community service 4

This week was my last week of community service and completed my last two hours. On the last day, we went to another volunteers house whose names are Marty and Amy. They have three younger daughters who also volunteered: Jessica, danielle and sydney. My group all went to their house as a field trip together. when we got there we went in their backyard and made s'mores. I helped whoever didn't want to make their own and also to make it a more safe environment. The members also got to create and take home their own sand art which was very enjoyable. Some people needed help putting the sand into their decorative bottle. I made a sand art for one of the members: Jay. On the way back 2 members were arguing to sit next to me because they enjoyed my presence. This made me feel really good because it means that they liked me and wanted to be around me. There are so many different activities that we did but those are just a few. I really loved helping the disabled out because I got a lot out of it and I know they enjoyed it as much as I did. It felt good to be apart of a group that i have never really been apart of.  I know that anyone can make a difference in society and feel good about it like I did.

community service 3

The third week i created another 2 hours of volunteer. This week we changed groups. I was now in a group called outdoor adventures, where we do activities outdoors or pertaining to outdoors. I was kind of shocked that staff decided to put me in this group because i am not really an outdoorsy kind of girl. Although, I decided to leave all my doubts a side and just try and be involved with activities I do not normally do. That first week of being in that group we pitched a tent. This activity was more fun than i thought it would be and taught me how to do things I didn't know how before. During this activity i really got to bond with certain members of my group like Katie, Steven, Jay and Sam. these members were constantly asking me for assistance and i liked it i felt like i was important in having a role in this activity.

community service 2

My second week volunteering i completed another 3 hours. Each week we do a different task and this week I helped the members create chocolate covered snowmen. It was a cute idea that the staff got from a magazine. We wanted to be created so we followed the instructions and made it look like an actual snowman. I helped the members dip the pretzel in white chocolate to create the snowman and then we added eyes and a bow tye. The members really enjoyed making these and got a lot out of this activity. It was a great activity where everyone can communicate and help out.

community service 1

The first day of community service I completed 3 hours at the center for enriched living where i helped mentally challenged people. going into this experience for the first time I didn't know what to expect, although, everyone greeted me very nicely and made me feel welcomed. I was very nervous but the members made me feel a lot comfortable. During the time i was there the members in my group made pizza and i helped them to put on different toppings and spread the sauce for certain people. This was a really fun  lesson because everyone enjoyed making and eating their own mini pizzas. It was fun for me to because I got to help with the excitement of making the pizza.  After baking it the members got to eat it and enjoyed it very much we also made desert and everyone pitched in to help one another. Overall, amazing first day volunteering.

Race

In class Sal showed us a line up of balls and asked us to categorize them. People chose different categories from color to size to texture basically anything. These balls represented race in the lesson and it was obvious that it was hard to tell what race you are by looking. In class we played this online game that dipicts if you have implicit racism.We matched races to words blacks to bad and whites to good and then switched and chose positive words and negative words connected to the race as quickly as you can to see how racist you are. Most americans think they can tell what race someone is just by looking at them, including myself. For example, one day I was sitting with my friend at lunch and I look over to my guy friends table and there's a cute boy, so of course I tell my friend and ask who he is. He looked white so i asked, "do you know who that white boy is." she then looks at me and says, "Ali, he's not white he's puerto rican. I was really shocked just because he had light skin. It's crazy how people can think someone is a different race just by looking at their skin tone or how they dress.

Social class

In America people strive to become successful to make a large amount of money to support themselves or their families. In the beginning of this week I was well aware that there is different social classes within each community, however, I did not know it would be as divided as it is. There are so many different groups such as the low in poverty, the working class, the middle class, the middle upper class, and the rich or the upper class. If you want to move up this so called "scale" it is very hard and you really have to push yourself to do it. In the movie we were watching I was really shocked to see that the high school Anderson was kind of different from our high school.  In high school at Anderson one girl said, "If your not like us meaning not having the same amount of money or wear the same clothes, we won't associate ourselves with that group." Personally at our school I think certain clicks will not associate themselves with different clicks, but not because of money because of different factors. Although, I would say I am probably upper middle class, I still associate myself my people of different levels of social class. Some of my friends are more wealthier than me and some are a little lower financially than me. I do not care because I do not judge them based on how much money their families make. Although, my dad does have a friend that is very rich and has a lamborghini, while my dad and himself were walking to his car one day he kind of walked there like he was better than my dad trying to show off his new lamborghini, while my dad was not impressed by his rudness he decided he doesn't want to be friends with someone like that. Today they still talk once and a while but they never hang out anymore because my dad knows that he likes to show off what he has.

