RACE!...ist.

Ok soon wednesday we looked at a bunch of balls on the table. random baseballs basketballs footballs etc. and we were asked to put them into categories. now most people did color or size. but when salituro added more balls into the pile, it made it harder to distinugish what was what. i still think i had a pretty good 3 category combo. that was Fuzzy, Leather, Plastic. you can basically clearly tell what has fuzzy on it, whats made of majority leather, and obviously whats plastic. But of course theres an ultior motive to the assignment and again i was wrong. But there is a good lesson there. and i did learn something, that people all along the equator are black. i didnt know there were black austrailians and so on. what still bugs me is Asians, i understand the black and white pigetmentation differences. but what makes asians different? blacks were something with melanin in their skin that absorbs more vitaman C and changes tehir color, but what about the geography affects the worlds asians in the way that it does, thats what gets me. feel free to comment and answer the question. Moral of the day. dont try and categorize athletic balls (proven to not work!..ask sal)

Minimum wage

Another showing of Morgan Spurlocks 30 Days show. Although in this episode he wanted to spend 30 days living on minimum wage. Which i still say is doable, becuase if you look at society, quite clearly there are people living this life everyday. and right off the bat. i found some clear mistakes as to why he failed. and by fail i mean he was in debt at the end of the show. morgan and his fiance both worked a full time job making around 7.00 and hour. The first mistake i saw was...They bought a decent apartment right off the bat. If they really wanted to survive they could've bought a crummier place for the first month just so they can get their bearings and start to get a profit enough to get on their feet. But they bought the apartment, payed the deposits. and were already in quite a bit of debt. the second thing i saw was they ate fairly decent food. they showed rice and beans alot. but they also had some nice vegetable dishes which i understand can be nice at certain points. but if they were really that cautious about their money they could've bought something like ramen noodle soup, which is 30 cents a package...and the other thing. was they both got hurt right away which wouldnt always happen. because after working that manual labor lifestlye you would build some stronger resistances and be able to tolerate things like that so you wouldnt pay a 1500 dollar hospital bill...and the last movie fail was..They only did it for one month..in that month he had to buy the house, buy the buss pass, get a job, so he lost alot of money, and alot of time. if he lived that life. he would be getting raises as he continued in his career, not making 7.00 from day one to finish., and he wouldnt be paying for all those starting luxuries that he had to afford in the beginning. All in All, a rough lifestlye if you have to live it. but it can be done.

Monopoly...American style?

We played monopoly in class, but not the standard monopoly. You know, the communist way. of Everyone starting with thesame amount of money, 2 500's 2 100's... all equal change to get the same proprties, and the same ways to go to jail. We played using hte American economy system. Upper class, starting with nearly 4000 dollars, and all teh railroads.. he Middl class with a few properties and nearly 2000 dollars. the lower class with around 500 dollars and no properties, and hte working class with about 200 dolars and no properties. Not only that... but whne we passed GO, the upper class got 500, middle got 230, lower got about 80, Working got like 40. As you can see if you werent upper class or middle class. there really was no room for advancement in the social class system. I was fortuanate enough to be middle class. I still had no chance of winning the game. But in the beginning i got enough properties to knock out the lower two classes. there was no competition like there is in the original game. every turn the lower classes would pay me rent, small amounts but because they had limited funds it really hurt them. In the end of the class period i would've lost to the upper class "Wasp" I wouldnt of been able to catch up to her wealth with what i had. But this game really related to society today because it makes sense. If your working class. unless by some miracle, there really no chance of you advancing to middle class. you get stuck at the bottom jsut skating by, if you make it at all. but if your in middle class you got a fairly decent chance of staying there and advancing if time goes on long enough. But the quote " The rich get richer, the poor get poorer" really is the dominant status of our economy right now.

Deviance...Condescending, But sometimes Honorable!

Deviance as we all probably can associate is a bad thing...Or so we are taught. We are taught to stay away from the deviant ones in school because our parents say that they'll get us into trouble...or at least mine did...Little did she know....ANYWAY...Its those deviant kids that sometimes are the ones TO be around, We read an article in class you can on Sal's Page. That a man when he was mugged, decided to talk to the muggar, and bought him dinner, gave him some cash and "treated him Right" whens the last time you did that? I'll answer for you. Proably Never. So as an assignment I had to show a Random Act of Deviance...So over the weekend I was at a buddies lakehouse, and we went out to dinner for pizza, and other snacks and goodies. But as we were cahtting at our table. we noticed that our friends father forgot his wallet. So us (3 kids) we threw in what money we had in our wallets and we ended up having enough..Beat doing the dishes...at the time I didnt even think about the random act of deviance...actually didnt really think about it till I got to school and we talked about it. But it was there nonetheless. So instead of avoiding the Deviant ones...Learn from them.

