Autoethnography Revision

Why Do I Think Like This?
As I walked into my English 101 class, many thoughts filled my head about what I was about to encounter. The major concern I had about Marlen’s class was the amount of writing we were expected to do throughout the course of the semester. My high school English teachers usually made me write about four or five two-page papers during the course of the entire school year. I dreaded writing every single one of the run-of-the-mill papers. I was sick of being required to come up with a thesis, introduce the subject, provide three supporting arguments, and wrap it all up in a conclusion. I had become a robot, programmed to systematically write the traditional five-paragraph essay on virtually any subject I was given. The repetition of these writings had taught me to hate writing with a passion and I expected that I would hate writing even more after the class came to an end.
Marlen shook up my idea of writing within the first fifteen minutes of class when he had us answer the question “What is I?” on our blogs. This was difficult for me because I was accustomed to reading books and regurgitating the information back at the teacher. I was never really required to think and write at the same time so this was fairly new for me.
I though for a while about what this special “I” meant to me before I started writing. I already knew the answer to “Who Am I?” and “What Am I?” but Marlen’s question “What Is I?” somewhat confused me. This “I” we were asked to think about was much more than our names, ages, and any other physical characteristics. This “I” seemed to hold a deeper meaning than just our physical appearances. After reading Kawai’s article, ((ARTICLE NAMEEE)), I began to get an idea about just how vast “I” really was. I answered the difficult question in my first piece of writing and first ever blog post after about five minutes of heavy thinking.
“If someone were to try to figure out the answer to the ‘What is I?’ question they would have to have a completely open mind. They might believe that their ‘I’ is no more than their characteristics and personality. While others might say that ‘I’ includes who they interact with, influence, or even, everyone they have seen and met. With everyone’s opinions being different, this question ‘What is I?’ may never be answered but should be thought about and kept in perspective.”
I really began to understand that I would need to expand my thinking after I completed the first short blog entry of the semester. I became used to “thinking inside the box” during high school just so I could complete the assignments. I thought writing was a chore enough already. Deep thinking and putting meaning into pieces of writing was just extra work and only teacher’s pets and overachievers devoted more than a few hours to a writing assignment. Since I was seeking only a decent grade for my essays, all of that extra effort seemed like a waste of time to me.
Our first full essay was supposed to be a narrative on any aspect of the sense of taste and how it is important to us. When I read the requirements I had no idea what to write about or even where to start thinking about a topic for my story. I had a particularly difficult time with trying to think of a story to tell involving my sense of taste. It was hard for me because I rarely ever got chances to write narratives in my high school writing classes. Every piece of required writing seemed to be a reaction to something that I had read for the class. Even when I was able to write a narrative, the subject was always laid out for me in the requirements. Since I never had to come up with my own original story, I forgot how to use creative thinking in my writing. Before I was introduced to formal writing in high school, I was an extremely creative writer. I would constantly be writing poetry and short stories in my free time. One of my narratives won a contest and was even published at a local library. My free sense of creative writing was hunted down and killed in those four years of high school and was replaced with a more standard form that was confined to the five-paragraph genre.
I wasn’t used to having the sort of freedom Marlen gave us with the first essay. Even after the chains were loosened on my creative writing, I still felt reigned in by my own constraints on my writing. I never thought that any of my ideas were exciting enough to let other people read. I would get an idea and then it would seem less and less interesting the more I thought about how I would want to write it. I had to consult a close friend who is very creative and tells me many stories to pass the time at our jobs. She suggested to me that I write about why I do not like birthday cake.
“‘Hey mom,’ I asked as we unpacked the groceries, ‘do you think I could have a pie for my birthday this year?’ She looked a little surprised and didn’t answer for a few seconds. ‘Well, yeah, I guess, if that’s what you want. It’s your birthday.’ I was half expecting her to go into the tradition and how the grandparents might not like it, but she pleasantly surprised me when she said it was okay. One of my grandmother’s favorite activities during the Cake and Ice Cream’s is to take one of the candles out of the cake after they are all blown out and lick the icing off of it. I remembered that she would get a sad look on her face if somehow the candles ran out before she was able to get one for herself. Then I realized that pie doesn’t have icing.”
After I wrote my first sense essay, I realized how easy it was for me to write narratives when I was given the freedom to write on any subject I wanted. If I decided to write about real-life experiences I could expound more and add a lot of details because I was actually there when the events happened. Even though I have an awful memory, details that cater to the five senses really stick out to me and most of my memories are associated with them. Déjà vu is constantly happening to me, usually through noises and feelings. I realized that I’m not very good at making up details to add to stories and that writing about personal experiences help me to make my narratives more exciting and informative for my audience to read.
Our second sense essay was on the sense of sight. We were to find a picture that held special meaning to us and describe how it related to our sense of sight. This assignment was also fairly difficult for me to begin working on because I don’t usually place very much importance on certain pictures. I like live sights in the real world because they are more exciting to me. The one aspect of photography that I love is how pictures capture so much of what was happening at that specific instance.
It is said that a picture is worth one thousand words, but I believe they are worth even more than one thousand. The pure, unadulerated, raw emotions that are captured during that split-second are enough to tell and epic story. I tried to think of a picture that captured someones unsuppressed feelings and emotions. After about two days of thinking what picture I have strong feelings about, I finally chose a photograph of Mario Lemieux holding the Stanley Cup above his head.
“Every time I look at that picture I am reminded of how much happiness he received when he finally accomplished his goal of winning the Stanley Cup. The recognition of playoff MVP was very special but a secondary thought of his as he raised the treasured trophy high above his head with pride. The sight of his tears of extreme joy show how hard he worked to get to that point. If Lemieux had not worked as hard as he did and decided not to battle through all the adversities he faced, then the Pittsburgh Penguins might still be on the quest for their first Championship Title.”
