Peace out

Hey again. Since this final blog is supposed to be a comparison of the first blog, my first blog titled What Up is located below.

Hello everyone I'm Jake. I am a senior in high school. I currently live with my mom, dad, and sister and I plan on attending college next year. So who am I really? Well, the person I am today is made up of everything I come in contact on a regular basis. My major influences are my parents, teachers, co-workers, friends, and other family members. I am also influenced by the media, as is most everyone living in this deindividualizing society we call The US. Anyways, besides that I really enjoy spending time with friends, weather I am at a party, just at a friends house, or even playing sports. Oh yeah, I really enjoy playing sports. I am on an intramural basketball team and I also play pick up games with friends of football, ultimate Frisbee, hockey, and I golf occasionally. Music is a BIG part of my life. I love listening to music, in fact I am listening to music right now. I listen to all sorts of music, rock to rap, specifically jam rock, classic rock, some alternative, hip hop, and rap. Other than that, I currently have a job at The UPS Store three days a week. I have had two other jobs prior to my current, one at my fathers office working in the warehouse and the other at Potbelly Sandwich Co. That is my life in a nutshell, of course their is more depth to me but all other detail will have to be uncovered in future blogs.

After taking sociology, almost everything I come into contact can be viewed with a sociological mind. When I meet new people I can understand why they have different morals and act differently and it is usually because of where they are from and how/who they were raised by. So anyways my final blog...

Hey, I'm still Jake. I'm still a senior (not for long) and I still live with my Mom, Dad, and Sister. I still believe that the person I am today is made up and influenced by friends, family, teachers, co-workers, and other people I come into contact with. Of course, the media has a huge influence on my life as it does on most people. Culture, race, and social class also shapes who I am now, because I live the same culture, I am the same race, and I still belong to the same social class that I started in. This is because those are the groups I started in, the people I come into contact with are part of those groups, and most people don't change groups. There is however, deviance, which is the idea of doing something that is labeled different or even wrong. Now, this may be a stretch, but I believe that attending college next year is deviant. I believe this because, I am going to The University of Kansas and there will be a different culture and different "groups" there that I will need to adapt to and learn from. In a sociological mind, going away next year will add a completely new shape to my world and the way I live. Anyways, sociology was one of my favorite classes all through high school so it is sort of upsetting to see it come to an end. I will remember the great lessons learned and always think with a sociological mind. Good bye.

Making Ends Meat

The poor class in our society is pretty unfortuante. For starters, they work the jobs that the working, middle, and upper classess won't take, they get wages that the working, middle, and upper class could not live off of, and they live the life that the working, middle, and upper class don't want. So, take someone from the poor class. They work long hours day and night of a job that they don't like. Then, when they are finally done working they recieve a skimpy check that can barely pay the cost of living, and then on top of all of that, if anything else comes up that they need to pay for like a medical problem that requires doctors assistance with the life inssurance they don't have, they are set back weeks and need to start saving up even more just to get by. We watched an episode from the TV show 30 Days with Morgan Spurlock, the man from super size me, about living on minimum wage. He set out to live on minimum wage for 30 days with his fiance. It was really difficult for them and helps shape an understand for how unfortunate these people are and how well off we are.

Race

Allthough I touched on this in my last blog, this blog is devoted to race only and not Crash. Race is not actually a real thing. Race is simply an idea society has created in order to categorize people by appearence. Even though race is not a real thing, people are always asked what race they are or judged on what race they appear to be and no matter what anyone does, they will always be viewed as that race. Unfortunatly, many people also choose to stereotype different races, and think that everyone whom is put in that "category" must be like the stereotypical person that they are compairing to. Somtimes, it is actaully impossible to put a racial class on someone. A friend of mine has a mexican father and a white mother. He is called mexican all the time but never white. Why is it that he is not both recognized as white and mexican but just mexican? People tend to cagtegorize race by the minority race that you carry in your blood rather than a mix of your different races.

Race/Crash

This week in sociology we discussed race. Race is an extremly complex idea that we have created in order to label people. To go along with our lessons, we watched the movie Crash. In this movie, there are several main characters, some white, some black, some asian, some mexican, and some persian. All of these characters are intertwined in some way. The main idea of the film is that people tend to be rascist wheather it is consious or subconsious. In the movie, some people were openly rascist and admitted to feeling this way, while others tried and tried to not be racist but still without even knowing it had a slight predjudice towards certain groups. While watching this movie I both enjoyed it and also started to think. Thinking made me remember a time where this idea of subconcious racism can take place. In eigth grade I played lacrosse on a Barrington travel team. There were very few Jewish people who lived in Barrington and my friend and I happened to be the only Jews on the time. Now, at the time nobody knew that we were Jewish and one day at practice when we were just joking around and what not one of our team mates made a coment out loud, semi joking but mostly serious. He said somthing along the lines of, "my grandfather was a Nazi." He continued with this statement by saying other derogitory statements towards Jews until I stopped him by saying that I was Jewish. This kid stopped talking right away and thats probably a good thing for him considering I was twice his size and had already lost most of my temper. This story does not relate exactly to race, maybe more religion, but it follows the same guidelines and ideas and it shows how easy it is to be a racist without even realizing you that you are indeed one. Hopefully this kid learned his lesson becuase the next year when I was a freshman, we (stevenson) played against Barrington and a good amount of our team was Jewish so after I explained to everyone about "nazi kid," everyone was looking to land a big check on him.

