Who am i? part 2

So i just reread my very first blog and I still think it sums up a big part of what makes me me but after studying groups and other aspects of life that form people, I now know why. Groups are a huge part of everyones lives. As we discussed way back in the beginning of the semester, we all belong to countless subgroups we are barely aware of. Some groups have more of an influence on us than others, but nevertheless they all have some pull on shaping us. I could have told you pre sal's class what groups the groups that have most pull on me. Now, I realize my family, friends, and cheer squad are not solely shaping the person I have become. Small things I am apart of voluntarily or involuntarily pull just as much weight. Things from FMP to just being a junior in high school actually shape me.

Theres also the stereotype aspect of the groups I am apart of that have a part of who I am or who I seem to be. I come from a long line of die hard Catholics. From a stereotypical point of view, I should be a very conservative and religious person. However, I'm not the type that is engrossed in religion as my grandparents are. They learned from their parents to first and foremost abide by the bible. I am just not as into it as they are. It's small stereotypes like that we have learned to think that lead to untrue and unnecessicary generalizations.

Through the course of this class I've grown to think less in terms of groups and stereotypes. I see how ridiculous they can be and no longer want to be so closed minded to other people. Volunteering at Amandola School in the city helped to fuel my new way of thinking. Before going to the school, I'll admit I was a little weary of the location we were going into. I had visions of seeing groups of people in ally ways wailing on others like they do in the movies. Of course, I was completely wrong and we pulled up to the school with no signs of a beating taking place in sight. I know there is no way I will be able to let go of everything I have grown to learn, but I hope day by day I can watch myself and be more open to who a person really is not just based on the groups they are associated with.

Crash

We watched one of the most moving movies this week. It showed racism from all different view points. I think the most common character in our society today would be the cop that tried so hard to hide all racist feelings he might have that they blew up. He was not racist like his ex partner, however, he had the racial tendencies that are learned by everyone as kids. I think its true we all have these. Not only has it been displayed in movies we have watched this year in Crash and A Bronyx Tale, but also in the experiment we talked about. I feel right now everyone tries so hard not to be racist that they direct what they've learned into unobvious ways. For example, racist jokes. Racist jokes are very popular with kids and many kids think they're funny, but why? They are all based on the generalizations of specific races. Through these jokes, people can express racism without being called racist. Because of how often and early racist tendancies are exposed to kids, I don't know how racism can ever be totally abolished.

battle of the races

Is race real or just a figure of our social construction? We discussed this question this week in class and I have to admit I had never considered the fact that race is not any different than ethnicity. The fact is, blood is the same no matter what "race" you are. The thing that impacted me the most this week was watching the experiment the high school students conducted with two different skin colored dolls. The majority of the kids (who were all black) chose the white skin colored doll as the "nicer" doll. It was heart breaking to see the little girl look from the white to the black doll and realize she looked more like the not nice doll. I had never known small kids were indirectly taught to think that way.

I think race takes on a whole different meaning at Stevenson. No one really categorizes different races as being nicer. I feel people from different backgrounds really embrace their ethnicity and don't pay attention to racial differences.

Secret Life of Poverty

This week, we read about a woman who tried to live like those in poverty. She set out for a minimum wage job and attempted to live off of the small salary. In her quest, she lived in a poor apartment building and a trailor park. She worked as a waitress at two different restaurants and as a maid in a hotel. The most significant thing about her trip, i think, was how her trip ended. She was working at the restaurant. It was one of the hardest days she endured because of the disrespect she was recieving from the customers and her boss. She simply walked out of the restaurant and decided she was finished with her experiment. I thought this was significant because she had the oppertunity to walk away from the outrageous treatment. Those who really could not live without the job would never have the ability to walk away from money. I also think that people in higher classes expect and demand a certain level of respect. Those in poverty are treated like crap by the people around them on a daily basis but cannot do anything about it because they would be out of a job. I think the higher the class is, the more respect they demand.

