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.