Only You Can Change Yourself

In the movie that we're watching, we learned about a family who literally lives in a trailor in a rural area. This family lives several miles away from any public place and are in the middle of no where. The mother of this family says that her oldest son tries to dress "preppy" and acts "like he's better" than his family. She and her son constantly fight about cleaning up their act and fixing their place. I was a bit bothered by the mother's words about her son. No doubt no one wants to live the way they do and I don't think it is her fault that they are in the financial status that they are. It is obvious that she works hard to keep a nice living for her family. But as a mother, I found it terrible for her to talk down to her son the way she did. He wants to work for a better future for himself and dresses the way he wants to dress. He puts himself in the right mindset to get him where he wants to go in life. Its wrong for any mother to discourage their child of that kind of ambition. I do realize that what he says to her may be harsh for her and rub her the wrong way, but how can he be expected to stay hopeful when his own family is putting him down. Life is what you make it and he's trying to make it the best he can.

Once Poor, Always Poor.

What I learned from the penny game we played is that once you've failed to make something of yourself, you never will. Sadly, I lost the first round of the game, and for the rest of the class period i sat around talking to my friends. I did nothing productive when i should've or could've been winning some pennies. This idea goes with the idea that the incarcerated stay in prison because they can't change themselves. It gives me the mentality that once you're down, you're always down. Of course, with the exception of a good handful.

In Sal's blog about this topic, he noted that hispanics are more over the poverty line than whites, which brought me to the point that it is so unfortunate that foreigners have such a harder time earning money. It really sucks to have the disadvantage of a job because you aren't from this country. My parents are immigrants and my siblings and I are the first generation in my family ever to be born in America. My parents have worked so hard to keep up with supporting three kids, owning a house, currently owning three cars, and on top of that owning lots of pets(my sister and I are suckers for animals). None of that ever adds up to cheap. And both of my parents have struggled with jobs due to their accents. They've been limited because of it. So if America's "ways" tend to be that once you've reached the top, you stay at the top, how will immigrants every reach the top? (again, with the exception of a good amount still)

Prisoner for Life

After beginning to read the story/article "Courtroom 302", I've begun to realize that its no wonder why most of the people that go to jail end up going back and are never able to turn their lives around. What do we think mostly leads people to commit crimes? Drugs are a way out, a sense of relief, a temporary solution that gets the user caught up in bigger and deeper messes. If not drugs, common things are rape, murder, and theft. Do happy people commit these acts? Sometimes yes, but many of the times, no. Its the people that feel low of themselves. They're angry with something and are driven to commit such felonies, leaving them in a deeper mess and possibly, hopefully, thinking to themselves "what have i done?" and realize they regret their mistake. But what's done is done, and they've landed themself in jail. As if life wasn't low enough at that point, the guards in jails and prisons don't exactly give a positive contributions. They yell and treat the prisoners like the shit they believe they are, if not worse. So after being thoroughly convinced that their lives are meaningless and feeling terrible about themselves, these guards confirm it and with that, what insentive would any person have to change their lives? I think they believe "hey my life sucks, F*** it." and go on living the rebellious way they've always been.

Teen Potential or Teen Crash?

I remember being younger and being so excited to be a teen. I watched those movies of teens living the high life, having fun and being happy, and those personas did exactly to me what we discussed in class- i wanted to be just like that "pretty and popular girl" in the movie.

But then I also have follow the generalization that teens are trouble and though I am a teen, i also carry a negative look upon them as a whole.

Its a shame that teens are so often looked down upon as troublesome or immature or what not. For me its a disadvantage because i feel that i hold a lot of responsibility. I keep myself engaged in a lot of activites in and out of school and i take care of a lot of things for myself. It just doesn't seem fair to me when adults treat me like i'm some delinquent (spelling?) when i know that i'm very responsible and independent. Teens party, but so do adults, Many adults are a lot less responsible than given credit for and many teens are a lot more responsible than given credit for. So maybe in a nation of democracy and majority rules, majority rules isn't so great.

Barack Obama

This election was my first election that i was able to vote. I admit that i didn't pay as much attention to it as a should've, but i knew from the start who i wanted to vote for. Now that we're older, I was surprised to hear how many people my age that were so into the election. It also surprised me finding out the political views of a lot of my friends. I naturally have pretty much the same views that fall under the democratic party and so do many of my friends. I base it on the society we've grown up in and so it shocks me to hear when people would say that they're all for mccain. I find it hard to believe that people can believe things differently than me. Not in an arrogant way, its just something so weird to me that people can think so differently. For example the large issues of gay rights or abortion. The only idea i can settle on is that though this is a great country, we'll always have confrontation.

rich, pretty, smart, and masculine

after reading the "Mask You Linity" blog on Sal's page, I was led to the point that we all in some way, not only gender wise, feel pressure to live up to some sort of "self fulfillment". For males its the masculinity concept, and for girls its the looks and clothes. Some girls also feel the pressure to seem tough and some guys also feel the need to dress fashionably. So many of us are consumed with being or looking richest, the smartest, etc. It makes me wonder if our own personal goals are ours, or if we've been so completely molded by our environment and society that our goals are what they are because we think thats what we have to fulfill. And as people, a society, and a nation i feel that we're so far deep into this epidemic of lack of actual self fulfillment that we've weaved ourselves into a huge mess of a web. (this isn't meant to be depressing!)