Justice System

I think it's terrible how most people in jail get treated like they are guilty when they didn't even have their court date yet to prove if they were actually guilty or not. While most are in jail to serve time because of wrong doings so may not be. People choices in life all go back to the environment that they were brought up in or friends they are influenced by. It's so sad to think that 66% of people who were in jail at one point go back after their release. Most want to change their lives around as seen in the movie but it obviously isn't as easy as it may seem for prisoners. Personally learning about the justice system is really interesting to me because i want to go into criminal justice for my profession. I know this lady that is a lawyer, but has a really good friend who is a criminal investigator and she told me that her and her friend have been working on this guy Juan's case for a while. They believe that he is innocent and did not commit the crime he was accused of. He has been in jail for 18 years and she told me it's really sad to see him because she is almost 100% sure he did not commit this crime, and that he is such a great person! Yes, most people in jail are probably guilty but there are those who are convicted of a crime they did not do and it's scary that the bad person can still be out there. I think it's horrible how some police in jail tend to judge inmates that "look" like criminals when sometimes a few of them can actually be innocent.

Deviance

Usually hearing the word deviance most people would assume that this is only a negative word, but this can also be used as a positive word. Doing something deviant is rather just doing something you would not normally do. For my deviant experiment, I chose to clean the dishes. One night after dinner, I got up from my chair walked over to the dish washer and just started cleaning everything. My parents thought this was really strange because they know that they have to really push me in order to clean something. I never do the dishes so after i did them, they asked me what I wanted. I replied by saying, "I don't want anything,  I don't know why you would make that assumption just because I did something nice that i normally wouldn't do." I knew that they would have this reaction, but they told me that they also felt proud of me because it showed signs of maturity. After the experiment I actually felt good about doing this, even though they weren't strangers to me, I still felt good for helping my family out and making their lives easier. It doesn't take a lot to create a positive deviant experience.

how you know when you become independent

No matter what time period you have become a teenager, all teens suffer from figuring out when they have grown out of that kid state and moved on to a more mature independent state. Teens like to believe that they have grown up mentally/emotionally faster than physically. Young teens growing up feel like they have to act older and more mature by doing adult like things such as being involved in sexual situations. Although finding out how mature you really are as a teen can be very confusing. Parents expect their children to act a certain way and do things around their age level, while kids often fuss and argue with their parents about what they want to do. It's also hard to set an example for your teenager when what your doing might influence their behaviors to do the same. For example, one time i wanted to drive my friends and I to the city just to hangout and experience something different then our usual days in the suburbs. I had asked my mom if I could drive them and of course she said no. She said I was still to young to learn how to drive in the city since its a whole different way of adjusting to driving there. I responded by saying, "Mom oh my gosh, I have had my drivers license for almost two years." We ended up getting into a fight about she never saw my side and i never saw her side.  This is why it's really hard to compromise with parents because the parent and the child never see the other side.

Media

In class we watched a film about masculinity and femininity. In the movies, however, marketers try to convince boys at a young age that they have to be physically strong and non-emotional but tough human beings. Since promoting this guys of all ages feel as though they have to be or act tough in order to gain respect and really there are much safer ways to gain respect. For girls, each and every girl no matter who you are were at one point influenced by a beautiful girl in an ad and all girls believe it or not get jealous.  Every girl wants to be beautiful but its a matter of if you want to be beautiful yourself or want to look just like a model or actress. In ad's they show girls who are really skinny and young girls and teens see this and want to look and have the same bodies as these girls, when realistically this is not possible. When I was younger, I am not afraid to admit that I was greatly influenced by these beautiful girls in magazines and ad's. I wanted to look just like Ashley Tisdale when I was younger because I thought she was so pretty. I even told my mom I wanted to get blonde highlights because she had blonde hair. Now I can honestly care less about looking like a star it was just a phase I went through, but now I am happy to say I am very comfortable and confident in my own skin. All we need now is to get girls of all ages to be confident with themselves and even boys and prevent danger by letting them know that it's okay not to pick a fight.

