Senior Picture

This week seniors took our class picture. I don't see the point of taking the picture. In theory, it is a nice idea to have a picture of everybody in your graduating class. However, the size of our class diminishes the quality of the photo. We are all going to look like ants, because there are over one thousand of us. It is impossible to get a picture in which everybody looks good. There will always be a number of people who won't have been paying attention because they were talking. There will be a number of people who think they are original and clever by giving the camera the finger.
The purpose of this picture is to be able to look back on who you went to school with when you are older. I would rather just look in the yearbook at people's individual pictures.

Tuesday with Morrie/dependence

Americans view being dependent as a weakness. A dependent person cannot provide or take care of themselves, and they are seen as weak. Going off to college is important and life changing, because it is the first time young people have to be independent. This is part of the reason teens both look forward to and fear college. They want to be on their own and make their own decisions. However, they are in charge of taking care of themselves.
The American value of individualism plays into this. We want to be independent and be able to everything ourselves. I personally am very dependent on other people due to my visual impairment. I meet with a vision inteneriant during my free periods and she reads tests and some of my homework t0 me. I sometimes have to have my mom read my homework to me. When I am alone in an unfamiliar place, I have to depend on the help of strangers. It definitely bothers me that I am so dependent. I wish I could do my homework completely on my own. I feel so helpless when I have to ask strangers for help. I sometimes feel line a burden to my friends, because they have to lead me around when we go out. I know they don't mind doing it, but I wish I could be more independent.

Boy Scouts

This weekend, one of my family friends was receiving his Eagle Scout award for Boy Scouts. This is the highest honor a boy scout can achieve. I was not looking forward to attending. Before I went, I was joking with my friends about the fact that an almost 18 year old was still in Boy Scouts. But what I found was that a lot of boys in that community were still involved in scouting throughout high school. My family friends live in a Christian based, sort of old fashioned neighborhood. They still have a town square that includes a church. The seem to have a very different sub-culture than the one I belong to. Around here, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts is done in elementary school and that's it. But in their community people really commit to it. My family friends also have two daughters in high school and they are both still Girl Scouts. I was a Girl Scout up until I was ten years old and then it became boring.
Our sub-culture is much more focused on technology. My friends can't go a day without texting and checking their facebooks. My family friends are much more community oriented. They are heavily involved in their church and scouting. None of the 3 kids have a facebook and the two daughters have to share a cell phone.

Sub-culture

I found today's discussion about the sub-culture very interesting especially what was said about Mores and Folkways. I mentioned that graduating is a More, but Sal pointed out that Stevenson takes it up a step with going to college. Our graduation rate is high , and our rate of going to college is almost as high. It is considered underachieving if somebody goes to community college. CLC is know as college of last chances. At another high school, going to a community college would be respectable. Our sub-culture can be identified by our competitive nature. The school pushes us to take AP classes and apply to highly rated four year colleges.
I was also interested in how someone said what used to be mores are now folkways. For example, cheating used to be taboo. Cheating is expected now. Personally, if I didn't copy some homework, I would never finish all my homework. Teachers assign so much unnecessary busy work. I know there was an article in the school newspaper about cheating. the teachers believed students didn't turn each other in because they were afraid to. The real reason students don't turn each other in is because everybody does it.

Social Construction of Reality

The reality of C's neighborhood centers around a social construction of respect and loyalty. C is taught from a young age to view the mobsters with fearful respect. Once C becomes Sonny's protege, his respect grows to reverence. The reality of the neighborhood centers around respecting those with the power but not necessarily those a person is related to. C is also taught the unwritten loyalty between members of the neighborhood. He felt proud that he kept silent in front of the police officer rather than rat out Sonny. C grows to have more loyalty to Sonny than to his own fathers. The unwritten laws of the neighborhood are those set down by the mob.
On a darker note, C is taught to be racist from a young age. He is afraid of this friends seeing him with Jane, because she is black. His father disapproves of interracial relationships. Although C tries to be open minded, the racism of his society seeps into his subconscious. He calls Jane's brother the N word even though the day before he protected the brother from getting beat up.

Volunteering

I have done volunteer work before but not much. I am in NHS and am required to do community service, but most of the work I do contributes to the school as opposed to the community at large. Fore example, I got most of my hours last semester by being a member of the teen staff for Operation Snowball. Snowball allows me to reach out to people in school I would normally never get to know or help. One person that I helped this year at Snowball was another visually impaired student. She had just recently developed this impairment and had a very negative attitude about it. I was able to show her how to be positive and make the best of the situation. I am famous among my friends for making jokes about my blindness. I introduced this girl to myu blind humor. I told her that having a sense of humor about the blindness shows people that I am accepting an comfortable with who I am and so they can accept me in turn. By the end of the weekend this girl was very open about her impairment and was willing to talk to anyone about it. Listening to her tell her peers about her blindness with a hint of humor but without embarrassment filled me with pride.

Stranded in the Mountains

The reading about the people stuck in the mountains reminded me of "Life of Pi". In that novel, the main character, Pi, is stranded on the ocean for 7 months with only a tiger as a companion. Pi was a strict vegatarian but he was forced to eat fish in order to survive. He eventually became barbaric and just ripped at the fish with his teeth like an animal. In the reading, the people were foreced to resoret to animalistic instincts to survive. They were forced to eat other humans. The moment this struck me most was when one person found a cold dead hand somebody had stashed away for a snack. Pi was very religious, like the people in the sotry, he believed God would forgive him for eating the animals. The people in the reading knew they had to stay alive even though they may have had to eat their family members.
It is so sureal to me the think that the story in the reading really happened. I can't even envision being so desperate for my life that I would resort to canabilism. I lives such a sheltered, pampered life that tragic stories and adverse misfortune, such as poverty, seem ficional.
If I had been in their situation, I would have eaten the humans. Howerver, I don't kow if I could overcome the revoltion and sheer tragedy of eating my own family members.