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.