Celia - Quizzer Chap 15 & 16

Q1: How does BG and Adam’s relationship evolves? Why? Is it legitimate?
At that point of the book, Adam is already slightly annoyed with BG, and thinks that he has made many concessions. However, even though Adam gave some signs, BG keeps acting selfishly and taking things for granted, with Adam’s truck for example. He goes away with his truck, without even considering that Adam could need it, and invents lies and other pretexts. Adam will become very angry as BG’s behavior doesn’t change and is pushed to the extreme of non respect.

It is totally legitimate because as in every relationship, compromises must come from both persons and honesty should be one of the primary values. Who would not get mad at his or her roommate who would eat his or her food, take his or her car on a regular basis without filling up the gas tank – or basically taking advantage of most of your goods?


Q2: What happens next?
BG took the truck and drove to a karaoke night with it, not even two blocks away from home. Adam was suspicious and walked around to see if his doubts could be confirmed. In found his car, “stole” it and hid it a little bit further, in order to make BG feeling bad. It works, BG apologizes and Adam considers the case closed, until, 3 days later, when BG does the exact same thing. This time, Adam is totally angry and mad, and as soon as BG comes back, he jumps on him and they start to fight, very intensely. Derrick has to intervene and tries to separate them, thinking that BG could actually kill Adam. No matter how much blood Adam is bleeding, he’s fighting for his respect.

A couple of days later, the two roommates finally apologize to each other, and a brand new relationship grew out of this fight, they became best friends since then. They also agreed that both working and living together was too much; BG changed crew and it helped a lot to purify their relationship.



Q3: Why does Adam leave Charleston earlier than initially planned? Does it change the final results of his experience?
Adam’s mother’s cancer returned, and he needed to be close to her and help his brother and father taking care of her and paying for the needed treatments. Adam starts working for Fast Company but in Raleigh, and also gets a job as a wheelchair attendant at the airport. All he is doing there is not part of his experience anymore, it is “real life.”
The fact that Adam left Charleston earlier doesn’t affect his project because he had already achieved the goals that he had set.



Q4: How does he feel before leaving Charleston? How do BG and Derrick react when Adam reveals the real purpose of his situation and adventure?
Adam is proud of what he achieved and experienced. As he is making the point about the past months that he lived, he also thinks a lot about the future months coming up. He is wondering how he could evolve in the society with the money that he has that point ($5300) considered what he achieved with only $25.

Derrick and BG react the same way, they are indifferent to the news. I found that reaction very interesting because before reading the book, I was certain that if anyone would learn about the real purpose of Adam’s adventure it would create some sort of tension. I was expecting a lot of “why?” and probably some jealousy somehow. After all, why would someone voluntarily choose to start from “nothing” when some have not had the choice?

Matt- Summary: Chapters 15-16

Even though Adam and BG had worked out their differences in the past, they still had problems with each other. Most of these problems were centered around the use of Adam’s truck. BG felt he could use Adam’s truck whenever he felt like it and Adam, did not share his feelings. BG would often “borrow” Adam’s truck without asking first, and he would fail to bring it back at the specified times. As a result, Adam came up with several ingenious tricks to try and teach BG not to abuse his privilege of using the truck. Adam tricked him into thinking the truck was stolen, and BG would have to find it. When that didn’t work, Adam turned every light and appliance in the house on until BG brought the truck back. BG still didn’t learn his lesson, so one day Adam had had enough and started a fight with BG. Unfortunately, Adam was not much of a fighter, so he got beat up pretty bad. Nevertheless, the two of them forgave each other and put their differences aside. After that, they had a new respect for each other, BG never took Adam’s truck without asking, and, as a result, their relationship flourished. When his parents’ health became an issue, Adam figured it was time to start heading back towards home. His mother, who never needed help from anyone, was struggling with reoccurring cancer. Even though his brother and father helped her with errands and drove her to the hospital, she did not have anyone to lean on financially because she and her husband were divorced. Adam would be able to get a job with the Fast Company in Raleigh, but it would not be the same for him. As he was packing up his things, he reflected on his time in Charleston. As he began his journey home, he realized that he had accomplished his goals, experienced a new way of life and made several friends along the way.

