German Ortega

Dr. Marlen Harrison

FYW 111

04/22/2013

Autoethnography

Wao! What is this long word? What is it mean? These were the first two

questions that I asked myself when I first hear this word. What a wire word I had no

clue what it means. It was in my English class when our teacher asks us to do a

project. An autoethnography. I had to look it up after class because I had no idea of

what it was. Well it turns out that is a “self-reflection” a “personal research”. This

two words “personal research” makes more sense to me now; I connect what we

have been doing on class and for the first time in my life in a English class I had the

opportunity to write about the things that I love like: family, specifics moments that

changed my life, about motocross and my passion for dirt bike and last but not least

a project involve with my major which is Entrepreneurship. I’m very thankful for the

opportunity that our teacher Dr. Marlen Elliot Harrison gave, which and me to

discover what types of writing I like I don’t like.

Back to autoethnography. Everything makes sense now after the research I

made about autoethnography everything is connected all the project, paper,

readings and workshops that I did in class come to an end about who I am, what are

my true believes. Is incredible, that first assignment that I had about “what is I” we

as individuals were ask to do a essay of what we think it means and now I reread it

and I feel completely different idea of “what is I”. It feels wire but at the same time

1

good because I’m will use all my projects to create just one. I will use all the things

about myself and all the things love; I really enjoy working on my senses during the

semester and I believe that this final project is going to be like el broche de oro (the

golden brooch). I will never forget my first day in the University a lot of things going

on inside my head. My first English class it wasn’t the one that I’m in right now a lot

of stress going on for sure. In my first class I felt that the only thing that I was going

to do was fallow instructions, do research and papers that I will not like. Is true I

didn’t have the opportunity to know how the class was because the university

change me to the class that I’m in now, witch I don’t regret anything. From what I

can tell the two classes are completely different from each other I just need to take

on single class to see the difference. In my first class I wasn’t connect with my

classmates and neither the teacher, which for me is very important. In my second

class another world, completely different; like I said before I don’t regret anything.

At first was a little confusing but with the help that I receive from my classmate

everything thing went better than what I expect.

At first I was very confused about the topics of our papers and also very

confused how to publish different documents on our own web site. The

requirements for this class had been completely different from any other class that I

ever had. I was very confused but after a few weeks everything start to make more

and more sense to me. In my previous classes I always was encourage to do regular

5 paragraphs essays with introduction, body and conclusion witch in time I got

bored. I had a whole different idea about how English classes were at the University.

This time it was something new something I never experience before. Our teacher

2

encourage us to do any type of writing of our preference that only condition was

that we can not repeat that same gender more than one time.

The mission for this research is to represent an ideal that probably will

change a lot of people point of view about life and how they face their day by day.

The essence of this paper is to show completely how an idea can change after gain

knowledge about a specific topic, which is “What is I”. Take a few seconds before

reading this paper and think deeply involving your cultural believes, your values,

your ideas, your mind and soul and ask this question “What is I”? After you feel you

have a strong idea start reading.

My first assignment was to do a project that involve “Taste”, when my

teacher said that in class I was very confused; on that particular assignment the first

draft I read it a few days ago and I feel that my writing was regular. Same as before

but know with all the experience that I gain in this semester I can capture more my

mistakes and I know how to connect my better my ideas.

First sense. What is Taste? The majority will say that is one of our five

traditional senses. That is the sensation of joy by eating a delicious food, a natural

sense that is very important for our cultures. In every culture is represented in

different ways. This is what most people will replay to this question. But what if

now I change this idea of taste by asking these questions, can we taste another

person? Can we taste anger or happiness? Can we taste good and bad situations

before they happen? “The taste od the old days” (Dyane Ackerman). Think about it,

taste is not just a sensation that people receive when they introduce food in their

mouth. Taste is a lot more than that.

3

My personal experience; I can die by tasting specifics kinds of food. If I try

any type of fish or seafood I will get an allergic reaction and suffocate until I don’t

have more oxygen in my body. This is a part of my “I”. This is what differences me

from anybody else. The night I ate for the fist time fish I was having a good time with

my family but at the same time I wasn’t feeling good. I personally knew that

something was going to happen that night. I was feeling that taste of suspicious and

wondering what could go possibly wrong. Is this feeling part of my “I”? Why I got

that feeling that night?

Different ideas are what opened my vocabulary and the way I write now. My

second project was about “Vision” I had no clue what type of writing I was going to

do I was very frustrated because I didn’t know what to do. One night I was watching

motocross videos and a crazy idea came up to my mind. I waned express how I see

motocross in poems. Usually, in my high school I always try force myself in writing

thing that I don’t like but also I try very had to write them good because I want that

my teachers liked my work; well this time was completely different. I said to myself

I’m going to with what ever come out from my mind and from what I feel. I made a

little research about how to do a poem because I had an idea from my high school

that one time I did one. When I sat down to start writing time went by so fast that I

didn’t even realize how fast I finish and how fun it was. and on top of that my

teacher like a lot my work which I wasn’t expecting that. I was shock from my

teacher reaction and also from my classmate reaction. I got to the point where I said

to myself maybe I could be a poet. I gees is that when you do what you like

everything goes just fine. I also find out that I’m very creative is better for me to

4

write alone with imagines than just a 5 paragraph. This was about my first and

second draft after a meeting that I had with my teacher and a classmate we came up

with the idea as a group to create a motivational video for motocross racer. Like the

one I was watching when I first got this idea.

“Vision” again if I ask you what do you think is Vision? Will you be able to

take to a deeper thinking than just that vision is the ability to interpret what we see

day by day in our environment by managing the information witch contains visible

light. Will you be able to think deeper and said how you see yourself? How you see

life? How you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years from now?

Nobody sees how you see. We can see the same object with different ideas. Choose a

picture that means a lot to you and try to come up with a strong idea. Why did you

choose that image and not other? What has that specific image that others don’t

have? I will give you a better example of how we see things differently. Look at this

image. What do you see? Probably you will say not

much a field with a tree and some hills that look

like jumps well for me is completely different. For

me is my passion, my scape of live, where I

overcome my fear and where I keep my mind calm. (Place a piece of poem here)

For sure it is different from anybody else in this world. We see different from each

other that is one of the features that differentiate us from one another.

My third project I also love it has to do with “Smell”. Same as before I had no

clue what to do; this time after a lot of thinking I came up with the idea to advertise

5

a brand created by a motocross racer. I felt very connect with this project because I

had to be very creative using a lot of imagines to make it interesting. I waned to be

as close as an advisement in a magazine.

To created an autoethnography I will use this entire different project that define me

as who I am. This will be the main idea of the all research trying to describe how all

this different projects describe me as a person.

6