When Do You Feel the Most Californian?

I'm cutting and pasting an assignment from my Research class. Please note that this a mock-up and not a real research study.


Abstract
To survey and study results of the following question: “WHEN DO YOU FEEL THE MOST CALIFORNIAN?” within a focus group of 100 randomly selected Californian residents. 50 participants were interviewed through a telephone survey of chosen phone numbers outside the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco. The remaining 50 were split into two groups of 25 participants equally divided between the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. Both groups were invited to in-person focus groups where their responses were solicited by a research team.The study sought to measure the social pulse of California at a time of social upheaval and political change. The relatively small initial focus group was chosen as a test run. If the results were successful and varied enough, the study is slated to be expanded to a wider group of 1000 or 2000 state residents. The study also sought to develop further personal/social awareness of what individual California residents hold to be key state values and qualities of life.

Keywords
California, geography, San Francisco, Los Angeles, individual, Golden State

Introduction
Californians are often sampled on their opinions of in-state quality of life, especially when an election year comes around. However, the question of going deeper into those characteristics is rarely examined. There are many surveys that take a geographic look at what the pros and cons of living in the state are, but they will often stop at that detail. This survey proposes to take a specific look at what Californians truly value about their lives. If there are common responses that arise in the study, such as “driving on the freeway”, “spending time at the beach”, or “cooking a fresh meal”, those will be incorporated into later studies.

Method
100 individuals participated in the initial study, compensated with a $25 gift certificate to Whole Foods Market. As a group, the individuals were 70% Caucasian, 5% African American, 10% Hispanic, 5% Asian American, 5% Native American, and 5% “other ethnicity.” All participants were residents in California, though not all had been born in the state. In the telephone survey section of the group, participants received a brief introduction to the study and were given the option to opt-out or participate. They were encouraged to keep their answers succinct within a maximum of two minutes response time. If the participant chose not to engage in the study, a different phone number was randomly selected by the facilitators. In the live segment of the study, participants were invited to a neutral setting and taken in for interviews one by one. Upon arriving at the interview site, participants were given a fact sheet of information about the study. This sheet also included some highlights from the phone study, which was completed prior to the second segment.

Data Results
As expected, data results were highly subjective, but proved worthy of further investigation and presentation to additional focus or governance groups. There was some correlation in answers from the metropolitan areas, with multiple responses of “driving a long distance” or “spending time at the coast.” However, the responses were distinct in inland and rural areas, offering little connection to their coastal neighbors. At least five participants within the inland groups expressed disdain for the idea of “feeling Californian” and remarked on their feelings of geographic-induced cultural distance.

Discussion
This study could be a launching pad for future, more specified, cultural research within the state of California. There is high potential for crossover with media or journalism, as it is a topic that could attract commercial interest or co-sponsorship. The range of responses could lead to a wider, national discussion about quality of life and what it means for individuals in 2011. The topic as a whole fits right in with the growing “Back to the Land” movement of which California is an epicenter, looking at locally grown food, organic products, sustainability, and further components of living. The research brought forth from this study could benefit the role of state government, seeking to understand connections between the wide geographic area of the state and the perceived cultural divides between North and South, and Coastal and Inland communities.

Shopping Trips should not be Guilt Trips

In my tight budgeting of the past few years, I have become accustomed to not spending much to any time in shopping areas. This means that when I do go to a shopping center, it feels almost otherworldly. In a store or in a collection of stores, I feel out of place and overly conscious about how much $$$ I am $pending.

This doesn't have to be this way! It's all relative!

Yesterday I bit the bullet and bought two books at Marin's best bookstore Book Passage for $45. While that is not cheap, again, it is all relative. $45 is also 5 1/2 Marin-SF commuting trips (and 4 if it is on the ferry), several trips to the coffee shop, a certain amount of food purchases... all of which I have done and continue to do.

And though it may seem that I am spending alot of money in the moment, it evens out, ultimately, and I stay grounded.

Effortless or Effort Filled

I am perplexed by the increased effort that long form blogging (as I like to call it) seems to generate these days. It seems that I, or others, have become accustomed to quick little instantaneous updates on people's lives, and may have lost the patience for composing or recounting additional details. Clearly this is a casualty of the Twitter era, and it is an unfortunate one.

