Rich vs Poor

One of the first videos we watched on this issue was where the wealthy man known as a "wasp" gave standards for how to be of his social class and what it means not to be. It seemed to me that to be of his high social class, you have to act a certain way and it is not enough just to be wealthy. What really frustrated me was when I learned of people that wanted to learn how to be a "wasp" in order to be accepted by those people. I don't understand how someone would want to act a different way out of their personality in order to be accepted by a group of people that won't accept them for who they are.

Another video we watched was a complete turn around. It was about a woman and her kids living in poverty. They lived in a trailer house in Ohio and it was interesting to see the effects this had on the kids and the mom. One kid in his teens was totally embarrassed by his situation and in reaction, tried to act and dress the total opposite of his social class. Although his poor situation seemed to fuel him to want a better life, it seemed to rid him of his roots and who he really was at heart. His mom on the other hand, was not embarrassed of her situation but still tried to make a better living for herself and her kids by walking 10 plus miles to work everyday to Burger King and having aspirations to one day go to college and provide a better life for her and her kids. The difference between her and her teenage son was attitude. Tammy was not proud of who she was, but didn't want to pretend to be someone that she knew she wasn't. Although i can respect both Tammy and her son, her son still has a lot to learn about loyalty and confidence before he can have success in the real world.

The last video we watched in class was thirty days with a guy named morgan. Him and his wife agreed to do a project where they were to live off minimum wage jobs and see the real struggles of the working poor. Through their experiences they learned how to work hard manual labor, live in uncomfortable conditions 24/7 and how to problem solve. Through their experiences, they seemed thankful for their position in life and more tolerant of others who had to actually live through these struggles every day, not just 30 days.

From these videos, I saw that being poor isn't as easy as living in home or an apartment and working minimum wage jobs and there was a lot more behind it than that. Social classes have a lot of effect on how people act and who they want to be like if they are not of the higher class. I thought it was sad that they wanted to be accepted so badly by people with more money than them and the reason to get out of poverty should be to live a better life. The biggest thing I learned though is, the best way you can help out the poor is don't be one.

Positive deviance

Doing an act of positive deviance means to go out of your way to do a good deed that has a positive influence on somebody else. For my act of positive deviance, I didn't really think about it as that til ten minutes after I did it. Tuesday morning on May 2, I was walking to my first hour class on the 8000's hallway and this kids locker was open and he had a real nice basketball inside probably worth atleast fifty bucks and other things worth money. My friend in my first hour class was trying to close it but couldn't and he asked me to try so I did. After about two tries, I kind of decided the situation was hopeless and wanted to leave but I knew I just couldn't leave it like that.  I didn't have a clue of whose locker it was, I was just thinking of how lazy and irresponsible this kid was for leaving it open for somebody to steal his ball. While I was trying to close the locker, which was nearly impossible, I was thinking about just leaving it open because this kid obviously needed to learn a lesson on responsibility but I knew that everybody gets a second chance and it would be the wrong thing to do if I left it open like that. Well, I finally got the locker closed by putting the ball in an odd spot then quickly slamming the locker door after a few minutes of trying and was late to class because of it. But after the fact, I knew I did the right thing and if more people made more acts of positive deviance without thinking about it,  society would benefit alot more as a whole by working together.

gender roles

Gender identity can be a confusing time for some and may be a subject of ridicule when you enter school. Some really young boys that grow up may end up playing with barbies or want to wear a purse but does that necessarily mean he's going to grow up gay? I don't think the chances of a young boy that grows up playing with barbies being gay is any higher than a boy that grows up playing masculine sports. I don't think you can relate toy/clothing preference to sexual preference until the boy or girl grows into a teenager and knows who they are. But even then, just because a teenage girl may dress like a boy doesn't mean she is a lesbian. In fact, its a very low probability because the gay population represents about two percent of the american population. 

