PERSONAL NOTES
Ethnography - the study of people first hand using participatory observation and/or interviewing; investigator (a.k.a ethnographer) spends time living and/or working with a community.
Advantages - provides detailed information about group.
Disadvantages - only works with small groups, researcher must gain trust of group, researcher could lose perspective.
Laney Emerson needs to think about herself in the third perspective so she's writing about herself in the third person because it's 2am, and she can't sleep, and her paper draft is still due tomorrow by 11:59pm, and she'd rather claw her eyes out or watch paint dry or chug a bottle of vodka than complete any part of it. "It's good, but I think you can dig deeper." Professor Berkley said it like it was my--I mean--her --Laney Emerson's grave. It will be soon if I don't stop scribbling this sh*t and go back to my paper. But how can Laney Emerson dig deeper without burying herself? Without losing her standpoint? I must acknowledge my standpoint. Twenty-one year old white female from a middle class suburbia. No silver spoon, and no actual white picket fence, but I did have a wire silver one that hurt like a son of a b*tch when you accidentally walked through the gate the wrong way, or got your finger stuck in it. Stuck in a bubble, a bubble of wire, I used to often say, but most will say privileged, which now I agree with, somewhat. My advantages often outweighed the disadvantages, I know that. I'm grateful for that. But Laney Emerson is also stupid because she keeps leaving third person. She keeps forgetting that this research isn't about her. It's about them. The people. At least that's what she likes to tell herself. All the other twenty-something year old kids--we're all just a bunch of kids--stuck in this perpetual hook up cycle of dating and gender expectations that are even more skewed and screwed by social class and race. It's f*cked up that's what it is. But Laney Emerson can't say that, no matter how badly she wants to. It's f*cked up. And now it's officially 2:45am, and Laney Emerson is f*cked. Bottle of vodka it is.
Update: It's 4:37am, and Laney Emerson has now chugged half a bottle of vodka, and her roommates probably hate her even more than they did a few hours ago because she went back into the kitchen giggling again and made some pasta with the rest of the bottle.