In my first writing I wrote about my experience going to warped tour. I had a very hard time thinking of how i should write it and what kind of words i scould use to describe that experience. The essay was the hardest one for me and it also is the shittiest one that i wrote all semester. I can tell that I didnt know what I was doing and that I didnt have any type of style tat all to my writing yet. My second essay i wrote was about ataste. I told about the taste of mint chocolate chi pice creap. I can tell that my writing improeved just from the first essay that I wrote till this one. The words I used to describe the taste and if it had a smell were much more intelligent than the ones that I used for my first essay.. My third essay was about the smeell of fresh cut cgrass. It basically told a story about my childhood summers and the things that I spend doing with my friends. These memories always bring back to me the smell of hte fresh cut grass. I found itVERY hard to describe this smell because it smells good, yet kind of weird. this was sucha hard essay for me to write and it was probably my other least vavorite besides my first essay. My nexct two essays were definitely much better than the first and third. They described alot and sounded like they came from my heart more than hte others. They show me that my writing has significantly improved and that as I continue to write, i really do become a better writer. I cant write anymore. My head hurts too much and my nose is runny. I hate when marlen makes us keep typing and typing and typing and typing. After this I have to work from 10 until 4:30. That is fucking disgusting. I hate that i have to work alllll reaking day long. I was supposed to work at 8am but i do not feel well at all so I told them i could not come in until after this class. This has absolutely nothing to do with my writing but i feel like shit and I cant think about it right now. When Marlen asked me what is i
Reflecting on my writing March 28, 2008
I notice in my writing that I often mention my friends, whether they were childhood friends or still my friends today. I also noticed that I like to write about music and sound. I think my writing helps to show people that music is a big part of my life. I never realized how much sounds can make me remember past times until i read my essays over again. I can tell that my writing has MOST DEFINITELY improved since my first essay. The first essay I wrote was so boring and dull compared to the recent essays that I have written. I honestly feel bad that I made people read that. It’s pretty embarassing. In my essays I wrote after my first one I added so much more detail and put so much more heart and soul into the things that I wrote. I didn’t believe Marlen when he told me during my first conference with him that my writing has improved alot, but even I can see now that it really has improved.
Publish much? March 26, 2008
One place I would choose to publish would be TeenInk. I think that some of the things I write about pertain to what a lot of people have been through at my age. I would love to have my peers read my writing; I also love the idea that the entire magazine is written by teenagers.
Another place I would choose to publish would be for The Atlantic. I chose this because it is a more mature publisher than the first. I also love about this that all of the writers are graduate or undergraduate students, so it would be interesting to see how my writing styles and techniques compare to theirs.
The third place I would choose to publish would be for the EAPSU. I like that this association lets people of all ages enter, and that the submissions go through a board that decides which writing is “good enough.” I like that, because I know that only the best author’s get their writings published.
Autoethnography March 19, 2008
I have never heard the term “autoethnography” before I entered into Marlen’s class, so when I was told to write a blog about it, I had no clue whatsoever as to what I was going to write about. I began my search where many college students would: google.com. J I was looking for what the definition of an autoethnography really was. Holt described in his article that an autoethnography is “a genre of writing and research that connects the personal to the cultural” (Holt). As I read on in the article, it came to me that autoethnographies are storties which contain a lot of emotion and passion that is instilled in the writer’s soul.
In “The Ethnographic I” the writer explains that an autoethnography is a form of ethnography that overlaps art and science. It is part auto (self-as in autobiography) and part ethno (culture-as in ethnography) (Ellis). Bennet described an autoethnography as many different things, including: the description of a conflict and cultures, an attempt to see self as others might, and an opportunity to explain differences from the inside. From the research I have done on autoethnographies It seems to me that they cover a wide range of writing, but all have to do with ones personal self and the way that they are part of the world, both physically and mentally.
I think that writing my paper is not only going to help me learn more about myself and my writing, but also teach me about my culture and the world that I live in today. I am kind of anxious to create a piece of writing which incorporates both my feelings and personal being, along with the way that I fit into today’s society and the culture that I belong to. I sometimes feel as though I don’t even know much about the culture that I am a part of, so if I incorporate the culture part of an autoethnography I will be able to learn more about myself through learning about the culture of which I am grouped into.
Works Cited
Bennett, Susan. “The Way of the Program.” Susan Bennett on Autoethnography. 01 July 2004. Humbolt State University. 18 Mar 2008 <http://www.humboldt.edu/~cpf/autoethnography.html>.
Ellis, Carolyn. The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography . AltaMira Press, 2004.
Holt, Nicholas. “Representation, legitimation, and autoethnography: An autoethnographic writing story.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 2.1 2003 17 MAR 2008 <http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/>.
Music Test #2 March 7, 2008
This song is one that I would definitely listen to on my own. It’s like music that I’ve heard before and music that I listen to alot. I don’t think I’ve heard this song before but the voice sounds very familiar so I might have heard some music from this band already.
