I have finally visited my cultural site after much debate on whether or not I could continue with the my original topic of the homeless.  I was unable to and now and pursuing the Christian Religion and people who practice it.  After I spent time at my cultural site, which was at a local church in a rural farm community I had a lot to think about when looking over my field notes.  The benefits that I have gotten from my research are monumental, sitting there listening to the sermon and Deccan's of the church speak to the congregation is quite comical.  As I sat there listening and taking notes of both the sermon and people around me I kept finding myself laughing a bit to myself.  People were listening so intently to the Deccan's of the church and they all were nothing more than old farmers spilling their guts about what the lord has said to them and why we should listen.  So what do I plan on giving back to my community......?  Hopefully the awareness that someone who has to use religion have a hole somewhere and in order to fulfill the hole they turn to religion.  It sounded like the community church that I was at needs some good medical care or better doctors, it seemed like most prayers and prayer requests were directly related to peoples health.  So why not pray to our doctors instead of "God."  They seemed to actually have the answers......why not use of offering money to go towards a medical charity.  My only contribution is to inform these people and figure out why someone needs to turn to religion.

Survey

http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=2y28h4mnaruzjj7550102

First Impressions

My cultural site will be at a local church in my hometown.  I have been to many services there and is made up of people from all ages.  When you walk in there are people there to greet you and then hand you an Bulletin of the events that will be happening for that days service along with events that the church will be holding later on in the week.  They usually involve a men's and women's bible study, where they gather and talk about how they interpret certain readings from the Bible and how one should act and carry out the "will of God."  

When first visiting the field site I was a little bit anxious, mostly because I was having to see and speak with people that I hadn't seen in a while.  Although everyone seems to be very nice and approachable its almost like its a fake gesture.  After the initial meet and greet of the people joining the service everyone takes their seats and waits on the pastor to start the sermon.  

With me being an outsider I find it interesting that all these people gathering take what the pastor says as absolute truth, when all he is doing is sharing with everyone how he is interpreting certain passages from the bible.  Everyone is just blindly submitting to these statements and accepting them as facts.  They all have been told since they were knee high that this was the truth and if you didn't follow along you were "wrong" and essentially would end up in the firery pits of hell.  In modern terms these are scare tactics.  As an outsider it seems odd that their is a Man in the sky who has a list of principles that everyone must follow, but if you dont......you will spend all of eternity doing laps in a lake of fire.........BUT HE LOVES YOU......?  

Annotations

Perry, Marvin.  Western Civilization: A Brief History.  6th ed.  New York:  Houghton Mifflin 

Company, 2008.

-This source is actually a text book that I am using for my History 150 class.  Their are a few chapters that talk in detail about the Rise of the Christian Religion and why it was created.  It gives incite into how the spreading the the religion was done and the penalties that went along with questioning the word of God.  When people take a more in depth look at how the Christian Religion came about they see all the lies and manipulations coming with it.  It was devised to restore public order in a civilization needing just that.  The christian religion described in the book is much different than of todays.  

Till, Farrell.  "The Christian Nation Myth."  Free Thought and Rationalism Discussion Board.  

18 Feb. 2009.  

-This source speaks about how most people think that the Nation was built on "biblical principles."   Whereas our founding fathers were deist and didn't believe that "God" intervened in our lives.  More that "God" created the world and left us here to play it out.  

In Class- Cultural Shock

One of my friends is a member of a Fraternity on Ball State campus. One night when we were hanging out we decided to stop by the house and see what was going on there. It was still kinda early to be expecting anything all that fun and when we walked in I was stunned at how these individuals were acting. First off just about any frat house smells of stale beer and this was no exception. When we walked in I could hear guys screaming and being loud as hell, they must have been on the next floor but I could hear them plain as day. We went up the stairs to stop by his buddys room and it was the size of a large closet and had about 15 people jammed into this small room. They were watching a football game, drinking, and being really fucking loud. Like Im not even sure someone could understand what each person was saying, they were all just being really fucking loud and screaming at the game.