Consuming Kids

Everyone in America no matter who you are watches a lot of television. being a daily part of our society, we don't realize how much t.v we watch and that we are actually sitting doing nothing. It's crazy to think the typical american family usually has more than one t.v in their houses and would rather watch t.v then communicate with others. In the video, consuming kids we realized how blown over kids were by these marketing commercials not exactly knowing that these are methods of persuading them to buy a certain product.  Kids typically think that spongebob mac and cheese is better than regular because of the characters, when really this is a way to persuade consumers. Everything that marketers present to the consumer fills their mind to shape what they want and influences them to buy certain items. I remember one day when i was younger, I was about 8 years old, I went to the grocery store with my mom and she asked me if I wanted yogurt, and I told her I wanted Danimals my mom wouldn't buy them for me because the other regular kind was cheaper. I threw a hissy fit and was stubborn because I didn't get my way. When my mom said no, I tried to convince her by telling her that i saw a commercial that they were for the "cool" kids. Of course, this didn't work, and I became upset but if only I knew what I know now then none of that would have mattered.

Community service

I have recently started my community service and have already served 6 and a half hours. This experience for me has been really fun and exciting. I am helping out as a volunteer at the Center for Enrich Living. This is a place where a group of disabled kids/teens/adults get together as a whole for a while and break up into certain groups and pick which classes they want to take. The classes can range from anything to art classes, cooking classes, bingo, sports anything pretty much exciting. This has really been an eye opening experience for me so far because it's not something everyone would do in their every day lives. I feel good about myself that I am helping my community. I was there yesterday helping out the cooking class. It was really fun because everyone got to make sandwiches and white chocolate covered snowman pretzels. I went around and helped whoever needed help making the sandwiches and pretzels. I interacted with everyone and everyone was so happy to be there and just enjoyed making delicious food!

Growing

In class we have been discussing the human growing metaphor. As a baby, we have emotions and instincts but as you grow up you receive much more than that such as being aware of others and your surroundings. As a baby growing up inside the whom the baby can actually hear voices and learn certain things in there and also when it comes out the baby learns stuff from their guardians or people that just surround them. When we are babies or growing up we learn to interact with others around us and that's what makes us humans similar we all learn how to interact with the ones we love or different groups of people. My mom and I have always both loved to shop. As I became a little older I came to a realize that my mom loves to shop, and I know that I got this from her. Shopping makes us both happy, and it's funny because when she is upset about something she will go out and go shopping. Unfortunately, this is not a good habit, but I am the same way. I got this from her by learning and observing her through out the years I have followed in her footsteps of a big shopper!

Success and happiness!

Being American we have all grown up in a society where if you have money you will automatically be happy. As we learned watching "Tuesdays with Morrie"this is not always the case. Money and being successful does not bring about happiness as much as we think. In the movie, Mitch was so concerned with work and that's all he cared about. It was really touching to see that Morrie was trying to teach him that being successful and working hard isn't what brings you happiness, but rather the people you love and when the women Mitch was in love with turns away from him because he was so scheduled on work all the time he can't get her back. When Morrie and Mitch talk, Mitch begins to feel fear of dying and realizes that work can't take up his whole life. Relating to this, my dad works a lot especially from the months February to April because it's tax season and he is a CPA. My mom always gets mad at him because he will come home for dinner late and always likes to be working. Although he works long hours he still finds time for the family because he realizes that it can't take up his whole life, and even though he is successful he's not happy all the time like the typical American would believe he is happy from being successful.

Subcultures!

