Race

This week in class, we talked about Racism and about how it is an issue around the world. We took some time looking at a chart in class that showed people from all different races and what other people called them. It basically said that no matter where you are in the world, there is someone out there that does not like you. It is sad to think about, but for the most part it seems to be true.

-

Also is class, we talked about where someone learns about different races. Racism is not something that you are born with, it is something that you inquire growing up in society. Different regions of the world experience different living conditions and that can relate to social interaction with other races. A limited social interaction will not give anyone an understanding of other races and can make people jump to conclusions.

-

We did not watch this movie in class, however, the movie Crash does a great job showing how people jump to conclusions. I can go into detail, but it is one of those movies that you need to see because it is fantastic. It contains a great message that jumping to conclusions is an extremely bad thing to do and can hold serious consequences. I recommend watching it.

Monopoly

This week in class, we played Monopoly; however, this was not regular Monopoly, it was Monopoly based off of Sal's rules. The game started the same, everyone each rolled the dice to see who would go first, second, third, etc. However, when you rolled the dice, you also found out what social class you were going to be put into for that game. There were five different classes as high as the upper class all the way down to the lower class and there were three classes in between. There were different rules depending on what class you were in also.

-

For that game, I was placed into the Blue-Collar Working Class. Each class started with a different amount of money and each class earned a different amount of money every time they passed GO; the two highest classes even started with properties that they already owned before even rolling the dice. As the working class, I was given $667.00 to start off with. From then on, it was all a game of luck. For me, luck was not on my side because I lost money, fast. I only ended up buying two properties before I lost all of my money due to landing on many properties that were owned by other classes, including the most expensive property of them all, Boardwalk. After losing all my money, I was forced to go on Monopoly Welfare where I was only given $30.00 every time that I passed go. The good thing about this was that I didn't have to pay rent for any property that I landed on no matter who owned it; the rules stated that a player remained on welfare until they had either passed GO five times, reached a certain amount of money, or bought a property. I remained on Monopoly Welfare until the end of the game. At the end of the game, we added up all of our money, including the buying price of our properties, to see who had changed classes. Everyone had stayed the same. Even though I was on Monopoly Welfare, I ended up with over $400.00 since I had already had two properties. The rich stayed the richest.

-

This game is all about Sociology because it discusses Social Class. It brings out both the benefits and the difficulties that different Socials Classes go through. This game uses a very small scale example of what different parts of the world are like and how those people in those different parts live. It many cases, the rich get richer and the poop get poorer. A lot of what determines this is what family someone is born into. However, if someone is born into a poor family, it is still possible for them to advance to upper class, it will just take a little longer and may require more work.

Social Class

This week in class, we watched a film that talked about Social Class. This film really showed how people interact with one another based off of their social class. It showed how the lower class interact with one another and how the upper class interact with one another. It was sad seeing all of the differences between the two classes and that people within those classes do not associate themselves with the other class.

-

Going to SHS, we are not really exposed to many different social classes. There are a few people who have less money and there are few people that have a lot of money, but the majority of the population at the school is upper-middle class. It is easy to spot different social classes, however, at sporting events. For example, at a baseball game, you can see different classes by just looking up. In the "nose-bleed" seats, you can see lower class and in the sky boxes, you can see upper class.

-

Even the type of food that people eat is determined by social class. For example, upper class people tend to enjoy wheat bread over white bread and lower class is the opposite. If only people were not as worried about social class and money and were more worried about spending time with one another.

Prison Life

In class this week, we watched an episode from the TV series 30 Days. The episode that we watched was 30 Days in Prison. Morgan Spurlock, the main person for the show, went behind bars to serve a 30 day sentence just to see what everything was like. He did the first part of the 30 days living around others with really no privacy. Then he spent 72 hours in solitary confinement. After solitary confinement, he went back to the normal prison and then finally went to a drug rehab center. He did not need any of this, but he spent time in many different parts of jail to see what it was like for people who go through it. The way that people acted throughout different parts of jail were really interesting to see. Morgan made many "friends" while there. Two of his better "friends" were his roommates George and Travis. Morgan spent a lot of time talking to both of them and learned a lot about their life and what they have gone through. George had been in jail several times, spending more time in jail than out of jail. Travis had been a heroin addict for ten years, since he was 15, and has literally been disowned from his family.

-

Many facts were brought up in the show; there were a lot of statistics given as well. One of the statistics given was that 2/3 of people who are released from jail, end up going back to prison. During the show, both George and Travis kept saying that this was the last time that they were going to be in jail and that they would clean up and get better because they never wanted to go back to jail again. However, shortly after being released, both Travis and George were arrested and stand trial once again. While watching this show, it makes people feel sympathetic for those who are in jail and say they want to get better. But after hearing that those people went back to jail, the sympathy goes away; it is almost as if they didn't even try to stay out.

