Week 17- Crash

This past week in sociology, we watched the movie, Crash. The storyline showed multiple different characters that were of different races and all of their stories ended up being connected to one another. They were connected by one binding force- race. As Sal said, the main character was just the idea of race and the movie depicted how racial discrimination and the concept of explicit race plays a role in our everyday lives, whether we like to think so or not. Explicit race/racism, which is the belief that ones own race is superior to others, and discrimination, which is acting upon ones own perceived notion of that particular race. In the movie, there were many examples of explicit racism, such as when the guy went into the health-insurance office and was upset over his plan and claimed that he could "find six more qualified white men" to replace an African-American woman's job. Sandra Bullock's character also was prejudiced towards the Mexican locksmith, believing that he would give the key to one of his "homies", and she then kicked him out of the house. This movie was basically the epitome of the existence of race and the toll that it takes in our society.

This movie brought up many interesting ideas that we have discussed in class. The issue of race as a social construct was a prevalent issue in the movie. Race of the characters was simply just assumes by others- there was no biological evidence that the one guy was black and the one girl was Chinese. Another idea I did not initially see was the concept of sociological imagination. This movie emphasized that we are all connected in some way and that we all play a small part in the bigger picture. By enforcing the idea of race and something that separates us, the characters in the movie thus did not nothing to try to help the end of racism, and were therefore sociologically unaware. This movie made me realize that as much as we like to think it doesn't, race does indeed play a huge role in our entire society and that we are affected by race, even if we are not racist ourself.

My service experience

Today, I went to Bernie's Book Bank in Lake Forest for about an hour, even though it was originally planned for two hours, but we were let out early. When Bary, our friend, and I got there, they had us sign in and then began to tell us the process of the book sorting and bagging. We organized the books by grades, preschool to sixth grade, and threw the books into the correct bin. Then, we loaded them onto a table where we labeled them with Bernie's Book Bank stickers, and then began putting six books into separate bags and loaded them onto carts to be brought to schools in low-income areas. The number of books that went through our hands was astounding. I probably saw about 1,000 books go through the "assembly" line, only in one hour! This was a really fun experience and I plan on going back again!

This experience taught me a lot about society and the way in which the world operates. This experience showed me that, although it is often hard to realize, especially in our materialistic American society, that there are people that are still in need of books. Books of all things. It amazes me that I grew up with about four or five book shelves in my house, went to the library all the time, and read at school, and at the same time there were kids my age who didn't even know what a book was. I was thinking this when going through some of my favorite books as a kid today and I began to think about the issues of class that we discussed in sociology and this experience emphasized that although we'd like to think America does not have class, we most definitely do and these classes are defined by wealth. Those who, say, cannot afford books are in lower classes and those who can take their kids to book stores all the time are higher class. It is heartbreaking knowing that kids grow up in such poverty that they do not even know what a book or reading is. This experience also made me realize how there are so many people who care about giving to others. Those who volunteer have good sociological imagination and understand that the world is a whole lot bigger than just them and then they must help others in order to be an active member of a society. This experience was very rewarding and allowed me to apply sociology to an actual situation. I can't wait to do it again!

Week 16- The Human Race.

This week in sociology, we discussed race as a sociological construct, as opposed to the perceived notion that race is a biologically determined. We discovered that there truly is no biological difference between these races and that different fingerprints, for example, are not common in one "race", but rather vary over a wide spectrum of people. We also determined that race changes from culture to culture, making race relative as a social construct. In Brazil, for example, they have multiple types of race that are solely determined by physical characteristics, rather than America'a way of distinguishing race by ancestry. Therefore, we decided that ones race would change from culture to culture- race is not limited to one specific definition, nor is it something that should separate us all. We are all apart of one race: the human race.

This week was yet another insightful week in sociology. I learned things that I already knew about race, but this week I realized how dramatic sociological construction of reality really is on one's own perception of reality. In the American culture, we are faced with the task to try to overcome racism, especially due to our eventful past involving racism. However, I realized that we are all under the misconception that racial differences is a huge problem in our society. However, I believe that if we enforced more ideas on how race is simply sociological, there would be less emphasis on racial discrimination, as well as less differences between races. I do think the idea of race is ultimately timeless, no matter how hard we try, but I do believe that as a united society, we should be able to overcome some of the obstacles that race brings.

