Final Blog

Looking back at the blog that I wrote at the beginning of the semester, I do feel as though my mindset has changed. When I go out I see things more in depth than I had before. My sociological imagination has evolved since I learned about what it was at the beginning of the semester. I see how people are connected to each other in the world. This class helped me study my surroundings and myself a lot more. It made me take a deeper look at who I am. I liked learning about cultures in this class. That has always been an interesting topic to me. At the beginning of the semester, I wasn’t too interested in cultures. It really intrigued me to learn more about the different cultures in the world and how they interact with each other and live their lives. People in China live different lives than we do here, in the United States. I know more about that culture because my dad goes to China a lot for business. What I like about the American culture is that it’s one big melting pot of different people. Anyone can come here and live here, it doesn’t matter your race or religion.

I still believe that my family is my biggest influence on my personality and my view of the world. This is because I live with them and have grown up with them and learned their view points before I was able to learn my own. Because of that, I am the way that I am. I don’t have a problem with my view on the world I just wish that there was no more racism because it has evolved so much since the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Racism now covers not just skin color, but sex (male or female) and religion. These things then change the way people socialize.

When I was doing my service project I realized that little kids socialize differently with their peers than adults do with adults. If they didn’t get what they wanted then they would cry and complain and scream until they thought they would get what they wanted. We, as the teachers would then have to threaten to send the kids to the office if they didn’t listen. I hate being the “bad guy” but sometimes it’s necessary. I also learned that in different countries people greet each other and use different hand motions when talking. Like in France people greet each other with one kiss on each cheek, in America we wave to each other and say hello.

I definitely have a much different out look on life after taking Sociology this semester. I really wish this was a full year class! I feel like this class has helped me get ready for college next year. What I’ve learned has made me feel more comfortable in my own skin and the environment in which I live in. I’m really sad that this class is overL

crash

Crash is an amazing movie. I had seen it once before becuase my dad had reccommended it to me. I was really excited to watch it in class! This movie does a great job at showing racism in this decade. Like how the cop, Matt Dillon, was terribly racist towards anyone not white. He treated everyone differently if they were minorities, like the african american couple he pulled over in the SUV. What he did to that woman was degrading and terrible. Then there's Sandra Bullock's character who's terribly racist too after her and her husband get their car stolen. Every time she was communicating with someone of a different race she would use a rude tone ofvoice because she was scared. Also, Ludacris' character was kind of funny because he was showing the "black" view of L.A. How he sees the world and that all the black people there should be afraid because they're are so many white people in that area, yet all the white people are still afraid of the blacks. It's so strange how different the world communicates with eachother. I hope that one day racism can totally disappear because it would make the world a much safer place to live.

Implicit Racism

Racism occurs everyday in our society whether we realize it or not. I feel like we are all bias against eachother based on skin color. But there's nothing that we can do about it, that's just the way that we are programmed. The test that Sal took in class the other day, I've actually taken before in Political Thought. It was crazy the results that it ends up giving you. Like I didn't think I was racist, but the results I got said that I was. It was shocking. You may not think you are racist, but in the back of your mind you may have those thoughts. Also like the pic on Sal's blog with Lebron James, they portay him as King Kong almost with the expression on his face and body image. To me, that doesn't portray African Americans very well. This goes back into the whole body image topic we discussed in class and how women are portrayed badly too in the media. Racism comes out a lot in media, whether they mean to or not. I think if the media looked at their photos and captions before they were published a little more, maybe we wouldn't have such bad racial issues.

private preschool?!

I really think it's obnoxious for parents to go through all the steps and interviews to get their 4 year old into a private preschool. They are crazily expensive, and in my eyes just not worth the money. But it seems now that all parents are concerned about are the friends that their children make growing up. They have to be in the "in" crowd, or in a higher social class. But when you really think about it, the friends your children make at age 4 probably won't be the same as when they turn 12. So what's the big deal? I would not go through all the trouble to try and get my child into a private preschool, I'd jsut enroll them in the district that I live in at the time. Seriously parents, save your money for something better and more meaningful for your child later in life!

social class

I do believe that everyone is treated differently because of their social class. As seen in the video we watched in class, higher social classes don't like to acknowledge people below them, only the ones just like them. To be honest I really don't understand why we do this, it's just a part of our culture. Whether you realize it or not, you judge people by their class. It would be like getting lost in the city and ending up in a really poor area. Most people would want to get out of there immediately becuase it's more dangerous and the people look "scarier" than they do in an area like we live in. People in our class, higher middle class, tend to want to try and move up into a higher ranking since they're almost there anyway, but that doesn't always work out. People who grow up middle class can end up living their life in poverty as an adult, or can end up very wealthy and successful, it all depends on what you do with your life. The one thing I wouldn't want is to be in a class that doesn't accept me for who I am just because I didn't grow up the same way that they did.