In my process of "growing up" or "maturing" I thought I wanted to have kids in ten or so years but after yesterday's class when Ms. Breuer played the role of my son who wanted to play with a doll, that really frightened me of what could happen. At that point, I didn't really know how to react other than to propose playing ball in the backyard. But instead of doing that, I think I would respond by telling him that we should try playing some sports and if you don't like that then we can try playing with dolls. Or, I would even play dolls with him at first and try to make it boring and unappealing as possible. But if the more extreme happened where my kid were to want to wear dresses, I thought i would have to draw the line on that one. i went home and talked to my parents about my interesting class day in sociology and my dad pointed out, if a kid were to want to wear dresses and you didn't let him because you worry he will be made fun of, then thats probably not the only thing the kid does weird thats going to subject him to bullying. Now, knowing that my kid was young and just because he wanted to wear dresses, he probably wasn't gay which is what scared me at first, I would let him wear the dress as much as possible. My reasoning is that, the want to wear a dress would most likely die out if you let him wear it whenever and it would toughen him up at school. 

Lastly, gender roles are an important feature of life for a boy and girl growing up. Seeing media on tv makes us think boys should like cars, sports and violence and they should tough, emotionless and heroic while girls should like dresses, cooking and flowers and be full of emotions and look pretty all the time. If kids don't fall into these gender roles, they are subject to ridicule by society because of what the social norm is for a boy or girl and what everyone knows as a boy or girl should be according to the media. 

influences

Who I am today; the clothes I wear, the words I say, the hobbies I have and the ideas I have on life are all shaped on the influences around me. I think who and what I am exposed to the most has shaped all these traits and created the person I am today starting with my household. My parents were always a big part in my life, especially my mom who was often called a "helicopter mom" for her constant watchful eyes and controlling nature over me. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, I just think she cares for me a lot which will work out well in the future. I was always being enrolled in sports by mom which I am thankful for but only sports she approved of which I thought was too controlling and wasn't fair to what I wanted. In some ways I think I could have been able to live MY life more than I was allowed to but I also had freedoms that other kids didn't have because I earned trust and I think that it is a very important ideology that was instilled in me from the beginning. My mom was also a big part of my influences because not only did she influence the household, she influenced other influences like friends. She was always making sure I was hanging around kids that she thought were nice and grew up in good households but as I grew up and gained trust I was able to choose friends for myself which lead me to realize which friends were going to give me the best influence to be a better person at the end of the day. My mom also influenced my media exposure not letting me watch inappropriate television growing up but as I got older I had to learn for myself what t.v was good for me and what was not as I had more freedom. As my mom trusted me more, i had more freedom in what I was to do and be more independent but didn't have the craving like other kids that were being too controlled over to be rebellious which i think has been a big part of my maturity.

american culture

what really is american culture? i believe it is what we have made it out to be and that is a culture of resistance towards change and different cultures. I saw this when we watched the video of the sudanese that came to america. Part of their culture is that they stick together, family orientated. When they all walked together as a group around the neighborhood and into stores people were intimidated and wanted this to stop. Really, they are just ignorant to anything that they are not used to seeing, they are so caught up in themselves that they don't bother looking at different ways of life to make themselves better and this is what frustrates me. Maybe people should learn from the sudanese about being more family orientated because americans, unlike the sudanese and many other cultures don't have the same appreciation for family as others. I can personally attest to this as i don't see my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandma as much as i should. You also see in other cultures that children take care of their parents inside their own home when they get old and don't send them off to an old person home because we don't want to deal with them anymore because it is too much trouble and have better things to be doing. We don't repay the favor for when they took care of us as babies and children by cleaning up after us, feeding us, etc. Maybe if americans had a better sense of family, we would be better people for our relationships to whom we should care most deeply about. This all derives from the american culture piece of competition and how we strive to be the best, not as people but in the world of money which i think has ruined us as people because that makes us greedy individuals who do not care about the environment for the sake of our automobiles and how many resources we can use and others on a level of sympathy and empathy to help others in need to make our world better. As americans, we are unique in that we are the most culturally diverse country in the world because everybody wants to live in America for the oppurtunities we have which i think makes us the most culturally resistant country because it intimidates us that we have so many other kinds of people around us we don't know how to handle the situation at hand, our competitive lifestyle makes us this way. To fix this we can only hope for social tolerance of others and more education of american culture and religions to promote understanding of others around us.

