Change

With high school ending for me, I've sort of been thinking about my life and my accomplishments a lot. As I was going through just the senior class in the yearbook last week, I noticed that I can recognize a lot of people by face but it's crazy that I barely know the majority of my class. I know how big Stevenson is and how much feeling like you're a part of the school is stressed, but in a way I just think that these four years have flown by, and yes I branched out and joined sports and clubs, but in the end, if someone pointed out a person in the hall, I doubt I would even know their name or anything about them and in a way, that's kind of sad. Thinking about this, it reminded me of an episode of One Tree Hill that I watched awhile ago called "Pictures of You". episode starts off in a classroom of seniors and it's one of their last days of school. The teacher begins his lesson plan for the day which is very different from a normal school lesson. I tried posting the video but it won't let me, so I left the link for you to watch the beginning of the episode and I recommend watching it if not watching the entire episode if you get the chance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfZWN5QhFfo

I always think about how I will be remembered at Stevenson and how people will label me. I feel like a lot of times at Stevenson you don't REALLY know the majority of people so you tend to place labels on them despite who they really are. I like that in this episode the teacher says "you are who your classmates see you as... but that's going to change soon because pretty soon you're going to be going out into that big wide world and you can erase all those labels.. what matters is, you know who you really are and you know how you want the world to see you". I think this is a great statement because despite who you were in Stevenson, we all have the chance to be who we want to be. We can erase the labels placed on us, start out fresh, and basically write our own story.

What do you live for?

I just finished a book for my World Masterpieces class called Mama Day by Gloria Naylor and in the book, the meaning of life is addressed frequently. I don't have my book with me so I can't quote it directly, but in the book one someone says that dying brings you peace and living on earth is hell. Ever since I read it, I've been wondering why people live if death is said to be better or more peaceful than being alive. I think people stay alive because they have atleast one thing in their lives that are willing them to. Whether its family, a job, a belief, friends, etc, if people feel as though they are needed here then they can have the motivation to push through whatever life brings them. If there is atleast one person that is there for you and you can see that they care about you then it almost erases everything else. Thinking about myself, I honestly don't know what I live for. I've been sitting here trying to think about a single reason but I think that's almost impossible. I live because I have family and friends that care about me. I live because I know that whatever life brings me, even if it's bad, it would be worse if I couldn't experience anything at all. I think that throughout life, people sometimes only remember the bad times. They forget all of the amazing things that they did for other people, that other people did for them, the love, and those are the things that should be remembered. I feel like I haven't done everything that I want to do in my life; I haven't left my impact on the world yet; I haven't made a big enough difference and I live because it gives me the chance to.

Race

So, I was watching the movie Save the Last Dance and I realized how much the movie has to do with race and everything we have been talking about in class. Seriously, if you can watch it you should since it relates to class. The movies main story is about a girl who is a dancer but behind that, she is white and she has a black boyfriend. They live in a bad part of Chicago where violence and drugs is an issue. Throughout the movie many characters have problems because a white girl is dating a black boy and in their eyes that isn't right and the movie also shows the stereotypes of each race. Another point that is stressed is their places in society. Many people in the movie feel as though they will never be anything more than what they are at that point in their lives so they turn to violence and drugs. Anyway, that was just a little synopsis of what happens, but if you can watch it and think about everything we have learned in class, it makes the movie seem a lot more about race than it does about dance.

Race

I find it really interesting that the idea of race depends on your culture and where you are. For example here, in the United States, race is classifying solely on the color of your skin, but in other places it is based on the exact shade of your skin, or on how much you are of one race or the other. I never really thought about how single sided our society is. How a person can either be white or black; there is no grey region in the middle. Using an example from society today, Barak Obama is just as much black as he is white but society looks at him as being black. It seems like society in the United States follows the theory that if you have one drop of blood of one race then that's what you are. In class when we watched the Racial Draft, although it was in a funny perspective, it really showed how split race is, how different races and ethnicities are fighting to label celebrities with a single race. It's interesting that a person in society today cannot classify themselves as more than one race because society forces their own label on them.

Class Stereotypes

Although racial stereotypes are not publically allowable, class stereotypes seem to be. I think one of the reasons for this is that people need to classify where they are in class stature. Similar to when we did that activity we did in class where we wrote down what groups we're part of, people in society classify themselves based on money, for example how much money one person has, how big their house is, what they do for a living, etc. Because of these distinctions, people tend to need to feel powerful despite which social class they're actually in. People constantly put other people down based on their achievements because it makes them feel as though they are greater than someone else. I think a reason that this seems allowable is that anyone can be in any social class. Any member of any race, any age, any ethnicity can be part of the low, middle, or upper class. Because of this, I think that people think it's o.k. to make comments based on class because not one group is being offended; technically, every group can be.

