FOLKWAYS!

 All of a sudden I found myself thinking sociologically when I was in math class. Earlier this week we learned about folkways;we actually have a project dealing with folkways. I was in math class and there instead of having rows we have groups of fours. Basically like the sociology classroom. This gives me a chance to people watch. In my table there are two boys and two girls.I was observing one of the boys who sits at my table ( who I will refer to as Billy). Billy was taking notes and all of a sudden he reaches in and picks his nose. He flicks whatever it was he got out to the ground. This was really gross to watch and it surprised me that he did it so calmly. He definitely broke a folkway . He continued taking notes just as he was before. He saw that I was watching him, and that didn't seem to bother him the least bit.To make matters worst this wasn't the first time I had seen him do this. It is strange to me that he was able to do this like nothing. I for one couldn't do that, and if I did people would view me differently because I'm a girl.  

The definition of a folkway is :" a norm that describes socially acceptable behaviors, but does not have great moral significance attached to it. Billy by picking his nose in public broke a norm. However the idea that different people are more likely to brake folkways than others came to me. I think that also like I mentioned different people breaking the same folkway cause different reactions. Billy is a boy and even though he broke a folkway, he is viewed a lot different than what I would be viewed as if I broke the same folkway.I also think that society as a whole has basic norms , and individuals may have different ideas of what they should be,so they are more likely to break these"basic norms".Not everyone follows what is expected from society like Billy. I'm really excited to break a folkway and see the different looks i get from people. I won't do anything gross like Billy did, but something a little more funny. I talk to Billy everyday and he sees this a normal thing. He said, "everyone does it." Breaking a folkway isn't an easy thing but we all probably have done it through out our lives. 

America in 5

The "All-American hot dog" symbolizes Americans to me because the hot dog itself is one of the most popular consumed food in America. On average an American person consumes 60 hot dogs per year. When I think of spotting events or barbecues in, Chicago hot dogs come to mind.



America is one of the fattest countries in the world, and we keep getting bigger. We have a lot of fast foods, and feed our children unhealthy food from birth. We are inducing fat into our future generations by feeding them fast/fat food.

      This is the U.S. Army symbol which is obvious,because it says
 U.S. Army, but there's more than meets the eye. America is known for a strong Army and for fighting for its place. We are a strong country, and are not scared of using our forces!

This to me symbolizes two things in our society: we're influenced strongly by the media, and we have have a stereotype on how women should look .We are influenced by the media, and buying the next best things. Our women model looks are influenced by the celebrities we see inside magazines, tv etc.



In America we are always super busy and have very little time to relax. We as Americans live a fast paced life for the most part. This busy city view symbolizes American society because it's so upbeat and hectic.We know how to work hard,and play hard.

3-3-11

 All of a sudden I found myself thinking sociologically when I was volunteering at the hospital today! I've been volunteering at Central DuPage Hospital for about a year and a half now. I love it there it always has such a warm environment. Even though it's a hospital, and most people have negative schemas towards it, I love it there. I can experience a little bit of everything and get an attempt at helping people! Today I was at outpatient services(where I normally am) and there people usually go and ask for patient room numbers,directions, wheelchairs, you name it! Today this lady came up to the desk, and she didn't speak english or spanish :(! I didn't know what to do she wanted something and we couldn't understand what it was. Judie (lady that works there) tried her hardest, but we couldn't figure it out for a while! I figured she was middle eastern and maybe Muslim, because she had a head scarf.We had her draw what she needed and at last we figured it out after about 10 minutes!This was really odd, because it had never happened before.It turned out that all she wanted was to know if there was a lost and found at the hospital! 
  This all made me think of this week's lessons because we did the whole activity with the two cultures! This reminded me of it because of the language/communication barrier, and how hard it was to get the answers that we wanted.It really showed me how in real life is just as hard as in the activity, because people don't always understand each other, and come from different places.Also it really emphasis how different cultures can be distinguished.What was really special about the whole interaction was that at the end we were able to help each other out just like we did on the classroom.What this thought me was not get frustrated because of differences, but to work around them. Something as simple as drawing resolved our communication problem. In class we talked about all the different cultures, and I appreciate cultures,but I think that if people don't attempt to accept that we all are different and assimilate to that fact our life's are going to be filled with conflict. 

sociology everywhere!