Week 15

This week in sociology we learned about social class and levels of poverty in America. This week was very eye opening because it taught us that as much as we like to think America does not have a social class, we definitely do, but it just is not defined, like it is in some Indian and other cultures. We have a social class that is not noticeable unless suddenly in a city and you travel through each realm/section of the city and you see a stark contrast between the types of people and companies found in different areas of cities. The sad thing about poverty in America is that once you are born into poverty, it is a huge struggle to get out of poverty, especially since the upper class owns most of the money in America and they keep getting richer as the poor get poorer.

I am very lucky to have been born into a middle class family and town. I often take that for granted by carelessly spending money and not appreciating what I am given. The town my grandma lives in, however, has a lot of people that could be considered blue-collar working class and I can clearly sense that from the way they act and live. It is also interesting to see the cultural and value differences between classes, such as the working class valuing less materialistic things and non-tangible items, whereas the higher classes may value more materialistic things and value money over other things. Social class in America is actually a very noticeable thing if you become sociologically mindful and notice things around you.

Week 14- Jail and justice

These past two days, we have been discussing jail and the injustices prisoners must deal with due to their "deviant" actions that brought them to jail. We watched Morgan Spurlock's show, 30 Days in Jail, which was a short documentary that filmed Spurlock in jail for a full thirty days with other criminals, mainly those penalized with drug convictions This show showed many different perspectives of jail, such as the normal cells with a large common area in the middle, a solitary confinement cell, and a nicer jail that led outside and offered programs to get over drug addictions. One thing understood from all these perspectives, however, was that you are trapped. You go into jail, are completely stripped of your rights and are trapped in a large room for days upon days. It is an awful thought to think that so many people in jail made one mistake that ultimately messed up their whole life unless they find some way to repair the damage they've done. However, as seen with George and Travis, two of Spurlock's cell mates, they had the intentions of leaving jail and repairing their life, finding a job and fixing things, but were then sent back to prison only a short while after they were initially released. The Virginia jail's west side, which had a program for drug and alcohol addicts could be beneficial if the inmates stayed in the program beginning to end or if all prisoners, especially in the US even had the opportunity to go to programs like that and it is a shame that many 'criminals' do not have the opportunity to receive the help they need.

This perspective of jail taught me great insight about society and the criminal//jail industry in general. One main thing I got from this is another emphasis on nurture and how those around you deeply affect you and how your life turns out. For example, if my parents were drug or alcohol addicts, I would most likely have a better chance of being involved in those things as well, because I would be constantly surrounded by it. George, for example, said that when he got out of jail, he was going to stop hanging with the wrong people, (ultimately those who would pressure him into falling back into the vicious cycle of jail-release-jail again), but I bet that he did not escape those negative influences, and therefore was sent back to jail. This was a very sociological topic discussed and it really opened my eyes to the ideas of justice and how deeply others affect you.

Week 13- Saints and Roughnecks

This week in class, we daicsussed social deviance and how social classes affect our levels of deviance. One main article we read was about a small town that included two distinct high school groups- the Saints and the Roughnecks. The Saints were the ones involved in school activities and sports, had more money and appeared to be the good kids. The Roughnecks, however, were seen as the "badass" kids who were always messing around and had no motivation. However, both of these groups were involved in many crimes, and arguably the Saints did worse things than the Roughnecks. Despite similar actions from the two groups, the Saints were able to avoid police and get out of conflicts they were stuck in due to their perceived reputation of being good kids just messing around. The Roughnecks, however, always got in trouble with the cops and the community disapproved of them and saw then as deviant. The article discussed how the Saints went on to lead successful lives and got careers and educations. The Roughnecks, however, being trapped in their identity created by the society, were dropouts, low class people by the time they left high school and moves on in life. This article showed how society's perception of certain groups affects other groups and the individual group itself and was really interesting in showing how time and place affects one deviance and their actions.

At Stevenson, there are Saints and Roughnecks, but I saw them as doing different actions than the kids in the article. I compared the Saints in the article to the kids in school who appear to be good kids, involved in sports and activities, but do not pay much attention to school, but fake it in front of teachers in order to make the grade. Basically, they walk the walk ad talk the talk and this perceived notion gives teachers the sense that they really are good students, but unreality, they only do what's absolutely necessary to make the good kids. The Roughnecks, however, in Stevenson are the kids who everyone knows don't care about school- they ditch class, disrupt class and never get their homework done. Although they may be smart and just don't stay motivated, teachers and peers still have the perception that they are "slackers" and therefore punish them more or do not give them the same help that they would give one of the "Saints", given the situation. In our Stevenson subculture, the kids who appear to be slackers are seen as deviant and go against the norms of Stevenson, such as excelling in school and participating in class. I believe every society has Saints and Roughnecks and the perceived reputations of these groups change based on what the society thinks is deviant or not.