I still have a lot of research to do as far focusing in on a certain aspect of homelessness.  I have found that there is a lot of information on all areas resulting in homelessness from the military, domestic abuse, drug/alcohol problems, and many others.  I have yet to visit any field sites.  When I visited a shelter back in my hometown there weren't people inside.  They had a check in time between 7-9 pm and then the residents had to be out the next morning by 7 am.  So that ended up being a bust, but I e mailed a local shelter here in Muncie to see when a good time to stop by would be.  I explained to them what I would be doing and asked if they would be able to accommodate.  

Depending on who I interview at my field sites, I would like to focus on someone who had been in the military or someone who is facing drug and alcohol problems.  I read a statistic somewhere when I was doing research and said that 1 in 4 veterans are homeless.  I couldn't believe that, for a country that says they just love their veterans it sure doesn't look that way.   But also with this being an ethnography I need to look at homelessness as a whole.  So yes I do need to spend more time in my field sites.  

As we moved through the barns we would carefully be plotting our next move.  When you walked in you could see the sun falling through the cracks in the walls illuminating dust and grain as it fell from the ceiling. The hardest part of this operation was to make sure the pigs and horses would be quite as we snuck through stalking the birds.  

yeah this sucks 

Recalling a Sense of Place

I would wake up especially early on these days and would always be second to my Grandma who would already be up at the breakfast table with her Bible and highlighter in her hand.  My morning would start with Rice Crispies and I would always have to add sugar, by myself, so I could hear the ceral make noises.  After my glass of juice and shower, my brother and I would head outside to the barns to see what we could find.  Between my grandparents and aunt and uncle who lived across the Highway we would have four barns at our disposal.  This would be equivilent to heaven as a pre-teen boy.  

As soon as we would step outside you would be hit in the face with the smell of a typical farm, hog shit.  We would be armed each with a Red Ryder BB gun and plenty of BBs to go with.  The barns were old and some still had hogs or horses, they were also full with all sorts of tools and such.  My brother and I would also creep around the outside of the barns looking for bird nests and trying to be as sneaky as possible.  We didn't want to scare the birds.  I would shoot the first warning shot against the roof and the birds would come pouring down.  As the birds flew from side to side at the top of the barn we would take turns firing at will.  Though I never really remember getting any, but that wouldn't be the story I told.

After are rompings in the barn I can remember waiting on my grandpa to come in from the fields for lunch.  When lunch was over, if it was planting/harvesting season my grandpa woulds occasionally let us ride with him in his combine.  There was an extra seat where my brother would sit and I would be sitting on my grandpa's  lap, where I could smell the hogs from the farm and be stepping all over sun flower seed shells from his afternoon snack.  

In Class Writing- The Birth of Extreme

This could definitely be considered and ethnography or a documentary.  This piece took an inside look at how the new and free spirits of surfing was transformed into skating.  The interviews played a huge role in the arrangement and credibility of the movie.  They interviews were conducted with the founders of this revolution who knew all about insider language and places.  Each person helped move along the movie with their different takes on why and what was happening.  Most of them had come from broken homes and were looking for a way to escape home-life and had found it in skating.  Most of the early skaters thought it was rough and often didn't let people join unless they were a part of the "in" crowd.  Some of the most early artifacts were pieces of wood and clay roller skate wheels.  It became nearly impossible to find commercial boards so many had to construct their own.  

This movie was structured pretty much chronologically.  It starts off telling about the birth through Venice, and how is was a amusement attraction.  My attitudes still hold true to how I pictured skaters.  A carefree attitude that doesnt care to  much about what others think.  We can totally trust who is telling us the story because these people were there, and watched the revolution unfold in person.  If the movie maker was also one of the skaters I would look at it more skeptically.

Week 4-Posting

The only general conclusions that I can make about my Subculture is that they tend to have lil or no money and are without a home.  This has caused many to find refuge in different shelters that can take them in for the cold night.  I am sure that someone who is homeless in say Florida or California has it a little bit easier as far as the weather goes.  One would think that maybe they would have to deal with crime and other things going on besides weather.  I will need to conduct observations at different locations so I can tell if they culture changes on location or not.  

19
College Student
Caucasian Male
Middle Class
American
No Religion
Liberal
Father Police Officer


These are all positions that will cause bias opinions in my reseach so it is up to me to address these positions and make sure that they do not get in the way of