Class

Watching the movie on social class in America this week and taking the ACT got me thinking of how class based the ACT can be. From upper middle class people at Stevenson to lower class in the city, the ACT can be totally unfair. Many people, including myself, at Stevenson get tutored. I knew even before I took my first ACT that I would be tutored. I had discussed it with my parents and we decided whatever score I got without tutoring, I could concievably get better with the tutoring. So a couple months and 90$ per hour later, I retook the ACT. Yes, I recieved a much better score, but what about those who can't afford the tutoring, books, and online practices? They get stuck with whatever score they get. Although colleges do accept those with lower ACTs from inner city schools more often than they would accept someone at Stevenson with the same score, does it even the balance out? People in higher classes pay to get better scores so they can get into the better colleges, but people in lower classes are accepted at lower standards. My parents frequently have these conversations and I have gotten into them with my teachers, but i'm still not certain what my take is on it.

behind bars

Prison is a really bad place, obviously. Since I was younger I was always told how bad prison was but I had never known what it actually was like until we watched 30 days in class this week. Basically, I still would never want to be there. I was most surprised with how much the prison could actually affect your emotional well being. Living in small quarters like that can be very traumatizing. I can understand how the prisoners repeatedly say that they are never going to come back to the place again. Its surprising that very many of them do. We discussed in class that its because of the environment they live in outside of prison. The rougher neighborhoods they live in give them nothing to look forward to in the future. The people who are born in these neighborhoods typically live in them for the rest of their lives. I know that by making prisons more like the correctional facilities they are supposed to be it can help save people from repeatedly being filtered into and out of the prison system, but there is also the matter that people have to be willing to make the change work. They may say they are willing to do the program but they also have to stick with it when no one is watching them. I'm for the whole more humane prisons because prisoners with such low offenses don't deserve the torture treatment, but how do we be sure the more hands on prisons produce results outside of the cells?

The Devience in all of us

After discussing devience this week in class, I took what we learned to the most sacred place on Earth: church. For being the place where devience is most discouraged, a lot of things that would be frowned upon go down. Instead sitting and listening to mass or simply being "good christians", I saw countless people texting. Even a few peoples phones went off during the sermon. I shouldn't be one to talk because I too would have been texting if my parents were not next to me ready to snatch my phone away the second they saw my fingers reach for it, but these people who are trying to portray themselves and their families as very religious were totally proving what the article we read in class was explaining. They, like the Saints in the article, were playing the system. They established their reputation with society by attending church, but then did things that society would have frowned upon if they had seen it.

Things like texting in church are no big deal compared to the devient things that many others are most likely doing so secreatively that no one will ever know. I believe society will never change in the sense that we will always have the good and the bad. The good may be forgiven for their devience and the bad may never. It's the way its been working for hundreds of years.

leave it to teens

Teenagers today can be monsters. It's well known an outrageous number of teens are teased on a daily basis. It's tradgic that the common teasing has led to serious school shootings. So, why is it that a few of the thousands of teasing cases lead to shootings? The answer is all in the is just behind a closet door. The most offensive word you can call a teenage male is gay. Basically, the word takes away their masculinity. Everything that defines them as a guy is destroyed when someone throws the word fag in their face. All of the boys from these school shootings heard those names on a daily basis. Yes, it is horrible that they each had to live like this, but those people who teased the boys were not the ones who pulled the trigger on a room full of classmates.

At Stevenson, I don't think we have a huge problem with teasing. I know it happens, but at Stevenson, there fear isn't hanging over your head to prevent you from stopping the teasing. In other words, there is no "popular crowd". Almost everyone has their own group they fit into and if your friend is having some trouble being bullied, you have no problem standing up for them. I feel because Stevenson is like this, its easier to come to school without the fear of a classmate snapping.

the Man

Ever since we were little, we were told to listen to the teacher, do your homework, and stay away from the "bad kids". Little did we know those bad kids could actually end up having the potential to be more successful than those who have done what they were told. When we read the article about Beavis and Barbie in class today, I agreed whole heartedly what it was saying. It happens all the time that a Beavis in class has the ability to slack off, not do his/her homework, not listen to the teacher, but still be able to pull off as good as a grade that the model student Barbie recieves. Sometimes, kids just have the ability to not do their homework that is ment to be practice and still succeed because they can pick the material up faster than others. I don't think they should essentially be punished for this, but then again I do think its unfair that a hard working, obedient student should get a lower grade than someone who may be a disturbance to the class.

Why is nothing so .. awkward? I attempted the nothing assignment while I was at Lifetime. I thought there would be no better place to do nothing at the place you go to to do something. I stood by the stairs and really concentrated on letting myself go. It was really funny and somewhat uncomfortable to find that just about everyone seemed to notice me. In a room full of people running as fast as they can, lifting to much weight, and stretching until they cry, everyone noticed the one girl who was just standing. Not going to lie though, I would have done the same thing. We rarely see people simply standing because its the best way to draw attention to yourself. It's like walking down the hallway. Someone can bump your shoulder but it doesn't annoy you half as much as it does when someone is just standing directly in your path.