social class

This week in sociology we talked about social classess. We learned that the class you are born into is pretty much the class you stay in for your whole life. We also watched a video and read a chapter of a novel about 2 different cases of non-working class citizens trying to live minimum wage job lives. It was really interesting how hard it really was for these people and how many people have to live like that for real. This situation is unfortunate because america is supposed to be the land of oppurtunities, however, it is really hard to get oppurtunities unless you are born into a wealthy family. This idea relates to my life well becuase my grandfather worked at an office making a middle class salary and now my father works at an office and makes a middle class salary as well. My father however, does make a little more than his father and our family now is better off than his family was but we are still upper middle class family.

Male and Female Stereotype (Blog from earlier in the grading period)

In sociology we discussed gender stereotypes. As most people know, males are stereotyped to be the head of the household and women are stereotyped to do the household roles such as cooking and cleaning. Recently this has been changing as more and more women seek profesions but still majority of the time this is the case. This is true in my life as well. Up untill a few years back, my Dad was working, and still is, and my Mom stayed at home and took care of my sister and I. She cleaned and made dinner everyday. Then, she got a job, making her no longer available around the house. At first this was wierd to me and I still expected her to make dinner every night. I would say things like "You're the mom so you are supposed to make dinner," without even realizing how awful that is to say. I now understand that both men and women can work and they can both do household work. It is unbeleivable the way we are programmed to place specific gender roles to the point where we don't even realize how unfair that is.

Drugs and Jail

This week in class we talked about drugs and jail. Sociology has so much to do with both of these issues. Many people think that in jail, inmates are forced to go through therapy or classess to help them stay out of jail when they are free but actaully they dont do much of anything. Actually, majority of the people who get out of jail end up right back in it. I believe that one of the main reason's this happens is because of their locatins. When someone is released from jail, they are most likly going to go home. Once they are home, they are going to start hanging around with the same people in the same places. Now, if they were commiting crimes with these people in these places, why would they live their life any different after jail. This is the same reason that I feel so many drug addicts get hooked right after getting out of rehab or jail. They end up with the same people who most likely are still using drugs and it is just as easy for them to get their hands on drugs. I feel that the real way to stop people from commiting crimes again or to stay off drugs would be to relocate them. It is to hard for them to not go back to their prior lifestyle.

saints and roughnecks

This week in class we read an article called saints and roughnecks. It was about a sociologist who studied to groups from the same school. Both groups participated in devient acts, however the saints were "good" kids and were never looked down upon. You can probably say just the opposite for the roughnecks. I think that at stevenson we do have both saints and roughnecks. The saints at stevenson are the kids who get good grades and have followed the rules up until recently. The roughnecks at stevenson are the students who have been causing trouble since grade school. Overall, however, I feel that stevenson is majority saints.

un-tv

This week in sociology we were assigned to watch TV. Not just regular TV, we were told to first watch TV for all technical adjustments, then watch the news without sound, then watch another person watching TV, and finally watch the TV without it even being on. Now while this entire process was intensely boring, you start to reallize that maybe we shouldn't be watching so much TV in the first place. Why is it so entertaining to us at first but then once it is off, it is utterly boring. Well, obviously it's because we obtain informatioin through normal TV that entertains or informs us but maybe we don't need to watch as much television.

________

Since we are first born, society puts pressure on us to use every valuable second to better ourselves or others. Well this week in sociology, we were assigned to go to a public location and do nothing for ten minnutes. Sounds pretty simple, right? But doing somthing that simple can teach you alot. I chose to do my assignment at the mall, since I happened to be there anyways. After about two minnutes, I checked my watch thinking that time was probably up, but it was not. Unfortunatly, I will admit that I did not give this assignment enough effort, but I think that somtime soon I will try it again and learn alot more about myself and the society I live in. It is very humorous how people walking past think that you are about to no good when really you are just doing nothing.

