autoethnography rough copy

Kirsten Wallace

English 101-017

Marlen Harrison

March 29^th, 2009

Auto ethnography

            On the first day of Marlen’s English 101 class we were given an assignment in where we had to write “What is I”. I thought that the assignment would be fairly easy because up until that point, I had a pretty good idea of who “I” was. I always thought that I was a product of my environment. I am a combination of my mother and my father, both physically and mentally. I have been heavily influenced by my hometown and my friends. In that first assignment I wrote 

            “Does everyone truly know who they are?” The way I see it, the difficulty with defining oneself is knowing where to start. You could start by saying where you grew up, what kind of family you come from, what your heritage is, where you work, your personality… These are common ways people describe themselves. But, are you really saying who you are? I could tell everyone that I’m a good person, but am I really? How can I even begin to prove it, when the very definition of “good” changes based on who is defining it?

            Looking back on what I wrote, I still agree with this statement. When people ask me to describe myself, I automatically start thinking of personal qualities, such as where I was born, what kind of family I come from etc. Although I still believe this theory, I feel that there is more to a person than just that, and I feel that we can use our senses to fully understand and discover who “we” are. In this class we have done a significant amount of writing based on our senses, and this has given me more knowledge about myself and the world that I live in.

            In this class we were asked to write several essay’s based on our senses. The first essay was on taste. I thought that this was going to be a fairly hard essay to write, after all conveying taste in a narrative form comes with its challenges. I decided to write about my favorite type of food, which just so happens to be Mexican. I incorporated my love for Mexican food into a funny story about a small restaurant in Texas and all the shenanigans that go on there. This story reminded me about one of my first jobs, working at McDonald’s.

            For a first job, I suppose working at McDonald’s wasn’t so bad. I mean what’s so bad about having to work with a bunch of drug addicts who can’t even cook, or the huge burns that I got due to the fryer, or the fact that I smelled and looked like the grease that poured of the French fries. I’m using heavy sarcasm, but honestly I hated working there. Every day I wanted to quit so badly, but I stayed.  The main reason was because I needed the money, and also my parents would not allow me (I was only 15 at the time mind you). I would go to work almost every day and ask myself “Why the hell am I here”. It took me awhile before I realized why I initially stayed. Yes, it was for the money but working there taught me a lot about myself. First, it taught me never to quit. Life isn’t always glamorous and wonderful, and many times we have to do things that we don’t really want to do. Working at McDonald’s taught me that life is rough and sometimes you have to do the “dirty work” to make it in life. Also, working there gave me incredible motivation. At the time I really could have cared less about my grades in school. But after working there for a few months, I realized that if I didn’t do well in school, I might end up here for the rest of my life, flipping burgers, which is a horrible reality. On top of all of this, it taught me that you have to work hard for the things you want. I’ve never had anything handed down to me; my parents have always been firm believers in working hard for what you deserve. And after working at McDonald’s, I guess you can say that I believe that now too. Even if the pay check I received was tiny, it was better than nothing, and I earned every single drop of that money.

            The next sense that we had to write about was sight. Sight is one of the senses that I do not think I could live without. For my essay I decided to make a magazine, similar to the fashion of Cosmopolitan, which is by far my favorite magazine. Because it was a magazine, I made a bunch of tiny articles based around vision, such as fashion advice and other interesting facts, such as why we are attract to one another, physical attraction. But, for the bulk of the magazine I wrote about love at first sight. The whole concept of love at first sight I do not believe it, most likely because it has never happened to me. But, I wrote fictionally about it, if it were to happen to me. Here is how I wrote it

             “Love at first sight was something I never believed in, not until the day I first saw him. I had been single for almost a year, and even though I kept telling myself that I was a strong, independent woman who didn’t need a man in her life to keep her happy, I was wallowing in my own misery. It was the week before Valentine’s Day, and while all my friends had plans with their significant others, I would be all alone. It sounded so depressing to say that to myself — “alone.” This would be the first time in almost three years that I would not be sharing Valentine’s Day with my sweetheart; how pitiful.
I always had a vision in my head of what the perfect boyfriend was. He was tall, slightly built with tan skin. He had chocolate brown hair and hazel eyes that glistened every time he looked my way. He had a soft voice that, whenever it spoke my name, I swear I could see stars. He was everything that I deserved and so much more.
But, like most things, he was nowhere to be found. I had searched for a whole year to try and fill the void in my heart, but it was impossible. I was incredibly stubborn and refused to settle for anything less than what I wanted. So, although I had plenty of chances to be with people, I turned them down. They weren’t my type. I figured I would just walk this world alone for a while, until someone came my way.
I was completely apathetic to the idea of love when I first saw him. He came so far out of the proverbial left field that I am still surprised I managed to catch a peek. There I was, walking around campus, listening to the melody of “Lovers in Japan” by Coldplay on my iPod. I was having a pretty bad day, as I recall. I’d been up all night thinking about unfinished school work – the lack of sleep (and abundance of worry) left me with a monster of a migraine. I paced around the slippery sidewalks, looking at reflections of the beautiful golden sun in the huge puddles of water that lay everywhere. It was relatively warm that day, and the snow was finally beginning to melt. That made me happy and sad; happy, because I loathe the snow, but at the same time mildly displeased, because it left a muddy mess.
As I rounded the corner, I caught a glimpse of a cream-colored trench coat. It was worn by a tall, slightly tan man with hair so dark a brown that it would have looked black if he wasn’t in the sun. As I began to look up slowly, I met his eyes. They were hazel, which, as I’ve mentioned, is my absolute favorite eye color. For a moment, I could’ve sworn I was dreaming. The guy was the spitting image of the perfect boyfriend I had always dreamed of. He smiled crookedly in my direction, and I could feel my cheeks turning red.
We didn’t talk, ’cause he was busy playing music on an old jukebox that looked like it came right out of the 80’s. I’d never before heard the music he was playing, but I liked it. Well, what I could hear of it over my own music.
I was all of a sudden stricken by the notion that I should probably continue walking, before he thought I was a creep; not one to loiter, I continued briskly down the sidewalk toward the south end of campus.
I had no idea who the guy was, or where he came from, but I knew that he was perfectly perfect for me. He was my ideal man. Now if only I had gotten his name”.

            The whole concept behind this was finding someone, at first glance who means everything to you, who are your ideal. Like I said before, I have never experienced this. Many of my friends however have claimed to. I personally feel the whole theory is flawed, but I tend to be a very analytical person when it comes to relationships. That doesn’t mean that I’m not a dreamer, or that I don’t believe it’s possible, but simply by looking at someone and determine your love for them suddenly, within the blink of an eye is confusing to me. I think I am this way based on the way I was raised. I am the youngest in my family, and I am definitely a “Daddy’s Girl”. My dad has always been wary of boys that I like, or that like me. Growing up I was always told that there was only one thing that boys wanted, and that was sex. Because of this, I am very skeptical when it comes to relationships, I feel like half the time, that’s the only reason why boys want to date me. I know that in some ways that’s a ridiculous concept, but when that’s all you hear half your life, it has its effect on you.