Ethnography Project: Fieldwork Assignment @ Crown

Eating @ Crown Eating Hall

For my ethnography project, my group and I are finding the literacy underlife of the map of eating. 

So for this particular assignment, we had to meet up.  When we met up (Drew, Rabee, and I), we decided to observe the way students eat. This will give us not only a generalization of their eating choices, but we will find a meaning to who these students are based on these questions: 

-Who are eating with who?
-What are these student eating?
-Why are these students eating this kind of food?
-When do certain students eat?
-Where do these student eat?
-How are they eating?

It was beginning to get dark, maybe around 6:00pm. My group met up at crown. As soon as we got there, since we were observing students eating, we decided to be part of our own observation and started to eat as well! 

We took pics of our food.















A friend of Drew, name Rob, is a student here a UNCC. We did a interview on him to see what he eat to make him who he is.

The underlife of what people are eating can define an individual. His/her personalities, likes/dislikes, philosophies, social life, ect. Where is he/she from? What type of person is he/she? Morning/Day/Night? 

Mapping UNCC Mini Assignment

          CONE Eating Building

In making this map that serves underlife in any kind of way, I saw a great opportunity to grasp underlife in Cone's diner. I'm here with a group of friends and we're just having a lunch together on a Tuesday at 11:00am. I look around (not to be nosey) and notices differences in people. I start to ask myself some questions
                            -Why did people choose this place to eat at?
                            -What is so attractive about this place?
                            -Who really are these people?
                            
I notice two huge kind of literacy here:
                                                                     -Embodied 
                                                                     -Sonic

One significant embodied literacy I found was the different groups of people at tables. I figured that most of the groups in here hang with each other based on identity, including: Language, Dialect, Food, and Maturity. I felt like the underlife in these groups put them in a group where they are more comfortable with each other. 

In the sonic literacy, I tried not to get in other people's business, but I notice different CONVERSATIONS between groups. Some of the conversations included: Drama, Politics, Sports, and Music. I also felt like the underlife in these groups put them together. 

But what makes this place so attractive to the current people eating here?
-Capacity: Number of tables, Size of room.
-Entertainment: TV, Relationships, Stage.
-Design: Yellow Walls, Windows showing balcony and campus, Shape of tables, Pictures.

The underlining message I'm trying to point out is that making the decision to eat here at Cone is more than picking a place to eat at, being more convenient, instead it shows the description of your personalities, weather you are eating with someone or alone; it shows where your family comes from, based on what you eat; and it can show your time management, being how fast of an eater you are.
                                                   

Mother Tongue

So I've cruised around my journal for English class and realize that there was a story that I always wanted to post. I never really got the chance to do this one because I was distracted by other amusing literatures. This article was called "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan. The reason this article attracts me because I can relate Amy's life to mine. I felt like Amy Tan was in my shoes, describing my life. It's bazar? I was sucked into a whole new atmosphere, not realizing someone out there in the world can give such a story that relates to my story. One things Amy talks about in her life is Broken English. How does Broken English impacts a person's life?

According to Amy, "A person's developing language skills are more influenced by peers" is something I've been noticing all my life. I use to wonder what makes my way of talking so much different from others? Sometimes I'm in a discussion with other people in college and I ask myself, "Why can't I laugh with them the way I laugh with my other friends?" Maybe because I'm introduced to a new language.


Amy shares moments in her life where she use to talk for her mom on the phone because it was more convenient and some people who are very good at speaking english takes advantage of those who have bad english, which is something I see all the time!
        -For example, every time my father goes shopping, I make sure I go with him because some good english workers talk to my father like he had the unadvantage and I'm there to be my father's good english which I'm grateful of.

(I am so into this right now, I can't stop typing.)

On page 1, Amy says "....yet, some of my friends tell me they understand."
       -I use to talk in a way where sometimes when I meet new people, they don't understand me. One time when my best friend was with me when I was talking with this other person; that person didn't clearly get my message, but my best friend got my message BOLD and CLEAR! WTH!

(I've notice I've moved on to a more clearer kind of english over the years, maybe because I've been focusing on building my communication with others a lot more.)

Amy states that "Math is precise,.... English tests were always a judgement call."
          -Why is this so important to me? Because IT'S THE SAME WAY I FEEL!

On an English exam, Analogies have been a struggle of Amy's. PLUS RANDY'S. It always comes down to two choices that makes sense.