deveants vs. saints

I believe that there are both the deveants and saints that exist in all societies. I see it all the time at school. The kids that look like they'd be trouble are the ones that get written up more often than the more preppier looking ones. And when people are called to their deans for breaking school code/rules each punishment is different. If you're someone that rarely gets in to trouble then your punishment won't be as severe as someone who did the same thing as you who gets in trouble all the time. I really don't think that's fair, I think that the punishment should fit the crime which means that the punishment is the same for everyone.
Also in general when you see police arresting [people you tend to see that minorities are the ones who are in the back seat of the car. OUr society still judges by race whether you believe it or not. Like the example said in the class about a bunch of white kids from Naperville going into the city to pick up drugs, getting caught, and then being released with no punishment. Very different than a colored person who lives in the city or even one that visited the area. They would most likely be arrested and sentenced to jail time. This is why I believe that there are deveants and saints in our society.

growing up

I feel that everyone has their own perspective on when we hit adulthood. When you get your license for instance you feel like an adult becuase now you can go where ever you want, whenever you want and not tell your parents. Others may believe its when you turn 18 because now you hvae no curfew, you've been driving for two years, buy cigarettes, and call those infomercials on tv. Also at this age you learn to live on your own because most people are going to college next year so they'll be moving out of their houses into the dorms. Living on your own is a huge step in becoming an adult. Then there are others who believe that you're a true adult the day you turn 21, because now you're legal for everything including drinking. I believe that everyone matures at a different age, so the age in which we all become adults is different for everyone.

media portrayal

I thought the video that we watched today was a little insightful. I do think that women are portayed badly in media these days. They show the world that the only way to be liked is if you're thin, which isn't true. Most normal women have curves, unlike the models that you see the on the covers of magazines. The airbrushed photos that we see everyday on the covers of magazines shape our society in a big way. Young girls who see these photos assume that when they grow up they want to look just like that, fake. I think that this is terrible for our culture especially for young girls. These fake photos show them that to be excepted into soceity you need to be stick thin, wear lots of makeup, and parade aroun d with barely any clothes on. This is not very rolemodel like. I believe that this will just cause a lot more controversy in the future. I think that models in magazines should have more real curves, that aren't airbrushed to show women and girls that this is what you wanna look like, a real person, not a fake barbie. I think that the media does a terrible job at portraying women andI hope that it will soon change.

family`

I believe that we learn the most from our family. This is because they are the ones that raise us from the day that we are born until the day that they die. We learn our first words by listening to parents talk and we learn how to feed ourselves, how to walk, and how to communicate with others. They nurture us until we are old enough to be on our own. As we read about, the kids that grew up in the orphanage were very isolated and didn't have good communicating skills with others. The more loved and cared for you are the better off in life you'll be. We are taught our beliefs and values from our parents from a very young age so that we follow and live by them as we grow older. They also teach us latent lessons, ones we don't even realize we're being taught until someone says something about them. That would be like the way Sal described his stance which he never realized was his father's smoking stance. I thought that was weird not to know that you stand the exact same way as your father, which is kind of uncomfortable, I tried it. I believe that our family is the most important thing that shapes us.

isolation

When we watched the video about the young girl who lived in isolation her entire life I was in shock. I couldn not believe that a mother could do that to her own daughter. How could one person grow up without any human contact? And also the conditions in which she was brought up in were terrible. She was found in an old diaper, dirty, with bugs in her hair. I just cannot believe how well the mom was able to hide her from the rest of the world for so long. EVerything that we know/do today is what we have grown up learning by watching others. She didn't know how to walk or to talk and brain was like that of a 6 month old when she was at age 9. HOw this little girl didn't go crazy being couped up in there, I do not know. I could never live in total isolation from everyone else. I need to be around other people that's just how I am. I need to go out and have fun with friends. Being locked in a room all day everyday would kill me and I'd probably go insane. The fact that the young girl from the video was rescued and given a new life with a new family is amazing. Slowly she'll learn how to interact better with people, eat better, and soak up some more knowledge in that tiny brain of hers.