blog week 5

In this week of class, we played an interesting card game so will tell you my experience with this. First off, each table was given a deck of cards and the main rule of the game was to be silent. The other rules of our tables game were sort of confusing but i just went with what i thought was correct and wasn't aware that each table was given a different set of rules. Anyway, the winners would remain at their table and the losers would rotate tables. So when a new member would play at their new table, their rules were different than the rules for that table but they couldn't communicate that to the others. So instead of complaining to the other players at the table while being mute, everyone just sort of went along with the game as one or two people would take charge to make sure they won so they didn't have to rotate tables. This directly shows how certain people will take action to get what they want in life while others will just watch and let their lives be decided by somebody else.

blog week 4

Conflict theory, functionalism, and symbolic interactionism are all important factors that influence interaction between people in our everyday lives. conflict theory looks at the power structure such as on social networking sites slike facebook. Through my experiences, people that have power on facebook are the ones that put themselves out there and are well liked by the community on facebook and well respected. When this happens, they will often value their opinions and stances on issues and/or others more heavily. Functionalism is the process of sociology that works to create solidarity in society and looks at the social structure which inner elements include norms and customs. From my perspective, I see norms and customs in my community on an everyday basis at school when you are expected to not make spectacles of yourself. Lastly, symbolic interaction focuses on everyday interactions between individuals. I can relate to this because when I'm talking to friends on facebook, I often shorten up numbers by typing the number instead of spelling out the word or shortening other words to make things more convinient and quicker because or society is always in a hurry and trying to make things easier on oneself.

blog week 3

Technology plays a huge part in my daily life and everyone else around me as well. When I was born in 1994, computers were still in the stone age and cell phones were like briefcases. Now, computers have internet and all kinds of new features. Cell phones are now pocket size, have internet available and have all kinds of apps that makes our lives a lot more convenient for success. For example, a business man using older technology, would not have the same capability from his phone to be able to email, get internet or have a laptop to do work from there when out of town than somebody using new technology. If you don't keep up with the growing technology, you you will be lost behind in a world of inconvenience when trying to communicate with people when away from your house without a cell phone or trying to communicate back and forth with somebody via snail mail instead of email. Being a kid growing up in the age of technology, it comes easier to me and my generation because we were born with the internet growing up as teenagers so hopefully as this aspect in my life keeps changing as time goes on, I will be able to keep up with it so i can get maximum convenience for the sake of my sanity and potential career success.

blog week 2

Throughout my daily routine, I am constantly checking the time. Depending on what time of day it is this could mean glancing at a clock in the middle of class counting down the minutes till the period is over or whether I'm at home and look at the time on my computer counting down the minutes till I have to do something or go somewhere. There are only so many minutes in a day, that you don't want to waste them or be late for something because time is held to such a high standard in daily life in America. When you have a doctors appointment at 6 o'clock, you don't want to show up at 6:30 or you may be frowned upon. People that are constantly late for things in life are bound to miss opportunities they would have had if they were on time.

I took sociology because I thought it would be a good class to take following psychology. On the first day  of class, I walked in late and there were no desks with a chair which i thought was odd. I looked around and saw some chairs in the corner of the room so i walked over there and took one to to the nearest desk to sit down. This is when i realized the teacher wasn't talking and we were around seven minutes into class which I thought was weird. This situation continued for at least five more minutes while I didn't really think about what was going on and was just resting. Finally, the teacher broke the silence by telling us she was observing our behavior in reaction to her not talking. I thought this was a creative intro to class since sociology is the study of human behavior and what better way to start it off than to study our behavior in the first minutes of class in
 the semester.