Affluenza

The article we read about "affluenza" was quite an eye opener to me. I never exactly thought about how America revolves around material items and how inclined we feel to constantly spend our money. It was interesting to see the habit of spending compared to the flu. I think that it's terrible how shopping can become like a sickness or addiction. We've become so accustomed to receiving gifts that it's become normal for us to get presents. It may depend on the person whether they appreciate what they get, but for the most part, we expect to get things on our birthdays or during the holidays and I feel like my generation barely appreciates things anymore. Also, while I was reading the part of the article that mentioned how we often go to malls to waste time, my friend was asking me if I wanted to go to the mall because we were both bored. I was able to make that connection right away and realize how it really is true that we usually spend money out of boredom. The article really elaborated on how materialistic Americans have become. It's unfortunate that our lives revolve around spending money on many things that we don't need because if that wasn't the case, everyone would be a heck of a lot richer and more appreciative of what they have.

A Bronx Tale

The past few days we watched A Bronx Tale. The boy in the movie, who is called C and Collogero is influenced in many ways as he gets older. We see him as an innocent little boy sitting on the stoop of where he resides. For his age, he is exposed to many hard core things and acts of violence that kids at a young age don't typically ever see. He sees what the community he lives in is all about and he learns the ways of the Italian mobsters. His parents try and protect him from the violence but C gets attached to Sunny, the Italian mobster, and can't seem to keep his distance from him. The town he lives in is mostly racist and they don't like when groupies or gangs are on their grounds. Since C comes from a family that doesn't have a lot and because his parents are always trying to protect him, C doesn't do anything more than observe everything that goes on. When C was in the bar when Sunny and his clan beat up those guys, C just watched. He didn't fight because he wasn't taught that way. When C's friends beat up the African American boy, C tried to convince them not to and he didn't take part in it, he just watched it happen. C is the perfect example of a boy who is greatly influenced by the community he was brought up in, yet he still holds his own values and tries to do the right thing.

Obama's Speech

In class we were able to watch President Obama's inspirational speech about education. While listening to Obama speak, there were many things going through my mind. He mentioned that our country depends on us and that the future of our world depends on us. And as I thought more and more about that, it made me realize that it's true. What all of us in our generation do with ourselves now and what we accomplish is going to be what will shape the future. Generations from now, people will be studying our era of time and the innovations we came up with and all of the things that we accomplished. We all might individually think, well I'm just one person, I'm not gonna make a difference in this world or change anything, and in a sense that may be true, but if we all do what we are capable of and work together, we can all make a difference in this world together. We don't know what we can do if we never give it a try. Also, Obama made me think about how if I become a doctor one day, while I might not change the world, I can help better the lives of sick children and people. Our education really is important, and so is being sociologically mindful of that :)

Social Construction

Today in class, we learned about the social construction of reality. We saw an example of this through the experiment Mr. Salituro had one of our classmates do. She had to fill a spoon with saliva and when he asked her to put it back in her mouth, everyone was disgusted by it and she refused. This lesson was really interesting to me because I've never really thought about how we become accustomed to think something like that is gross or how we adapt to think of something in a certain way. The only difference between the saliva is how we thought about it. The saliva was still the same on the spoon, but because we percieved the saliva as spit when it wasn't in her mouth, it was gross to us. It's like when one of my friends asks me to use my chapstick I usually always say no because I don't want their lips touching the same object that mine do. It's my perception of how their germs would be transferred on the chapstick and it grosses me out. But I know a lot of people that don't mind to share chapstick because they don't percieve the sharing the same way as I do. Another example is that I don't like to drink out of glasses in restaraunts without a straw. Some people may never think about the idea that hundreds of people have put their mouths on the side of the glass. Even though they get cleaned, the fact that I think about all the peoples germs that have touched the glass, it makes me grossed out and needy for a straw. It's crazy isn't it!?