JANUARY 30, 2008

I waited outside of my informants High School on this afternoon, as I agreed to pick him up from school. Christopher says he usually gets out around 2:30 p.m., however, I called his phone, and fervently scanned the hordes of students leaving with no site of my cousin. I called his cell phone once more around 3:15(which went directly to his voice mail) and left a message telling him that I could not find him and that I would be waiting for him at his house. There was only a few students coming out of the building at this time and figured it to be very unlikely that Christopher would be one of them.
When I arrived at my cousin's house, I was greeted to the sound of Santana bellowing Black Magic Women at an extremely high volume. Heading towards the source, I discovered my informant donning a plastic guitar along with another band member strumming in tandem.
Christopher looked up as I entered the living room; my presence appeared to abruptly end the concert.
"oh crap-a-loader, you were supposed to pick me up from school weren't you? muh bad, Wally's dad took us home, I forget" he said
I told him it was perfectly fine. "So, this is Wally"? I asked.
"oh, yea, Wally, this is Michael, he's my cousin"
Wally said hi with a nod of his head then returned his glare back to the television that was the pause screen for a video game. With this being said Christopher looked at Wally and asked, "ready"?
Wally just continued to look at the screen; and a moment later, Santana was performing once again in the living room.
I took a seat as Christopher and Wally both produced a synchronous clicking from their guitars as they watched the screen, which showed two race track-like areas blotted with red, yellow, blue, green, and orange dots that were speeding towards us. As the colored circles got to the edge of the screen, the color would "squirt" off of the track into a small poof of fire. I asked them what was going on.
"It's Guitar Hero" Christopher said, then added "well Guitar Hero 3, you hit the notes as they go down the neck of the guitar on the screen". Trying to comprehend this as I watched the dots come at us in incredible speeds, I couldn't imagine that the two guitar players in this living room were actually playing in sync to a tempo that even Santana himself might have found daunting, but that was apparently the case.
At the end of the last note, "YOU ROCK!!!" flashed on the screen behind a background of fire and flames.
"Aw man, you suck, only 96%, I got 99% with a 275 streak WHATS UP NOW!" Christopher said to Wally. Wally maintained his silent demeanor as he pulled the guitar over his head.
"You wanna try? Wally give em your guitar" Christopher said before waiting for an answer from me.
Wally offered me his guitar. It was a white and black plastic replica of a Les Paul, it was customized with stickers and Sharpie Marker art. Both Christopher's and Wally's guitar had identical stickers, but found in different locations on the guitar, only Wally's guitar had Sharpie marker on it.
I asked Christopher, "Are you planning on drawing on your guitar sometime?"
"naw, my mom is so gay, she would probably yell at me for ruining it like that".
Christopher said that we had to go back to the options screen so he could lower the difficulty level from expert to easy for me, which I was not complaining about. We also choose a song that he said was much easier than what they had just played.
I absolutely ruined the song Slow Ride scoring a 71%, while Christopher's score showed 100%. Neither Christopher or Wally made fun of me, or even commented on my performance, which almost felt like the same treatment adults give to teenagers when they dont perform as well on something that they're not expected to perform well on, like trying to mow the lawn for the first time. The whole notion of well at least you tried.

"It's time to go home Wally" Christopher said as Wally headed for the front door.
"He can stay if it's because of me, it's actually better to be able to do this work with your friends around"
"No, he has to go home, he can't be here when my mom gets home, she gets annoyed when people are here when she gets home from work, I already got permission for you to be here for a little bit" Christopher said to me. I found this to be interesting, seeing that I usually just stopped by their house all the time, and without notice; but because I was here specifically to hang out with Christopher, my role has become Friend and not Family. The fact that I was here to specifically do school work as opposed to just hanging out, allowed me to stay a little longer than Wally.
My aunt got home no more than 5 minutes after Wally's departure followed by my uncle. Christopher had to end our project early saying that he had to go do his part-time job with his father; checking a few houses that were for sale for a real estate agency to make sure everything inside was okay and that nobody had broken in, etc. I also recalled Christopher's comment from before and thought this would be a good time to go. I find it really interesting that throughout this entire encounter, I never once heard Wally's voice.

I'm going to be visiting with my informant tomorrow after he gets home from school. We had a brief encounter yesterday, however, Chris mother was home and it seemed apparent that he was somewhat reserved, and seemed to feel obliged to act as "Host". Tomorrow Chris's parents wont be home and I think that he will probably be more relaxed.

Also want to apologize for not being in class today. My future father-in-law had a medical emergeny, and I was leaving Presbreter Hosp. when class was starting

Broaching the Subject

I spoke to my cousin briefly this morning and talked about my upcomming research project, and my intentions of conducting the research with his help. When my cousin called me back this morning on his cell phone, I didnt get much of a response from him. I lat er learned that he was at the mall with a friend of his, and I'm assuming that his "too cool to talk to me" attitude had something to do with the fact that he was in front of his friend and didnt want to seem "lame". I didnt delve too deeply into the issue, and mentioned that we could talk about it further later on this week. Right before I was about to hang up the phone, Christopher seemed a little apprehensive about continuing his lack of discern regarding what I was saying, and showed a glint of interest, asking me when exactly I would be stopping by his house. I replied that any time was good for me which he followed with asking me if I had spoken about this with his mom or dad yet. I told Christopher that he was the only person I have spoken to about this, and I could tell from the change of tone in his voice that there was some sort of approval about me withholding my intentions from his parents, and speaking directly to him first.
When I first starting dwelling on this research I tried to identify teens that I felt comfortable with and that I already "fit in" with. I'm now starting to realize that I'm probably entering a realm that has existed for all enthographic, field related studies I have done in past Anthro and Socy classes. I'm going into foriegn territory...Oh boy.

Welcome to my Anthro Blog!

As my first post to my blog I have little to say. As far as my research goes, I'm heavily considering conducting my research with my two younger cousins. My older cousin, Christopher is 14 years old and a freshman in high school. His younger sister Kelsey is 12 years old and replicates Christopher's every move. Christopher does not have a lot of friends his own age with the exception of boy who is also 14 and goes to school with him. My cousins introduction to high school has led him to a deep search for an identity. Currently, everything is either "corny" or "gay" and depression seems to be the "in" thing. Well thats what I have for today, cheers!