Week 12- Masculinity

This week in sociology, we read a very interesting article, "Adolescent Masculinity" by Michael Kimmel and Matthew Mahler. This article addressed the topic of school violence. In class when we discussed what we thought Kimmel's thesis would be, I wrote: Violence, an expanding issue facing our nation's schools, has often been linked to violence in the media, violent video games, availability of guns, history of child abuse, and/or racial/gender tensions. However, there is a stronger, more direct link between teen violence and masculinity and is potentially the main cause of young violence. Although violence in the media can be related to school violence, this article argued that there is rather a direct correlation with masculinity, which is a value influenced by the violence in media, and school shootings, rather than there being a direct correlation with violence in the media and school violence. Masculinity, which is a huge American value that we often forget to see, includes the idea that men hve to tough, brave, and strong, or else they are seen as weak and more feminine. THe idea that "men do not lose their voice, they can it" would describe why violence in schools has been a major issue. Growing boys feel like they need to prove their worthiness as a man, and see violence as an answer to this. Surprisingly, it is more often white suburban boys who are doing the shooting, rather than the assumed and stereotyped minorities doing the shootings. Kimmel argued that because so many minorities can fall back on that stereotype if they need to seem strong, powerful and intimidating. Many argue that racism has grown because many racist people fear the minorities. Becasue of this fear, minorities do not feel the need to prove their masculinity, for their minority already proves their toughness. This value of masculinity in our culture is an expanding value and has drastically affected the balance of our society, between genders, races, poverty, etc. The value in our American culture of masculinity is directly related to school violence in boys trying to prove their worth as men.

In my own life, many of my guys friends are seen as violent, or struggle with their personal identity because some of them are not muscular or appear to be manly. I have seen many wish to be more manly and try to prove their worth, and this has affected their relationships with people as well as their own self-image. Before this topic came up, I always wondered what had caused this strong desire for strength and power in my friends, and now I understand why they want it so bad- our culture wants them to have it. There have been many instances where I have feared their violence and worried about their safety in trying to defend themselves when someone pushes them past their breaking point. I have also seen many of my guy friends become more impulsively violent, reacting to the moment, and regretting it later. A few of my guy friends sometimes even wrestle "for fun", but then end up getting worked up, pissed off and hard to control. This insight on why males feel the need to be strong and powerful makes so much more sense now. I hope there will be social changes that stop this violence and the feeling that men need to be strong.

Week 11- Media and Halloween

This week in class, we began discussion over gender, as well as the effects of media on children, and how gender and media coincide with each other in relation to how it effects children. The video we watched was one of the most interesting videos I have ever watched and really opened my eyes to all of the effects of media on children, and how even from the beginning of their birth, they are constantly being bombarded with pressures, brands, and gender-specific rules, such as the cute-sy halloween costumes for females, or the rough-and-tough truck toys for the boys. I never realized this before, but after the video I realized that we are all surrounded by these gender-specific rules- girls are considered sloppy in they don't wear makeup or wear sweatpants every day, but if guys dress a little nicer, people question it. The basis of these "rules" and who or what created them was the question on my mind all week, and this week really made me think about how we don't need to follow the "rules" set for us from the time we are born- we must follow our own beliefs and attempt to avoid as much of these rules as possible in order to avoid corruption from media.
We also watched Freaks and Geeks again, which was very amusing, as well as interesting. Although it does not tie into gender, I did find the conflict over what age is "too old" for halloween very interesting, which also tied to the part of the video that discussed that the age at which we reach adulthood is decreasing. The freshmen boys were considered losers for trick-or-treating at that age, but the mother found it perfectly OK for them to be trick-or-treating, because she had done so when she was his age. That age has clearly changed, according to Freaks and Geeks, which has led to conflict and an interesting question- Who or what can determine the zenith of adolescence and who should be able to control the age of adulthood? Because clearly, media is only decreasing the age of adulthood more and more.
This week was very insightful and posed a lot of questions about our society and how we are all a part of everything and that we really do have an impact on people, just like the bell's sound that travels and reaches many places.

