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.