Deviance

In a place like Stevenson, there are so many ways to cover up deviance. Although there is deviance, our deviance is not that bad in terms of violence like from the Saints and Roughnecks article that we read. Our deviance is more in the forms of using drugs and alcohol and, I guess, a little violence. The difference is that in a place like Stevenson, most people are like the "Saints" from the article. So many people are involved at Stevenson, whether it's through sports or clubs, that many people can use their involvement to their advantage. Just from going around in class and listening to everyone's stories, it can be said that many deans form their punishments differently based on perception. The star of a sports team or the president of a club will get a different punishment, if they even receive one, compared to a student that is not involved in anything. Perception really does matter. As terrible as it sounds, the clothes you wear, your personal hygiene, your manners, etc, are what get you further in life because of perception.

Independence

I think the idea of independence is really hard for parents and teens to handle. Teens are fighting for independence but once they turn 18, they realize how dependent on their parents they actually are. It seems as though every time you think your independence will increase, it seems to decrease or stay constant. I'm sure the idea of "when I turn 18, I won't have to listen to my parents anymore" or "when I turn 18, I won't have to play by their rules" has gone through many teens thought processes. Although we are legally adults at the age of 18, many teens do not understand how much they rely on their parents daily mostly in the Lincolnshire area. For us it's more like, when we turn 18 we need to continue to listen to our parents because who else is going to help us financially? When we go to college and gain a little more independence socially, we finish college and either have to lose that independence when we move back in with our parents or we lose it when our parents have to help pay for rent. The average age of being completely independent in the United States is raising because of these reasons. Because more people are going to college and continuing to stay in school, there are less young adults making enough money to be independent from their parents.
Just a few weeks ago, my Environmental class was going on a field trip and we needed to get our field trip forms signed by our parents. One of the kids in my class went home to have his form signed and his dad laughed in his face because his son is 18 and he still needs to sign field trip forms for him saying he could attend.

Masculinity/Femininity

The ways that men and women are portrayed really affect our culture. I think that the United States is guilty of portraying masculinity and femininity in poor ways and because of this, our views of men and women as a culture are skewed. Men need to be independent, athletic, aggressive, unemotional, intellectual, etc. This is the portrait of a perfect male but on the other hand, very few men actually have these characteristics. Because of the way our culture views masculinity, if a man does not have these characteristics, they feel as if they are not masculine enough. When a man/boy is involved in things not portrayed as manly, for example dance, theater, etc, they feel as if they are not masculine enough. This is similar to the views of women being skewed. The main view of a woman is that a woman has to be beautiful. She needs to be thin, tall, and perfect. Because of the way the media portrays women, girls tend to put themselves in danger in order to look the way the models on t.v. do. Luckily, this image skew has been noticed and many companies and people are trying to eliminate the "perfect body image". For example, Dove is using "real women" in all of their adds to try to show the differences between what is real and what is fake. The idea of femininity is beginning to be stressed and helped while the idea of a "perfect man" is still there. It is good that things are being done to help the image of a woman but things need to be done to help the image of a man as well.

Bowling for Columbine

Honestly, I am not sure what Moore's thesis would be if I had to think of one. Throughout the movie he brings up several points that could affect the rate of violence but he never really comes to a conclusion. He explores the idea of poverty and how your economic standings affect the rate of violence. Moore shows how the United States has more gun violence than Canada but Canada has just as many guns. All of Moore's points seem to spur discussion but, at the same time, he never comes to answer any of them. I found this kind of annoying. I feel like throughout the movie he is trying to get answers, which came across in a very pushy way, but he never comes to any conclusions. He also seems to only include points in which he could find enough information and if he couldn't find information on the other points he just skipped them instead of informing the public of those reasons as well.

Can we be different from our parents?

