Hand Gestures

In class the past few days, we've been talking alot about cultures and how we interact with other cultures. One thing we have been learning about with cultures interacting with each other is culture shock which is when people from different cultures see and think when they are thrown into another culture. One example of this is when people use hand gestures to communicate with each other. Since I come from an Italian family I am very familiar with seeing people talking with their hands. These hand gestures we make to each other can be shocking to different cultures because one gesture for us might mean a different gesture for them. In my family alot of the people speak by putting all 5 of their fingertips together and rock it back and forth. In some different cultures this may mean something else like in japanese it could come off as talking about money. What some things mean for us could and probably do mean something different for other people from different parts of the world.

Groups

In James Madison's Federalist 10, he stated that factions are innevitable. All throughout life people have been and people will surround themselves with a group of other people with the same interests. Just like in the movie, A Bronx Tale, there were groups, and even groups within the groups. 2 main groups portrayed throughout the movie were the Italians, and the African Americans. These two groups were rivals as they fought with one another all throughout C's life. C was also apart of some groups. One group being his family, his family always tried to stay out of trouble, never involve themselves with the wrong people, and work hard for a living. The second group was the mobsters, they hung out around the bar and Sonny was their leader. The third group was C's friends, they went around looking for trouble which would ultimately be their end. I believe that C belonged in a group of his own with Sonny. C for instance unlike his father wanted to be with the mobsters by the bar, and Sonny being one of the mobsters, looked at things much differently from the rest. C's master status throughout his whole life and the movie is an individual. He was always different from his friends in knowing what was wrong and right and thats what saved him in the end along with Sonny's help. I feel like my master status would be along the line of C's. I like having a good time with my friends when the time and place is appropriate but at the same time i know never to get too out of hand and know when to compose myself.

A Class Divided

Although i wasn't in class today i read the blog Sal had put up on his blog and watched the video "angry eyes". while watching this video, a memory popped into my head. i remembered that when i was in 3rd grade my class had participated in an activity just like this. it is still in my head a clear and vivid memory. it started like any other day in Mrs. Hindin's class, all of the classmates and I were in the room at the beginning of school. she then asked us to write down on a post it note what color eyes we had and to put it on the chalkboard at the front of the room in the respective sides, dark eyes, light eyes. at first i thought this was just a game we were going to play today but it turned out to be something different. she then told us that everybody with dark color eyes were not allowed to go out for recess and had to sit separately from the rest of the class. this was a pretty bad experience for me because during story time while the brown eyed kids and i sat separate from the rest i started crying. i remember the teacher telling me that this was an activity and that i had to stick through it for the rest of the week. after a couple more minutes of class, more children started to cry and the activity was over. now that i look back on this previous experience of mine and after watching the video and reading the blog about splitting the class up into black shirts and colored shirts, i now see that it was an activity on how people judge each other just based on what kind of clothes they wear, what color eyes they have, and the most obvious what skin color they are. just like these young minds in the movie they were very susceptible to judging others on what color eyes they had. this goes hand in hand with how everybody in the world has the sociological mindset about judging people solely based on their religion or skin tone. it is plain and obvious to see that the world is a very judgemental place and we must open our eyes and look beyond the skin color, color of clothes, and the color of eyes of the rest of the worlds people.

Abandon Ship

This past week in class mr salituro had us reenact a true story that happened awhile back about this one ship sinking and on a life boat were survivors. a decision had to be made. 7 of the survivors on the boat had to be thrown over board in order to save some of the survivors lives. i could only imagine how hard and nerve wrecking these decisions must have been in real life facing living and dying. in class the way myself and other classmates chose who to throw off was we decided who ever had a future and a family to go to would survive. likewise to what happened in real life they pretty much did the same thing. in class we looked over and we noticed that some of the people such as the elderly couple were voted off the boat the most amount of times. this was because they had no future left and pretty much were of no use. the ones who stayed were the ones with a future to give with a contribution, the strongest and youthful, and probably the most important, the ones who were of most use to the crew and their survival. at the end a question was brought up, what would have done?