My Spring Final Portfolio


Homebase!

Well, here's to another semester. Once again, it's time for midterm portfolio, and here's what I have in store for you!

Since I kept the same homepage, I labeled every page with .Spring or .Fall for easy interpreting.

Journal Entries
Both of the Journal Entries included are about the overall project we are doing this semester., the Ethnographic Study. The observation and the fieldwork blog entries are both rather comprehensive of my entire project insofar, which can be seen at the iResearcher page and the Lay of the Land page. I decided to include the blog entries referring to my ethnographic study because I am truly immersed in my study, as the field work truly impacts me. It is a little unorthodox, but hey!, what able idea isn't? Both blog entries write about the Paleo diet I have courageously embarked upon, with the short observation JE diverting a little into the more physical manifestations of the project.

For the final portfolio, I also included my Nickel and Dimed piece. The underlying study is what interests me, moreso than my actual blog post. The except which we read was highly provocative and powerful, and I hope I get to read it sometime in the near future. My blog post on it, I feel, was a fair critique of the study and the author of the study, and I believe deserves to be included in the final portfolio. A fourth blog post included was my analysis of my own study pre-assignment 4, titled 'What's Missing?' It allows me to gain an objective perspective of my project specifically regarding its shortcomings and direction.

In-Class Writings
The in-class writing I chose to include are from the beginning of the year and are simple introductions to myself and my writing style. The first ICW has to do my my defining my own strengths and weaknesses as it comes to writing and reading, and if I do or do not enjoy the task of writing. The second ICW is a simple synopsis of a reading we did for homework that had to deal with visual-based writing, something extremely applicable to our grand project.

A third ICW that I included was about the importance of interviews that was written for the second assignment. It addresses some of the major topics  of interviews and helped guide my questioning during my actual encounter. The fourth ICw included was written after our library tour with the friendly neighborhood librarian. He was very helpful and helped me realize all librarians aren't 100% worthless.

iResearcher
Our iResearcher essay was the very introduction to our ethnographic study and will be the first part of our final, completed paper. It is simply an brief generality of our project, how it will be completed, what it is, and how we individually can differentiate them amongst ourselves. It is simply a free-flow of ideas and is truly an organic paper in the sense that it had no true defined nature. In mine, I have a background of the Paleo diet itself, as well as some major characters that will be playing substantial parts in my learning of the Paleo diet and its surrounding culture. Once again, my project will at times differ from a true, plottable location. I fell that this is a both a challenge and an opportunity to see how well I can put down in words a concept of health. Cheers to that!

Lay of the Land
The Lay of the Land piece is where we start getting into the meat of the ideas of Paleo. We start finding an actual location at which Paleo practices are put into physical nature. This paper is both more concrete and more conceptual than the first, as we deal with a truly tangible places and conceptual ideas of life. The title of this paper says it all; in this paper we immerse ourselves into a minimalist structure of performance. It is a unique experience and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Annotated Bibliography
The annotated biblipgraphy paper included, well, an annotated bibliography, as well as further observations and an attempt to get at the core of our site. It puts much more emphasis on detail, and is what I consider getting to the meat of the issue. The first two papers turned out to be more of a rough sketch of what we wanted to talk about; the annotated bibliography paper was what we needed to talk about.

Final Study
Included is the culmination of a semester of work. The final study addresses the 'So what?' question of our site as well as its overall importance. Included is the study's effect on me and how I have come to incorporate what my project preaches into my everyday life. Throughout the course of this study, I have truly transformed into a more proficient person. The work involved in the paper only complemented the work that my site required from me.This semester has been a great experience in all regards. From pushing me to evolve to teaching me hard work and dedication, I feel I have truly changed from pre-Semester. It has had a remarkable effect on my life, and I sincerely mean that.

Anyway, get going! There are pages to be read!