Bringing it all together - The final blog

I almost didn't take soc, I almost took food prep, and I'm happy with the decision I made. Sociology has opened my mind to things that I'd never thought about before: all the influences I have, the existance of a class system in America; the idea of time in other countries. So many things I would have never considered to be an important factor in my life, I learned about in soc. So many things control the way I am today to the smallest detail about which type of bread I like to something broader like what I want to do with my life. So looking back on it, why am I such a calm person? It's easy to say it's just the way I am, but it's more than that. My dad prides himself in his handywork around the house: he installs light switches, wires together entertainment systems, builds our computers, and keeps little things organized. I think a big part of my personality comes from him. I have fond memories of sitting on his lap and playing car racing games on the computer. Whenever he starts a big project around the house, he recruits me to help out and explains everythign. So what if my dad wasn't good with his hands or had no electrical knowledge? Would I be an entirely different person? What if he loved hockey and not baseball? These are the kinds of things that sociology has opened my mind to, and I feel like I look at the world in a higher sense of conciousness.

Crash

Crash is about implicit racism in our diverse country. In the movie there were the Blacks, the Asians, the Whites, the Middle Eastern, and the Hispanics. Each group was profiled and stereotyped in different ways. Sal brought up the point about what we learn about the Asian man at the end of the movie, that he's trafficking people. As a society, we typically view Asians in a positive stereotype. The two Black guys who were stealingcars were even discussing how they were being profiled and that the White woman walked closer to her husband when they got closer. Ironically, the two black men jacked the couple's car. Later in the movie, Terrance Howard's charcter, Cameron, tells Ludacris' charcter (Anthony) that he embarassed both of them. I think what he's trying to say is that Anthony slipped into the black stereotype when he should be trying to stay away from its negative ideas. The best way to reduce racism in our lives is to just be open minded and ignore sterotypes.

Race is socially created

I found it really interesting that in a foreign country, people actually applied to legally change their race. While this doesn't initiallly make sense in America, race is a social construction. We discussed the possibility of someone's race changing on an airplane because different cultures interpret races differently. If skin color is an indication of race than it's certainly hard for people to determine what race I'm part of, especially if you throw my last name in the mix. Some say Hispanic, some say Black, some say Middle Eastern; hardly anyone gets my true origins right and says Russian. While race has never directly affected me, I've witnessed and been a part of stereotyping based on race during track season. We all expect the Black kids to run the fastest and be the best athletes, but why? Is it their race, their heritage, their nationality? None of it really, becase race is a social construction and doesn't determine what kind of person or athlete you are.

I never want to go to jail

Jail is a terrible place to end up; especially more than once. But that's how our prison system usually works. Instead of assisting inmates to turn their life around, our jails are just making more criminals. The implementation of strict drug laws got the ball rolling for overpopulated and underfunded jails. Are these laws really fair? We discussed in class that the laws for crack cocaine are much much stricter than powder cocaine. The answer is obvious; crack is much more deadly that powder. But if you look deeper, crack is cheaper and powder is considered the "rich man's" cocaine. So it turn, the government's laws are putting poor people in jail because they can't afford powder cocaine. The real cynics argue that it's all a conspiracy to put urban minorities in jail. Regardless, jail is a horrible place to be and our system really needs to be fixed up.

Wealth & Social Class

The class system of America isn't fair. Playing Monopoly today in Soc we used a different set of rules. At the beginning of the game, each person rolled a set of dice to determine which class they would be, similar to the randomness when you're born into a class. I rolled into the highest class, old money, and started the game off with the most money and the most properties. As the game went on, I could tell I had a substantial advantage over everyone else because I could buy everything I landed on and was collecting money before anyone had gotten a property. Is the "real world" really like this? It's tough to tell because we don't live in the uber wealthy, but in our upper-middle class society, everyone is on a pretty even playing field and it's tough to see who's wealthy. While playing I observed that it was very hard for the players in the lowest classes to do much of anything besides lose money. Is our society really structured like this? Is it at all fair for it to be easy for the richer to get richer and the poor to get poorer? In the Land of Opportunity, it seems nearly impossible to start from the bottom and really make your way up to the upper classes of society.