Amy quotes "If I ever wrote a book, I want it to be understandable to people who read with a great english language and to those who don't use great english."


          -I use to be on the other side of the river, and it's still difficult sometimes for me to cross, but I notice that I should stop trying too hard to be on the other side of the river, instead I should be in the river. 

Downtown REFLECTION

Have you ever walked around a lot of building and wonder why the reflections of the buildings amazes you so much? Why are you starring at the building? Is is the beauty? Or do you just like looking at the reflections? What's attractive about it?

I was downtown earlier today with some of my colleagues, and discovered the hidden messages beyond the barrier of the building's reflection. We took many photo shots of buildings, and that's when it occurred to me. No one can't help to look at one's reflection. No one can't help to look up and stare at the tall building. But I realize the the tall buildings with shiny reflections are just more than a beautiful building, it's ART with MEANINGS. 

When I look at a building's reflection, I see me and others walking behind me. When I see others, I see how they look, but that don't give me the right to judge them. I look at myself, a short, brown skin, happy fellow, and only see an image. What makes me and the others around me special? Look at the reflection. The reflection is like a drawing. It' simply a shadow. What makes us so special is realizing who we are behind our reflections. 

These reflection got me thinking about who I am as a person. Everything I've accomplished and every mistake I've learned from in life has been a value to my personality. The real friends I've gained and the family I with is a value to my personality. The morals of nature affects my personality. Almost everything I've experienced or observed affects who I am inside, not outside. So I ask myself this question, 

Why are there still people out there who judges (either mentally or unknowingly) others based on who they truly are?

English 1101 Midterm Assignment: Finding "Reading & Writing"

In my english class, Lacy had given my group and I a mid-term assignment that required us to find a text and document our adventure in Atkins Library. Ok, so this is exactly how it went down.

6:30pm had hit the clock! Wildly enough, Randy had just arrived at least a minute or two late. Here we were, standing around the information desk beside the book shelf. And yes, all of us had this very curious face because we all didn't really understand the overall concept of our midterm assignment. So basically we came into a mission that we weren't quite ready for. As we were just standing there looking like we were lost, people around us glanced at us at times. I saw this one kid's eyeballs who was wondering when we were going to settle. HAHA, I wanted to say "what are you looking at" but I had to focus on my mission. We had to do something so we began the first act.

One of our members, Tyler, decided to use the computer as a start. So we used a computer near us, with Tyler logging in the 49ers computer. The first thing we wanted to do that could put our group's head back in place was to go over the midterm syllabus TOGETHER. So as we are skimming and reading the directions for the midterms, we found out that there wasn't a right or wrong, so that gave us a chance to do things our way that would probably get the job done. We needed help finding some text that could possibly be the anchor to our work, so we decided to ask the librarian at the front desk for help.

The librarian was nice enough to research some books that related to narrative literature. She looked like a graduate student. I forgot to ask for her name, but the funny thing was that she couldn't define a narrative literature so she looked it up. While the librarian was trying to help us out, another librarian, an older looking women, came down to help us also. So here we are asking and answering questions to the librarian; For example,some of the things we said was "Do you by a chance have a book relating to narrative literature?"  and "I don't know, any text is useful right now."The older looking librarian quickly found a book that we could use as a source. It was called "Reading and Writing: A Personal Account" by V.S. Naipaul. Everyone in the group seemed collective about it. The bad thing about finding this book was FINDING THE BOOK!

Sixth floor, here we come! It didn't seem that intensive but we managed have an eager sight for the book. Going up the elevator was pretty quiet, not to mention the elevator was kind of condensed. We finally reached the sixth floor, but it was still a long way to go! Shelf after shelf after shelf! Before we even began looking, our faces were as dead as a swatted fly. Each of the tree of us looked in the PR N32 section. It was taking FOREVER to find that one book, so I decided to look for another book on that floor that could possible help. Searching deep in section PN56, it seemed quiet. I thought I was deserted and it was that kind of feeling of where someone could get killed. While I was still searching, I  hardly heard my group calling my name, as if they were looking for me.

FINALLY we found the book! Reading and Writing: A Personal Account by V.S. Naipaul. The book had a plain black hard cover and looked old. We opened it up to see some info in it. It was about a man who tells a from first person a story about how he engaged in writing as he grows up. Growing up, Naipaul questioned so much about his parent's homeland, the culture, and the country he resides.

After my group and I finished the mission, we split our own ways. The elevator took us down, and we went our separated ways, finishing the midterm on our own computers.