All of a sudden I found myself thinking sociologically when I went to the movies last night. I went with my best friend and we saw The Rite. This movie is about an exorcism in Rome, Italy. The movie was supposed to be based on a "real" story.The movie was pretty entertaining overall.There were elderly and younger viewers, I was really interested to know what they thought of the movie, because there has been a variety of movies about exorcism so it's easy to pick out the good and bad ones. In the movie theater everyone was quiet and respectful except this two boys that were super obnoxious. When we walked out of the movie theater the couple behind us was talking about how they really believed in exorcisms, while I on the other hand don't really think they are real. This all magically brought me back to this week's lesson in Sociology!
 For one I thought of all the group/crowd terminology we had been talking about. I believe that at the movie theater all the viewers were a conventional crowd, because we all had a specific purpose which was to watch the movie. Our theory of crowd behavior are I think both emergent norm theory and convergence theory. This is because everyone was quiet and respectful when the movie came up. I was really curious to know what the word for those who act nothing like what the "norm" is, for example the two boys that acted nothing like one is supposed to act in a theater.They were a bit loud and obnoxious. Also I think we could fit in the convergence theory, because we formed a crowd in a sense,because we all have similar liking(the movie;The Rite; exorcism etc.)I also really thought about panic vs. mass hysteria. This is because I don't really know if they are real or not, so it makes me thing how many people have built up anxiety over this.Overall Friday night involved a lot  of sociology. 

I'm a Survivor ! 2-18-11

All of a sudden I found myself thinking sociologically when I was watching Survivor Redemption Island. I recently started watching Survivor,but I’m oh so very hooked.The new season’s episode was really good.I have only seen one full season,and that was the season before this one, where “Fabio”  was the champion. This season is the season to watch, because once the player’s are voted out of the tribe, they have a chance to come back into the game.In the season premiere  they divided the tribes as usual, but they added yet another twist by bringing past villains Rob and Russell . I didn’t see the seasons they were on, but from what I got they were very good and manipulative while playing the game.When Zapatera (Russell’s tribe) and  Ometepe ( Rob’s tripe) went on their first challenge, Zapatera came with a win. When Ometepe went back to camp they were forming alliances and what not.Most people wanted Rob out from the start, but that later changed at tribal counsel. At tribal counsel Philip revealed everything Francesca and Kristina had told him. At the end of the night Francesca was voted out to redemption island.I wasn’t expecting this as all. However Kristina and Francesca made themselves targets at the counsel because they were being sneaky and you could tell their stories didn’t add up. 

 

I got the idea to do this blog on Survivor because we did watch a Survivor episode in class, and I wanted to apply it while watching the show on my own time. 

Evaluation on Ometepe

PRIMARY GROUP : Rob and all the younger players ( Natalie, Andrea, Ashley, Matt) they all felt exclusive towards each other. The “younger” players made Rob the leader in their own little clique and they all saw each other as the primary group.They teamed up and got Francesca sent to the island.

SECONDARY GROUP: Kristina, Francesca, and Philip they all had a special purpose  together to get Rob out and that clearly was less permanent because Philip totally changed his mid and went against them on the tribal counsel.

KINSHIP GROUP: There was no extended family on the show because they are all strangers,and they didn’t talk about their family. 

TERRITORIAL GROUP: The whole tribe identified themselves as Ometepe members because they all live on that side of the camp, and when they helped each out in camp making shelter.

INTEREST GROUP: All of the members they all had an interest to win the title of soul survivor and win the million dollars. Also Kristina and Francesca’s  interest of kicking out Rob. Rob’s interest of kicking out one of them (Kristina or Francesca) 

PRESSURE GROUP: Kristina and Francesca’s pressuring Philip to vote with them.

