Who Am I??

There are many things that make up who I am. I am not much different than your everyday high school senior. I am into sports and enjoy spending times with my family and my friends. I believe that these things shape and influence my life. In the case of sports I play football and have a goal of playing in college. This goal helps me with the decisions and life choices that I make. My family and friends that I associate myself with support my goal and help me to achieve it by keeping me on the right track. The people that influence me are the same friends and family that I talked about earlier. They inspire me to be the person I am.


After taking this class this semester I went back and read my first post of who am I? After re reading this I realized just from reading my first two sentences that my blog was incorrect. I said I am not much different than your average high school student when in reality no one high school student is the same and there are many things that make each and every one unique. I am still pursuing my goal of playing college football and am getting close to making a decision on where which is a big step in any potential college students life. After taking this class I have come to the realization that I don't need to stress about this decision and instead should enjoy the process and let the decision come naturally because no matter where I end up going it is my responsibility to make the best of my experience. I did however get one thing right in my first blog and that is that my friends and family influence and shape who I am and ultimately the decisions I make. It surprised me to learn how true this statement actually is after we learned about factors that influence and shape our lives. I learned a lot from this class and I believe that going into the future I will use many lessons to live a better more healthy life. The most important lesson for me I think ended up being just a class room discussion on how we all need to take a step back in life and live in the present and not worry so much about the past because it is over with and the future because it is yet to come. I learned the more we live in the present the happier our lives will be. I had a great time this semester and look to apply the lessons I have learned to real world scenarios.

Crash

Before break we watched the movie Crash in class. While this is a fictional movie it still served as a valuable lesson to me. I think the most influential scene was in the very beginning after Sandra Bullocks character is mugged. The scene where she starts yelling at her husband to have a new person change her locks because the one they had know she feared was going to sell the keys to his gang banger friends. She made this assumption solely based on how he looked she never once talked to him. If she had she would have found out that he was a loving family man who has a daughter that he loves very much and is doing anything to provide her with a good life. I think this serves as a valuable lesson for all of us as we cannot judge people based on how they look we must talk with them to truly understand their story and personality. This is something that I will no do. I will try to hold judgement on people until I truly do know there story and I think all of us should do the same.

Service 3

During break I completed my final phase of service. I spent a few days going through my drawers and closet finding clothes that either don't fit or I no longer wear. Upon completing this my dad and I itemized the clothes and took them over to a Goodwill store near our house in Northbrook. Although this was a lot of work going through so many shirts and pants but overall I felt good knowing that these clothes would be used to help those who are less fortunate and most likely don't have as much as I do. I plan on doing this again soon. If I'm not going to wear a shirt anymore why not donate it to someone who could use it? This service project was differnt than the others since there was no physical interaction between me and the person I was helping but overall I enjoyed this knowing that the clothes would find there way into welcomed hands.

Race

Again this week in class we discussed the issue of race. Our teacher had us do an interesting activity to show how we subconsciously are racist. He lined up a bunch of different balls of all sizes and colors and we were asked to put them into categories. After we did this he added more making it that much more difficult to place them in categories we had already established. This is much like our society today and how we place people in different racial categories based on the color of their skin. Realistically though there are many different skin colors and it is not possible or practical to place people into generalized categories based on the color of ones skin. This lesson really helped me open my eyes and realize that I should no longer put people into categories of "black" or "white"  and instead treat each person as an individual.

Service #2

On Sunday December 4 I again had the opportunity to help out my church St. Norbert's. I did this again through the same group as before however this time I was working with kids. Our church hosts an annual arts and crafts show every year and while the parents shop we give the kids a space to go so they don't have to shop too. This year just as in years past we had the kids painting Christmas ornaments. While I am definitely not the most artistically talented person I enjoy working with little kids so I thought this would be a good way to help out. From 8-2 we helped the kids paint their ornaments. I had a great time but at times when the sale was going slow there wasn't many kids which made it boring. At the end of the day though I felt great helping out because you could tell the kids were having a great time painting their ornaments and we got to help them through the process which was a satisfying feeling. Out of the two service projects I have done so far this was by far the most enjoyable of the two and I would gladly do this again.

Service #1

On Thursday December 1 I had the opportunity to help out my church St. Norberts and my youth ministry leader Maggie Bruce. Every year our church puts together a present drive where we collect presents to give to members of our community that may not be able to afford gifts for Christmas. So on Thursday from 7-830 we organized gifts that people had already brought in. While there wasn't many gifts yet I enjoyed the opportunity to help out our church while at the same time realizing that I was helping members of our community in need. I was glad I could try and do my best to help out those people have an enjoyable Christmas that we have all grown to love and at times take for granted.

Monopoly

This week in class we played Monopoly. However, it wasn't your traditional game, we had new rules to resemble the American system. Each player was divided into classes ranging from the top of the class structure to the very bottom. I was stuck in the second to last position which we called the lower middle class. While this is not as bad as the working class it was still hard to do anything with the limited amount of money I was given. I would land on certain properties with the hopes of buying only to realize I didn't have the capital to do so. But I realized I was much better off than the working class who in our group wasn't able to buy a single property and was thrown in jail and never was able to get out. While it was fun to play in class its a sad realization that people actually live like this only instead of monopoly money they are using the real thing and they are living their life in a constant struggle trying to pay off their debts and trying to stay on top of their finances. It wasn't until playing this game that I truly understood the struggles that the everyday blue collar worker goes through in today's America. I thought this was an extremely valuable lesson and should be used in future classes.