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