Metacognition

Well the project is finished, yet I still find myself dwelling on it. To be completely honest, I feel as though I didn’t perfectly refine my ideas or finish. There are so many flaws in my project that I feel sick thinking about it and almost want to redo some of the parts of the project. If I do however, I think I’ll research more in-depth and try harder to find more current sources. Because of that I may wait till the next census comes out which won’t be until 2020. Till that day arrives, I’ll watch out for more ways to define Medialian Americans.

Wrapping Tings Up

This will be my final journal entry that I’m required to do by my teacher, but perhaps I’ll still post one after I’ve turned in my project, something reflective. Moving on, I may not have finished my product entirely thanks to tons of time staring at a wall listening to music all morning when trying to work on this, but I did get a draft report down that I hope to revise and finalize by tomorrow so I may print it out. I’ve been formatting it somewhat like a science fair project in the form of an essay (does that make sense) and it’s rather disorganized so I’ll have to get that cleaned up also. In addition to working on my report I began to type up my work cited and I can say for a fact that it’s the most tedious part of the project so far. The cite I’m using, Son of a Citation (easybib is trash because it has adds now) is pretty slow and since I used different types of sources I have to make sure I cite them all correctly.

On a slightly related note, I’m starting to get worried. I’ve only got one day left to make my Ted Talk video which, I haven’t even started planning and I don’t know if I’ll get it done. Part of the reason I can’t work on it Monday is that I have Taekwondo that day and even after that my environment won’t be the best for filming. It’ll be best to get all filming don Sunday and then finish editing on Monday. The problem with Sunday though is that I’ve got to go to church in the morning, and then we grill out for dinner so tons of time will be taken out of my work day. There’s also the problem of finding two adults to review my video and do stuff on it which, hopefully I’ll be able to remember.

…

Ya know, now that I write that out it seems like I have a ton of work left to do still.

The Grand Reveal

And thus the second half of my product is complete! Behold, those who meet the requirements I have so vaguely outlined in my definition of the “modern American” (perhaps I should start calling it, “Mikayla’s Definition of the 21.1 century American”) shall henceforth be known as, Medialian Americans!

So first things first, I created this name using the prefix, “medi,” meaning half, the root, “ali,” meaning foreign, and the suffix, “an,” meaning person. Put it together and you get person half foreign. I feel like that word worked the best out of those I came up with because of the way it sounds (Me-die-le-an) and its meaning. The other terms I was coming up with had something to do with people having origins of many races or all races. Even though some sounded fitting and a friend of my even said one of them sounded the best, I realized that not all who fit in my definition may have mixed blood or at the very least don’t have blood of every race, so the term wouldn’t be accurate. I actually came up with, Polyster (many person), Omnigenness (a person have qualities of all races), Polynymgen (many races), Pangenile (having the qualities of all races), Gorpanile (to bring together all the qualities), Panstrainist (to bring together all people), Symgenist (Having the qualities of many races at the same time), Civgenist (a citizen of many races), and Mediali (half foreign) in addition to the one I chose. Some are bad like Civgenist, some okay like Pangenile, and some are atrocious like Polyster.

One other thing is that I’ve been lying for some time in the blog posts (I think), I’ve decided to make a third part in my product. Remember how I said I’d try to find a way to make my product tangible so I could turn it in? Yeah, I’ve decided to write a short report on my findings thanks to the recommendation of my teacher. I plan to include the culture traits of Medialian Americans, why the culture is unique, struggle in defining them, and term significance.

Product Phase One Complete

So I talked to my mother about the definition I came up with earlier today and was able to come up with a newer definition that clarified some issues she found my first draft (confusing parts). In the end I’m going with this definition of:

“The typical American of today can be identified as a group of individuals who are the descendants of those who lived in the country for at least four generations. The connection must be through blood relations and it only has to come from one side of the family. These people value freedoms in many aspects of their life as stated by the United States Constitution. They have a tendency to eat meals outside of their homes about a third of the time, to dress in unique and usually comfortable styles, and to come from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds. Many (ethnicity name) can speak a second language and use it at home.”

