Peer Pressure

Today we watched Freaks and Geeks again. In this episode, Lindsey convinced her parents to leave her and her brother, Sam, home alone while they went out of town. Lindsey made the mistake and told her friend Daniel that she was going to be home alone. Daniel convinced her to have a party and get a keg of beer. Sam heard and decided that he and his friends were going to get non-alcoholic beer and trade it with the real beer. During the party, all of the "underage drinkers" were drinking this fake beer and pretending to get drunk. This just wade them seem like fools because they were victims of the Placebo effect. These kids were saved when Sam's friend called the police to get everyone out. Peer pressure is a very big deal now because either people are very persuasive, or people are too promissive. Teens are stargting to drink a lot more now because of peer pressure. I remember something this week said that the kids that dont give into peer pressure will be the geeks later in their life because they didn't take a chance.

Till Death Do Us Part

Its pretty crazy how all different cultures view death. In our culture, theres some people who cry for months, there are others who go get tattoos of their name. People have differnt ways of viewing it. In "Tuesdays with Morrie", Morrie is dying and Mitch comes to see him every Tuesday. In the end, Mitch ends up making the best of the situation and accepting that he died. In American culture, people have a hard time accepting that their loved one has passed away and can be in denial too. I personally find ways to remember the deceased. My grandpa was the greatest man i've ever met and he always used hearts in everything. To remember him, i got a heart tattooed on my wrist. I know i will always have a peice of my grandpa on me permanently. Everyone has their own ways of remembering their dead loved ones, mine being tattoos. People need to live in the moment. "Life is a gift, thats wh they call it the present".

Six- Fingered Patriot

There are some times that I’m talking to my friends and we’re talking about schools and they start saying, “I heard that at Stevenson…” and then that line usually is followed by some ridiculous comment about either how rich Stevenson is, how big we are, or how much Stevenson focuses on grades. Before I came here, my friends in Wheeling and I were in the car and their mom said, “I heard if you get a B at Stevenson, you get made fun of. If you get a C you get kicked out”. If that was true, I would have been made fun of so much and been kicked out enough times too. That really proves how much Stevenson has created its own subculture. There’s a Facebook group called “You know you go to Stevenson if…” Then there are things like you understand the words Point, Airport, Six-Finger Patriot, West Building, East Building and more. Stevenson is the only place you can say I parked at the point so I’ll meet you at the six-fingered patriot.

Tik Tok

I find it really odd that in some cultures 33 and a half minutes late is considered socially acceptable. In class, the teacher asked what you consider late. Some people said 15 minutes, some said 10 minutes. I said 1 minute. If i tell someoe to meet me a the mall at 5, if they're not there at 5, they're late. Doesn't mean i make a big deal about it, but they're late. In the article we read in class, the boy who went to a class had other students coming in and out whenever they want. I find that rude if someone leaves a class early just because its respectful to listen in class. Also if i came in an hour late to class, it would be awkward walking in with everyone looking at you like you're a foreigner. Also, if you walk in late, you most likely missed information same with leaving early. I don't see how it's socially accpetable to be late to anything.

Culture Shock

The card game we played was a great expirement to find out how different people adjust to different ways of life. It was like every table was another society and we had become acostomed to our "laws" even if we all didnt agree in the begining, we all had enough time to play our games that it was no problem to play without talking. But when we were put in the position to switch, we had a lot of arguments because its like going to a new country and trying to communicate in a different language. When we had someone come to our table, theu just got mad because their rules were different than ours. They had a culture shock and didn't know how to handle it without screaming. It's simmilar to Sal's story about the bathrooms in Japan. If we had more time to introduce our newcomer to our society, they would have had to adjust. Sal had to adjust to the bathrooms in Japan, because if you gotta go, you gotta go.
- J

Sonny

This week we watched a movie about an Italian naighborhood and how everyone in the neighborhood is influenced by one main character, Sonny. The other main character, Collodro, or as society has named him, C, has been greatly influenced by everyone. He was influenced by everyone except for the ones he should look up to most, his parents. His parents forbid himn to see sonny because of his reputation and C's father said, "People dont look up to him, they fear him". That seemed apparent in the begining of the movie, but then i realized that sonny genuinely cared about C. I am influenced by many different people too. My friends help me pick out cloths to wear, places to go, things to do, and i go with them. But everyone does. It takes one person to lead a bunch of people.

Abandoned Ship

In the activity, we were very focused on what someone's title was to determine their fate on the ship. The people who had a title that proves that they have experience, stayed. The macrosociological aspect of this was that we are all high school students trying to figure out who needed to stay on the ship. The microsociological aspect was everyone's individial role. My role was the Traveling Poet. That was just my title; in the description, it said that i spend a lot of time by myself on the carribean. So i would have been helpful on the ship because of prior experiences. Everyone was so concerned about what everyone's title was, they never took time to dig deep into people's discriptions.