This week in class we talked about how people from different countries do similar tasks but in very different ways. Although i didn't travel overseas i know that in different parts of this country people do things very differently. One experience i had with this is when i went to California this past summer. I went there to play water polo for the Junior Olympics. Back here in Illinois each team has a locker room to change in. This seemed very normal and logical to me. However, in California all their pools are outside which was a nice change for me, but even more strange is they do something call a "deck change". At first i was really confused where the locker rooms are at the pools. Then someone told me that there are no locker room in California! i was shocked. He then went on to explain that a "deck change" is where you literally change on the pool deck. This was so weird for me changing with only a towel around me at Stanford University in front of a couple hundred people. But as the week went on i became accustom to it and it was no longer weird for me. I could totally relate to the activities this week in class because i was in a very different situation and embarrassed about it. Even though i didn't go to another country, it was a really different world out there. Because this experience i became aware of what other people do on a regular basis.

I want to start off by saying that i loved the Bronx Tale. I thought the movie was well directed and the characters were great too. The idea of social classes and race was evident through out the movie. At the young age of 9, the boys in the Italian neighborhood were raciest towards the black living right across the town. As the boys grew older the hate for the African American's grew too. When Collogero was 17 his friends went into the black neighborhood and caused trouble by throwing the cocktails into the store. Their plan backfired and ended up killing them. The racial tensions only brought about more violence within the community. The quote "violence only brings more violence" is true here. Collogero was aught at a young age that the African American's were bad people and not to trust them. In the beginning, Their hate only was mental and no physical confrontations arose. But as he grew up, the tensions rose and Sonny ended up saving Collogero's life. It was interesting that the boys hated the black people so much that they would intentionally go out to try and hurt of even kill someone else.

This past week we did an activity in class where we had to chose all the groups we were a prat of. I chose my family, Stevenson, sim team, polo team, and all my friends. It was most difficult to decide which group i was most part of. I also had to chose which was my master status. i found this really tough too. I thought it was interesting that some group we belong to are voluntary and others are involuntary. I never really thought of my life as groups i belong too. I also realized that my groups change from day to day and from year to year.

The activity we did in class where Gillian spit on the spoon was very interesting. The activity we did in class was really thought provoking. I never thought about how our society views cleanliness. I always considered America to be a decently clean country along with the people living here. When Mr. S asked Gillian to slurp the spit back up i realized how disgusting it really was. I always knew that humans had saliva in their mouths and when it came out of the mouth it became spit. The part i didn't realize was often people spit. I am a swimmer and i know every time i breath i spit out the water i took in. I never thought about every other person doing the same. It is basically swapping spit with everyone else in the pool. i guess more than anything this activity was an eye-opener into a whole new realm of cleanliness.