Final Blog

First Blog: Hi, my name is Sydnie. I am a senior in high school. Wow, senior year. It is a big and important year. This is the year that I will apply to college (one down, five to go) and graduate from high school. Going to college, leaving my family and most of my friends is a frightening thought, but change is a part of life. So now that I've spoken about college, it's time to talk more about me. I love my friends and family. Recently, I cooked an entire meal for my family and cut up an entire raw chicken. Apparently, raw chicken is extremely hard to cut and is usually cooked first. Anyway, the meal turned out great and I discovered that I love cooking and I'm good at it. I work at a daycare center three days a week. It is my third year working there and I love it. At work, I teach cooking, yoga, and jewelry making. Another passion of mine is traveling. I have been to Israel, Canada, Mexico, Italy, France, England, Alaska, Hawaii, and numerous other islands and states. Most of the time, I travel with my family. My brother goes to the University of Illinois, and my sister is a sophomore at the same high school as me. My dad is a lawyer and my mom is a yoga teacher and a homemaker. Hopefully, when I am an adult, I will either be a lawyer or a teacher like my parents (not a yoga but a history teacher). I love to read, watch television, cook, do yoga, hang out with my friends, and spend time with my family (in no particular order). My parents are immense inspirations in my life, and so is Hillary Clinton. I wrote my fourteen page junior research paper on Hillary Clinton's campaign. My goal in life is to be a happy well-adjusted adult, with a good job, amazing friends, and a loving family. Hopefully, my job will be either in family or entertainment law or as a high school history teacher. I also would like to help as many people as possible through my job and community service.
Reflection: Who am I? Before this class, I realized that I defined everyone in my family and myself very strictly. Instead of using my parent's jobs as labels, I should have said: My mother is a wonderful cook, a loving mother, with the loudest fullest laugh in the world. She is naiive at times, but really sweet and kind. My father, on the other hand, does not do as much cooking, and he has a much less intrusive laugh. When my dad laughs, it has to be something really funny. My dad may be a lawyer, but he is also heavily involved in politics and the Jewish world. He can even marry people, lead funerals, and officiate at B'nai Mitzvahs. When explaining who I am, I am glad that I took in to account how important my family is to what makes me me. My family has definitely nurtured me into the person I am today. Another aspect that I don't like about my introduction blog was how I began with college. Sure college was a big topic then - it still is now - but seriously choosing colleges don't define who I am. My friends also did not make an appearance in my first blog. I'd like to rectify that error now. I love my friends, and they are so important to me. My friends and my family have absolutely helped me define who I am. I have five best friends. They are some of the greatest people in the world. So who I am? Right now, all I know is that I am loving my friends, enjoying my family, excelling at school, and having fun. Everything changes. I cannot predict the future. One of my problems is that I try to hard to control things that are uncontrollable. This is something that I am currently working on. Life happens, and I don't know what will happen. However, I can have goals like going to college and becoming a teacher and eventually having a family of my own (in like ten years or so not anytime soon). So thank you sociology, now I even have a new minor in college.

CRASH into Race

Simplifying race to a black-white issue definitely creates confusion over race issues in America. Clearly, from Crash and that other movie we saw, there can be inter and intra racism. There was certainly racism seen when Ludacris' character would talk cruelly about other black people. He claimed that he had no respect for black people who robbed from other black people. Luda constantly criticized his friend who later died for liking country music or bringing along his patron saint of travelers. Most people assume that racism is only between races. They are very wrong. Crash proves that race is a much larger problem than that because it is everywhere and in everyone. When Sandra Bullock sensed that Luda and his friend were bad people, she worried that people would see her as racist. Honestly, I cannot see how others would think that. If Luda and his friend had been white, dressed that way, with that demeanor, I would have been worried. In that case, I really do not believe that it was race, but looks and general atmosphere. If Luda and friend had been nicely dressed, then, I think it would have been a completely different story. Sometimes clothes and appearances in general really help typlify a person. Anyway, I loved Crash and it was sad to finish the movie. I really like the directing style. It is so cool how everyone is connected. I believe that this movie portrays the six degrees of separation very well. Okay, so this is my last blog. How sad :( It was a fun class! Thanks Sal!

Is Race Real?

