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9/12, 14 JCB p. 105 Coffee Shop Ethnography

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9/12, 14 JCB p. 105 Coffee Shop Ethnography

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I decided to conduct my research for my ethnography at the local Starbucks in the small town of Mountain House, California. I sat alone at a booth with my computer for exactly 30 minutes while observing everyone around me. I arrived at the coffee shop at 4:45 pm and left at 5:15. During those 30 minutes, I counted a total of 9 people entering and 11 exiting. There was also 6 other people sat down inside when I arrived. Of the 26 people who came and went, 18 of them were female, 12 of them appeared to be under 18, and 17 of them were alone. The space I was in felt quite peaceful. Majority of those entering the shop quickly placed their orders, grabbed their drinks, and went about their day. The other 6 people sat down were all on computers and kept to themselves. I did notice that nobody interacted with each other farther than placing an order and saying a quick thank you to the barista unless they spoke to the person(s) they were accompanied by. There were 2 people who came in speaking on the phone, and almost everyone else had looked at their phone at least once while they were inside the shop. The coffee shop appeared to cater to mostly people the ages of 14-50, as they prepare sweet and trendy drinks popular amongst the youth as well as an assortment of different coffees more popular with older groups. Everyone who entered the shop appeared to be middle to upper middle class based off their clothes, cars, phones, and accessories such as purses. The coffee shop appears to specifically caters to this group because it is quick and convenient, but also a bit overpriced ranging anywhere between 5-10 dollars a drink. The coffee shop does not appear to cater towards anyone of a specific race, but I did notice majority of customers were either White or Asian. This may also be because of its location, where majority of people happen to be of some sort of Asian decent. From my observations, the coffee shop I visited was not really a huge spot for socialization, it was more so a quiet environment for studying and work, as well as a quick place to grab a drink and leave. There was no socialization between any strangers that I had observed (without accounting for interactions between customers and employees). Everyone was treated the same by the baristas, no one was held to a higher standard than anyone else. I believe this is due to the fact that I visited the most popular coffee shop in America. Starbucks all across our country serve the same drinks, look extremely similar inside, and have the same kind of environment. Going to Starbucks is something that is part of many peoples' daily regimen, and is often not thought of as somewhere to socialize, to spark a conversation, or do more than simply get a drink. Maybe if I had visited a smaller, less known coffee shop, the environment would have been different in the sense that there was more socialization, a difference in treatment between staff and customers, and a more specific target audience.

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9/14 Operationalize Good Teaching Leading to Better Learning

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9/14 Operationalize Good Teaching Leading to Better Learning

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Good teaching leads to better learning because by providing a student with more resources, better curriculum, and a better way of learning, you are increasing the chances of that student gaining a better education. Good teaching leads to better learning not only in an educational setting. For example, by teaching someone how to do their job well, they will in turn learn the best way to fulfil their job duties, benefiting both them and their company. Good teaching can benefit both the leaner and those around them.

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I am taking sociology because I have always had an interest in philosophy as well as psychology and wanted to broaden my understanding on those topics. I also wanted to learn something new, and complete my requirements for UC transfer :).

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9/26, 28  JCB p. 140  Shopping for "we-ness"

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9/26, 28  JCB p. 140  Shopping for "we-ness"

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In 2017 during 7th grade, I had begged my mom to buy me a pair of Adidas superstar sneakers. At the time, those shoes were extremely popular both at my school and all across social media. They were worn by some of the most popular influencers and artists at the time and were one of the biggest trends of the year. At first sight, I didn't really understand what the appeal was. That quickly changed after seeing all the girls who I had longed to be friends with wearing them. I felt as if I needed to have them. All the most popular girls in my grade owned a pair, and I thought if I did too, they'd like me more or would allow to be part of their group. In middle school, I was not very liked by my peers and always had a feeling that I didn't belong. After seeing that those shoes could possibly give me a chance to be accepted by my peers, I made it a mission to get my hands on them. My dad had surprised me with a pair of the shoes, and I was extremely excited to wear them to school the next day. I was worried though, because unlike the shoes I had seen everyone else wearing (which were white and black) the pair my dad had got me was black and gold. They weren't the same color as everyone else's so I was extremely nervous that I'd still be left out or even made fun of.  To my surprise, I had gotten a compliment from one of the girls. She told me she liked my shoes, and at that moment I felt as if I finally fit in after years of being made fun of and picked on. Those shoes were much more than just a pair of sneakers, they made me feel like I belonged in an environment where I always felt out of place. Although I would've never even though to buy the shoes if they weren't popular, I grew to love them because of how they made me feel in social settings.