Celia - Organizer # 6

The emphasis on those main points is totally justifiable in the sense that they have a drastic impact on Shepard's lifestyle.

First of all, a new character, BG is introduced on chapter 13. He is going to be Shepard's roomate, and it will change many things. Indeed, added to the fact that they room up together, they also start working together. It is complicated to do both at the same time, and it degrades their relationship. Adam and Derrick's relationship - that Adam absolutely adores - will also receives the repercussions of BG's arrival. I triangle is formed. However, BG and Adam's relationship keeps going up and down, there is a lot of drama.

Also, I chose to put an emphasis on the house, because it is a very big accomplishment in Shepard's process, only after 6 months. It was his last goal to achieve. Indeed, by that time, he already had a job, a car and the money he was hoping to have after a year ($2500) It is an important feature because it is the moment when he proves that social class mobility is available, and the American Dream still alive.

Matt - Voc Chapters 13 &14

Perpetual- occurring continually (pg. 169)
Contentious- exhibiting an often perverse and wearisome tendency to quarrels and disputes (pg. 170)
Expediate- to speed up the progress of (pg. 171)
Naïve – lacking experience and understanding (pg. 177)
Entourage- one’s attendants or associates (pg. 181)
Amoire- a usually tall cupboard or wardrobe (pg. 183)
Perturbed- to disturb greatly in mind
Ramifications- something produced by a cause or necessarily following from a set of conditions (pg. 190)
Tirade- a protracted speech usually marked by intemperate, vituperative, or harshly censorious language (pg. 190)
Escapade- a usually adventurous action that runs counter to approved or conventional conduct (pg. 191)

Nick - Quizzer Chapters 13 & 14

At the beginning of Ch. 13 Shepard moves from Mickey’s attic to a duplex. The attic space cost 400 per month and his new living arrangement cost $325 + utilities. He also had to deal with a roommate that did not share his same enthusiasm about keeping the house clean. Was this a good choice on his part?

Derrick’s cousin, BG, joins Shepard and Derrick’s moving crew. However, he does not have the same work ethic and pulls the other members down with him. If you were in Shepard’s position would you take any action or just deal with the added burden?

Shepard goes home for Christmas break to visit his family. Do you think that this is fair taking into consideration that he is supposed to be living as if he had nothing? He did make up a life that his mom was a drug addict and his father left him. Was the Christmas break trip home a vacation from the world he was trying to live in?

Shepard is around seven months into his project. Is he on track toward completing the goals he set out to achieve?

Sophia –Summary Chapter 13-14

BG (Bubble Gum)-He is Derricks cousin and he is living with Adam.
Chris- The owner of Fast Company.
Derrick- On Adam’s moving team and good friends with Adam.
Bonesy- A friend of Derrick and BG.
Mizz Sully- The person that they moved and it took eighteen and a half hours.