This was one of the easiest and hardest assignments I have been given in my entire high school career. How is it that standing and shutting the rest of the world out such an abnormal action?

coupons anyone?

The American Values reading we did earlier this week related to my family so well it was ridiculous especially when it came to the part about the grocery store. When my mom takes her weekly grocery shopping trips, the first thing she makes sure she has is her coupon binder. Thats right, binder. She has this little accordian folder that she has sectioned off into categories for each group of her coupons. Rather than paying attention to how much she spent on her trips, I think my mom looks at how much she saved from her coupons. There have been times she brought home food my family doesn't eat, but it was such a a bargain she couldn't pass it up. It sometimes makes me wonder exactly if coupons are benefitting us. The coupons say we're saving money, but when we're buying two to get one free or buying something solely because its 50% off what it was two days ago, aren't we defeating the purpose of holding onto our money?

My second cousin came in from Denmark a couple of months ago to stay with my family. On Sunday when the dozens of adds came with the newspaper stuffed with coupons, she laughed. My mom looked at her while she was cutting some out and asked her what happened. She told us she was sorry but she had heard of the ridiculous shopping tactics Americans had but didn't believe they were true until she saw how many coupons we had laying out on our table. I still didn't realize after she had said that that Americans had such a distorted view on spending money than the rest of the world. After discussing all of this in class, it got me thinking about whether or not our country would learn to spend money wisely especially since we're having such economical problems. I think its far fetched to say we will get better.

Culture Shock

Learning new things about other cultures is always very interesting, however, experiencing them first hand can be very unexpected. When I took a trip on a cruise with my family, we made a stop in Dominica. Dominica is a very unmodernized island. I remember coming off of the ship and having no clue what my family and I were going to do to entertain ourselves. It was like no other place I had been at before, especially on a vacation. We found a tour guide who took us in a large van around the island. First off, the van was not totally enclosed which is awesome for a tour on an island, but not when the driver of that van is cruising around at a nice speed of 60mph on a very curvey road overlooking a very steep moutain. As i feared for my life, the tour guide reached into his glove compartment, pulled out a few beer bottles, and offered those of us taking the tour. My dad politely told him no thank you and asked what Dominica's laws were regarding alcohol and driving. The driver told us the cops never really enforced driving under the influence laws. I really did not understand at the time how the police could allow people to drink as they drive around especially on such dangerous roads. Now that I think about it though, how many policemen could the small island have? Surely it can't like America where there is a cop car around what seems every corner waiting to catch its next speed victim. Maybe the few policemen this small island had were preoccupied with more serious offences than DUI's. Anyway as we were nearing the end of our very interesting tour, we passed a few men carrying either a machette or a machine gun. Now, in America you do not see someone walking around with such a weapon unless they're up to no good. In Dominica, however, these men were part of the island's small army. The men walk from one place to another everyday with their weapons.
We left the island of Dominica in one piece with a very different outlook of the world. I had never seen a place with so little modernization. Our tour guide had told us it was a very rare thing for people from Dominica to leave, meaning if you were born there, you stayed there for the rest of your life. Basically the culture that he was accustomed to had been the same from the beginning of Dominica. I think it was very cool to see such an untouched culture because normally when you vacation, the location has been totally influenced by tourism. I hope that tourism to the island remains minimal so it can keep as much of its ancestory as possible.

Bronx Story

I really liked this movie. I think the way C was molded from a young age from all the different groups wrapped up this unit well. The thing I think was the most interesting was the way the different ethnicities "stuck to their own kind". The way, like Sal pointed out in class, the neighborhoods were separated like country borders that were difficult to pass when you were not welcome. All of this reminded me of the movie Freedom Writers. Like C and his family of Italians, the teens in Freedom Writers were bound by their ethnicity. In Freedom Writers, there was no question you always stuck to your own kind. It created alot of gang violence, just as it had in Bronx Story. I think in each story the characters had the habit of having close ties with their own kind because of tradition and habit. They were taught as infants that they had to always protect their own. All of the focus on their own ethnicity created a strong sense of prejudice thereby creating gangs that would attack eachother as soon as they felt threatened. I think C did not have the same sense of strong prejudice as his friends did because of the way his father and Sunny brought him up. Sunny had encouraged him to follow his heart with Jane, and Lorenzo had always been friendly with all ethnicities that came onto his bus. Overall the movie was an awesome way to see what we have discussed in class on film.