Week 10

This week in sociology, we talked about influences from our childhood that make us who we are today. Nature, which is the natural, non-influenced factors that affect us, and nurture, which are the sociological factors that impact us, work hand-in-hand when considering why we grow up to be who we are. From conception, we are influence by our mothers, who we are most impacted by in forms on nurture. From the very beginning, our mothers drastically impact the outcome of our life, and influence what kind of person we are, and this is not necessarily solely based on genetics. Naturally, one could argue that siblings share the same values with one another because they all were influence by the same mother, whereas the parents may have different values due to their different parents. It is all based on perspective. This is a really compelling topic because it poses the question: which is more impacting, nature or nurture? And many sociologists and the realm of sociology ultimately argue that nurture is more impacting due to our socialized world. And I would agree with this. I do share the same values with my family, which is caused by nurture, despite the fact that all of us were born at different times, years and different places, and grew up in different places,which could be considered nature. The dynamics of a family, I believe, are firmly based off of the initial nurture of the mother to the child.

Week 9- Values, Happiness, and Nothing.

This week in Sociology we started off the week by watching a movie, Tuesdays with Morrie, which was about an old man slowly dying and his lessons that he taught to a middle-aged man who had little sense of direction in his life. Through many laughs and deep talks, they developed a strong relationship and Morrie changed the man's life forever. The movie taught us a lot on how to live, and also emphasized cultural values us as Americans have. Morrie emphasized to Mitch that Mitch should stop working so much and just stop and realize what is most imporant to him- his relationship with Janine, his passions for music, and overcoming his fears of confrontation and death. The American value of work as a dominant activity in life affects our everyday life and is easily compared to other cultures that are not so focused on their work, but are instead focused on their families, friends, and experiences. Also, Morrie brought up a point about how the American culture nearly shuns away the idea of death and values the hiding of true emotions on any given situation, and Morrie argued that in order to lead a successful life, one cannot simply be afraid of what they deem as "awkward" situations. This movie offered great lessons on life, as well as gave a better insight to AMerican values and how that affects our daily lives as Americans.

We also looked at the concept of Happiness and read an excerpt from the book, "Thrive", which described different ways that happiness can be created in your everyday life, from having a garden, to seeing theatre performances on the weekend. THis article gave great insight to how the AMerican culture allows us to achieve happiness, but also how it hinders it. Our firm value of work and individualism is a hinderance to achieving happiness, but our sense of equality (for the most part) encourages happiness. Salituro also told us about a test that would determine one's level of happiness. I took it and got a B+, but arguably, I'm not sure if happiness is neccesarily something that can, or should be, measured by a statistic or grade or percentage. Happiness, in itself, is a very complex and varying emotion, and I am unsure what the criterion of "being happy" truly is. Is happiness something you determine for yourself or something society determines for you? This question stayed in the back of my head while reading these articles and really made me reconsider my idea of happiness and what I can do to achieve my own definition of happiness.

Our experiment, referred to as the "Do nothing" experiment was incredibly rewarding and showed so much about our society and human inclination as a whole. Here is what i wrote for the reflection of the experience:
" In Dominick's, with many people walking around with their lists of things to buy and tight schedule, I sttood in the bakery session, turned my phone off and did absolutely mnoting. At least I thought i was doing nothing. However, I soon realized I wasn't doing nothing- I was simply just doing everything, but only in me head. My mind was a cluster of thoughts on stress and emotions about both the past and future. What was strange, however, was that I wasn't thinkiing about the present- adn then i realiized that us as humans never really do think about the present that much. We are instead always thinking what did happen, and what is going to happen. Why is that? Also, I was originally assuming people would look at me and ponder why I was doing nothing, but then I realized how consumed each person that passed me by with what they wanted to do and wanted to pursure their purpose for walking to the meat aisle or snack aisle and were basically oblivious to the fact that i was just standing there. Us, as humans, always feel the need to have something to do, and we can be so distracted by our own stask that we forget to be sociologically aware of the people around us. This exeriment led to many thought-provoking concepts and I really enjoyed it."