Can we really be different from our parents or do they affect us so much that we consciously and unconsciously carry on their characteristics? We touched on this topic in Sociology but I've also been talking about this in World Masterpieces. Today in WM we talked about change, like whether or not you can separate from some of your parents traits. It has been said that parents have the biggest affects on their kids lives. It makes sense, obviously, because they are usually the only people that around you all of the time. Unconsciously, many of their traits are passed onto you because you learned basically everything from them, or in some cases through friends as well. The grey area comes forth when the topic of change is encountered. On many occasions, I can vouch for this as well, many kids see things their parents do and think to themselves, "I will never do that when I'm a parent". But can you really help it? There have been studies that show that kids with abusive parent/s are more likely to be abusive, and kids with parent/s that are alcoholics or drug addicts are more likely to become an alcoholic or drug addict.
In my opinion, a lot of this has to do with choice and education. Many little things can be picked up by parents through your unconscious like the way you sit or the way you eat. On the other hand, many things can be changed if you choose to change them. If you have a parent who is abusive and you think that abuse is o.k. because no one ever told you it was wrong, then you may grow up to be an abusive parent. But, if you have an abusive parent and you know that abuse is wrong, then you can make that change to never be abusive in the future. This is because you are becoming consciously aware of the fact that abuse is wrong rather than leaving it in your unconscious. So, although many things are passed on from parents to children, it is possible to change.

Death

Death is a "taboo" topic to talk about in our culture. It's that conversation that tends to make people uncomfortable. It seems as though this is only true in American culture. In other cultures death is looked at as a way to be closer to G-d and because of this, death is not viewed as a negative aspect; it's more of the next step in life. In American culture, death is perceived as being something sad and negative. Taking a step back and looking at American culture, Americans feel the need to be in control of everything in their lives. We rely on fast-food, cars, time-management, money, etc to get us through our daily lives. In one of my classes we learned that Americans think that flying in a plane is more dangerous than driving but, in reality, the odds of something happening while in a car are much higher. This shows that Americans like to be in control. They like to know exactly when something is going to happen, why, and how. With death, none of those questions can usually be answered. We have no control on death many times and that is scary for Americans to comprehend.

Juno

I think that the movie Juno focused more on teen pregnancy and how to deal with the emotions that go along with it. I think that people might look at the movie and think that it viewed teen pregnancy in a "fun" way but in my opinion, that's only because the movie didn't really focus on her life in high school and people finding out about Juno being pregnant. I like the view this movie took on teen pregnancy because most movies, books, etc always show the, I guess you can say, "negative" side of the pregnancy which involves school and friends. Juno showed her decision making in whether or not to keep the baby and the negative sides to each of those things, it showed her relationship with the baby's dad, it showed her relationship with the adoptive parents. By showing all of these different aspects, it opened my eyes to a lot of new situations that teen pregnancy would have to deal with.

A Bronx Tale

Groups: What are all the groups that Collogero belongs to? (Think in terms of the circles exercise we did in class.) Would you put him in Sonny’s crew, or would you put him and Sonny in their own crew? What is Collogero’s Master Status? Why do you think so? Do you think his master status changes throughout the movie?

I think that Collogero's main groups are family, his friends, him and Sonny, him with Sonny's crew, his church, his school, being white and being Italian. Although Collogero has all of these groups, I think that the reason why he succeeded in growing up in his neighborhood is because he didn't fully commit himself to one of his groups throughout the majority of the movie.
The two groups that are subconsciously part of Collogero are being white and Italian. These two groups influenced the way that he grew up in his neighborhood. Throughout that time period, there was segregation and racism. Although Collogero didn't mind color, he was still influenced by the fact that he was a white Italian.
When Collogero was with his friends, with Sonny or with Sonny's crew, he was a part of each of the groups to fit in but in reality, I think he was more of an individual. He never fully committed himself to either of these three groups. When he was with his friends, he followed along with them to keep up his status in the neighborhood but he rarely agreed with the things that they did or thought. When he was with Sonny's crew, he was part of the group but it seemed as though he knew, and they knew that he was only there because Sonny liked him. When the crew would get into fights, like the bar fight with the motorcyclists, Collogero didn't fit in and he didn't try to fit in besides for sticking around so that it would look like he was tough. I think that Collogero being with Sonny was one of his main groups. Although Sonny wasn't the best influence, Sonny taught Collogero the morals and values that he didn't have so that he wouldn't end up like him. Sonny looked out for Collogero and made sure that he was leading a good life. While Sonny did all of these things, he still had no trust for Collogero and Collogero disagreed with many things that Sonny believed and did.
I think that throughout the movie Collogero was more of an individualist. He was involved in many groups but he never played a big role in any group. He wanted to be in the group with Sonny until he realized that his vision of Sonny didn't match with the actual man. The group that he always tried to stay away from, family, was the biggest influence on him overall. Throughout the movie, he was an individualist, but near the end of the movie, his master status became his family. Collogero's dad taught him many lessons about work ethic, friends, trust, talent, etc, but Collogero didn't want to believe what Lorenzo said because he was too interested in Sonny's perspective. Once Collogero realized that Sonny wasted his life away, he fell back on his group of family to help guide him through the rest of his life.

