserved it and they would help themselves.

Smell

            Next there was the smell essay.  I chose to write in a journalistic style.  I had no problem choosing what I wanted to write about.  This was by far the easiest essay to write for me because I was just writing about the stages in my life about my parents smoking and the hardships I’ve face with them because of it.  The one thing that has haunted me my whole life is cigarette smoke.  There’s nothing more I despise.  I wrote about this because my parents have smoked my whole life and they most likely will till the day they die.  I’ve done everything I could possibly do to avoid it.  I’ve gone through hell and back with my parents because I’ve always tried to get them to quit for their sake and mine.  I hate when my clothes smell like smoke and I can’t stand being exposed to second-hand smoke.  I’m also allergic to it, which makes it even worse.

            I’ve come to the conclusion that because they smoke and I don’t, that my relationship with my parents was never like I wanted it to be.  I’ve always kind of avoided them, not because I don’t love them, but because I was running away from the smoke.  I wish I would have just ignored it and still would have had the relationship I wanted to with them.  They respect me now and try not to smoke around me and I respect that their adults and they can do what they want to do.  Everyone is his or her own person.  I now love them for who they are.  After all, they did raise and put food on the table for me.

Touch

            For the fourth essay, we had to write about something dealing with the sense of touch.  I was going to write about my girlfriends touch and how I miss it but I figured that would be too cliché.  So I decided to take this essay elsewhere.  I had to incorporate my major, which is fashion merchandising.  I wanted to keep it interesting and everyone loves to talk about sex, so I wrote about condoms and tried to persuade people to wear condoms.  Writing this essay didn’t have much personal meaning but I enjoyed writing it and I got some statistics on sexual diseases for college students.  When thinking about touch though.  It’s very important especially when you’re a baby.  It helps nurture them.  Makes them feel loved.

            I think writing this essay showed that I’m an optimistic person and I like to think outside of the box sometimes while still handling the task at hand. 

Hearing

            Our last essay was hearing.  I had a hard time finding what I wanted to write about.  I heard some of the other students’ ideas in the class and they sounded good but I wanted to come up with something on my mind.  Then I did a mind map and I soon found my topic, silence.

            Hearing is very important to me.  Without hearing I wouldn’t be able to listen to music, which is a big part of my life.  I wouldn’t be able hear my girlfriends’ voice on the phone.  I miss her a lot and it’s hard being away from each other so this sense it vital to me.

            Silence is something I didn’t think much about until my creative writing class my senior year in high school.  I don’t believe that there is such thing as silence.

            After writing about this I’ve come to the conclusion that I do have faith.  I believe that there is no much thing as silence and I truly believe that.  I always thought I lacked a sense of faith, especially in religion.

 I have my introduction done as of now.  I split my final paper using the five senses and now I have a good base for all of them.  I need to expand and go in more depth on each sense in order to reach my goal.  I believe I am my source of information so I’m just going to relate to my experience and how they’ve turned me into the person I am today.  

WHAT I NEED TO DO TO EXPAND MY ESSAY 

 I need to work on some of the small things such as grammar and run on sentences but other than that I think I have a good start.  I’m working on pace and not getting behind so it won’t be as hard.  

  I’m going to try and work on it a little each day so the workload isn’t as heavy as I think it is.

  A. Give my old defintion of I.

II. Describe myself using the 5 senses.

Last paragraph:Describe I up until this day.

According to mywebspace, “ethnography is a social science method of qualitative research that describes human social phenomena based on fieldwork, and in autoethnography (AE) the researcher becomes the primary participant/subject of the research in the process of writing personal stories and ethnographic narratives” (Carolyn Ellis).  In the printout I got, “autoethnography refers to writing about the personal and its relationships to culture.  It is an autobiographical genre of writing and research that displays multiple layers of consciousness.”  According to Humboldt.edu, “ autoethnography is the study of awareness of the self within a culture” (Paulo Freire).

            Also according to the printout, “David Hayano usually is credited as the originator of the term.  He limited the meaning to cultural level studies by anthropologists of their ‘own people,’ in which the researcher is a full insider by virtue of being ‘native,’ acquiring in intimate familiarity with the group, or achieving full membership in the group being studied.”

            I think what makes autoethnograpy different from other writings is that in a narrative, opinionated, or even informative, people are writing about themselves.  They   might be doing informative for an assignment or to educate themselves about something new.  But with an autoethnography it’s more than that.  People are looking and writing about themselves in an outside perspective as if they were someone else looking at who they really are.  That is what I think makes it different.

            When starting an autoethnography, people should understand and have a generalized idea about what they’re going to write about.  I already have a head start because that’s what we’ve been working on almost the whole semester.  I believe the semester was preparing me for this writing.

Works Cited

The Call of Autoethnographic Stories

Ellis, Carolyn. “What is Autoethnography?” Autoethnography In First-Year Writing.    4 Nov. 2008  <https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/rlhunter/web/autoethnographyinfyw/what%20is.     htm>.

Freire, Paulo. “Autoethnography.” 4 Nov. 2008           <http://www.humboldt.edu/~dck5/autoethnography.html>.