fieldmethodsbrittg

Drinking, But Not Yet Old Enough to Drive

2008-04-17T18:04:00.000-07:00

One Saturday night after she got off of work, Danielle went to one of her coworker's house to drink. And drink she did! After 2 shots of Grey Goose, 2 Mike's Hards, 2 Captain and Cokes, and 2 Smirnoff Ices she was totally done (geez- I'd be done too!). Here's where it gets interesting. The next morning, she was up early taking out the trash (which she never does and immediately aroused suspicion) and was basically in a daze and didn't eat all morning. She said she was nauseous (I wonder why!?). Well, her parents drop her off at work and come home to try to find out what's in the trash she was so eager to hide. Not to be gross, but it was 2 bags of vomit (sorry for those who are easily grossed out)! Now, if you've been following this at all, you'd know that my mom believes that Danielle has an autoimmune disease that has been causing numerous health problems including several allergic reactions. So now my mom is worried that she's having health problems and my grandmother believes that someone slipped something in her drink the night before (I found that sort of funny and outlandish, but whatever). Now everyone's worried about her health and she's just laughing because no one knows what is actually going on. Coming from someone who got caught underage drinking by the same set of parents (granted, it took an ex-boyfriend to vindictively call them one night), I know that it's all eventually going to come out, it's just a matter of when. My sister's life has come to resemble the movie Thirteen. Lovely.

Finally, a Normal Teenage Thing!

2008-04-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

I took Danielle prom shopping the other day (because of the earlier mentioned belly button piercing, she couldn't go with my mom). Really, it wasn't too interesting because she only tried on 3 dresses and bought the first one she tried on! It seems to me that the usual things that girls obsess over (boys, clothes, makeup etc) are very minimal in Danielle's life because she's so busy trying to fit in with the older girls that she works with. This is not to say that she doesn't care about the normal girly things, but she's definitely acting a lot older then her sixteen years. She rarely hangs out with the girls her age, preferring to drink and smoke with her coworkers until late at night and being sick the next day. I'll write another blog about that, because there was an instance that came up, but I'll keep this one pretty light-hearted.

The Dress

The dress she picked out is black with an asymmetrical (sp?) hemline with white ruffles underneath. It's actually a perfect dress for her school's prom since she can't wear anything backless or strapless, and it is quite pretty on her. With everything else that's been going on, though, I'm not really sure if she'll be going to prom this year!

"But By the Time Summer Comes I'll Be Able to Take it Out!"

2008-04-17T17:49:00.000-07:00

"Mom'll never know..."

Ah, famous last words. I think the text I received from my mother tonight that said, "Did you take your sister to get her belly button pierced?" denotes that Mom does know. As an aside, I did NOT take her- I value my life! Turns out one of my sister's brilliant coworkers (who seem to be getting her into a whole lot of trouble these days) took my 16 year old informant/sister to get her belly button pierced in AC. One day I go to my parent's house to pick her up for dinner and she showed me her newly pierced navel. My reaction? "Um, Dan, don't you realize that it's almost summer?" Apparantly she thought that because she'll be able to take it our when bathing suit season arrives that my mother will never find out. She did pretty good hiding it I suppose, it's been a whole 3 weeks or so since she got it done. Stay tuned to find out how Mom found out, and what happens next!

"I'm not pregnant!" Sex and the Teen.

2008-04-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

So about sex. It seems that this has been a major topic of conversation (me being the wise older sister and all- although I think it has more to do with the fact that I can't tell anyone...). Apparantly, Danielle and her "buddy" (her term, not mine) have been getting quite busy with themselves, although not in the smartest of ways. A couple of subsections:

Protection/Sex Ed
Talking to Danielle about condoms and such has been truely enlightening. Not only does she not use them most of the time, she seems completely ignorant about what actually goes on during sex (without going into detail)! It's interesting and a little disgusting to hear her misconceptions and feelings about sex (hey, this is my little sister here!). I also had the dubious priviledge of going through quite a harrowing time with her when she thought she was pregnant. Not fun, I assure you. Luckily, it seems that her body didn't have a problem with not having a menstrual cycle for 4 months. It was a good day for both of us when I got a text message saying, "I m not pregs!". Thank goodness!

What Sex Is, an Adolescent Viewpoint
First off, let me just say that it was a little funny (in a sad way) to hear that my sister thinks it's weird to have sex naked, but maybe it's just me. Turns out that much of our conversations have ended up focusing on the ex-boyfriend to whom she lost her virginity, who is now her delicately-termed "fuck buddy," which she proudly announces on myspace. When I ask her about how it makes her feel to know that he's just using her for sex, she tells me that it's ok because she's the one who calls him up most of the time, ergo she's pretty much using him too. I have to say, I can't remember thinking this way as a teen (and it wasn't that long ago!). Have things really changed that much?