In class we talked about subcultures and which ones we are apart of. Everyone can belong to different or the same groups. What is really cool about this is that you can be apart of any kind: race, religion, family, sports, camp friends really anything! Even though most people grow up in totally different ways and have been taught many different things this doesn't stop me from meeting new people. I always love to meet new people even if I know they are nothing like me, sometimes it's the people you are opposite to that you get a long with most. I'm involved with different groups but just because I do doesn't mean I can't associate myself with people who don't have the same ones as me. A lot of people can still be friends even if they aren't in the same groups, such as sports or talents. For example, I used to sing and my friends would never sing and were more involved in sports, but even though were from different groups we still get a lot and are still friends.

Cultures

Learning about different cultures and countries people live in can be very interesting because of the fact that not one culture is the same as another culture. In different cultures people speak, eat, gesture, and communicate in different ways. We learned in class that many different countries are taught different gestures and languages that can be interpreted in many different ways for an American or even one with a different background. Living in America most people can assume that every word in English can be translated that its not that hard, but that's not always the case! When I was a little bit younger my family and I took a trip to Jamaica and although Jamaica is not completely different from America, while most speak English, their qualities are some what different. When I went out for dinner we were not allowed to sit down until we were invited and told where to sit. Also, the forks in Jamaica is always held in the left hand while the knife is always in the right. In American most people do what makes them comfortable most of the time they will have the fork in the hand they write with, since people in America mostly do things with the hand they chose to write with. I think it is very important to learn other peoples cultures and where they come from considering everyone's different and experiences different conditions of living.

A Bronx Tale

The wonderful movie A Bronx Tale was based on a true story about a young boy C living with his family in Bronx, NY as a divided Italian family. Back in the day, their neighborhoods were completely divided, and usually people that were black or any other type of race were not seen to be in the same neighborhood. C had a pretty hard life growing up witnessing the his soon to become friend Sonny kill this man. His father was very protective and didn't want C to associate himself with Sonny. Although he did not listen to his father. As they began to hang out more Sonny taught C life lessons because he didn't want C to face the same mistakes that Sonny did in his life. In the end C learns a lot from Sonny and began to distinguish between right and wrong even though C's friends were not a good influence. C grew up to become a pretty well rounded kid who became stronger because of Sonny. Although Sonny had a big impact on C's life it was also C's surroundings that made him a stronger person and taught him to be a better man. For me, my family, friends and people i care about our the ones that shape who I am today. I have changed from the people I care about. Different people are shaped by different things. C just formed to be a better person by his neighborhood and the way he was taught not to do the same things Sonny had gone through.

Division

In class, it was interesting to learn how much a like I am from others who I didn't think I would be similar too. Writting down different groups we all belong to and talking about it has made me realize a lot. Prior to this activity, to be honest, i was a very judgmental person because people would always judge me. Sociologists would agree it is bad to judge people because you are more a like someone than you actually think you are. For example, a lot of my good friends at one point all judged each other. I felt guilty because I didn't realize until after we started talking that we were actually a lot a like and love to do the same things as me, love to have a good time, and have mostly the same morals and beliefs as me. People that I never thought I would be friends with way back when I am now friends with today. It makes me feel bad that I judge my friends before we became close, but everyone makes mistakes and hopefully will learn from them like I do. This exercise helped me to realize that you can be similar to someone more than one would suspect.

Social Construction of Reality.

When most people think of the word "spit" or "saliva" it is not a pretty sight. It it weird to think that in different situations are we are more accustomed to the word saliva than in others. In class, Sal asked a volunteer to spit into a spoon. Everyone could see she was nervous and embaressed to spit in a spoon in front of the whole class. Not something that is typically done in a classroom. Most found this utterly gross. But what is weird is if we were going to a major league baseball game watching the batters spit wouldn't be as gross maybe not gross at all to some. The social construction of reality is how people around us influence us to experience things in the world. Everything is created from the society we live in. When i was younger, as Sal mentioned, my mother also used to wipe everything off my brother and I face. In America, we don't find this gross because this is what a lot of mothers do and we see it in our daily lives walking down the street or passing by. In a different kind of situation though, this would automatically be considered discusting! For example, most people at least in America would agree that a manager or another employee spitting on your paper work would be seen as gross and rude, although, in a situation i just stated such as a mother taking mustard off of their child's cheek with their spit would be seen as "normal." It's weird how two situations both based on one factor, spit can be completely different and can be taken as acceptable or unacceptable.