-

Jails in America are overcrowded and the lengths of some sentences are ridiculous, but talking about getting clean and actually doing it are two very different things. This relates to sociology because a mind has to be set into motion instead of just lips moving in order to accomplish something.

Was He Really Mugged?

In class this week, Sal told us a story of a man named Julio Diaz that was mugged one night. This man did not even put up a fight, he just stood there and gave the kid, who had a knife, the thing that he wanted; the mugger wanted his wallet. After giving him his wallet, Julio offered the mugger his jacket since it was cold and the jacket was really warm. After offering the jacket away, he offered to take the guy out to dinner. The mugger decided to go with him and they ended up eating together. After eating, Julio told the mugger that he would have to pay though since he took his wallet; so, with that, Julio said that he would pay if the mugger gave him his wallet back along with the knife. This mugging story ended with a happy ending.

-

This is a story of a mugging gone good. This shows how someone can shape society to their likings if they try hard enough. Not only did Julio probably change someones mind but he also did also saved other people by taking to knife off of the streets. This lesson and story go along great with what we learned last week about Aikido. Only in this situation, Julio Diaz used his energy to control this persons (the muggers) mind. He acted off of the muggers bad energy and turned it to good energy in a few simple steps.

Viole... Aikido is the Answer

Why Aikido? Aikido is the form of using someone elses energy to win a dispute. This is not fighting though... this is simply defeating someone else while using none of your own energy in methods of self defense. This past week in class, Sal showed us what Aikido looked like. With a demonstration in class, he showed us exactly how it worked and how he used the other persons energy to his own advantage to take the fighter down.

-

Aikido shows that violence is not the answer. It is simply that way to get around violence when someone else wants to start it. Not fighting may show people that you are not as tough as everyone else, but with Aikido, you really are tough. It is not the "Tough Guise" that people display on the outside, it is the display of mental toughness on the inside. It can take years to learn the proper art of Aikido, but it can change the way how you respond in different situations, for the good.

Toys At A Young Age

As we grow up, we accumulate hundreds of toys that we may use once or that we may use throughout life. However, gender will ultimately determine what kind of toy you get. At a young age, the only thing that determines what toy someone will give you is if you are a boy or a girl.

-

On Monday, we had to bring in a toy (or a picture of a toy) that we used to play with when we were younger. People brought in dolls, K'Nex, cars, teddy bears, etc. and I brought in a picture of a remote control dumptruck I used to have. Sal separated the toys, based on gender, on two different sides of the table. It turned out that all of the dolls and teddy bears were on the female side and all of the K'Nex and toy cars were on the males' side. This shows how, that even at a young age, girls are quiet and elegant with their tea parties for their stuffed animals, and boys are daring with their violent K'Nex toys with fake guns.

-

We also looked at magazine ads that showed toys for little kids. The girls were always playing in their room quietly and the boys were always outside, sometimes in the sandbox, getting dirty and being loud. I remember that when I was a kid I loved playing outside; so it is clear we get a lot of our habits from what we see everyday.

Un-TV

For one of our assignments, we had to "watch" TV for a while, but in a variety of different ways. First, we had to watch it normally, turned on and with sound turned up. Then we had to watch a TV channel -the program did not matter- with no sound, just watch the picture on the screen. We also had to watch the news with the sound on. This was just like watching a normal program because I watch the news on a normal basis. That wasn't the last thing we had to do though. Next we had to watch the TV. Just watch the TV, turned off. All we were doing was watching the blank screen for thirty minutes.

-

Out of all of these tasks, the hardest one to complete was watching the TV turned off. Just looking at a blank screen for 30 minutes was extremely boring. One assignment that we also had to do was watch someone else watch TV. At least that was a little more interesting that just looking at a screen. To help pass the half hour time span by, I began to pay attention to the slight reflections that were coming from the TV screen. Since my TV faces a window that faces a road, I was able to count the cars that drove by. If I had probably stared at it longer, I probably would have been able to adjust and then maybe even figure out what color or type that car was.

-

Growing up In the era of television, we have been taught how to watch TV; now a days, everything is technologically based. If the power goes out, all we can think of doing is read a book or go outside, but from watching TV, socialization becomes something that someone has to learn. TV separates humans from one another depending on how long someone watches it for so spending time with other people diminishes.

Nothing...

The idea of doing "nothing" is very difficult to think about. However, when someone asks what you did today, the response that a lot of people usually give is "nothing". It is almost impossible for someone to switch their mind to the off position and do absolutely nothing. If you think about it critically, you could be saying you are doing nothing but isn't it true that you are still breathing? Therefore, you are still doing something.