Smoking hot... And Getting Caught!

2008-04-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

Now, I've known that Danielle has been bumming cigs off of her coworkers for quite a while now. Apparantly she likes how they smell... It just so happens, though, that right before spring break she had a pack in her open purse that someone had bought for her at school! So, of course, she got caught and made up some story about her holding them for a friend. Seems she thought her story was solid and she wouldn't get in trouble- wrong! Shortly after spring break was over, her principal called and talked to her 'rents. She gave them the same story, but they didn't seem to buy it since they came after me! It's getting harder and harder to keep fieldwork and my sister seperate, but I told my dad thatI couldn't tell him anything (and of course, being a cop, he saw through everything I didn't tell him!). I keep telling her that eventually shit's going to hit the fan, but I'm kind of powerless at this point to do anything, right? More about rebellion to come...

Been a While...

2008-04-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

OK, so I know it's been a while, but I've learned so much in the past month that I'm going to need several posts to do it! It's gonna look a little weird, but I'm going to break the following posts down into several blog entries for ease of reading.

Possible fodder for a final section?

2008-03-05T20:03:00.000-08:00

I met with one of my informants last night and we talked a lot about her relationship with her mom. You see, she was up at CHOP last week for allergy testing because of frequent reactions and she feels as though her mom is overly concerned. She tells me that her mom is acting ridiculous because she's making her carry an epi-pen and benadryl with her, and because she called her school to let them know what's going on. Danielle says that this embarrassed her because one of her teachers came up to her and asked if she was going to be ok and acted all worried. She said, "It's not like I'm going to die or anything." She also resents her mom's efforts to make her eat, which is something I want to explore further, because I'm not sure why she's not eating that much. She does talk about how she needs to lose weight, but hasn't said anything about not eating to acheive this goal. She just says that she's not hungry and that her mom needs to leave her alone. She also talks frequently about how she doesn't want to be home and with her parents (and they embarrass her), but she's at the point where she still needs them to get where she wants to go. It's an interesting dynamic.

I did speak with her mom about what's going on, and she said that Danielle is "dissing" her all the time and just rolls her eyes and argues whenever she mentions anything about her health. Her mom hasn't told her the full extent of her health problems because she doesn't want to worry her about having to get more bloodwork done. She seems very hurt by the way Danielle is treating her, but just tries harder to make her happy. So we've got the mother-daughter angsty relationship going on, as well as body image issues to sort through. I find this all very interesting, and there's a lot to talk about...

See ya'll in class!

Houston... We Have a Problem

2008-02-12T06:15:00.000-08:00

So I have my consent forms and all, but I have been completely unable to get together with my informants! They were both sick this week, and between my schedule and theirs, we couldn't do anything this weekend. The difficulty with working 2 jobs and trying to accomplish these time-intensive projects is starting to dawn on me. Hopefully I'll be able to figure it out...

Signing out.

Some thoughts

2008-01-29T17:24:00.000-08:00

In class today I started thinking about a possible way to take this project. I'm not, however, sure if it would be within the guidelines of the course because it may broach the realms of theory a little too much like Prof. Rubenstein was talking about in class. Maybe you guys can help.

As I mentioned in my first post, I'm using my sister as one of my informants, and between then and now I've decided to use her best friend (whom I've known for years) as my second one. One of the things that I already know about their dynamics together is that my sister at least acts completely different when she's with this girl. Would it be an idea, since we have to do two parts, to do one on their "mini pod" dynamic and the other on something individual? I know I would have to stay away from an examination of this from a theoretical standpoint, but I have always wanted to know if they are aware of this change and what they think about it.

Since I'm on here anyway, I thought it'd be interesting to share that I had a great conversation with my sister on how she views herself from a racial standpoint (she's mixed- Caucasian and African-American). It was awesome to see how so many things that I've learned in other anth. classes could so easily be applied to normal life and that I could talk to this 16-year-old about such abstract things AND that she was actually willing to talk to me about them!! I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this information, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Oh, and in regard to the dilemma I wrote about in my first blog- she has since told me several times that she has some things to tell me that I may be very surprised about. Uh oh...

First post!!

2008-01-23T12:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I just set up my blog. Hope it looks ok...

I did already talk with my sister and mom about this project (comes in handy to have a 16 year old sister all of a sudden). Both of them seemed like they would be on board with it, so I hope that works out all right. I'm sure the major challenge in this thing is to make my nother understand that anything my sister says to me will be confidential (as well as not acting on anything my sister tells me!). I thought it would make my life easier to at least have one person that I already knew to do an ethnography on, but the level of personal involvement may actually make things more difficult. I guess we'll find out.