Sociological Mindfulness!

In a reading about sociological mindfulness Schwalbe has tried to persuade people to be sociological mindful. In this he means that the world must be more open to issues going on with the people that surround you. He makes it very clear that people need to look at the bigger picture in life and assist or guide those in need around the community. In terms of sociology this refers to people acting a certain way based on many factors. A few factors may include where the person lives, their cultures, what time frame they were born and many others. Not only does being sociological mindful mean helping those around you and realizing some people are in need of desperate assistance, but it also means that people don't judge or make fun of others because of differences or problems they may face. Not a lot of people realize how many teens really get their feeling hurt by what people say. For example, one of my friends from a different town always gets made fun of not because she has a weight problem, but because people think that she has an eating disorder. People automatically judge her when they see her and think instantly that she has an eating disorder just because she is really skinny. What a lot of people don't know is that she eats enough to stay heathy, but unfortunately, people just assume that she doesn't. I actually find this really upsetting that people would go out of their way not knowing her to judge her. She always gets so emotional when people that she doesn't know makes jokes about her. This is not being sociological mindful. Someone who is sociological mindful is suppose to help those in need and respect people who need respect the most. Not one person that made fun of her was aware that she was heathy, but instead made fun of her because of something they thought, not something they knew. This just goes to show that people should be worrying about the bigger things in life. Things such as worrying about getting rapped, dying, getting shot, getting arrested, never being able to see your family again, instead of worrying about someone that is really skinny. There are greater things in life to worry about and Schwalbe would agree that we need to be open to those bigger problems in life to help those we love.

Awkward Silence

On the first day of school, Mr. Sal introduced the class with a lesson which we didn't expect.  Growing up in school districts that expect their students to sit down and pay attention to the teacher is what everyone is accustomed to. Everyone did not know what to do when Sal first sat down and did not say a word. I remember people looking around at each other trying to seek out what other people's reactions were. There were a few people who started to talk out loud and break through their shell. Being someone to talk through silence such as this are taking a chance to get out of their comfort zone. This can be very hard to do, because ever since we were little we were trained to think that the teacher starts off class. Although, in this case might not necessarily be true. I completely understand why Mr. Sal made us do this lesson. This lesson was to get us as students to realize that silence can be fine it's just not what were used to, and to make us see that sociologist study people and how they react to certain situations. Some might have thought this situation was weird or awkward. To me, I didn't find it awkward but more of different. After I realized this was shown to get us to learn something one of my classes later in the day was the same exact way. Obviously, this time though it was not to get us to learn something it was rather just normal silence. As the students walked in no one really said anything to each other or to the teacher before the teacher started talking. It was just like Mr. Sal's lesson except not planned. In this class, people even knew each other and after the teacher started talking this is when the students decided to talk to their friends in the class.  From this non planned situation I realized that people really do need to feel comfortable in front of everyone in order to break out from their shells. People are so comfortable doing what they normally do when sometimes you just have to take a chance and speak up and not care about what others think of you. Some people will take a chance getting out of their comfort zone and some won't. It all depends on the type of person you are.

About Me

When i was younger I used to be really involved in sports. I basically was involved in every type of sport imaginable. Also, I used to participate in choir at Stevenson and took lesson here as well. Although, i took lessons for many years, currently I have stopped taking lessons and now just sing for fun. I have a brother named Ian who is 20 years old. I very much look up to Ian because he works really hard in school and strives to become successful. I always try my best in school in hopes of achieving some of my goals in terms of education. Trying my best has helped me to achieve good grades to help me get into a well fit college for me.  I love animals especially dogs, I have a dog named Kobe who is a Cockapoo.  My main goal in life is to become successful and to one day have a family of my own. It makes me proud knowing that my friends come to me for advice because they know that i am trustworthy and helpful. The most important people in my life are all my friends and my family because I know i can count on them for anything. I love taking vacations and my favorite vacation spot that my family and I have been to is Mexico.