What I learned at the Mid-Year Symposium

1. The first presenter, Jeremy, presented a paper on stereotypes and how they effect people. I learned that just taking the time to talk to someone can eliminate stereotypes completely. He brought up an example of a former KKK member who, after speaking with a targeted group, changed his ways.
2. Melissa, the second presenter, read a paper about factory farming and organic farming. I learned that organic farming does not force chemicals on animals and is better for the animals.
3. The animals' schedules on organic farms are also not strictly scheduled like factory farming. Animals in factory farming also suffer physical and sexual abuse.
4. I also learned from Melissa that babies of factory farmers have an elevated risk of being born with birth defects. I personally wonder if this is due to physical exposure to the chemicals or the consumption of factory farmed food with a lot of chemicals.
5. Bridgette was the last presenter and she read her community paper about her old dance school. She said that the school is based on relationships and that it helps set the framework for future healthy relationships for the kids.
6. Dr. Emmons responded to Bridgette's paper by remarking that she agrees that relationships are the real building blocks of success, not your IQ. I personally agree with this comment and I think Bridgette's paper helped support it very well.

Essay Update

I have had a very rough time organizing my thoughts for this essay. I started out with the thought that the idea of love is entertainment, but the feeling is not. After a lot of struggles attempting to find sources to back up this argument, I decided to narrow down my thesis. Instead, I am going to argue that true love is not entertainment. I believe this to be true because true love is a feeling and an emotion. Emotions are dictated by events and actions that occur in everyday life. Entertainment is also an action that causes enjoyment. In entertainment being an action, true love cannot be entertainment. I hope to organize a survey and an interview to help back up the argument. I have also found one psychology article to help define love. I think that once all of my sources are in order and I have all of my evidence, my argument should work.

Hip Hop Life

The reading "Hip Hop Life" stuck out to me this week because of the overall message it sends to people. DeSean Walker talks about how he has grown up in a poor area of California, but he does not feel limited because of music. He finds refugue in hip hop and uses entertainment as a way to build up his life and happiness. I think that this relates to the first assumption about entertainment. DeSean does not use entertainment just for fun. He uses it as an outlet for him to escape his current world and become someone new and successful. I also found this reading really inspiring because although DeSean has not been signed by a record lable, he still feels hope for his music career and keeps pushing forward reguardless.

Group Projects

So far, I am very happy with my group because we all seem to be determined to make a creative and fun PowerPoint. We spent last class coming up with our main layout of what we wanted to say in the presentation. We then divided up work for each person to do on their own time. Today, we will put all of our work together to make our final presentation. Everyone seems to be willing to do their part and I am not very worried about being left with any extra work.

Community Project

I finally decided to do my community project on Club Penguin, a online social website for children. This has worked out very well for my busy schedule because I am able to observe the community anywhere. I am also really interested in what kids do on the website. In my opinion so far, Club Penguin is promoting children to live online through avatars instead of in real life. I am very interested in children, so I am going to have a lot to say about this community. At first, I was concerned about how I would do interviews. I quickly realized that most of the children I know use Club Penguin, so I can contact them and interview them. I have created my own penguin for the game and have been taking observations. I will start my interviews this weekend.

Community

I have been having a lot of trouble figuring out which community I want to observe. I want to observe a classroom, such as the preschool on campus, because I love working with children and plan on becomming a teacher in my future. I have not been able to contact the on-campus preschool, so I was thinking of observing the preschool I used to work at in Wellesley, Ma. My schedule is very hectic, so this may not be possible as well. I might resort to observing the people who play basketball every night at Kelly Gym around 7pm. Although I am not extremely interested in basketball, this may be the most reasonable community to observe with my schedule.

"It Takes a Tribe"

In David Berreby's essay "It Takes a Tribe", Berreby states that "human beings will give a lot, including their lives, for a group they feel part of- for "us", as in "our nation" or "our religion". They will also harm those labeled "them", including taking their lives" (120). I strongly agree with this statement because every human being looks to find an "us" that they can belong to. In creating an "us", you also create a "them". No matter the size or power of a group, there will always be a rival, someone to defeate, or someone to disagree with. Humans do this throughout their lives, through school, work, and social groups. It is the phenomenon that creates prejudice and starts wars. David Berreby's analysis of college life exemplifies the "us" versus "them" mentality that people carry. Although students are new to a school, they immediates become apart of the group and begin to hate the "them", usually a rival school. In life, this can be seen in wars, such as World War Two, in which Hitler turned Jewish people into a "them" and turned a nation on its own kind. Society would be a much more peaceful place without this way of thinking. Although it helps to unify people, it can easily cause violence and hatred.

Things I Could Put in my Collage

1. Where I was born.
2. The towns I grew up in.
3. Music I was exposed to from my parents, lessons from it.
4. The effects of moving.
5. Family dynamics, half siblings, nephew, sister, etc.
6. The strong relationship between my sister and I.
7. Determination in gymnastics and the lessons learned from the sport.
8. Not being able to travel as a child, only subected to US culture.
9. Choices in friends, good vs. bad choices.
10. Money situation, having to work for things.
11. Religious exposure as a child.