With a definition down I now plan on going through looking for a name to call the “modern American” as that is the second part of my product. I think I’ll look for prefixes that have to do with diversity, difference, variety while I don’t know what I’ll do for the suffix (or perhaps alien/foreign). Can’t use the term, “Americans,” because the vast majority of us here aren’t native and the fact that the US takes up only a small part of the Americans. Maybe the suffix can have something ot do with America…

Another thing I’ll have to get on is my TED Talk which I’ve already got some ideas down as well as figuring out what I’m supposed turn in on the twenty second. My product isn’t exactly the most tangible thing, hahahahaha….

Done with Searching

Today I finished my research stage (yes it’s kinda late to be doing that with a little over a week left until this is due), at least I think so. I slightly want to say I’m not done researching because I only looked up a small bit of information so I could be able to define the “modern American and use that to help me come up with an accurate and symbolic name to call them (er, us I guess, I’m kinda a part of that group of people). This wasn’t very deep research about specific American culture traits and I would like to have used census information that isn’t 7 years old (the country sure has grown since then).

So after I finished my research I went on ahead and typed up a draft for what is defined as the “modern American.” I plan to write another draft after I finish typing this and after a couple or so drafts ask some other people about what they think and revise it again. What I’ve got so far is typed below as follows:

The modern American is an (currently) unnamed ethnicity that consists of people who are the descendants of those who lived in the country for at least four generations from somewhere in direct family heritage by at least one family branch. These people value freedoms in many aspects of their life as stated by the United States Constitution. They have a tendency to eat meals outside of their homes about a third of the time, dress in unique and usually comfortable styles, and about a fourth of the population can speak more than one language. These people come from a variety of different backgrounds though a majority of them have some trace of “white” blood in them.

Progress Check: Finish Line in View

I got around to accessing the 2010 census data today and boy was it a mouth full. I think (pray) I found the right thing but there is a really long explanation on how to extract the data so I’ll have to get around to doing that another day (cause my little sister is counting on me to play with her and I’d feel really guilty for turning her down). Oh and I’m using this source by the way: https://www2.census.gov/census_2010/04-Summary_File_1/

Speaking of sources, I’ve been keeping track of what I’ve used so far and so far I’ve used:

·         https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-availability-and-consumption.aspx#.U44CfJRdVor Gives information on what percentages of different types of food Americans eat.

·         https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3639863/ Explains how often Americans prepare their food.

·         https://www.interexchange.org/articles/career-training-usa/2015/09/24/american-fashion-through-decades/ The history of American fashion style.

·         http://time.com/3984690/american-casual-dressing/ What the typical American dresses like and why.

·         https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-22.pdf What languages Americans speak at home (other languages of American than English).

Five sources so far and with the census that makes six. I’m pretty sure the US census is a primary source, they get their information straight from the public, so I’ll also meet the one primary source requirement (gonna check to make sure with my teacher first though). I guess I’m in the final stages of my research and should be getting final bits of information uh, discovered, and then finalizing my definition of the “modern American” so I can create an accurate term for a possible new ethnicity name (that is, if I feel like the “modern American” has enough defining characteristics to define them as an ethnicity). I think there may be one last thing besides the searching of what Americans say there ethnicity is that might be useful in my research: approximately (or exactly) how many people have generations that have lived in America for their lives (because to me, those people are modern Americans). That doesn’t make much sense when I type it out, but I understand what I’m trying to say in my head. Hopefully I’ll be able find a way to word that when I try to look it up.

The Search for Fashion

Began to research the “modern American” dress style and it was far harder than I expected. Type in “American fashion” or “what do Americans wear” and you get lots of fancy dresses with tons of patriotism that people don’t actually wear on a normal basis, fashion websites full of fancy stuff people don’t wear on a daily basis, and article comparing American dress to some other country’s dress like Canada or Britain none of which is helpful. I did find one article about American fashion however, but the only problem was that it mostly focused on American fashion in the 1920s, 50s-90s, and 2000. Not much information on the modern dress of Americans, but I did gather that Americans used to conform and dress “formally” when they chose fashion, two traits which have died off in modern times so I guess that’s something?

I did find some success (though it was hardly any) in checking out what the ACS’s page had to offer some more information on the languages spoken at people’s homes so I plan to (maybe) use that data in addition to or rather than the data I found a little while ago. There didn’t seems to be that much data from the quick look I did over it so I guess I won’t be getting much information form there (not like there’s much information to collect anyway).

With all that done I’ve got information on eating habits, clothing and language. It’s about time I got to searching for what people say their ethnicity is anyway, just need to find out how to access that data from the census.