Overboard

So i was not one of the people in the boat on boat day. I am kind of glad because I got to watch each person's reaction to the decisions everyone was trying to make. Each of the people who had been kicked off the boat I thought to myself I would have booted them off as well. It got me thinking, though, what is it that made me think the exact same as the 16 people who were in the boat? Why did we choose to save certain people and discard others with the same reasons? This is not an exercise that we would learn to deal with in school but somehow we all had the same strategy of making decisions. It became clear after we discussed in class how different groups subconciously make the same choices because it is the norm for the group. Each and everyone of us in the class is connected by at least one group, if not many more. I wonder if the data would differ from city to city or state to state. Or better yet, is it more than just our community that is causing the parallel thoughts that we experienced?

I had cheerleading practice today for the first time this week. My teammates and I had never been more excited to see one another even though we had just spent two full days together and pass eachother in the halls at school. It opened my eyes to how much we thrive off of our little group. Its so much more than just a team because it feels like a community from the degree we depend on eachother. From what we discussed today and how everyone in the class seemed to relate to their respective groups, I think each group a person belongs to is more like a family than a culster they happen to belong to.

Humans for food?

I have never been able to stomach the whole eating humans thing and continue to be completely disgusted by it after we read the article in class. I must admit, though, if there ever was a situation where it was mildly okay to have human for breakfast lunch and dinner, those who survived that flight were in it. It's very hard to think of placing yourself in their shoes because, let's face it, nothing comes close to being stranded on a moutain without food for months. I can't say i would or would not do as the survivers did and give into the human meat, because I don't know how i would deal with the situation until, God forbid, I'm in it. I feel if I knew the people who ate the humans, I would have a lot of questions to ask them like: what went through your head as you cut into the person and how do you honestly feel about the situation now. I would never, however, bring back the horrible memories the people went through. I know we were taught from day 1 that we don't eat other people, but what if we were comfronted with the situation the people on F-227 were? Would it be okay to eat another person to keep yourself and your family alive? Better yet, would you let strangers eat your family members?

Meyer Article

The article we annotated for homework was a little disturbing to me. Before reading, I had never realized exactly how obedient we all are. I started to pay attention to the little things that I had felt were completely normal until now. Actions from the way we automatically date our papers and write our names in the upper write hand corner to raising our hands when a teacher asks a question would be completely out of the normal if we had not been taught from day 1 to do as we are told. I feel like the way our society is structured the majority of Americans would have participated in the study and "electricuted" someone purely out of the habit of obedience. I'm not positive on how far I would go in the study. I would hope it would only be until the other person breathes one word of pain.

Who am I?

Hi! I'm Kelsey and I'm one of the four juniors in Sal's first period. I decided to take sociology this year because i guess i didn't have the time to take it next year. I'm on cheer at our school. As weird as it sounds its been a big part of who I am today. You could say it made me more "school spirited" than i already was (all cheerleaders are not born with an obsession for their school). It has also helped me to be more outgoing than I was when i was younger. The reason I became a cheerleader was out of inspiration of my brother, Mitch. He played football at our school and currently does in college. Being at all of his games made me fall in love with the sport, so decided to cheer for it.
My brother and I have recently (since he went away to college) become very close. I guess we depend on each other for a lot because we have no other siblings. I miss him all the time when he's away, but when he comes back we get back to the whole sibling rivelry thing pretty quick.
With the majority of this class being seniors its been making me nervous for the college process thats starting really quick. Everyone I've talked to seems very excited and sure of what they're going to do. I really don't think that's going to be me. I'm positive I'm going to college right after high school, the problem is what school I'll be at. I'm planning on going into pre-med or nursing school so hopefully I'll find a good program.
Silence is kind of a funny thing. I feel like I'm never around it unless its forced upon myself and the others around me. At state cheer competition last year our coach got very mad at us for some reason I'm still not sure of. She made us have a silent bus ride from the movies back to the hotel to get ready for competition. It's a pretty hard thing to stay completely quiet when you're in close quarters with thirty other girls that are basically family. When we had the silent moment in class last week, it made me remember this. I have to say it was easier to be quiet because i didn't know half of the class.