I learned exactly how much importance the game of hockey holds in my life after I completed the essay on sight. I just as easily could have chosen a picture of one of my family members, a family pet, or a particularly beautiful landscape to write about. When I remembered the photograph of Mario Lemieux receiving the Stanley Cup, I knew how much I admired and looked up to him. His passion and self-determination influenced me to always try my best and never give up in life. His values affected the way I thought and acted and that is why I place so much importance on his picture.
The third required essay was to show the importance that we put on the sense of smell. This essay was extremely difficult for me to write, mainly due to the fact that I could not figure out what genre I wanted to write in. I only knew of a few main writing genres, such as narrative, persuasive, and informational. Most of my high school writings were either informational or persuasive and those were what I was used to writing. I never knew that there was such a thing as a multi-genre essay and had no idea which genres would even work together. I did not think that I was ready as a writer to write in two genres consecutively and was nervous and somewhat confused about the process.
I knew that Marlen wanted us to expand our ideas of what writing was so I chose to attempt a relatively easy mix of genres. I decided to write a newspaper article exposing information on the sense of smell. I knew that newspaper articles usually told a story or exposed information using descriptive details. It almost seemed like writing a research paper to me. I was to go on a fact-finding mission to find information and tell what I learned about the subject. I strengthened my thought that I was mostly interested in facts and information after I was done writing my essay.
“The action of smelling is easy to perform but it takes a very complex chain of events to smell a certain scent. Smell starts with microscopic odor particles that are floating in the air that enter the nose. These particles are filtered out of the air by the thousands of mucus-covered hairs in the nose, called cilia, which are found in the nose. The mucus on the cilia dissolves the odorants and they cling to receptors on the cilia. The binding process releases a G protein which activates adenylyl cyclase, which then makes its way to the Cyclic AMP. The cAMP controls the flow of sodium through ligand-gated channels and the introduction of sodium to the cell causes an electric signal to travel from the olfactory nerve to the brain. The brain then processes and interprets these signals and identifies the odors and smells.”
After I wrote the essay on smell I finally realized that Marlen was having us write about each of the five senses. I never gave much thought on how my senses worked or how important they were to my life before that point. I, like my essays assume everyone else does, took my five senses for granted every day. I began to really consider how each affected my day-to-day life and what it would be like without even one of them.
I started thinking what I was going to write about for my touch essay earlier than I had for the others. A good idea for this essays subject too, eluded me and I still could not come up with my own. My mom gave me the idea to write about how blind people use their walking sticks to find their way around the world. Since I usually gain my ideas and brain-storming patterns from what other people might say, I came up with a few more examples of how touch is used in everyday life. I also decided to incorporate some of what Diane Ackerman had to say about touch in her book. The part where she described how she cared for new-borns by gently massaging them daily interested me very much and I studied into that subject further.
“These touch sessions that she and many others take part in are a vital part of the chance of these babies surviving and ‘just by stroking him I am performing a life-giving act’. Ackerman says that theses babies that are touched and massaged regularly put on weight up to fifty percent faster than those who are left in an incubator. For premature infants this is especially important since they are born underweight and undersized. They need to grow to the size of a normal, healthy baby as soon as possible if they want any chance of survival.”
Along with how the sense of touch is vitally important to premature infants, I discussed how different touches can affect how communication and messages are received. When I added the section on how the firmness of a handshake can affect what type of first impression is made, I realized that my business side was coming out in my touch essay. I had never thought that I would ever mix the ideology of two of my classes together, but the openness of the assignment allowed my mind to draw seemingly non-existent relations between the two.
I thought that the fifth and final essay on hearing would be impossible for me to write just one week after my touch essay. I was completely out of ideas and had no idea how to write another four page essay on one of the senses and still make it interesting to read. I began to feel like I was resorting back to how I wrote for my high school papers. I was just stringing together grammatically correct sentences that had almost none of my personal voice. I knew that I needed to start writing about things that were important to, and affected me.
I went home the weekend before the essay was to be due and begged my mother to help me think of a subject to write about. Almost immediately she blurted out that I should write about deaf people an how they communicate with each other using Sign Language. This subject had more importance to me than the previous one because my entire family used to study Sign Language. The main reason we learned Sign Language was because one of our best family friends’ daughter was deaf and we needed a means to communicate with her. I took my mothers idea and expounded on it to include the importance that is placed on being able to hear and communicate in today’s business-oriented world. This also affected me, again, because of my future involvement with the business world.
“The need for communication in today’s business-oriented world has forced those with hearing disorders to find ways to cope and be able to function normally. This is the reason Sign Language was invented and is used so frequently by people around the world today. There are even different languages within Sign Language in which one can sign their thoughts and communicate with other people. Sign Language lifts the barrier of communication for deaf people that was forced there due to their lack of the sense of hearing. Even after they are able to fully communicate through the use of their hands, they are still seen as being disabled.”
The fifth and final sense essay really brought me back to where Marlen had wanted us to be as writers. I felt like I had already met his expectations for having us open up as writers but had strayed from that at some point during the semester. My high school writing style really came to the forefront in the middle three sense essays. I had more than likely resorted back to my cookie cutter writing simply to get the essays done on time. I had not allowed myself enough time to let my personal writing style take over and make the paper my own. I did not use my “I” to help me write the essays on sight, smell, and touch. I learned that our personal “I” can really influence us as writers and help to make writing more interesting.
After I wrote an essay for all five senses I came to realize that I was a zombie writer. I blindly followed the same pattern every time I wrote and had difficulty breaking from it. My fear of writing differently came from getting poor feedback whenever I tried to stretch the norm and write freely. Marlen’s class helped me to reach beyond my comfort zone in writing and try different things every time I write.

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