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9/26 How Do I Experience Roll Strain/Conflict

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9/26 How Do I Experience Roll Strain/Conflict

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I've experienced role strain my whole life. I grew up as a child of two immigrants. Their culture, beliefs, and rules did not always line up with the typical way of life in America. As much as I've always wanted to please my parents, I also always wanted to fit in and be a "normal" American teenager. My role as their daughter conflicted with my role as an American high schooler. I would be forced to miss out on events such as prom, homecoming, and football games because my parents didn't approve of me going which caused roll strain on my roll of a high schooler. On the flip side, I would also wear clothes, listen to music, and make friends with people that caused roll strain on my roll as their daughter. It was very hard to find a balance between these two rolls growing up, because to fulfill one of them, I would be out casted by the other. I was unable to fill both these rolls at the same time, and it made growing up very difficult for me.

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As someone who worked fast food for almost two years, I stand and agree with the campaign. Fast food workers are tasked with laborious, mundane work. Duties such as cleaning, preparing food, running a drive thru, and helping customers are not nearly as easy as they sound. Though it may not take a genius to work a fast food job, it does take someone who is resilient, hard working, and able to multi-task. People often discount the hard work that fast food workers do solely because it is not a "prestigious job". Fast food workers are treated poorly by employers, customers, and society as a whole. On first assumption fast food workers are thought to be lazy, uneducated, and pathetic due to ideologies common in our society. Majority of people working jobs such as fast food are young kids trying to save for college, immigrants trying to build lives for their families and themselves in America, and adults who grew up in poverty that never had a real chance at pursuing higher education. The way our society is set up, it is much less likely for those who grew up in another country or lower class to have the same opportunities as those who didn't. Affording tutoring, college tuition, trade school, etc. is something that isn't an option for some people in our country, making them resort to working fast food as their primary source of income. The least large corporations can do for fast food workers is provide a livable wage. The work they do is work that no one would do unless they had no other option. It is demanding, tiring, and stressful. Fast food workers unionizing is something that was bound to happen at some point. Trying to survive of unlivable wages is something no one should have to struggle with, no matter their class, background, or job.

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9/28 A Time When I Obeyed Authority & A Time When I Conformed to a Group

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9/28 A Time When I Obeyed Authority & A Time When I Conformed to a Group

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I obey authority every day when I go into work. I often don't agree with the tasks my manager has sent me to do, but do it anyways because by disobeying authority I could risk losing my job. A specific time I obeyed authority at work was when my manager had asked me to clean out the bathrooms after a woman had been in there abusing substances. Around a month ago, there was a woman who locked herself in the restroom for over an hour. Customers began to complain, saying that something seemed very wrong and that she seems to be under the influence of a heavy substance. She eventually left, and our manager was notified that there were needles left in the stall she had been in. My manager then proceeded to tell me I needed to go clean up the mess she had made and told me that she would've done it herself, but then there would be no one to manage the kitchen and floor. I gave her a strange look, and honestly thought she was joking. Cleaning up somebody's used needles is a biohazard, I truly thought that there was no way she was sending me to pick them up. When I realized she wasn't kidding, I left to go do what she told me to. I was fairly new, and didn't want to argue and put myself at risk of losing a job that took so long to find. If someone with no authority over me had told me to do that, I would have laughed in their face and told them no. Because she has power over me, I felt as if I couldn't stand up for myself or express my concern. I let the fear of losing my job overcome the fear of putting my safety in harm.

A time where I conformed to a group was in high school. My friends had all been using electronic cigarettes at the time, and offered it to me while we were all hanging out. I have always had a difficult time making friends, and was a big people pleaser. I had finally found a group of girls who enjoyed my company and did not want to mess it up by "looking lame". I have always been very against using substances and smoking, but I still took her offer and tried the vape. I felt as if by declining her offer, she would not invite me over again because I was the only one who wasn't smoking. The fear of being lonely overcame my morals and beliefs. After that first time I tried it, I kept doing it every time I was around them and eventually became addicted myself. I regularly vaped for around a year before quitting, and always look back on that first time thinking about how different things could've been if I had just said no. I had wanted to fit in and conform so bad that I had put my health in jeopardy.

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10/3 Find 10 Things and See Where They Come From. What Does That Say About Our Future?

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10/3 Find 10 Things and See Where They Come From. What Does That Say About Our Future?

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I picked 10 items of clothing from my closet and looked at the tags to see where they were manufactured. Of those 10 items, 8 were made in China, 1 was made in India, and 1 was made in Indonesia. With fast fashion on the rise, it is critical for big companies to produce products as fast and for as cheap as possible. Since fast fashion is based on trends that come and go from month to month, it isn't sustainable to produce clothing in an ethical way. What the 10 items I chose showed me about our future is that online shopping and fast fashion is going to create more and more issues. Clothes overseas are manufactured by people getting paid little to nothing in the worst possible working conditions imaginable. By having clothes manufactured overseas, big corporations are able to keep up with trends and produce products for very low prices. Consumerism is getting worse and worse as the rise of online shopping and social media increase.