Final Post

In my first blog I wrote a little bit about who I am. I talked about the clubs I'm involved with, how I enjoy singing and playing guitar, and what I get through forming connections with people. I do think all of this stuff is correct, but sociology has made me think about more of what makes up who I am. In my first blog I talked about how I'm normally a dependent person, but music is something I did on my own. I think I've always been a little ashamed of being dependent, but this class has made me see that that's not really a bad thing. As humans, we need to depend on each other. It's how we are wired and made to be. The importance of connections was just reinforced to me on a much larger level than I could have thought. In my first blog I think I talked more about connections I am consciously making, but I now see there are so many connections I haven't been aware that I've been making, but have nonetheless been made. I didn't realize how many things affect the way I think and live my life. The social construction of race, gender roles/stereotypes, the area I live in/school I go to, etc. have all played a vital role in making me who I am. I viewed those things more as facts about me, but I wasn't able to see that they truly do make up the person I am. I wouldn't be the same if I lived in a different place at a different time. It's so important to realize how you are a contributor to society. By caring so much about my appearance and wanting the perfect hair, body, skin tone, etc. I am adding to the narrow definition of female beauty in America, that really needs to be expanded. I've learned that it doesn't have to be that way though: by being sociologically mindful of how you are affecting the way everyone sees things, you can choose to affect everyone in a positive way.

Sociology Week 17

This week in sociology we talked more about race. We watched the movie Crash which dealt with many different types of racism. For example, in the movie a white woman was walking to her car with her white husband and they were carjacked by two black men who had guns. Later that night when the woman was at home, she said some nasty things about the guy who was changing her locks in the other room because he was Mexican. She assumed he was part of her gang and demanded that the locks be changed again the next morning by someone else. Later this week we also had a race panel in class. Students from our school of different races- white, black, mexican, indian, chinese- spoke about their experiences with race.

I'm Indian so I feel like I can relate as I've inevitably been stereotyped. I'm stereotyped as being really smart. Although I do like to think I am smart, I don't get straight As in math. I have my good subjects, and bad ones. Just last period I walked into my Econ class late, and we had a test today. They hadn't started the test but since I was late, everybody was already paired up in partners. The second I walked in, so many people started asking "Can Leah be in our group???" Many of these people don't even know me or the kinds of grades I get in that class- they just assume that I do well. Although it is annoying, this type of stereotyping isn't that harmful to me, but I have been teased a little bit. When I was out with friends other teenagers who were trying to be funny would walk by and just comment on me being Indian, like -"Oh you're hanging out with an Indian???" It just doesn't make sense because no one comments on white people. No one would ask me why I am hanging out with a white person. When people on the panel were talking about skin color and how it's good that they turned out to be lighter, I could relate. I'm pretty light skinned for an Indian, and as sad as it is to say, I've always been thankful for that because it really does make things easier as far as being accepted goes. I do think we have come a long long way with racism but there still really needs to be change. I think if more people took a sociology class and learned that race is just a social construction, or even saw something like the race panel, that they would be more sensitive. I had more problems when I was younger but I'm way more comfortable in my skin now.

Sociology Week 16

This week in sociology we talked about race. We learned that race doesn't actually exist, and is just a social construct. Race can change depending on where you go. For example, in America if a child has a black parent and a white parent they are known as mixed. They are still considered black no matter how they look. However, if that child was to go to a country like Brazil where there are many different classifications of race, depending on how that child looks he/she could be considered white. If race can change like this, it doesn't make sense that it has a genetic basis.

This was really interesting to me because my family is Indian but people have always thought my mom doesn't look it, and sometimes even me. My mom is incredibly light and peachy skinned and she also dyes her hair which wasn't ever really black, it used to be dark brown and now it's a reddish brown. Her eyes are also a light hazel. She isn't really categorized as white by people, but no one guesses she is Indian. However, as far back as we can trace, there are only Indians in my family. People always assume there was a mixed race marriage down the line but there never was. This just further proves that race doesn't have a genetic basis.