Tuesdays With Morrie

I like the movie Tuesdays with Morrie. I thought it was great at showing how even as you get older, you should still be looking at the world with a beginners mind. When the main character saw Morrie on TV and found out he had ALS, it made him think about the promise he had made to Morrie that he hadn't followed through with becuase of work. When he went and visited Morrie it reminded him of all the good times that they had together. The main character didn't realize all that he was missing out on until he went and started visiting Morrie every Tuesday. Morrie helped him see the world from a different perspective, helped him relax and not be so busy with work. The main character lost the love of his life at one point because all he had cared about work, and everything he did was on a deadline, and you just can't live like that, which is what Morrie made him see. Even in Morrie's last few months he helped the main character see what he was doing with his life, and that it needed to change. He needed to take a break and focus on the important things/people otherwise he was going to lose them. This was what I thought was one of the most important lessons in this movie becuase if you don't take a second to look around at your life every once and a while you'll miss out on all the good things in life.

time

I chose to talk about time, and the way time affects our culture differently. In America we always are on a "time table." We need to be everywhere on time. In many other cultures this does not exist. Time effects us differently in different situations. My example that I am going use is when I went to ISU a couple weeks ago to visit a friend. She was on a very different "time table" than my friend Katie and I were on. She finished class around 4pm and then we went back to her dorm to hang. Then a couple hours late we decided to eat dinner. This is different than at home because when you're home your parents make dinner and you eat whenever it is ready. Since college students can eat whenever they want, whatever they want, this is probably where the freshman 15 comes from. Also when nighttime came along, we didn't start to get ready until 9. Usually at home we're out because we have to be home by curfew, but in college you don't have a curfew. That was definitely different for us. Also since we didn't leave til around 10 we didn't come back to the dorms til way late, which is something we could NEVER do if we were at home. Being at college is almost like being in another country becuase everything functions so differently.

(by the way sorry this was sooo late Sal!)

Culture

Learning about culture this week definitely made me think about how all over the world people communicate differently and live differently. It's not something that I would normally think about or even realize unless I vacationed there. I know a lot of Chinese culture and things like that because my dad's been flying there for business since before I was born, so things like that I was familiar with.

Our language barriers I feel will always separate the different countries around the world, just becuase we all speak different languages. That I don't think will ever change as long as we're alive. When you go to a foreign country and no one speaks english, it's hard to find your way around especially fi you don't speak their native language too. Also, the hand gestures were pretty funny, I thought. They are totally different anywhere you go. It's just so weird for me to think that people live completely differently than we do, and we only live the way that we do because the U.S. is very industrialized and many other countries are not.

I found the woman that came to talk to us about teaching in Kenya very interesting. I thought she had a great story to tell, i mean she went to Kenya! Of all the places she could have chosen she chose the one place that would make her go out of her comfort zone completely. I don't think I could ever do that because I am not a very outdoorsy person, I could not live without a real toilet, no shower, no power(for electronics), and I defintely could not live with all of the bugs! I thought it was very gutsy of her to be able to make that decision and follow thru with it.

cards!

When we played cards in class I was thinking what does this have to do with sociology?? I would have never thought that playing a card game could teach us about different cultures. Once we were in our groups and Sal gave us the directions I was like ok this should be pretty easy once Beth and Megan re-explained the rules to me. Once we got to playing our game it was pretty fun. Although once we had to play completely silently it was a little tough because when I finally won a game I said something out loud when I wasn't supposed to. Once we got used to playing in silence as a group the game went smoothly again which was good! We all had gotten really in to the game and then we were told that the winner at our table had to move to the table to the behind us and loser (s) had to move to the table in front of us. Then we ended up getting three new players at our table. None of them had said anything once we had started playing so I just assumed alright everyone's playing the same game as us, no big deal. But the other issue was they couldn't say anything to us because we had to play silently, so if they were confused on how to play our game they couldn't say it out loud. We didn't know this, we were just playing the way that our directions told us to. Once we stopped playing, someone in another group said "you gave every group different directions!" Everyone who came in to our group didn't fight us and our rules they just played along so we never assumed anything out of the ordinary. But I now see how that relates us to culture shock. The people who were moving around to different tables had no idea that we were given different directions until they came to our table. They all just played along and tried to catch on. They couldn't say to us that they played the game differently because we weren't allowed to talk.

This can relate to to culture because each time we go on vacation or get a job in another country we're going to have to adapt to their way of life. All around the world people do different things that we might find weird, but they might think that that what we do in our culture is weird too. This is how cards related to learning about culture in class.

C's Groups

First I would like to say that I actually like this movie. I think that Collogero belongs to a few groups. First his family, family seems to be a big part of the Italian life in this movie. He also belongs to Sonny’s crew. This is because Sonny took Collogero “under his wing” and treated him like he was his own son. Then there’re C’s friends, who are not the most amazing people. They’re racist, smoke, and steal. C was also involved with Jane(I think that’s the girl’s name). That group is only the two of them because they both like each other and don’t seem to care what people think.

