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Over the course of Sociology this semester, this class has really changed the way I think, feel, and view things differently. In the movie we watched this week, there was a quote said that really caught my mind and I completely agree with it. "There are no small feelings." The smallest things we do can sometimes mean the most. In my opinion, they are all the same amount of meaning. An example would be an eighth grader graduating middle school and his teacher giving him a hug. Those things may not look meaningful but to the body, it really is. Even though our world has come to a horrific place, if people could do those little acts of kindness, it would absolutely change the world and how a lot of people feel about our country.

Movie "Crash"

This week in sociology class we watched the movie, "Crash". This movie is all about tracing the lives of different ethnicities. With each race showed in the movie, the movie shows how each race is effected. For example, the man who works on locks was classified as a gang banger just because he had tattoos and he was Mexican. There are so many different examples of each race displayed in the movie. This movie looks at racism inside and out. You know the saying "Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover"? Well, this works in reality too. Don't judge someone just by their skin color and race or classify them into a group because everyone is different and that's what this has taught me throughout  the unit.

Race

This week in sociology we talked about race and how it does not exist. Sal told us that race is just how we see people by skin color, etc. During class one day, we viewed different types of people and were questioned what race each person was. After the comparison to correct answers, we did a poor job. An example of this is Sammy Sosa nowadays. Sammy Sosa was a darker skinned baseball player who played for the Chicago Cubs. Sammy bleached his skin and therefore doesn't look his true ethnicity and wanted to stop being classified as black. Also, in class we were shown different types of sports balls and Sal put them on a table in a linear fashion. We were told to group them in a certain way of our choice. Most students classified the balls together based on each sport or size. In America, we group people by their skin tone, which I believe is terrible.

Community Service

Over the course of the semester, I completed more than ten hours of community service. With the opportunity I was given, I didn't make it a mandatory decision, I made it a choice. Going into the community service thinking in such a way made my experience more meaningful and important to me. I volunteered at the Bill's Youth Football Organization in Buffalo Grove. I started my experience by grabbing new pads and equipment that we received and put them into the football pants. I then set up concussion-proof helmets checking their safety and then hanging up helmets for registration. As the equipment was ready, the registration process had just begun and I already felt like I had impacted the children so much after only a few hours of work. It's amazing how little you have to do in order to make an impact on someone, something, or the community. As the first little boy came in, he had the biggest smile on his face. He couldn't wait to play football this year. This absolutely set up a flashback for me because I played for the Buffalo Grove Bills for eight years and first came in when I was five years old. I am sure that the look on the little boy's face was very similar to the one on my face at the time. This part of the experience really had an impact on me because I went through this process and had the time of my life. After putting in 10+ hours into the organization, it made me feel on top of the world and that I should do this more often. I look to do this again because it makes me feel really good about myself. I would say that I had a very positive experience in doing this and that I view things very different now because of the little things I did for this organization and community.

In sociology this week we continued to discuss about social class. Specifically on Thursday of this week we watched a show called, "30 days". This show was about a guy who wanted to experiment how the life is of making as little as minimum wage compared to his original life. He and his wife were really struggling and barely being able to live in a cheap home. The couple could barely complete this task in 30 days. Imagine a whole life under these circumstances. They would be dying to get a paycheck each week and a huge killer to the money was the medical bills. Living on minimum wage is not a healthy lifestyle, nor a fair lifestyle because the two work very hard and are barely getting it by.

This week in sociology class we talked about social class. Students were asked if they typically talk about this topic with their parents. In America, this is not something we commonly mention or talk about. If we do talk about it, it is usually kept on the down-low and do not tell anybody about the topic. Within this topic, also comes wealth. Wealth can be described with the valuables, such as cars, homes, jobs, education, etc. In our school district of Stevenson High School, we tend to think that we aren't as wealthy as the paper says we are. That's because we are used to seeing our community and neighborhoods over a daily basis. As we voted as a class, across the nation our community is in the top 90 percentile with the education we are given. This also includes our towns that we live in including long grove, buffalo grove, Lincolnshire, prairie view, Vernon hills, etc. Also, around 99.3% of the Stevenson students go on to receive a high school diploma and seek further paths in their education. That is an astonishing fact to know and really affects me that we are that high ranked because I don't even realize how lucky I am to have this. Not just me, but all of Stevenson doesn't recognize the opportunities we have in and out of school.

Deviance

This week in sociology we learned a new term called, "Deviance". Deviance is something that violates a social norm. Many examples deal with "random acts of kindness". In relation to Deviance, we were assigned an experiment to use a "random act of kindness". Meaning to do something that you wouldn't do or see in your everyday life. My positive act of deviance was when I  put gas in my mom's car at the gas station on Wednesday night. This experiment made me feel really unique on both the inside and outside of me because I wouldn't regularly do this for my mom. This is because she knows I hate putting gas in my car, so why would I put it in for her car? Also, she knows that I am just a general lazy teenager and wouldn't see many teenagers doing this kind of act for their mothers. Her reaction was quite what I expected it to be when I told her I put gas in her car. She then replied, "Full of what". And then I said, "gas" and then she said, "thanks! but why?". I then said, "no reason" and continued what I was doing. After that I glanced over at her face and she had the strangest look on her face. After this experiment, really thinking about what I had just committed. After thoughts processed, I wondered what the world would be like if everyone were to commit something like I had just did. The world would absolutely be a better and safer place.