Deviance

Deviance can be basically definied as do something that is against society's norms. While this is usually negative, deviance can be positive like buying a stranger a cup of coffee or thanking your teacher after class. But if you focus on negative deviance, what seperates the "Saints" from the "Roughnecks" is society's perception of their actions. The Roughnecks were poor minorities whose negative actions were often visible to everyone since they didn't have many options. The Saints were able to drive to the city or drive far away from campus so as not to be caught by people who knew them. And even if they weren't caught, their deviance would be seen as a mistake, a one time screw up, while the Roughnecks were typically thought of as having no future.
I think that while this sterotyping of people who commit deviant behavior is wrong, it comes down to are you willing to play the game. A student can "forget" to do their homework but apologize to the teacher and turn it in the next day and possibly not lose credit. This student knows how to play the game even though he might hate the class and have no desire to work.
Just something to think about... Is downloading media illegally really deviant behavior? Sure there are consequences, but is it that against social customs that you're looked down upon?

Nature v Nurture

We learned that as humans, we aren't able to become a "normal" part of society with only our nature. It's necesary to be nutured and learn from experiences and other humans in order to develop. These two qualities, nature and nurture, aren't mutually exclusive; they actually work together to shape who we are. In fact, our experiences, like always being stressed, can actaully be passed down from generation to generation.
We also talked about feral children and that their lack of nurture doesn't allowe them to fully develop. I think that I've been shaped by my parents a lot. I've noticed simple things that I do that some of my friends don't, that I think my parents taught me to do and has now just become habit. Like turning off the TV or the lights when I leave a room. The TV is always on at my girlfriend's house even if no one is watching or in the room. I think qualities like modesty and honesty are also taught by our parents, those aren't things ingrained in our genes.

Adulthood and Independence

It's tough to pinpoint one time when we become adults in our culture. The Somoans believe it's a continuous journey and everyone goes at their old pace. Nature says it's the time of puberty. We learned today that the average age that people are financially independent is around 27. We become legal adults at 18 and are legally responsible for our actions, but are we realyl adults? Could we really make it in the world? I guess if at 18 you had a full-time job, you could be independent. But that's not very realistic.
Tomorrow I'm visiting U of I, where I'll be going next year and will be expected to make my own decisions and balance my time. But am I an "adult"? Well my parents are paying for my education and odds are I'll be moving back in after gradutaion. True adulthood seems like a daunting idea, being truly independent, honestly, it's pretty scary. But I think that as time goes on we all learn enough to make it and be okay in our lives.

Women

With a title like the title of this post, anything can be said. But this week in class we talked about how genders are shaped. Even as little kids boys and girls are distinguished simply by their clothing but also in ways less obvious like which toys they play with. We had our own little show and tell and we observed that the girls' toys were typically soft and cuddly with warm colors while the boys' toys were about action and were typically bright colors. We looked at a kids' toy catalog and we saw that girls were typically seen playing indoors, a subliminal message about gender roles. Boys, on the other hand, were seen playing outdoors.
I see these gender gaps everyday. Even in our class, Jeff mentioned that guys don't go home and look in the mirror and degrade their body image while girls do. We learned about the images that magazines put out and how fake they are but that we still strive to be like that. I lift weights and have track practice everyday, while I love running, I know that because I work out, I'll have more of an athletic build. Before going on spring break, I worked on my abs more knowing that I would be swimming a lot and that it's important to look good, but these ideas are shaped by our society and thr idea that men should be muscular. I think it's important to be comfortable and happy with who we are and how we look.