-

Anyway, even though it can be hard, zoning off from the world around you can be done. This past week, as one of our assignments, we had to literally do nothing for ten minutes. This had to be done in a social setting and had to be completed standing up. This was very difficult to accomplish; I did this task at the mall in front of a store that I have not ever shopped at. This task was very hard to accomplish because all that went through my mind was that I was wondering what other people around me were thinking. We are trained by society to be self conscious about what other people think of us. Another thing that I was worried about was what would I do if someone had come over to talk to me. Technically I couldn't respond or I would be doing something and would have to start over. Luckily, that did not happen to me. Do you think that doing "nothing" is/was difficult to succeed in?

Tuesdays With Morrie -- Work

So far is the movie, Mitch can be described as someone who is overwhelmed with the amount of work that he does. Mitch is the main character as writes sporting reports for the city of Detroit. For his job, he is required to travel the country in order to capture the right quote said by a particular person at an exact moment. This appears to be the only way that Mitch knows how to live. He has a girlfriend, but he rarely has time to spend with her. A really short summary of the movie follows...

-

The movie Tuesdays With Morrie is all about a man that Mitch knew back from college; this is because this man was Mitch's teacher. This man is very well known around the college campus that he worked at. The teacher's name is Morrie. After graduating, Mitch promised Morrie that he would come back and visit him one day, but it wasn't until over a decade later that Mitch actually stepped up to his promise. The reason why Mitch eventually went to visit him was because he was slowly dying. Eventually, Mitch begins to go every Tuesday and learns the routine of taking care of him. Soon later, Mitch brings a tape recorder so that Morrie can be remember for time to come.

-

Throughout this movie, Mitch really values hard work. In the beginning of the movie he is a diligent worker when it comes to his job and reporting sports, but as the movie goes on, he begins to devote his time to Morrie because he realizes that every Tuesday that he sees him may be the last. Just about everyone values either hard work, achievement, or success throughout some point of their life. All of this starts when someone is in high school, and in some cases, even before that. It goes from being in an easy junior high school class to being in college level classes at a high school in just a few summers; it is very hard to make a change that fast. From personal experience, I understand how hard it can be taking some classes and working extremely hard to complete a homework assignment; however, that is not what I value, I value the success that I get as a good grade. It is true that grades are not everything, but, when it comes to school, they matter. With success can come further achievement.

Language Shock

No matter where in the world someone is, there are ways of living that have become normal. One thing that has lasted since the beginning of humans is the use of language. This could be language in the form of speaking and grunts or language in the form of hand gestures. No matter how someone looks at it, language can and is most likely going to be interpreted in different ways all around the world. One of the most difficult things is learning how to speak it.

-

The shock that someone gets when going to a different country on vacation can last for several days,weeks, or even months. It is important to deal with this when it happens. One of the biggest types of shock that someone will have is the language difference. In class this week, we split up into five groups and played card games. At each group, there would be five people. The winner in each group would move clockwise and the last place loser in each group would move counter clockwise to the next group. During this time, however, we were not allowed to talk or make any sort of hand movement, and what was not told to the class is that every table had different card game instructions. So, when the players would switch places and move to other tables, they had no idea what was going on; they had to adapt to the settings around them without any questions.

-

Living like that is very difficult. To be in a place where you don't know the language and can't ask questions is scary. This, in turn, makes people become more sociologically mindful and helps them discover what is around them.

C and His Groups

In the movie "A Bronx Tale" there is a main character named Collogero, a.k.a. C. He can be classified into many different groups. Throughout the movie, the groups and his status and importance in each group change and sometimes it is for the better; however, sometimes, it is for the worse.

-

In the beginning of the film, the group that takes up the majority of C's life is his family. He does what he is told, for the most part, and talks to his parents on a regular bases. Sure sometimes they argue during disagreements, but they always group up in the end to form a social bond. At a young age, the movie also shows that C is becoming part of the group at the bar located right next to his house. He was told by his parents to only hang out on the stoop in front of his house and to never enter into the bar, but he wanted to live dangerously and disobey somethings that his parents told him. This began to show the rebel side of C; he began to hang out with the powerful crowd and started looking up to everyone there. His father became very upset and tried doing all that he could to keep C out of trouble.

-

At a young age, C can also be seen hanging out with his friends; that would be considered another group that he was in. Later on in the movie, the ties that he has with his friends conflict with the ties that he has with the man he had always looked up to, Sonny, because Sonny did not agree with the things that C's friends did. In the end, it was good that C listened to Sonny and didn't hang out with his friends because they ended up dying in a car crash. C's father saw this as Sonny looking out for C, and the anger between the two of them would eventually end. Unfortunately, the anger and tension between the two of them ended only after Sonny was shot and killed.