REFERENCE GROUP: Francesca comparing who would be better to vote off Rob or Natalie. Also comparing Rob and Russell as in who could be better to have in a tribe. 

IN-GROUP: Rob,Natalie,Andrea,Matt,Ashley-they all got their way making them enduring. 

OUT-GROUP: -Kristina, Francesca and Philip because they only had each other. They were targeted and seen with hostility. 

AGGREGATE: Viewers - we all were watching the show at the same time etc. 

Let it snow! 2-4-11's post

  All of a sudden I found myself thinking sociologically when I was shoveling the snow from my house.This week we had TWOOOO snow days which is great, except for the snow part. My neighborhood was covered with a lot of snow. I had to shovel the snow with my cousin and we did it a lot faster than the man next door.This made me think of the puzzle exercise we did in Sociology, why is it that my group had the most people,yet we were second to last to finish?It puzzled me no pun intended.My cousin and I had one strategy and that was to divide the work in half, other than that we did everything on our own. That was similar to the strategy my group had while putting the puzzle together mhm, but they didn’t work in the same way! 

We learned about the role theory is : a perspective in sociology and in social psychology that considers most of everyday activity to be the acting out of socially defined categories (e.g., mother, manager, teacher).I think that since my cousin and I wanted to finish really fast, because it was cold we took on this “role”  in a sense our behavior changed and we did our work faster. However we were interacting with each other and had communications. With my group I think we all  took many “roles” of boss we all wanted to get as much as we could done by ourself , and then we lacked the coming together until the end. Like society we needed everything to function to work together. Since we had many disadvantages by not having the edges and the image of the puzzle we all took a variety of rolls and clashed, but at the end we were able to finish and hopefully society does too.

Assignment 1 : Chicago.

  All of a sudden, I found myself thinking sociologically when I was in lunch earlier this week. I was remembering a time over the summer when I went to Chicago. When I was there I saw many homeless people everywhere. When I go to Chicago and see people asking for money, or donations I can’t help but feel empathy. I try to put myself in their shoes and see things from their point of view. It is hard for me to do this because I myself haven’t been homeless, so I can only imagine what it’s like. It also made me think of  how strong of a person they are ,is being homeless a consequence of their actions? What I mean by this is Did they do something to get themselves there? I don’t really think most of them did anything “bad” for them to be homeless, but it really makes me think what their life was like before being homeless....or where they always homeless? All of this intrigued me, because I saw the way people passing by would look at them. Some would help, others would ignore . Society for the most part sees the homeless at the bottom of the chain,so seeing everyone’s reaction only supported this idea. 

  Just as I finished writing the first paragraph it amazed me how I automatically referred to the homeless as “them” ,“they” which are grouping words. Although this exact words fit to get my point across it defines them as a group, where as they perhaps all see themselves differently. Anyhow this week we learned about sociologist and in that short experience I can connect to a few of their ideas. When I was putting myself in a homeless person’s place I was using Max Weber’s idea, he actually came up with “seeing from other people’s point of view” . For the Facebook project I researched Herbert Spencer and he would have said that the homeless deserve to be homeless, because they keep society moving. Like the human body society keeps us moving, so the homeless keep the rest moving, because in a sense that is their place. Although I believe the opposite I don’t think the poor should be poor , however I do see his point in some way. We can’t all be rich because then who’s going to keep working. This may be a far off expansion of his idea but it’s somewhat reasonable. Also with people giving money to the homeless Spencer wouldn’t have liked that at all.He didn’t like the interfering of the government.The last sociologist that I can connect this too is Karl Marx. He believed in changing the world , rather than to study it. He wanted no social classes and even predicted that class conflicts would be gone. This is the opposite of what I saw in Chicago. Most people that I saw walked by had a sent of being better, in  the social hierarchy. It would be nice if everyone was seen as equal but society/humanity has a long way there.