Shaped by Society

Family is the biggest influence on the people we are. Not just the environment we grow up in, but the way our parents treat us. We learned that something as simple as the type of job our parents have can determine what mindset we have - conforming or being inovative. Whie family is obviously not the only thing that shapes us, it is one of the biggest components to who we are and how we act.
Personally, I've seen that sports teams impact my life in a positive way. Joining cross country not only forced me to push myself harder than ever before, but it opened my eyes to what a team is. These guys pushed EACHOTHER. The key to a good cross country team is having a strong top 5 runners that motivate eachother to drive through hard practices and succeed in meets. I think this environemt taught me about teamwork and how important the encouragement of others is.

We're Tuesday People

This week in soc class we watched Tuesday's with
Morrie a story about a dying soc teacher who's talking to his former student, Mitch, about the meaning in life and that you "don't know how to live until you know how to die." We learn from Morrie that death isn't something we should be sad about, it's just a transition and that relationships go on. The norms of our culture teaches us that mourning involves a lot of sadness and rememberance. Morrie tried to teach Mitch that death isn't something to fear. Grief on thr other hand is something everyone feels, even Morrie sometimes feels the sadness of his dying. Morrie also talks about dependence as something we shouldn't be ashamed of.

The American Culture

This week we explored the idea of the American culture. The default answer is were a culture composed of many other cultures, a melting pot of you will. But a better anology is a salad bowl that still has individual components but as a whole the pieces make a whole. I think the American culture is about inovation and change and the pursuit of something better. We try so hard to be our best and move up in the world that this actually defines who we are as a people. In my own life, our Stevenson culture reflects the American values of hard work and doing your best in order to get into a good school, get a degree, find a good job and "make it" in the world.

Houston Heat

I have never been out of the US but I've traveled to many different parts of our great country. Just on these journey's I've been able to see the differences in culture. Take for example when I was in downtown Houston. It was a nice summer day, not too hot, but sunny and nice. But no one was on the streets or sidewalks except a few kids skating. I was a little confused since I had come to expect the hustle and bustle of downtown even in the middle of the day. This was culture shock, thinking like what do these people do downtown? No one walks around? Like in NYC people walk and bike and the streets are always crowded. But then I walked inside a building in search of a restaurant and I found lots of people, they were all inside avoiding the heat. But this raises the question, how do they get from building to building? Well, Houston has an incredibly extenive tunnel system that links most of the downtown buildings. This is where the city lived during sunny midday, underground in the tunnels. There were little restaurants and shops where the tunnels let out into hte lobbies of buildings. After my initial shock, I came to think that this was actually pretty cool. It does get ridiculously hot in Texas and this seemed like a brillaint soluton.

You borrow my car. And then you give her the test.

So the past few days we've been watching a Bronx Tale in Soc. Aside from this being a great movie, there are many example of sociology in the interactions and actions of the characters.
We'll start with groups. Collogero belongs in at least three groups; his family, his childhood friends like Slick, Sonny's crew, and Jane. Each of these groups shapes him in a different way. With his family, we see C's dad trying to lead C to be a working man, someone who will make money for his family in all the right ways. C's childhood friends seem like all trouble and he typically disagrees with their actions, like beating up the black kids from down the street. Sonny influences C to want "the life." With cars and clothes and money and power. I think that C sees how people respect Sonny and he admires that the most out of all of his qualities. At least one argument is started between C and his father about whether Sonny is feared or loved.
The neighborhood has its own construction of reality. The unwritten rules are that Sonny is the boss, the big man in town. Another implied rule is that you don't leave the neighborhood unless you're looking for trouble. We see this when C walks Jane home and turns around at the viaduct and his heckled anyway.
All of this got me thinking about the social construction of own neighborhood. Like it's expected that anyone who has their license has their own car to drive. OBviously this is a result of living in an affluent area. It just seems like an unwritten law that if you're a senior, you're gonna be driving to school. The movie also made me realize that so many different groups of people have an influence on me. I think the best example of this is the way that I talk. My speech and phrases I say are all influences of where we live and who my friends are.