Week 8

This week in sociology, we discussed differences among cultures, and the idea of a subculture, which is a culture seperate from its "mother" culture. One subculture we discussed was the subculture of Our high school, which we said was different from other high school cultures due to many things that set us apart, such as the more of not stepping on the Patriot, different phrases we use that other schools wouldn't understand, such as FMP, ILC, and traveling, as well as things that we value at Our high school, such as hard work, college and extra curricular activities. all of these traits set us apart from other high school cultures, making Our high school's culture a subculture. I knew about this subculture, due to the fact that when I talk to my friends from different high schools, they say that the amount of pressure we face as students that are expected to excel in school is drastically different from the pressures they receive in their school. Another example of subculture that I see multiple times is the rural culture of Pennsylvania, which is separate from our metropolitan-Chicago culture(suburbia). Although the cultures are both a part of the American culture, and there are many similarities between the two culture's, there are still distinct differences among the cultured, which thud creates two different subcultures. In Pennsylvania, where I visit my grandma, the nearest chain grocery store, such as Target, is nearly a half hour away, and the closest city is Pittsburgh, which is an hour away. Due to this, the way the people living there value more "consumer products" is different from the way we value it, because we are surrounded by brand names everyday, whereas the local grocery stores by my grandma sell baked goods and other products that are made by a "friend of the owner of the store", rather than Frito-Lays, or Hostess, which are brands we are surrounded by everyday. Another thing that sets that culture apart from ours is their minimum use of modern technology. My godmother has nearly no knowledge of how to send an email, whereas here, four year olds would understand how to copy and paste a word document onto a blog, for example. The way in which we value technology is completely different from. The way in which is more rural community values technology, which then changes the way they communicate. Subcultures are nearly everywhere and all play a part in making the whole culture more diverse and fascinating.

The Yes and No's of Cultures

This week in Sociology we discussed material and nonmaterial culture and went into further depth of different kinds of gestures, languages, and norms within the realm of nonmaterial culture. We first discussed the differences between certain gestures between cultures, such as the idea that in the Indian culture, it is considered to be disrespectful to eat with your left hand, whereas in America, both hands are acceptable to use during a meal. We also discussed how cultures that share the same language have certain words that don't translate to anything in, say, English, and just have a meaning in its own language. We then discussed folkways, which are just little things that are perhaps seen as rude or disrespectful, but are not that big of a deal, such as having your elbows on the dinner table. A more, however, is a step further than folkway, and would be something that would possibly offend someone or disrupt the natural flow of a given society. A taboo, however, is nearly a forbidden thought or thing that should never be said or thought. An example of a taboo would be selling bacon in the Middle East, for their culture is very against production of pork, due to its sacredness to the religion(s) found in the Middle East. Culture is very intersting to me because it allows us to value different cultures and see how the world functions due to each individual culture affecting the world.
          When learning all of these types of non-material cultural ideas, I began to think about its relation to my own life. When we discussed the social norms that went along with the nonmaterial culture, I began to think of my experience with both culture shock, which was a term previously discussed, as well as a realization of the certain folkways and mores of people in different cultures. When I went to Italy a few years ago, my family and I went to a small, family-owned restaurant on the Almalfi Coast for lunch. The Italian tradition is to have multiple course of meals in one sitting, as well as different things in each course. So, for example, we got our appetizers, and there were five or six plates of different things that we passed around, and same went for the pastas, the meats, the deserts, etc. However, my younger brothers are very picky when it comes to eating, so they did not want to try any of the new food being offered to us(mozzarella/tomatoes, rabbit leg, lemoncello), which we usually are fine with when we have dinner in our own house. However, when the owners of the restaurant saw that they were not eating what they were bringing up, they seemed to get offended and asked if the food was cooked correctly. This is a good example of a social folkway, for the Italian restaurant-owners felt a sense of disrespect towards them by my brothers not eating waht they served us, showing how the social norm of the Italian culture would be to try everything that comes out. This experience of culture shock and seeing the different social norms in the given cultures gave me a better insight to other cultures around the world and allowed me to realize that cultures are so drastically different from one another, that one motion can offend someone, or not offend one, given the certain culture we would be put into.