Before our sociology classes this past week, I never questioned the idea of race. To me race is so built in to American society that I incorrectly presumed the idea of race was shared by all societies. It is confounding to me that in South Africa, people apply for races. But it does make more sense. What really makes a person black or white if they are both, like Barack Obama?How come we call Obama the first black president when he is equally black and white? Our society defidently looks at race first when judging a person. Whether it is locking our doors in a poor mostly black neighborhood in Chicago or refusing to be friends with a black person, implicit and explicit race is everywhere. I wish that everyone acted like Livia. Seeing an Asian man and saying he resembled Obama. Most people do not think that way. Just the other day, at work, we were playing Wii and the two players on the screen were black and white. To keep track of the game, the other kids would say "Oh, the black guy's winning". I never would have thought of that as racism before, but after this class, I have opened my eyes. Racism really is everywhere, which is an extremely sad fact. The doll experiment was another moment when I was just blown away by the racism present in little kids against themselves. It really sucks that racism is so ingrained in our world that even little kids who are black view themselves as bad and mean.

Blue Collar Stereotypes

I do not think that the white collar people are making fun of the blue-collar people. Yes, they visit dive bars and claim to be romanticizing the blue-collar lifestyle; however, I don't think they meant to be rude about it. Rather, it just expresses their discontent with their own lives. Bruce Springsteen still sings about blue collar life, when he is obviously not blue collar anymore. Sometimes being blue collar can be an image, other times it can be a hard-earned title. I completely agree that class stereotypes are more openly prevalent in mainstream society. I think the problem is that people buy into their stereotypes. Women call themselves trailer trash, but it may hurt them when other people call them trailer trash. Guess what, don't reinforce your own stereotype! That just encourages people to think that calling someone trailer trash is okay. It is not okay. I also think sexism is quite common in every day life. It was especially widespread during the fight for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Even Katie Couric, a renowned reporter, spoke up after Hillary Clinton conceded. Couric claimed that Clinton was wronged and objectified during her campaign run. To me, class and gender stereotypes are the most ocmmon and prevalent in society.

Tammy's Story

Although I felt sorry for Tammy, I found it unfathomable how she treated her son. I don't think her son was rude in trying to better himself. He seemed like a smart kid with a lot of awards. He could probably get a scholarship to college or something, so why wasn't Tammy encouraging him? Tammy was also trying to better herself, although she was against huge odds. It makes sense to me that she would want her children to strive to better themselves. I am not sure how proper the movies depiction of Tammy was, but what they showed concerning her son portrayed Tammy in a negative light. I wish that Tammy could receive a better job and graduate from school and become a teacher, but is that even possible for her? She does not have a car, lives in a trailer, and works a minimum wage job cleaning toilets. How will she better herself is she does not have the resources to do it? I do, however, give props to her for trying. I just wish that the American dream was a possible reality for everyone. Guess our streets are not really paved with gold after all, but paved by the poor.

Chintz or Shag

I am so sorry that I forgot to blog over the weekend! I recently took the chintz or shag quiz. I believe it was interesting but not exactly correct. My quiz answer told me that I was middle middle class, which is close but not right. By the middle of the quiz, I was choosing furniture based on whether if fit with the rest, not if I really liked it. I wanted the room to look good, so I do not believe my quiz answers were consistent. I really enjoy the movie that we are watching in class. It is interesting. I love the rich woman because she is hilarious in her condescending ways. Like seriously Edward from Twilight drives a VOLVO! She was so rude. Did she fake that awful accent? What I did notice from the movie right away was the accents poor and rich people had. I think that the differences in voice tone were due to education. The rich people spoke my eloquently because of the education money bought them.

Deviance at SHS & Prisons

Deviance. Differing from a norm or socially accepted standards. Deviance is very prevalent at Stevenson High School. Everyone texts at school, goes late to class, and disobeys ridiculous rules. It's the bad kids, or at least the ones that look bad, that get caught. Many innocent and angelic looking people who know how to charm others to get away with everything. They get called down to the Dean for ditching a class, and they'll get away with it. My friend ditched a class and did not get in trouble because she told her Dean she was sick. For a bad kid, that would never work. Bad kids are the one's swearing at teachers, listening to music during school, ditching classes, skipping detention, and wearing dirty clothes. The ones who are well-groomed and charismatic get away with a whole lot more. Now, to change my topic, I would like to discuss prisons. Prisons are supposed to be rehabilitation and re institutionalization centers; instead prisons are just crowded places to lock criminals up. In fact, more people executed from the death penalty have actually been proven innocent than guilty years later. So why the rush? What is wrong with out penal system that innocent people are getting killed for crimes they did not commit? Why is it that 2/3 of prisoners released return to prison? In order to make America safer, we need to improve our prisons. This means better, cleaner, less crowded facilities. This change needs to come quick. Hopefully, President-elect Barack Obama will help.