Abondon Ship

In a survival situation, there is typically a set of people or one person who is in charge and makes a lot of decisions. Our class experiment was no different; the people who knew they would be saved controlled many actions. But there was also the aspect of microsociology that had to do more with the actual people in our class than their charcter's roles. Jeff, who was castes as the old woman, should have certainly been one of the first voted off and Sal's stats, that reflect macrosociological decisions, would agree. But why was Jeff one of the people saved then? Microsociology was at play since Jeff is the baskeball player who's going to be louder than everyone and try and take charge and keep himself on the boat regardless of his character's described uselessness.
You could say that an example of microsoc in my life would be they way I text different people. I'm more likely to tell my best friend something sarcastic and obnoxious than to my girlfriend. It's a simple difference in the way I act around different people. You could look at how I act in different classes as well. Say, in my math class I'm louder and more talkative, I know that in my geometry class sophomore year, people viewed as "that obnoxious smart kid" b/c I talked so much instead of truly paying attention. But if you compare that to who I am in English class, much more quiet and more of a listener, you can see microsoc at work.

Pods vs. Rows

Something Mr. Elbaum said in Gov really got me thinking. He said that soon the administration will be mandating that all classrooms are arranged in pods or groups. Elbaum was trying to give us an example about selective integration but it got me thinking, do we really work better in groups? Like, do the people we're sitting with really affect us that much? And why do we only sit in pods in math? But partners in science classes, and rows in social studies and english?
I've experienced, at least in my math class, that the people I sit with definitely affect my way of working in class. Some students are lazy and tend to goof off in class and really not pay attention, sitting with one of these students, I find myself following suit as if they're lack of effort is rubbing off on me. While sometimes sitting with someone new or someone I might be trying to impress might subconsiously make me try harder and pay more attention to the lesson.
But why is that in English class or social studes we sit in rows? Wouldn't it be helpful to be able to discuss the lecture with a few other students? I guess it has to do witht he structure of the class and that there really isn't too much group work.
This seating arrangement goes deeper than just in the classroom, I think that people act differently based on the people they're with. Sometimes I'm obnoxious and loud, sometimes more quiet and laid back, it really depends on the mooods of the people around you. It seems like who we sit with or spend time with affect us more than we may originally think.

Being Trained

So the first day, Sal just grabbed a seat with us; and sat. Everyone kind of looked at him, and then looked at each other, and was like "uhhhh... what?" A few people said something to try and get a laugh out of the class. Since Sal sat next to me and I asked him if he was gonna go up in front or what. This was... different. How many classes will the teacher on the first day NOT stand and say "Hi, I'm Mr. Whatever and welcome to some class." I knew right away that Soc would be a new experience for me, no numbers, no notes, no problems or formulas or equations. This was something slightly out of my comfort zone, as Sommers would say when I'm running. I think that cross country and Soc are gonna be pretty similar, as in they're not exactly what I'm used to and will take a little big of extra work. But think about how we all thought it was awkward for Sal to sit down and not really lead the class. Like we're trained to expect the teacher to stand in front and lecture while us, the students, just sit and listen and hope to soak in information. What other things are we trained in without even thinking about it?

Second "First Post"

Who am I? Excellent question. First off I can say that I'm easy going. I let things roll off easily and not let many things bother me, It really allows me to hardly be stressed. I'm also sarcastic. Not in the mean way, but in the fun, joking, completely non-serious way. I can also say that I'm analytical and good with numbers. Not to say I'm some math genius, but like I like numbers. I'm majoring in electrical engineering, so maybe that gives you an idea of the kind of stuff I like, at least academically. Running is also a big part of my life. I came in 6th in the conference in 300 hurdles last year and this year my goal is to go to state. It's starting to take up more and more time as track season starts up. So that's one of my goals, go to state this year and possibly run in college. I'd say a more long term goal would be to be successful and happy in life. This isn't exactly measurable in the sense of Ms. Fischer's "SMART" goals but it seems like a reasonable and achievable thing.

First

What's up world? Just wanted to test my iPhone app for blogging. Most likely will get used for last minute blogs for class.


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