Week 6- Cards and Culture

                   This week in class we started Tuesday off playing a card game, and Sal each gave us directions on how to play. The goal of our game was to put the highest number down, but if you had a diamond, put that one down and you automatically win. Aces were low. As our  We were allowed a few practice rounds and my group and I started getting the hang of it. Then, Sal instructed us to play without talking. For our group, it was pretty easy to do that because we all knew how the game was played and could use motions to communicate. However, when Sal told the winner of the round, which was me, to move to the next table, things changed. Again, we couldn't talk. We could only start the game. We began to play, and I threw down a diamond in order to win. However, when everyone had put down their cards, another kid took the cards and signaled that he had won the round. I was so confused! I was supposed to win that round! Then, during another round, a kid put down an ace, and won, even though I was told that aces were low. I was starting to get a little frustrated, but I couldn't talk and didn't want to argue non-verbally so I just went along with it. After playing for a few minutes or so, Sal told us to stop playing and all of a sudden we all started arguing about who was right and who was wrong and why we should've won that one round, and that aces were low, etc. Sal suddenly interrupted us, saying "Each table was a different culture. And you all were put into a situation of culture shock". Sal also discussed ideas, such as ethnocentrism, which is the  tendency to view other groups or cultures as inferior to your own. In my head, I started to think about how true he was, and realized that I had thought I was right because that's what my "culture" taught me. I was being ethnocentric! It was crazy to think that just in a matter of 15 minutes, we all faced a symbolic brainwashing, in which we each were told what was right and what was wrong, and then grew critical towards people that weren't doing the "right thing".
            Now, from a very small scale, this is not a big deal. But if you think about this globally, this thing happens every second of every day. I would bet that the majority of the American population believe that other countries should change in order to fit our own culture, and vice versa. I am assuming this because I have experienced this first-hand, even if it was on a smaller scale. Freshman year, my advisory and I began to have a debate on whether or not there should be one common language amongst the world's population, and if so, which one. I argued that, no, there should not be one common language, because although it would make things easier in the long run, language is a vital part of culture, and we could also never decide on which language to make the 'official language' be. However, one of my classmates began to say that if it were ever to happen, that we should make everyone speak English, and I asked him why, and he said something along the lines of "Because that is what we know and we are better than the other languages, because America is the best". This is a perfect example of ethnocentrism, for it shows that this guy thought that just because we spoke English, we were obviously better. However, I think that someone speaking Korean, or French, would say the same thing about their own language. It is crazy to think that we have become so assimilated to our own cultures that we want what is best for ourself and would benefit ourself the most, rather than wanting what is right and equal.
This experience in class was  really powerful one that made me take a step back and examine the world from a bigger perspective and realize just because we live in a certain culture doesn't mean our culture is the best.

Week 5- A Bronx Tale

This week in Sociology, we watched a movie, "A Bronx Tale", which is about a kid growing up in an Italian Village in the Bronx in the 1950's. The movie captures his journey through adolescence and was a great example of the sociological mindfulness, as well as generalizations, which we also discussed when we read, "Should We Generalize" by Joel Charon. The movie was very powerful and was a great example of how we truly are shaped by when and where we live and that the people around us will always impact us, for better or for worse. Many racial issues came up in the movie, especially seen through the main character's best friends discussions of the African-Americans living near them. However, I found it very inspiring and moving that the main character did everything he could to be civil and ultimately non-discriminatory with the African-American group, which we saw through him dating an African-American girl, and saving her brother from a "brawl" with the Italians. From this, we saw that there truly are good people out there that mean well, and aren't always generalizing about people, which was an idea discussed in Charon's article. This article, along with the movie, showed that although generalizations and stereotyping are inevitable, there is such thing as an accurate generalization, and that if we try our best to accurately generalize, then generalizations can become beneficial, as seen in "A Bronx Tale". This movie, although very different from my life, reminded me of the many stereotypes that we make everyday.

Everyone stereotypes. Like I said before, it's inevitable. I hear about 10 or 15 stereotypical comments/generalizations a day, some about Jewish stereotypes, and less noticeable ones, such as hearing comments like, "you're wearing black. therefore, you must be having a bad day" (which is another thing we discussed in class this week). I have always tried my hardest to not generalize about people, just because I know that it can be hurtful and won't help the task that all humans must learn to do, which is to generalize accurately about people. This week taught our class a lot about human nature and how we do live in a constantly connected and stereotyping world, whether we want to or not.