Music Test #1 March 7, 2008
The song that I listened to was a mix of a few different songs, so it sounded very familiar to me because I knew one of the songs that it was mixed with. The song was very upbeat and made me want to get up and jump and dance around the room. It was a very fun song and it’s something I would definitely listen to on my own. It kind of put me in a good mood, too. =)
Music March 5, 2008
Music: my escape route, my knight in shining armor, my companion. It’s something I can always turn to; something that I know will forever be a part of my life in some way or another. “The odd thing about music is that we understand and respond to it without actually having to learn it” (Ackerman). Although I can’t play any instruments myself, listening to the sound of other people creating melodies that help people live their lives is absolutely amazing to me. Music, to me, is a way to get away from everything. When I feel as if too much is going on in my life, I turn on my music and sink into the deep sea of the sound. When I feel as though life could not get any better, I do the same. No matter what type of mood I’m in, I know that I can always turn on my music and a world of emotions will come swarming into my soul. Every individual, even the most unmusical, is likely to be touched by music if they choose the right song (Isaacson).
What is the right song anyway? When somebody asks me what my favorite song is, my answer is given in either complete silence or I rattle off the name of a song that I will probably only like for two days, before moving onto something new. I have favorite songs for different parts of my life, such as my depressed middle school days or a song from the cd I listened to most during my favorite summer. When I’m missing parts of those times or people from that period, I dig through my cd collection and find the songs that remind me most of who or what I’m thinking of. When I travel home from school for vacations, I listen to music and sing my heart out during my three hour drive. My emotions for those three hours are completely ridiculous, in the way that I have never been happier or sadder in my life. It’s as though the music is actually the being that is sad. As Trivedi stated “In hearing the music, we make-believably bring it to life and imagine that it is the very being whose emotion is being expressed, so that it seems as if it is the music itself that is sad or joyous.” I listen to the widest range of music; some of it making me cry tears of joy, others making me shed tears of sorrow. A musical passage can make us cry, or send our blood pressure soaring (Ackerman).
When I went to the Vans Warped Tour this summer, never in my life have I been filled with so much powerful energy. When I heard my favorite band, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, begin to play before me, my heart filled with so much excitement and joy that I really thought I was going to burst into tears. The energy they emitted from the stage made every fan in the audience pause, before beginning to thrash their bodies in the sea of people. When I heard them play I thought of everything that any of their songs have ever helped me through or made me think of. I felt like I was part of the actual band; living my dream and putting my heart out there for the world to see. Like pure emotions, music surges and sighs, rampages or grows quiet, and it behaves so much like our emotions it seems often to symbolize them, to mirror them, to communicate them to others, and thus frees us from the elaborate nuisance and inaccuracy of the words (Ackerman).
Works Cited
Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. New York: Vintage books, 1990.
Isaacson, Greg. “Different Grooves for Different Moods.” Psychology Today 40 Oct 2007 22. 05 Feb 2008 <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=5&sid=1ffa962b-1a5c-4596-a058-0894f4c07450%40sessionmgr7>.
Trivedi, Saam. “Expressiveness as a Property of the Music Itself.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Cristicism 40.52007 22. 05 Feb 2008 <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=5&sid=1ffa962b-1a5c-4596-a058-0894f4c07450%40sessionmgr7>.
Works Cited March 5, 2008
MLA
In-Text Citations:
(Nathan)
(Watson)
Works Cited:
Nathan Bevis. “The Sense of Touch- A Philosophical Surprise.” Journal of Holistic Healthcare. 4.4(2007) 24-31. 28 Feb 2008. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=3&sid=ddaee885-fe64-432d-a992-35aabae55e09%40SRCSM2>.
Watson, Rhoda. “The Common Touch.” Nursing Older People 17.1(2005) 44-45. 28 Feb 2008. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=6&hid=22&sid=ddaee885-fe64-432d-a992-35aabae55e09%40SRCSM2>.
APA
In-Text Citations:
Ackerman (1990)
Morgan (1998)
References:
Ackerman, D. (1990). A Natural History of the Senses. New York: Vintage Books.
Morgan, E. (1998). The Power Of a Mother’s Touch. Christian Parenting Magazine. Retrieved February 25, 2008, from http://www.christianitytoday.com/cpt/8g5/8g5072.html
Touch Test #2 February 29, 2008
Before I felt it I was scared as hell because Marlen is super crazy and I had no clue what he would put infront of me. I did like the fact that I had a partner to discuss what I was feeling with, so I didn’t have to go through the experience alone. The first thing I felt when I touch the object was the softness, so i knew that it was some sort of stuffed animal. I felt the heart tag on it so I knew that it was a beanie baby (because I used to have some of them). I felt that the thing had four leg-type things, and they caused me to believe that the object I was touching was a stuffed crab. It had two beady eyes and a little hard thing for a nose, or that’s what I would assume. It reminded me of a blanket that I have because it was super soft.
Touch Test #1 February 29, 2008
The object that was placed in my hand was round like a ball. It had little rounded notches in it. It’s something that I’ve touched before and I’m pretty positive that it was a golf ball. It’s a very common feel that many people would be able to recognize when they touch it, even if they don’t see it.
