All About Me

When I reflect on who I am as a person and my first blog I created in sociology, I haven't changed. Nothing has changed about me but the fact that I've become more mindful of my actions. Sociology has truly affected me as a person. In my opinion, this class wasn't like any other academic class, it had much more meaning behind it than any math or science problem I've tried to solve. The class itself, related to real life situations that had potential to affect my life in different aspects. My values haven't changed because I still care about my family, friends, and future goals. In fact, sociology has shaped my way of thinking by giving me a chance to reconsider all the decisions I make. This is definitely a class I'd recommend for someone else to take during their high school career because it was one of my favorite classes. Some people may take away classes like chemistry or history from their high school years and find them significant in their lives later on, but sociology was that class for me.

Crash

This week in sociology, we watched the movie Crash. The movie showed different races that ran into all types of problems, all involving each other. It was so interesting to see how racist still lies within our society whether we want to ignore it or not. During the movie, a white couple was walking to their car and the wife had seen two black men on the street. Automatically, her instinct was to hold onto her husband closer because she had feelings of paranoia. The two black men that were dressed like every other person on the sidewalk seemed like they weren't about dealing with trouble. But, having that stereo-type about black people, they ended up hijacking the white couple's car and getting away with it. We can't stop racism even if we tried, because everywhere we go it lies somewhere underneath it all. It's unavoidable which is the worst part. Maybe we can't stop racism, but we can always try taking smaller steps toward positive expectations of one another. We should erase all stereo-types of all races and start being mindful of all races. The person you see down the street, may be more than one race than they appear and you can't categorize them just because of what they look like; that's not fair.

Community Service

Before I went to serve my hours, I was very anxious because I wasn't sure what to expect and what the people were going to be like. I expected the experience to be boring because it dealt with historic events. I wasn't as willing to do my hours because I found out our work was going to deal with historic filing. To be honest, I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to finish all the tasks. I went to the Historical Commission in Algonquin. It was my first time serving hours there and the building was overwhelming. I came in contact with two older individuals. When my two other friends and I came in to meet the people in charge of the commission, they were friendlier than they appeared. The one older woman had told us she had been working for 10 years now. The man named Don had asked us several questions about history and  was curious to know if we knew of their commission. Don had us sit down and record the names of people on the notecards that passed away. It wasn't boring at all, the actual job surprised me because the information on the notecards were intriguing. It was interesting to see how several of the people died in tragic ways rather than peacefully in their sleep. As I was on my way home, I was thinking how helpful this whole commission was towards the families that were trying to track their family history. The name of the organization I volunteered at was the Historical Commission on 7th and Main St. on Saturday December 10th, 2011. I was there from 8am to 3pm and the driving had took one hour each way. The supervisor in charge was Don and his phone number: 847-458-6768.

Different Races

This week in sociology, we learned the true meaning of race. When you first meet someone, your first instinct is to figure out what type of race they are and we assume we're accurate 90% of the time. In class, we were instructed to categorize different people on the internet to whichever race we thought came to mind. When our class was finished, we actually got to click on each individual to see if we guessed correctly. As a class, we got possibly one right out of all the different categories. Whatever face appeared on the screen had the opposite background or something completely different than what we put the individual under. All we assume when we see someone is the color of their their skin such as: black, white, asian, or hispanic. This truly made me realize, you can't judge a book by its cover. People come from different parts of the world and our society has created categories that has divided everyone apart. We're humans and essentially all alike. But to have such thing as race really separates many of us that creates diversity but racial issues at the same time.

Once your at the top you stay there..

This week in sociology, we continued learning about social classes. We watched a movie in class that basically talked about how the rich stay at the top while the poor continue to be poor. We played a game in class that determined the different social classes. It was an altered version of monopoly that made us realize how divided each social class is. The poor were digging themselves in a bigger hole during the game because there just wasn't enough money to pay for anything while the rich and mediocoure civilians were in decent positions. I personally am thankful for the things I have and seeing the different struggles people less fortunate than I have to go through everyday is upsetting. It may not be fair that the rich get by because of the amount of money they have but that's life and not everyone is going to be well off. You should appreciate the little things because that's what makes up some of the bigger things in our lives.

Social Classes

This week in sociology, we watched a video about social class. There's a low, middle, and high class. We got to see how different people were judged for the way they lived. Those that ate in nice restaurants, dressed in high quality clothing, and drove expensive cars were the wealthier civilians. Then, those who lived in average sized houses, had a decent amount of money, and were able to afford a few nice things were considered middle class. As for the lower class, they were frowned upon. They were the type of people who didn't work, or were simply too lazy to achieve success. In the movie, someone had gone around to different groups of people along the street and asked what they thought of the person in the picture they were given. It's odd, that we live in a place that's considered a 'free' nation because everything you do defines the person you are. People judge you by the food you eat and the clothes on your back. The more simple things in life shouldn't have to define who you are and where you come from, because in the end it proves that not everyone is equal.

Bad decisions, good intentions.

This week in sociology, we did an activity regarding drugs. We were given a list of different descriptions of effects that could potentially harm an individual. We were then assigned to rate the drugs from 1-4. 1 being over the counter drugs and 4 that was considered a felony. As we marked up the results as a class, it was clear that even the most common things in our society such as: aspirin, caffeine, and nicotine are considered deadly to our body. Many people in our class however, predicted that Heroine was a prescription drug when it's illegal to have. It's sickening to see the side effects of many common drugs that are commonly distributed within our community. Many of the over the counter drugs have terrible side effects that could kill one who abuses the substance. Americans have the freedom to do as they please and although the rate for smoking cigarettes have gone down by a big percentage, it's still promoted in commercials, magazines, newspapers and all types of ads. So why would American promote the one thing that could kill you over time?