Even on this blog, which I hadn't realized that I had treated with a level of depth and precision, it is evident that I used detail and emphasis in the past. In fact, I was surprised by the level of detail, especially with my first Cross Country trip in 2006. It suddenly came back to me that this blog had been a chronicle of that experience. Interesting how I had forgotten that.

In the present day, I want to continue to re-engage with this blog. I found that some of my most engaging posts appeared when I wrote about something in the present tense, as if it was happening while I was writing it, and you were reading it. I want to keep that in mind for future chronicles, especially when I travel to the Mojave Desert one week from today.

What could appear from recent events (within this past week) that is worth chronicling. Let me look at my calendar... Oh, yes, now I remember.

In San Francisco, I generally keep a fairly tight routine centered around my school in the SOMA district of the City. On Wednesday, I varied that up a bit, visiting the offices of Theatre Bay Area (TBA), where I worked in a long-term internship two years ago. Since my stint there, TBA has moved to another office just two blocks from my school. I don't visit them extremely often, but I am struck by the "parallel worlds" when I do go there. It's fascinating that my two (dual?) worlds in the city are so close together, and yet far apart. I can always feel the noticeable transition when I do that walk up or down Mission Street.

JP in May

Looking back through older journal entries gave me a sudden idea to post a photo of myself from May of the past five years. Narcissistic for sure, but actually an intriguing exercise.

2006: I clearly recall lying down on the grass outside my Hampshire mod to take this picture. Just a few days shy of Graduation, I had recently shaved off my goatee, which I had sported for the previous three months, originally as a beard. I had no conception of the complete tonal shift that post graduation life would bring.

2007: Leaving my apartment home base of three months in St. John's Wood, London. Attempting to grow (hair) back out of the preppy look I had been carefully groomed in for working on THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM.


2008: Sporting a floppy and relaxed California look while touring Hearst Castle.


2009: A similar relaxed California look while visiting the Point Reyes Lighthouse area for the first time.


2010: Hanging out in Santa Barbara on a weekend return visit to the Central Coast. Sporting my slightly spikey look that I realize I tended to favor off and on over the past few years.

2011: Back to the buzzz in Point Reyes again. Recently purchased an at-home clipper kit and making use of it. Realizing that I prefer the buzzz look for here and now. Noticing with surprise that I acquired a mole of sorts above my right eyebrow sometime within the past year.

Tomales Point Trail

Yesterday I ventured back out the Point Reyes Peninsula to the Tomales Point Trail, a 9.5 mile long round trip hike to the extreme northern tip of Point Reyes. I had a teaser visit to this area of Point Reyes in mid-March, when I chose to visit nearby McClure's Beach. I knew that tackling Tomales Point would be more of an epic affair. I also felt embarrassed as I struggled to make the time to visit the trail. Suddenly, an opportunity arose when I received an assignment for my "Wilderness Rites of Passage" course with its upcoming trip to the Mojave Desert. What better location would there be to take a solo hike than going back out to Tomales Point?

I was certainly not disappointed, though I may have not realized the epic scope of the trip. In fact, one of the more surprising elements of my hike was how the "out" and "back" segments felt like two different trips. The culprit was ostensibly the heavy fog that enveloped the point on my way out. Whereas when I returned, the fog had vanished and the surroundings took on a completely different feel and flavoring. I quickly realized that I had taken little to no notice of certain features of the landscape. The return trip also played with my expectations, where I anticipated the return trip would feel shorter... but it did not. Ultimately both segments of the walk took exactly the same length of time: two hours. I felt that time ceased to matter out there at the tip of Tomales Point. I was shocked to find that my cellphone had service, and expressed the sentiment in a brief perfect 140 character text tweet:

Cant believe I have cellphone service here on the northern tip of Point Reyes (Tomales Point) after hiking for 2 hours.

I actually came to regret pulling out the cellphone, which I had carefully kept off on the way out. It made me rely on it much more for the time and to see what was going on as I returned to the parking area. In an odd though probably symbolic coincidence, the professor of the Wilderness course called me while I was driving away from the Point.

The focus of the hike was encouraged to be about noticing one's own personal process, and seeing how that affected a physical activity while one also chose to fast during the hike. I found fasting to be surprisingly easy and all about the INTENTION. Being comfortable with my own thought process and place in the world is another matter, and a worthy focus for the vision quest.