Tuesdays With Maurie

So this week in class we are watching the movie Tuesdays With Maurie. So far I have enjoyed it very much becuase it has forced me to think in a sociological mindset. Unfortunatly, we ran out of time today and were unable to finish it so I am looking forward to monday so I can catch the conclusion of the movie. The plot line to the movie is that there is a sports writer who is so caught up in his work that he has no time for anything else. One day he sees his old sociology profesor on TV and he finds out that he is dieing. So Mitch, the sports writer, goes to see Maurie, the profesor, and Mitch gets some great advise that changes his life. The movie is great, especially the character of Maurie becuase he loves to talk about all of the issues that make most people uncumfortable.

Who ever thought we would talk about toilets in class?

This week in sociology we talked of material and non material items along with different cultural uses for language, signs, and many other everyday activities we don;t even stop to think about. For example, in America, if you hold up your hand with your thumb and index finger making a circle with the other three fingers sticking out, it usually means OK. Now, try doing that in Italy. You may not have reallized this but you basically just insulted somone. And try it in Japan, somebody might think that you are trying to say money. Most of us probably think it is strange that they use our signs for other terms but they probably feel the same way about us. Another item that we probably all thought was the same everywhere was toilets. All cultures have there own version of the toilet that they feel best suits their needs.

A Bronx Tale

So this week we are watching a movie called A Bronx Tale. So far it is very entertaining and enjoyable and I would even watch this film outside of school. So in this movie, there is a boy called C, troubled by sociological pressures. He belongs to many different sociological groups advising him to do different things. His first group is his family. His father is a very honest man who earns his living as a bus driver. His father permits him from seeing "Sunny" and all the guys at the bar, which leads to his next group. He witnesses a murder and lies for Sunny, the man who committed it, so Sunny decides to take him in. He makes $600 by throwing dice and serving them drinks. When his father finds this money he returns it to Sunny and permits C from ever seeing Sunny or going to the bar again. C disobeys and continues to go to the bar every chance he gets. C must struggle through sociological pressures to decide how he will act and who he will become.

Where do I belong..?

This week in class, we did an activity that aloud us to place ourselves in different socail groups that we felt we belonged. At first I was not sure where to put myself other than family and friends but then i started to think a little deeper. I was able to first split my friends group into two seperate groups, one for my close friends, and one for my friends that live near me. I then was able to split my family group into my imediate family and my large family. After doing that, I added work, student, american, intramural basketball team, jewish, and I even put down that I am a chicago sports fan (minus the cubs). After adding all of the socail groups that I felt I belonged to, we were asked to label our position in each group and what one is most important. Most people said that friends were the most important, along with myself, but others said family, religion, and even sports teams. This was a great activity to do because it makes you realize how important socioligy is and that all of the social groups we belong to help shape us in every way imaginable.

I'm so hungry I could eat a human...

Earlier this week we read an article about a plane crash that left many survivors stranded. Eventually, these survivors became hungry. Since there was no food on the island, they faced with a tough decision. Do we die a slow, painful, starving death, or do we eat the ones who did not survive to stay alive. After reading this article, I was of course very grossed out but I was also thinking what I would do in that situation. Well, to be honest I don't believe that my answer could be 100% accurate unless I was actually there. For the sake of discussion and for this blog I will answer with how I think I would go about this. I think that in these circumstances, I would do whatever it takes to survive. If eating a human is the case, I would have to exit societies "social norms" and complete the task to survive. Now of course I would never kill a human for food, I would only eat the already dead ones.

Silence

Silence is golden... Not so much actually. Silence in most situations can actually create for an extremely awkward situation, which is unfortunate because their is no reason that conversation should always be occurring. Why is the absence of communication so awkward, to be honest, I am not quite sure why many people feel uncomfortable in silent situations. I would have to believe the idea that people in general are always looking to do something and when a conversation dies people look for other ways to entertain themselves and the awkwardness occurs from the lack of that aspect. People should enjoy the silence at times because it really does not happen often.

What Up

Hello everyone I'm Jake. I am a senior in high school. I currently live with my mom, dad, and sister and I plan on attending college next year. So who am I really? Well, the person I am today is made up of everything I come in contact on a regular basis. My major influences are my parents, teachers, co-workers, friends, and other family members. I am also influenced by the media, as is most everyone living in this deindividualizing society we call The US. Anyways, besides that I really enjoy spending time with friends, weather I am at a party, just at a friends house, or even playing sports. Oh yeah, I really enjoy playing sports. I am on an intramural basketball team and I also play pick up games with friends of football, ultimate Frisbee, hockey, and I golf occasionally. Music is a BIG part of my life. I love listening to music, in fact I am listening to music right now. I listen to all sorts of music, rock to rap, specifically jam rock, classic rock, some alternative, hip hop, and rap. Other than that, I currently have a job at The UPS Store three days a week. I have had two other jobs prior to my current, one at my fathers office working in the warehouse and the other at Potbelly Sandwich Co. That is my life in a nutshell, of course their is more depth to me but all other detail will have to be uncovered in future blogs.