Super Size...Jail for 30 days!

Yes, I failed in the title, but I left it for comic use...In class we watched an episode of 30 days, with the same actor from Super Size me. After his great success with humiliating the famously delicious Mcdonalds chain, He created his own show in which he does some random act of (stupidity) for 30 days...One detail I found funny in this show, was he only did 25 days in prison becuase inmates only serve about 85% of their time. Soo...False Advertisement. Anyway, Great show. I actually learned alot from watching little clips of convicts..(good or bad?)... He was served three meals a day, each costing about 60 cents to make, ironically the same company that makes our food for lunch Sodexo, yet they charge us 3 dollars to eat Hooray for the patriots. But even though they were put away for various reasons, they got along like brothers, even with no structure really. They took in Morgan right away into a room. And he met George who has been in and out of jail for 30 years or so. He did 15 years and was in there for a little while longer for more crimes. He got a letter halfway through the show saying he was being released, and the one man who had some mental issues was upset because George was really the only one who looked after him. In a jailcell with 30 other people, convicts no less. they really looked out for eachother and tried to help out, giving food, keeping things clean, Not shanking like morgan originally thought. keep in mind he went into the drug unit, so it wasnt rapists and murderes, but convicts still. a few of the guys that were in there were trying to get over their addiction so their first few nights were very rough for them, and seeing as we pay alot for jails I would've thought that they would've gotten some extra treatment. None. except for what they're buddies in jail provided, which was sufficient. The last, yet saddest fact was that like 70% of people that went in, went in again for offences. because they're so used to the social norms that they become accustumed to in the jail world. Take george the man that was released. He is 50 years old. been in jail multiple times. some for years and years at a time. Yet 2 weeks after he got his early release...He went back. A sad story but thats the true life that some people have to live. After seeing the show I feel differently and dont really want to end up in jail like that. But if I do, I know that there will be some structure for me. (thumbs up).

Ai-Ki-Do (peace/harmony--Energy--Way)

Today i found out very painfully That Mr. Salituro is an Aikido MASTER. its a fairly new form of martial art that was developed in the low 1900's on a battleship i believe, with an officer that attacked a crewman that was skilled in martial arts and the crewman knew that if he hurt the officer hed be dishonorably discharged which would bring him and his family great dishonor. So he proceeded to end the threat with lots of the throws and dodges till the officer accepted defeat. The crewman then decided to develop a new form of martial art called AiKido which instead of breaking the arms and legs of your opponent you can simply tire them out, disarm them, weaken them into submission without any permanent lifechanging damage. We also read an article today about a boy on a bus that was ready to beat up a drunken man that was causing a riot, he was very excited to finally get to use his aikido skills and really hurt the bum that was harassing the busfolk. Right when he was about to make his strike, an old man in a wheelchair came onto the bus and calmed the man through words and gentle talking. talking about his life and got the drunken man to admit his sadness with the loss of his wife and job and so on. Then the boy realized that he had just seen aikido in action, that it didnt take a strong jab or toss to bring the man down Gentle words and calm conversation the peacefulness was what he really needed. and he didnt have to fight like the boy had planned to. I think the world needs more of this. I've taken Karate, Taekwondo, Jiujitsu, and Aikido, but I never knew the history of aikido and what it really meant. jiujitsu espicially is meant to kill. If you get close to getting hit, you break the arms and legs and go for the throat. Same with karate. But now I've got a new look at what you can do with martial arts. It is the discipline side of trying to really avoid the pain you can cause and just neutralize the problem. Like I said. The world needs more of this.

Discrimination...In Media?