During the months of October to the beginning of December BG, Derricks cousin, lived with Derrick. But Derrick said that he could not live there anymore because his daughter wanted her room back. Adam was looking to rent a new place and he needed a roommate so he asked BG if he wanted to live with him. Adam decided to move out of the place that he was renting from Mickey. However the place that he decided that he wanted to rent was in much worse condition. So they offered to clean it for the realtor if the realtor provided all of the supplies, which the realtor gladly did. BG was much better at the fixing of this ten Adam was, so Derrick came over once in a while and helped Adam pick up his slack. Adam wanted the master bedroom so he offered to pay $325 a month rent and BG could pay $275 a month. They did not start out with much furniture but since they were both working at Fast Company they would take all of the stuff that the owners did not want. Soon their place was fully furnished. In December Derrick had told Pam one of the people at the Fast Company that Adam needed a raise. Adam did not think that he was able to ask for one yet. But he did get a raise his pay checks when from $9 an hour to $10 an hour. Adam was able to go home for Christmas; it was the first time that he saw his family in five months. He got to spend a couple of days with them and catch up. Then he had to return so that he would not be late for work. The first electric bill that they received was for $209, BG was furious because he does not like to spend his money on those things. So from then on he went around the house turning off all of the lights, even at night when Adam was trying to cook. The January light bill was down to $125 which was more like the normal. Adam got a membership for the East Shore Athletic Club which cost him less than $43 a month. Adam and two new guys had a huge move that took them eighteen and a half hours to move. It was for a lady named Mizz Sully. BG started to take Adams truck more and more and it was making Adam mad. Derrick moved so he was no longer living next to Adam and BG. In January just 11 days shy of his six month anniversary and he already had $2,514.36 in his account. He was way above schedule but he still was shopping at the Goodwill and buying whatever food was on sale.

Journal #3

Matt Baker, Celia Joachim, Sophia Secraw, Nick Vickroy

Journal #3

Adam Shepard’s experiment was important and there are important lessons to take from it. He was searching for the American Dream and he essentially found that it still existed. However, related to his overall experience, we think that it is unlikely that everybody could achieve what he did, in nine months. He had a very positive attitude, and always very focus on his goals. Using this focus, he was able to be employed, find an apartment and buy a car all within nine months. He exceeded his own expectations. He was ambitious and didn’t let little things discourage him. A problem with generalizing this experiment is that he has a unique personality. In the book he used his personality to his advantage and was able to come out ahead. He also was a white athletic male. He states in the book that this did play a part in getting the jobs that he did, whether it was the temporary employers or Fast Company. He was in the prime of physical ability, which worked to his advantage when doing the tiresome labor. His stamina, acquired from basketball and being physically fit, allowed him to work at jobs that paid decently well but required a lot of physical labor. This would not be the case for every person. The majority of the people in the homeless shelter he visited were older than him. He successfully proved that he could capture the American Dream, but we are not sure if everyone would have the same success.

This book was not too lengthy, and easy to read. The weekly vocabulary assignment was a more difficult job because Shepard uses common words. It definitely was easier than other books we have read. If we ever did come across a more complicated word, we could usually guess the meaning due to the context. The book was a little over 200 pages long and had 16 chapters. Each chapter was not extremely long which made it comfortable to read. We thought that the subject was intriguing so it wasn’t something that we were struggling to finish. It turned out to be enjoyable to read. The book was not full of other people’s information or statistics. Compared to “My Freshman Year”, for example, Shepard used only a few statistics. The ones he used were broad and easy to understand. Most of his results were from firsthand experience and personal knowledge. In the introduction to the book, Shepard said that he is not a writer by trade. This made the book easy to understand because he used everyday words for the most part.

On the other hand, Shepard reported some dialogues exactly as they were spoken. There was a lot of slang that sometimes could be hard to understand when he wrote about the conversations he had at the shelter.

The main point of this ethnography was to see if the American Dream was still alive. In the introduction of the book, Shepard references, Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, by Barbara Ehrenreich. He notes that these books were about the death of the American Dream and that this book was a rebuttal. Although it was mainly about the American Dream he encountered and was accepted into many subcultures along the way. The homeless subculture was a big deal to him because it was very different than the way he was used to living. He also was part of Fast Company, or blue-collar workers. To get a background of where Shepard was coming from a person could read Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich. To find information about the American dream the internet is a good source. Typing in American Dream to a search engine will bring up plenty of results. Many people write about it, including its history. For information about homeless a person could look up statistics. The statistics could show the demographics of homeless in certain regions. Also how long they live in the shelters and if they find employment. The same goes for any other subculture. Look up statistics to find some information. Information about the author can be found on his website. He also has clips on YouTube and his own Facebook page.