Volunteering

The summer going into my Junior year I went on a community service trip to the British Virgin Islands. It was an amazing experience. I went with a company called ActionQuest and within ActionQuest my program was called Lifeworks. There were about 20 different groups within the company that were in the British Virgin Islands also. All of us lived on catamarans or sailboats and we sailed around the British Virgin Islands gradually stopping and doing activities. There were two catamarans with Lifeworks with about 15 people on each. For three weeks we would sail during the day to a different island, stop there and help out, and then go back to our boat at night to sleep. Some of the activities we did were painting a fence around a museum on the island Tortola, beach clean-ups, planting mangroves in the ocean, painting a church, playing with local children, painting a community center, planting outside of the VISAR search and rescue building and helping them with measuring tapes, and tagging turtles.
Tagging turtles was, by far, my favorite thing to do on the trip. We would split up into groups of 5 and each group got their own dinghy boat. The dinghy's had ski ropes tied to the back of them with knots along the rope. Three people would get into the water with snorkel gear on and hold the rope in between the knots while the other two people stayed in the boat (one drove, the other was on lookout). While the boat was moving at a slow pace, the people in the water got dragged throughout shallow parts of the ocean looking for sea turtles. I can't even explain how amazing this was. I never caught a turtle myself but, regardless, while I was pulled through the ocean I got to see beautiful fish and coral; it was unbelievable. Anyway, once someone found a turtle, they would raise their arm in the air to let the people in the boat know to stop. When the boat stopped, everyone, but the driver, dove into the ocean to go after the turtle. If the turtle was caught, we would bring it back with us in our dinghy to our catamaran where we would take measurements and, finally, tag the turtle. Once we were done, we brought the turtle back to the place where we found it.
This trip was one of the hardest things I have ever done physically and mentally. In the mental aspect I was living with 14 other people and I only knew one when I started the trip. We were all very different, and in the beginning it's easy to pick out those differences, but in the end I didn't want to leave them. At home, everyone has their own groups of friends and there's always judgments against each group. On this trip, I got to escape from what I was always judged by, or from how everyone knew me to be. When we would be painting fences or doing another activity, we always had to be aware of the culture of the island. We couldn't wear certain things, like a tank-top, because that's offensive to the locals. This trip was very different from something I would normally do, and although it was hard, I am thankful that I got to go on it. I had a chance to open my eyes to so many things and do activities that I never thought I would do.

The Awkwardness of Silence

I think simply saying that people are uncomfortable with silence isn't justfiable. In situations where you aren't completely comfortable with the person you are with and there is silence, I think it is likely that someone is going to talk to break that silence. On the first day of this class when we experimented with awkward silence, I couldn't stop laughing. In our culture it is very unusual to be in a situation with people you don't really know and not talk. Someone always breaks the silence. Because of the first day of class, I started to watch myself when I was in situations where there was an awkward silence. I noticed that the second it got quiet, my mind started racing thinking of a new topic to talk about. I started tapping my foot or playing with my pen; doing anything that would maybe make a little noise.
I think people talk too much to fill the air. People don't like silence. As I was saying before, the second a conversation goes quiet, I begin making noise with something. Simply filling the air is better than sitting in silence with someone you aren't completely comfortable with. If you are comfortable with someone, like your best friends or your family, then silence is ok. When you are comfortable with somoene the silence doesn't matter because it's just nice being with that person.
People should be more comfortable with silence. I can honestly say that I wish I was more comfortable. I think the reason I like being by myself a lot is because you don't have to worry about making conversation. If silence didn't feel so awkward then it would make a lot of situations easier and less stressful to handle.

Me on Blogging

I think blogging is a great way for us to get to know eachother. Because it's new for most of us, it may be hard to open up at first and get a clear sense of what kind of person we each are. Sometimes I realize that when I'm in a class, I really don't know my classmates. One of the biggest problems with Stevenson having so many students is that we tend to stick to a group where we feel comfortable and don't reach out to get to know anyone. I think that blogging can help change that. We can post our opinions on certain topics and get to know eachother, in general, and on a deeper level than we normally would.
I also think that when you're in a class, your classmates tend to stereotype you. We see eachother and judge eachother based on that persons friends, the clubs their involved in, sports, etc. Although these can be right at times, many times we are just labeling eachother without knowing whether or not its true. Blogging can help us see through those labels and maybe find someone that has similar opinions or interests as ourselves.