Project Proposal

I am leaning toward researching a day in the life of the Tennessee State Legislature for my ethnographic project. I believe that government is an integral portion of our lives regardless of whether you want it to be or not. It shapes so much of our culture, however very little is know about the actual workings of the government. It is my hope to spend a day in the Tennessee Capital Building and hopefully learn a little bit more about it and the people, specifically the women, that walk its halls.

I have thought a lot about focusing on the sub-culture of women in the state legislature. Do they face more problems than the men? Did they have issues getting elected? How are they treated? What is the ratio of men to women? Do they feel ostracized? I could also get a lot of other statistics about this. How does our ratio of men to women compare to that of other southern states? How do we rank nationally? Are there more women in the legislature in northern states?

In order to get this information, I am going to just spend some time in the legislative building, hopefully on a day when they meet in the chamber (I really need to research the security issues I might face gaining access to the building). My sorority has an alumnus who is a representative from Hendersonville. Hopefully I can contact her and maybe just talk to her for 5 minutes. She might also have some suggestions as to other people to whom I could talk. I am also going to see if I can watch a couple of committee meetings and maybe just sit in the halls and watch the interactions of the representatives and senators in the halls.

Ethnographic Study Ideas

I have two thoughts for topics for my ethnographic survey. My first was to go to the Tennessee state legislature to observe the ways that the politicians work. Its a world that not many people can access. I thought I could do a day of observation, maybe sit in on a few voting sessions and then possibly get a few interviews as people left the chamber.

My other thought was to observe a kindergarten class. We have all been in kindergarten but many of us have forgotten that world. It is a very closed off world as well. Because of new security issues its hard to get in. My mother is a teacher and I think I could observe a couple of these classes and talk to some of the kids.

The Discourses of Pretty Woman

This is one of my favorite portions of this movie. You can tell pretty quickly into this segment that Vivian just doesn't belong. I think that it is interesting to see how Discourses go beyond the way that we speak. They are seen in the things we wear, how we walk, what we do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed7C3gAXQNA

My Writing Goals for the Semester

In my life, I have ridden a roller coaster of different styles of writing. In high school, I was taught to be the analytic writer. Upon entering college, I was challenged to begin to develop my voice as a writer. However, last semester, I was forced to become a journalist. This has changed my writing style in a lot of different ways. However, the most noticeable of those changes is that I have lost many of my, as my mother would call them, "big words." I have gotten into the terrible habit of writing all of my sentences in the same general way, while trying to make the vocabulary as comprehendable possible. During this semester, it is my hope to bring back a little spice to my writing. I also hope to get out of the habit of using passive voice. I tend to use it a crutch to vary my sentence structure. However, I want to become a better writer that doesn't need to change the tense of my sentence in order to gain variety.