-

Just those three groups, his family, friends, and "bar buds", were a major part of C's life. However, when it comes to his major status, it would come out of the group in the bar; everyone knew him because of the status the Sonny gave him. If Sonny liked someone, just about everyone liked that person. At first Sonny just called him C, but by the end of the movie, everyone, including his dad, was calling him C.

My "Who" Status

Just about everywhere that I go, I have a status that a lot of people know. Being the younger child in the family, I have an older brother. At the beginning of school years, I would always get from people, especially teacher's, "are you Brandon's brother?". Obviously my response is "yes." This would be considered my master status. Although there are many groups that I associate myself with, the master status that I have to many people is "younger brother".

Other groups that I associate myself with are my friends. These include friends from high school and friends from as far back as elementary school. From the friends in high school, I can be looked at as " the guy who knows directions". This being a status of mine, I believe that it fits me very well. I am the one that someone will go to if they need to get somewhere that is outside of their town or sometimes just a couple miles away; when it comes down to different directions, I am very responsible and helpful.

This topic has to do with Sociology because it discusses the way that different people see and perceive you. This view and sight that people all around see can be good in many cases, but it can also be negative. Do you think that having a one known "master status" is important?

Abandon Ship!

This week is Soc class we did an experiment. This experiment involved a life raft that was capable of holding nine (9) people in it safely; however, the one problem was that there were sixteen (16) people that needed to be rescued from the waters after their ocean liner sank. The people on board the life raft included everyone from sailors to poets to cheerleaders. The purpose of this exercise was the re-enact a true event that took place in the 1940's.

It all started when a large ship sank leaving sixteen people stranded. When this happened in the 1940's the Ships Officer took control and was deciding who would stay on and who would be thrown off to fend for themselves in the ocean; in other words, who would live and who would not. In the exercise that we did in the class, everyone was arguing about who was better and who deserved to stay; most tried to pity one another by saying that they were either rich or had families to return home to. In the end, seven (7) people were kicked off the boat. The people kicked off included the Quarter Master, the Self-Made Millionaire, the College Student, the Draft Evader, The Elderly Man and Woman, and the Travelling Poet. Making the decision on who would stay or not was very difficult and would be literally impossible to do under real circumstances. If I had to participate in this, I would have used the same routine but I would have kept on the College Student because she still had her whole life in front of her. In her place, I would have to say that the Peace Corp Volunteer would be the one to go because she would be remembered for doing good deeds throughout her life. If you were in this situation, what would you do? Who would you decide to throw off the boat and who would you keep on?

A Natural Vaccination

It is almost hard to believe that based on where someone lives can lengthen the time span of a human life. Not only was it hard to believe but it was almost unheard of until a man named Stewart Wolf decided that he would do some research. The research that Wolf conducted can be read about in Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. In the 1950's, it was likely to find a community with a large number of people over the age of sixty-five with heart disease. However, Wolf found a place called Roseto, filled with Italian immigrants, where heart attacks were almost unheard of. He did months of research only to discover one thing. It was not the food that Rosetans ate or the exercise that they did, it was where they lived. Roseto presented itself as an outlier.

This entire experience gave Stewart Wolf a new look on life and at the medical world. It gave him the opportunity to discover that it wasn't necessarily diet and exercise that kept people healthy, but it was the community as a whole and the relationship that each and every person had. All of it depended on who they surrounded themselves with; it was the social aspect of life that kept them healthy.

Information like this had been undiscovered until the 1950's. This made people research harder to better understand the "not so typical" way of life and actually learn from what they encounter no matter if it is normal or unusual. Once the information is fused into the mind, it is very easy to teach.

Who am I?

The question "Who Am I" is a very general question. There are many adjectives that make me the person I am. For example, I am creative and kind to those around me. I am also outgoing and adventurous. Big influences in my life consist of my family, friends, and peers. I plan to attend college and have plans to become a Police Officer after getting a degree.

Last week, at the beginning of class, there was a moment of awkward silence; no one was expecting it come. Once that happened, people just started to talk to fill the air with either words or noise. As someone in the class, I sat there and listened to the small comments and laughs of the people around me wondering what was going on. Since I had seen how all of this had come about, it was not as awkward as it was unusual. However, when one is with a large group of friends and people within that group are split up into smaller units all talking about different things, it is awkward when a silence just fills the air. After talking for a while, noise starts to become a normal aspect. As the noise fades and the silence rises it starts to become awkward. When this happens, I would say that it affects the way that people listen. No one can really remember what was said during an awkward silence. Is that because people just aren't listening? Is that because people just don't care what is going on because they might be zoning out? I think that it has to do with both of those ideas. This is because when there is an awkward silence, it contains a serious context. No one really wants to say anything when the air around them is so tense. Yes, they usually end in laughs, but when there is a silence, it can be uncomfortable for someone to speak up and say something.