I put C in Sonny’s gang, but I do think that C and Sonny could make their own group because they’re very close with each other. Sonny treats him like he is his own, gives him a nice car to pick up his date, watches his back, and makes sure he doesn’t get into trouble.

Collogero’s master status would probably be son. I say this because in his family he is his parent’s son who they always need to watch out for because they don’t want him involved with Sonny. And also with Sonny, he acts as though Sonny is his “father.” I really don’t think that this status will change much throughout the movie because C will always be someone’s son.

macro/micro sociology

The whole spitting on a spoon thing today, GROSS. Definitely not one of my favorites in this class but it ended up leading to us learning more about how we as individuals are influenced by our environment. From a young age we are taught right from wrong. Most parents teach us that spitting is wrong and that we shouldn't do it, so as we grow up, we think that. Our parents influence us everyday of our lives, teaching us life long lessons, and helping us correct our mistakes. This is an example of macrosociology affecting us in our daily lives.

Back to the activity we did in class, we all reacted in a certain way because we saw that it was how everyone else did. I do think that most people thought it was gross, but at the same time when you think about it people act the way they do because of their surrroundings and wanting to fit in. This idea goes along with the microsociological aspect of our discussion showing how little interactions with people can influence others to do the same.

I do feel though that macrosociology affect us more because our surroundings and the people we choose to surround ourselves with have the most influence on how we act and who we will become. We all grew up in a semi-middle-upper class area which affects our view on the world. We also go to a very affluent school; most schools are not as nice as ours is. I feel as though we live in a "bubble" sometimes because the area that we all live in seems almost as though it is cut off from the rest of the world, there isn't a lot of violent crimes being committed like in the city, not a ton of robberies. If we had grown up in the city in a poorer area we would definitely have a different view on life.

Thisis why I think the way that I do on these topics

Freaks and Geeks

I really liked Freaks and Geeks! Even though it was only episode that we watched in class, I really liked it! So I'm writing my blog for this week on it. Some groups that were present in the movie were the jocks, geeks, freaks, bullies, and the outkast, Lindsey. When the jocks interacted with eachother they always got along and it was for their benefit that they were friends. They didn't socialize much out of their group except when making fun of the "special" kid which I found very mean. The geeks, Lindsey's brother and his friends were the kids that would get picked on by the bullies. Lindsey, on one occasion, actually stood up for her brother when he was being bullied at school, and the guy backed off. Lindsey was a geek I guess but as a senior she wanted to step out of her little group and meet other, new people, and be different. The freaks, or what she thinks are the cool kids, are the ones that she decided to befriend. These are the guys that go out on the smoking square...rebels. Most of the groups don't really interact with eachother too much, but Lindsey seems to be a part of all of them whether she wants to be or not. The geeks and bullies are an example of a dysfunction, whereas Lindsey and the freaks are a function. This is how the show relates to functional theory.

Silence: Is It Good Or Bad?

On the first day of this class Mr. Salituro sat in the back of the classroom awkwardly as if he wasn't our teacher. There was a lot of whisper about what was going on and then came the awkward silence. Everyone was just staring at each other and wondering what was going on. Awkward silence can make any situation worse because you just sit there not knowing what to do. Silence isn't always awkward, it can be a good thing. Like when you sit in silence watching a movie, or during class while taking notes. I have experienced awkward silence, but I also think that everyone else has too. Things like this just happen it's a way of life. When some people just talk to talk, it's almost like you want them to shut up already so they're just making the situation even worse (that can be like awkward silence because the person is talking just to not have awkward silence yet the other person in the situation would rather it just be quiet). I'm sure that everyone has been in a situation like that before. Sometimes when a person just keeps rambling on about what seems like nothing it affects your ability to listen. This is because they just keep talking and you get bored so you then realize that there's no reason for you to pay attention anymore. Sometimes you feel like you'd rather be sitting in silence, awkward or not, just so that you don;t have to listen to that person talking. I understand that type of situation completely. This is why silence isn't always a bad thing and can be used for the better.

Who Am I?

I'm Jess. I am fun, outgoing(but can be quiet), hardworking(sort-of). My friends, family and environment play a huge role in the person that I am today. The biggest influences in my life are my friends and family because I'm always with them. I live with my family so they're always influencing me, especially my parents, who always tell me what's supposedly best for me. I love my friends because they're always there for me when I need them most. We're always learning more about each other. My goals in life would be to graduate from college(ISU) and have a good job, either in education or speech pathology. My purpose in life is to be the best person that I can possibly be.