Community Service Post 3

For the last of my ten hours I volunteered again at Orphans of the Storm on April 28th from 11am-2:30pm. (Jackie Borchew-jackie@orphansofthestorm.org) This event took place at the shelter, it was a grilling event and I went with my boyfriend. Right near the entrance we set up a small tent with a grill and table with snacks underneath it. We were grilling hot dogs and selling snacks and water for any donation amount. It was a pretty warm day and the other volunteers were fun, there was another kid there from our high school. Being a vegetarian, I didn't grill but I held the leash of the dog we had out a lot, talked to people who were going in and out, sold people snacks, and helped set up then clean up. I liked that this event was at the shelter because when I've volunteered for the shelter at places like the mall it's hard to get people interested, but all the people around here are already interested. It was a good idea to set this up because people stay in there for hours and tend to be hungry afterwards, and there's always kids who want a snack or baked good.  I see so many of the same people volunteering at all these events, of all different ages. Many of these people have full time jobs; they aren't volunteering for school. They do it because they love it and it's a good thing to do. We definitely raised over a couple hundred dollars at least. Another reason I liked volunteering at the shelter opposed to somewhere else is because it was a reminder of why I picked this place to volunteer at. It's really heartwarming to see people come out with the right pet for them, and this shelter couldn't operate without donations, and without volunteers to run events there wouldn't be as much donation!

Community Service Post 2

I volunteered a total of 3.5 hours at Feed My Starving Children in two shifts- April 27th from 2-4pm(John Schmelzel, Libertyville Site Supervisor, at jschmelzel@fmsc.org or (847) 984-3846) and May 2nd from 8-9:30pm (Josh Rockett, Schaumburg Site Supervisor, at jrockett@fmsc.org or (847) 519-9610). I went with my boyfriend and best friend and it was fun! We packed food for starving children in places like Africa. When we got there we watched an educational video about how many hungry children there really are in the world, and the kind of work that Feed My Starving Children has done to help. It was incredibly sad, but motivational as well because since this non-profit organization began the percentage of starving children in the world has dramatically decreased. After the video, we were given instruction about how to pack the food and about the different kind of jobs there were-warehouse, food pours, baggers, sealers, labelers. We were told we had to be extremely clean and careful not to contaminate the food. In one bag of food there are vitamins, vegetables, soy, and rice. Each little bag we packed had 6 meals in it. My job was pouring the rice in the bag, and my best friend held the bag as we poured food in and then gave it to the sealer. My boyfriend did the warehouse job of walking around and refilling everyone's empty food and carrying the finished boxes, with a total of 28 bags in it, to be sent away. There was fun music playing and it was like a competition with other tables to see which table could pack the most boxes. Time went by pretty quickly and it was really easy work. Afterward, everyone cleans up and then there is an optional prayer over the boxes. After that you learn how many boxes you packed, and watch another video showing the effect Feed My Starving Children has had in so many kids' lives. Typically groups pack over 50 boxes, but the second time I volunteered there was only 15 or so of us so we packed around 24. I also got to taste a sample of the meals at the end! I liked that they did that because it was nice to know what we were sending off, and it wasn't half bad for such a simple and cheap meal! It was a really positive experience and I definitely felt like I was making a difference. I would love to go back over the summer and bring my family!

Community Service Post 1

On February 12th I volunteered from 4-7 with Orphans of the Storm animal shelter. It was a holiday pet showcase at Northbrook Court Mall led by the Orphans volunteer coordinator, Jackie Borchew(jackie@orphansofthestorm.org). Over winter break they had done a holiday pet showcase that was really successful, so they decided to bring it back for the week of Valentines Day. Basically there is a section set off for the shelter, right by Lord & Taylor. There are cats and dogs brought it for adoption to attract people to go visit the shelter and adopt! T-shirts and sweatshirts are for sale, and we also did gift wrapping for donations. Since I had the night shift, things were pretty slow. It was only me and one other volunteer, and unfortunately the animals can't be there past 3, so we were just selling clothes and gift wrapping. The woman I volunteered with had brought her own dog though, which was successful in attracting people to come over. It was different for me because I had volunteered with the winter showcase and things were really crazy and hectic then. Although I didn't have as much fun this time, it still felt good to help out. I am attached to this organization because I have adopted 3 cats from the shelter myself. The showcase was going on for a week and over 5,000 dollars were raised which is really awesome because the shelter runs on donations. They are one of the few shelters that doesn't kill animals for being there for a long time, and they take all the animals from the Lake County area. I was really happy I was a part of raising that 5,000 dollars!

I don't have a picture from this showcase (just the verification form), but here is one from the winter one!