My Service Experience

So I started a book drive, working with United Way and the book drive, Page it Forward, and I volunteered to be a representative from the high school. This weekend, I found out about a book sale near me that allowed for charities to come in after the sale and take what they wanted. I brought my friend along and we arrived to the place with about ten minutes until the sale ended and the charities could start. When I saw my school librarian, who told me about the sale and met me there to help me, I was really excited, but she seemed to have a purpose. As I looked around, I saw that there were tons of charities around and almost all of them looked like they wanted the same kind of books I wanted: children's books. My friend and I brought 2 small card board boxes to pack up the books we got, but as we looked around, we realized that we were nearly amateurs at this, because Bernie's Book Bank, another local charity, had a U-Haul in the back, 20-30 big bins and about 15 helpers with them. I was really nervous and I was afraid that I had no chance against this huge organization. So, as soon as the lady told us we could go into the warehouse, my friend and I pushed our way to the front and sprinted to the back of the room that held all the children's picture books. We literally filled our two tiny boxes up with books in nearly 5 minutes, and then found more and more boxes to fill. I just kept grabbing piles and piles of books, not even noticing what the were. My thought was "if the're for children, I want them". But that was exactly what all the other people around me thought! It was actually so intense and my friend and I were laughing at how intense it was and how much we were sweating, trying to load all of our boxes onto carts and into our truck, which at that point we had realized we had to pull up to the front, put all the seats down and start loading up the truck. I was amazed at how many books we kept getting. We probably made 10 or 15 trips back and forth to my car, each time with 5 or 6 boxes of books. The atmosphere in the warehouse was crazy and hectic, and many times ladies walked up to my boxes of books and taking my books! I was initially kind of mad, but then I realized something that I hadn't realized in my panic of trying to get the most books I could; every single person here was trying to do something good for others. I was astounded by how many charities were there, and I even talked to many of them, some who were getting books for a church drive, those who were going to ship books off to third world countries, and those were would resell the books to help raise money to fight against environmental problems. This moment, when the nice, old lady from a church book drive started looking through my books, has stuck with me since it happened and will stick with me forever. It truly amazed me that all of these people were so giving and that we were all trying to do the same thing: give. My service experience truly did change my life and made me realize that there are so many good people out there that all want to make a difference in someone else's life, just like I want to. The fact that I brought home about 40 boxes of books, (800-1000 books), which is truly amazing and exciting, was not nearly as rewarding as what I learned in that chaotic atmosphere in the warehouse stacked high with books: those who give are those that are good. I will never forget this experience and hope I have many more to come. It truly was inspiring.

Week 4- Social Construction of Reality

This week in Sociology we did a lot of activities involving the idea of social construction of reality, which is the idea that society constructs our idea of things, such as what is wrong versus what is right. One example he used was making a student spit onto a spoon. However, as soon as the spit came out of her mouth, our view on it suddenly changed and we were all pretty grossed out by it, whereas we view it as a good thing in our body. This shows social construction of reality because the society we live in has established that spit is bad when it's outside of your mouth, even though there is no real biological difference between inner spit and outer spit (weird way to put it, I know). Another thing that showed the social construction of reality and what our society values was the Ship activity in which we were all assigned different roles, such as college student or traveling poet, and we all had to decide who should be saved and who shouldn't. After doing this activity, we realized that we favored those that had qualities that our society seems to favor, such as good careers, intelligence and young age. It was interesting to see that we mostly all shared the same opinion about who was a "good person" and who was a "bad person" just based off of their descriptions. During this discussion, I began to think of another example of how a society values different things and I began to think how this is present in my life. I came to thinking about the Stevenson society and culture. Even though it is on a much smaller scale, I think we would all value people that work hard, are very friendly, and take leadership because that is the society we are placed into when we are at Stevenson. This week taught us a lot about the way in which society impacts us and that we truly are shaped by the people and things that occur around us.

Week 3- "Freaks and Geeks"

This week in class, we watched an episode from the show, "Freaks and Geeks", which was basically a typical high school setting show that took place in the 80's. This show offered new insight to what sociological mindfulness actually means when placed into a real-life situation. One good example of sociological mindfulness in the show was when Lindsay realized that Eli, who was a kid with disabilities, was being picked on. Lindsay walked up, picked up his books for him, and made sure he was OK after the bully verbally attacked him and knocked his book onto the floor. This act of kindness shows that Lindsay knew to do the right thing and did it, despite her outside environment, which would be telling her otherwise. I have seen this type of bullying happen a lot of times, and most of the time I act just as Lindsay did, and through doing so, I have realized how big of an impact that one action could have on someone's whole day, week, or even life. I once heard a story about a boy who was seen carrying his books home from school one day and another boy shoved his books onto the ground and broke his glasses. Then, another boy came up to the bullied kid and helped him up, and eventually became his friend. At the end of the story, we found out that the bullied kid was originally going to go home for the weekend and commit suicide, but because of the kindness from the one boy, he did not because he found something to look forward to in his life. This story was very powerful and basically emphasized sociological mindfulness, showing that we must always be aware of the others around us and always try to be tolerant and caring of others, because we can and do affect the people around us, whether it be intentional or not. I think that is what sociological mindfulness is about- it's about always trying to do the right thing and having good intentions when helping people, rather than just having self-motive and asking "What's in it for me?". We must always be aware of our surroundings, no matter what.