In class we watched a long movie about the discrimination in media. I always somewhat knew of the problems and the strategies that companies use to advertise their products such as using the most attractive women out there and even reshaping them to be perfect and have flawless edges that the original model couldnt compete with. They use the sexy poses for almost everything. Even random commercials such as Jeans and Taco Bell, They had a super model eating a taco, wouldnt happen ever in real life. The jeans commercial they proceeded to undress and really show the jeans off...others the only things Missing were teh jeans. Msot of all though, women are used in alchol commercials, as being part of the beer or whatever it may be. Never treated as themselves or women alone. they're always an object, or something just to be looked at. the studies show that it makes women feel inferior to the women that are shaped like beer bottles...And so they go on diets and develop eating disorders, and ultimately can really harm their life in the future due to careless advertising. It really is an injustice but nothing can be done since the court has previously ruled that the government cant prevent what happens in the media and cant control advertising. One thing that can be done is to try adn prevent kids and teens from seeing these types of advertisements...Odds of that succeeding are probably less than getting hit by lightning 12 times in a row. Salituro tries to keep his daughters away from disney movies because he doesnt like the messages they send out. I guess we will find out in a couple years how well that plan works (lol). I've definately noticed a change in advertising, even men are now 90% of the time undressed in order to look cool. Its weird if you think about it. so try it. think. and Comment.

Community Service...Accomplished.

Well thats it, ive officially finished all community service hours. I had to do 20 because of Political Thought, but well worth the Effort. I worked at Habitat for Humanity for 8 hours destroying a house, only to be rebuilt again...Smaller...But i also have been teaching Self defence Club at SHS on wednesdays, I get 2-3 hours each week for that. but I think thats more fun than actual work. And lastly, ive done multiple weeks at the Food Pantry at St. Francais De Sales Church in Lake Zurich. generally that goes from 6-9 if anyone is interested. I really liked the pantry, it is funny because the last 2 times ive gone there all the workers and people that come for food recognize me now. I even joke with some of the people that come in, makes the time go by quickly. Its easy but meaningful work I encourage everyone to go to a food pantry and help out. It makes me feel less materialistic when I know I can give up a little bit of my time to help out other people.

Tuesdays with Morrie.

As you all should know. We watched a movie in class, called tuesdays with Morrie (I think thats how you spell morrie). An old man dieing of ALS filled with wisdom, seeing as he is a sociology teacher why wouldnt he be. (see what you have to look forward too Mr. Sal). He spoke alot about love and friendship. Every week was a new message, and with each new message the main character was changed greatly. and for hte better of course. Most of what I got out of his messages were the main big ones. like you cant live life without love, thats the basis of all things, is to be loved. From infants to elderly you have to be loved or its not worth living. The other was in order to live you have to know how to die. And Morrie knew how to do just that. He admitted he was afraid but he knew it would happen and he knew how he wanted to go. And he wanted everyone to hear his tale before he was gone. I myself and terrifide of getting old. I have no fear of dying what so ever. just not while im old. Seeing my grandpa in the hospital and other elderly people. I think its terrible to have to live like that. Im an active person and if i have to be confined to a chair peeing through tubes, having someone carry me and feed me like a newborn baby. I couldnt take it. So i believe the main lesson people need to learn from morrie is, "In order to live you have to first learn how to die"

The Bread Pantry...

Now you're probably wondering why I labeled this post the Bread pantry, On Thursday night I worked at a food pantry from 6 to 9:30. Handing out food to and running carts to peoples carts, the typical things. But I call it a bread pantry because when I walked in, I believe we had more bread than any other item. Probably close to the amount of can soups that were there. So what I thought was...Why did they buy all this bread, there can't be that many people that are going to take a bread loaf, especially considering they were only allowed one. And the fact that there was more bread than any other item. It Baffled me...But at the end of the night, the first thing gone..Was the Bread! I don't live in a poor district. Its not royal melbourne, but it is the standard suburb. Everyone around me seems fairly wealthy. I had no idea that There were over 300 people that night that came in and were able to take food from the pantry at St. Francis De Sales church. But now i know there are. I finished the 10 hours that were required for sociology. But by no means am I done doing community service. There is always so much to be done. even when I was there. I started by double bagging some shopping bags so they didn't rip when the people where shopping. and then I started running bags from the back to the front (the full ones that people had filled) All sorts of items. Like salads and meats donated from jewel. obviously the standard canned items that were donated from numerous individuals. But most of all..Peanut butter and Bread. yes there was more peanut butter than god himself could consume..Seriously Jelly couldn't compete even it wanted to. It was a fast 3 and a half hours. And I wouldn't mind going again. perhaps I'll bring some friends...