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Jacob Linzenbold
Marlen Harrison
English 101-017
March 31, 2009
Auto ethnography
From the beginning of this class I was always a decent writer, enough to “get by” in high school. I looked at the class workload and didn’t know how I was going to keep up. When given our first assignment, I knew that this class would hold my interest the entire semester. At the beginning of the year, we were asked a complex question in “what is I”. I sat at my chair wondering what kind of question is this; it is such a commonly used word I never thought of defining it anymore than it was. Then I sat and thought what I meant to me, and I came up with my definition from my blog as follows:
“What is I? The word I is often thrown around in everyday conversation but it is actually more than that. It is a term that has a different meaning for every individual. Some look at I as psychical appearance or some shallow meaning such as that. It is up to the user of the word though to determine what the definition of I actually is.
In order to understand the true meaning of the I we must understand there are many different layers to this word. It is composed of everything that the user of the word stands for and has done. It is a word that almost has to used, and is very complex.
Still I, in my opinion, is a collection of many things. It includes every aspect of your life. Every action youve taken, everything youve said and done. So to me I is a collection of everything from past experiences and relationships to actions and thoughts. So, I, is much more than a word and is not easily definable.”
Even though I wrote this entry almost 3 months ago, I agree with it completely. My blog highlighted the fact that I, is a word that stands for everything the user of the word has done, said, felt or thought. That’s not your everyday Merriman-Webster definition and I didn’t intend it to be, most use the word without a second thought, I now know that it is much more than that.
Our first sense that we would be writing on would be taste. We were asked to right a few a few paragraph blog entry. So I titled mine “A Hamburger to Remember” and wrote of my experiences with eating and how important I felt it was too me. I recalled a trip I made to Mexico and how dull life would be without “something to spice it up.” Writing this short blog entry would give me a head start on our next assignment.
Shortly after the blog entry, early into the semester we wrote our first essay. It was supposed to introduce our reader to the sense of taste, I did this by using the narrative genre, and I found that it took me a while to produce a quality piece of work. My first time in writing this essay, it was returned to me and Marlen only read a little bit of it due to so many errors. When seeing this I knew that revision would be an important part of this class. After the editing process I received a grade that I was satisfied with, and am glad I was able to.
My first paragraph for this essay really started things out in the right direction; since this was the only thing I got any feedback on I knew it was a quality intro:
“The day started normal enough for Eric he would wake up and get ready for work. Then he’d come home exhausted, eat dinner and repeat. Continually repeating the same task day in and day out is enough for anybody to be looking for change.”
In my personal writing process, if I can get started I usually just crank out the rest of a paper. After fine tuning that paragraph I had a strong base for the rest of the paper. I really enjoyed the entire process of writing this paper, because I turned out in my opinion my best paper that I would write the whole year. Personally, I have an easy time writing narrative essays, and this one was an exception due to the editing process. After this though, I was left with a much better essay than I started with.
One day in class we had an assignment to bring in a picture, and later on we were told that we would be writing about our pictures. My picture was of the Dallas Cowboys, known as “The Triplets”. Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin were the three players pictured. To me this was more than a picture, growing up a Cowboys fan, these were my idols. In the essay, I highlighted each of the member’s stats to some extent.
The best part of my paper would have to be my personal connection with the players I was writing on. I had many memories of watching them play, and I learned a few important things from them. I believe that the Triplets played a big part in my childhood and what direction that I would be taking. Michael Irvin would face many problems in his career, such as injuries and drug abuse. One may see this and think how anyone that used hard drugs could be considered a role model. Michael showed that even when you have enough money and fame, you might make mistakes. This crossed over into my world and I saw a grown man make mistakes and man up for them to accept the consequences. This form of a role model really taught me a thing or two about taking responsibility for my actions.
Our next sense that we would work with would be smell. For this essay I wrote it in the informative genre and showed some of the facts of smell. I had some interesting paragraphs such as this one:
“Smell is a sense that you can remember forever, but not be able to explain the scent to someone else. A new or different scent shows how complex smell actually is. It can really not be represented by anything; we can only try and explain it. Though most of the time it is a very difficult thing to do.”
This paragraph just shows how different of a sense smell is, it is also a big part of our sense of taste. I realize that it is not a life or death sense, but things would be more difficult without this and things would be much more dull and boring. If you lose your sense of sight, you can use brail and have others describe the events that are transpiring. With smell though, once you lose it, it would be very difficult to have someone explain the complex experiences you are missing.
This paper as a whole really didn’t define who I was or help me find myself, but it did open my eyes to how much I rely on this sense. I use this for the taste of everything, and the scent of the opposite sex. Even though not everything in the world smells pleasant, for a matter of fact most smells quit the opposite. I still almost enjoy smelling something unpleasant; knowing that I need this sense and it makes my life more interesting.
When writing my next essay, I combined a story with a lot of information. Touch was the subject of this paper. I compared touch to the rest of the human senses and made points, such as touch being the only sense that doesn’t decay with age, along with every other sense. My closing paragraph on this essay summed up what I was trying to convey throughout the entire paper:
“Whether you are a fighter or a lover, touch is essential to being able to function properly and enjoy life to its fullest. Not being able to feel your loved ones would be horrible and we should be thankful for having our most basic senses. Eric and his grandpa both live lives that would be very difficult to live. Losing any sense would be devastating, but without touch we are not in “touch” with the world around us.”
To me, this paragraph was very important to my essay and my point as a whole. It just again emphasized my message that was underlying throughout the essay. I came up with the side story of Eric and his grandpa, because my grandpa had a stroke and had to move in with my family. I have seen firsthand some of the difficulties he has face with hearing and sight. I realized that his sense that was as good as it was years ago was touch. I used this personal experience to expand my writing abilities.
The other part of the story about Eric and his blindness was just something that I made up. I sympathize with anyone that faces any type of disability and I just thought that a child without their sense of sight would be getting left out of a very special experience of being able to see things around in daily life. If anything it showed how devastated I would be if I would lose my senses.