Outliers

This week in class, we read an excerpt from the book Outliers, which was about a group of Italian immigrants coming to America and all went to the same town of  Roseto,PA. There, they set up schools, churches, and a near-Utopian society. Then, someone from outside of the town realized that this particular town had absolutely no sign of heart disease, which was then raging through the US at a rapid pace. They also discovered that this town had no alcoholism, no divorces, no suicide etc. and that everyone was pretty close to perfect happiness. This story was very interesting because it related to sociological imagination, which is the idea that the outside world has a dramatic impact on how you live and that the world ultimately shapes how you are, whether you realize it or not  This related to the Outliers due to the idea that because of their extreme isolation from the outside world, their level of sociological imagination was different from other situations and they were not heavily impacted by the outside world  However, they were affected by the when and where of their existence and had they gone somewhere else at a different time, their interaction with the outside world would vary. I do believe that this sociological imagination theory is true in relation to my life. When I hear stories about the wars in the Middle East, for example, I try to imagine myself growing up there and I know that I would be a completely different person, would have different opinions and would have had many different experiences compared to those I've had growing up here. This is almost crazy to think about and shows how sometimes we truly do take things for granted, for our sociological imagination could have been completely different from what we have now and how we are living now.

But really... who am I?

Who am I?
Who am i? I don't know. All I can tell you is that my name is Cassie, or Cassandra. I don't think anyone ever really does know who they are. They may know what they are like, their personality, their hobbies and passions, but I don't think anyone is always 100% sure of who they are, because you can always surprise yourself. But I can definitely tell you what I am like and why I am that way. My parents have always been my role models. They both have very successful jobs; my mom is a speech-pathologist at my school and my dad an architectural engineer and the vice-president of the Midwest region of his company. They had easy lives, always lived comfortably and had good education their whole lives. There are six people in my family: my parents, my 3 brothers, and I, and we get along pretty well. So one would think it's a good family setting. And it is most of the time. My parents trust me a lot, maybe a little too much, especially with them having two teenagers, a 20 year old and a tween. I guess they've had a lot of practice. They have always taught us right from wrong, taught us to give, and taught us to live. And I guess my mindset is the same. I don't give into peer pressure, I always try to do the best I can and be the best I can be, and I am an individual. I have never really liked all of that cliquey, superficial thing, so I think that's what set me apart from people in middle school and ultimately high school. Although I was constantly surrounded by my friends begging their parents for everything: new clothes, a cell phone, new everything, I always stayed true to myself and what my parents taught me. I am very outgoing, and always make each day important. I have a very positive outlook on life and my future. What I want to do in my future is still a big question, but I will figure it out on the way. Some days I think Pediatrician, or joining the Peace Corps, and other days I think history teacher or theatre major, but most of the time I just don't know. My all- time dream school is Northwestern, and I would basically do anything to get into there. I have big dreams, and I am a firm believer that you must work hard to achieve what you want, so that would explain why I sit at my desk for hours upon hours doing my homework, reading papers over and over again, working ahead and doing everything I possibly can to ultimately be the best that I can be. Most of the time, I'd rather chose my homework than my social life, but it's not because I am a huge geek that doesn't see the light of day ever, I just don't necessarily favor the current friends I have. Maybe I'm just determined. I absolutely love history, and I could easily talk for hours about why, but I won't bore you. I have a huge obsession with Abraham Lincoln, shrine dedicated to him in my room and everything, but it's not like creepy I-want-to-marry-him kind of thing; He is just really interesting. So maybe I am a geek, but I really don't care because labels are annoying. So I choose not to label myself. I'll describe, but never label. I'm really just a human being trying to live my life, figuring it out as I go.