Sociology Week 15

This week in sociology we continued our discussion of social class. We watched the movie, "People Like Us" and "30 Days". This one part of People Like Us really stuck with me. It showed this family in the US who was living well below the poverty line. This single mother had a few children and they all lived in a trailer. She had to walk 10 miles to work everyday, which was at McDonalds. It was so sad to see. I cannot ever imagine walking ten miles to a job, let alone that job being McDonalds. It was also really sad because her son was clearly very embarrassed of her and extremely disrespectful. In the movie "30 Days" it was a wealthy couple attempting to live off of minimum wage for a month. It was really difficult for them. They had to get a really small apartment that had no furniture and ants crawling all around. They couldn't enjoy holidays and birthdays because they didn't have the money to. They also both ended up having health problems that landed them in the emergency room totaling to over 1000 dollars. It's impossible for someone on minimum wage to pay that. That made me think of the time my little sister went to the emergency room, got tylenol and that's it, and was charged 500 dollars. I can't imagine who we could pay that off if my parents were working minimum wage jobs. It's really an eye opener to see how so many people in this country have to live. And as we've been learning, it's really tough to move up in social class. People say you just have to work hard, but the truth is that a lot of these people working minimum wage are working very hard.

Sociology Week 14

This week in sociology we talked about social class. It's interesting because no one talks about it. It's a subject that is so commonly avoided, and it's rude to bring it up. No one wants to offend anyone, and it is just an uncomfortable subject altogether. We learned that it really isn't that common to have a lot of money. Even to be upper middle class, is being above most of the United States. It doesn't feel that way though. Living here in the suburbs I know that me and most of my friends usually think of ourselves as average. As I get older I'm starting to see that we are well above average. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my sister when she first went to college. She was telling me that it was crazy to see how people lived off of way less money than we were used to. Kids who were paying for their own college with loans, who had to be very careful about what/when they ate, and who just had to be way more mindful about spending their money overall. I didn't really understand this when she told it to me, that I would be considered rich to so many people. But after growing up more, and learning about this more in class I see that it really is true.

Sociology Week 13

This week in sociology we talked about deviance. If someone is deviant they go against what is normal in society- like paying for someone else's groceries or on the other end of the spectrum stealing. Deviance can be good or bad. We read an article called "Saints and Roughnecks" who went to the same school. The saints were seen as angels, they got good grades and were loved by their teachers and society. The roughnecks on the other hand, were always getting into trouble with the police, didn't get good grades, and were seen negatively by society. However, it turns out that the saints were doing bad things also, like vandalizing, they just never managed to get caught. The saints were wealthier than the roughnecks. They lived in better neighborhoods and had resources that the roughnecks didn't. These distinctions between social class is what made the roughnecks seem more deviant than the saints.

We also talked about how when you are deviant everyone notices. This has definitely happened to me. Whenever I decide to help out more than usual in my house, my mom makes a really big deal about it. I remember one time she was gone and I was home alone and I was going to my friends house soon, so we weren't going to see each other before she got back. I knew she had been feeling kind of sick and that she was already out shopping and would be tired so I did some chores like doing the dishes. When I was at my friend's house I got a call from my mom and she was like "Is everything okay?!??! What is wrong with you?!" When you are deviant, a lot of people notice. It's hard to ignore something that is so different from the norm.

Sociology Week 12

This week in sociology we talked about masculinity and how society views/defines it. To be masculine a guy has to be tough, strong, unemotional, muscular, resilient, etc. Just how society pressures women to be and look a certain way it also does that for men. Men are always shown being dominant and strong and those are what teenage boys have to look up to. It's not socially acceptable for them to have a softer side because that is seen as weak and feminine. I've definitely witnessed this first hand in my life. I remember I liked this guy last year and we somehow got on the topic of crying. I asked him when the last time he cried was and he said "No." just "No." And I found it incredibly unattractive! I didn't like that he was trying to be all tough and prove his masculinity. It was especially interesting to me that he just said "no". It would be one thing to lie, laugh it off, and say that he doesn't cry. If that had happened I would have just figured we weren't close enough and he wasn't comfortable talking about that with me. But to completely avoid the idea of the question altogether just shows how uncomfortable the topic made him; it seemed almost threatening to him. He had vented to me about being upset before, but always in a "manly" angry way. It's okay to be upset and get angry, but its not okay to be upset and cry. I'm sure he thought that if he had admitted crying, he wouldn't seem masculine. And I think that's the problem, that men think they can't be masculine if they have a soft side. Unfortunately the definition of "masculinity" is very small with no room for expansion in today's society.