Jail

This Tuesday my sociology class took a field trip to the county jail and court house. The first thing we did there was sit in on a double murder trial.  In this double murder trial, a 20 year old man stabbed his mother in he chest multiple times and nearly decapitated her and then had an Escort service over and when the woman saw the bloody knife he had used to kill his mother with he killed her too also by stabbing. As you can tell this was a very violent horrific crime and not only did we get to hear about it, we also saw many of the pictures from the scene of the crime. I dont believe I have ever seen something more disturbing and disgusting in my entire life. This trial left me feeling very depressed and confused and also kind of angry. How could someone do this to their own mother? Well anyway, while we were listening to the trial we saw a lot of repetition, and a lot of obvious questions being asked, like, "is there any sign of forced entry here?" and, "and is this a close up of the same towel we saw in the previous picture" like x 50 it got really boring and kind of annoying. We were talking about it later with the class though and said that the reason why they do this is  because in a case this important you have to make sure every detail is accounted for and that you make no mistakes because if you do the the murderer could end up getting away because he can claim that the case was incorrect. So even though it was kind of boring at parts it was necessary. This was definitely a criminal case and it was a felony.

Positive and Negative Deviance

There are different types of deviance Positive and Negative deviance. Positive deviance is deviance that helps society move forward such as with Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. If not for some deviance acts America would not have been able to become better. Sometimes deviance is a good thing. Another type of deviance is Negative deviance, Negative deviance is deviance that hurts people such as murder, rape, or theft. Even though this deviance hurts people, without it the world would not be able to function properly. On an economic stand point especially, deviance is necessary along with in many other areas. Just imagine what would happen if we no longer needed police or politicians. So basically until the world ends there will be deviance.

flight 227

In Sociology we were talking about deviance and flight 227. Flight 227 was a case in which a group of people were trapped on an air plane that crashed in the mountains. While they were trapped on the air plane the people were forced to commit cannibalism and eat their dead friends and other teammates. In class we were discussing whether or not this would be considered deviant. I said that it wouldn't because they did it out of desperation, they didn't want to, and they did not kill anyone. As a whole we decided that it depended which society you were taking a look at. If you were talking about the society where the people on the plane came from we said that it would be considered deviant because in that society it would have been looked down upon to eat someone else. However, because while the people were on the plane they were no longer considered part of their former society and actually part of their own society in which in was completely acceptable and necessary to eat other people in order to survive.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is believing that your ethnicity is better or superior to everyone Else's. I also see this as Racism. Both of these things are really stupid and useless. Who cares where you came from and what you look like?? It makes no difference, you are who you are based on the decisions you make not what Ethnicity you are. You can decide that you are no better then the stereotype people put on your ethnicity but then that will be your own decision and so you really can't complain when people react to you the way they do because its your own fault not your ethnicity or race. SO PLEASE STOP PLAYING THE RACE CARD! OK enough of that but seriously stop. I'm part Irish that doesn't mean I can just be drunk all the time and blame it on the fact that I'm Irish, I'm also part German that does NOT mean that I should just go around and start persecuting Jews.

church

I was at church today and we talk a lot about morals. Being a Christian normally means that your supposed to have good morals. Unfortunately a lot of people dislike Christians because they say they are hypocrites, Just because we are Christians does not mean that we are automatically perfect. We are just supposed to try to do the right thing. I think that I have pretty good morals but on the moral scale I;m not sure where I would fall. Morals are not universal, one person might have a set of morals that they try to follow and another person might have a completely different set of morals. Some morals I do think are pretty universal though like do not murder, or steal, or rape people. (although, I could be biased because of the Bible and the ten commandments)

Society

I was thinking about how much I did not wan to go to school this Monday. I was thinking that school, or at least some classes in school, seem so pointless to me and why society socializes us to think it is SO important go to all four years of high school and then onto college have  too depending on what you are majoring in. I hate math and I really don't think I will use any math passed like 6th grade. So why do i have to take more math even though I probably won't use it? The reason why is because society socializes us to believe that titles matter. It sounds more impressive if someone got a doctorate in what they do instead of just an associates even if they had to spend a lot of money on a lot of pointless classes, you pay more for the title not for the education. People see it as a sign of success instead of you or your family having a lot of money. i don't really think this is fair because depending on your title you make more money and I think that the amount of money you make should be based on your ability. This basically makes it very hard for the poor to become successful. So the poor stay poor and the rich basically stay rich as long as they don't waste it. So the reason why I had to take four years of math in high school and I'm going to take up to 5 math courses in college is because in order to be "successful" in life I have to make a lot of money that I got from my high paying job that I got from my doctorate that I got from going to an expensive college that I was able to go too because I took 4 pointless math classes in high school. No wonder the world is so corrupt. In my English class we discussed that desperation is the route of all evil, but seeing as society socializes us to think that we desperately need money to be happy I still think God knew what he was taking about when he said "The love of money is the route of all evil." (1 Timothy 6:10)

Shawshank Redemption

In class we watched the movie Shaw-shank Redemption. I really really liked the movie and it had a lot of desocialization and resocialization in it. Shaw-shank is a prison and the movie is about this guy who was convicted as a murderer but was actually innocent. When he got into the prison the guards desocialize you by making you strip and then thy wash you off with a hose and then they throw this white powder on you and that is how you walk into the prison, all naked, uncomfortable, and all the same. The way that this desocializes you is by taking away your individuality. You are longer a person with a face and a name, now you are just part of a crowd. Then you are resocialized when you learn all your new rules of the prison. Most of the rules however are not enforced by the warden but by the inmates themselves. You learn how your supposed to act, talk, and where not to go and who not to be friends with. If you don't figure this out the easy way you will soon find it out the hard way. This is what happened to the main character. Once you have been resocialized in a prison it ends up being really hard to desocialize once you get out, but that is a whole different story.

PROM!

When you think about  prom it has a lot to do with gender roles. There are so many things boys, and girls are supposed to do, or at least what society says they are supposed to do. The boy is supposed to ask the girl in a cute way and then buy the tickets, drive, or rent a limo, and make sure to get the girl a corsage. The girl is supposed to get the perfect dress, set up the group you are going with, and get her hair, nails, and makeup done before the prom. Its a lot of pressure on everyone all for one night. But what if those roles were to be switched? just try picturing it, I dont know about you but when I try I just start laughing because it seems so rediculous. Just oicture it, guys getting all dressed up...in dresses, gettign their makeup and hair and nails done and girls wearing a tux???? It just seems strange to us or like they were just making a joke or something. But is so wrong with that?? Our gender roles are so strongly ingrained in us that if anyone even dresses not exactly how they are "supposed" to we automatically think there is something wrong with them or that they are gay. Its so silly.

group observing (creepily watching people lol jk)

  
Last week in sociology we were talking about the different types of groups and group interaction so I decided to observe this. It wasnt very hard to see all the different types of groups at our school and it took very little time to see all the interactions and it was very interesting. (if you have never watched people, from a scientific perspective, I suggest you try it) While I was observing the most common group I saw was secondary group. Secondary groups are groups where you are kinda close to the other people in the group but you are there for a specific reason alot like school its self. So In this group I guess everyone fits because while you are at school our main goal is to learn and thats what brings us all together and really if we had a choice many of us would choose not to go. I also saw alot of interest groups like the one im in, Chorus, the reason why people who are in chorus are in chorus  is because we share a common instrest, singing. Other examples of intrest groups are, Art club, drama, and journalism or any other elective really. With government going on I also saw alot of pressure groups. Mainly Republican and Democratic, but even within those two main groups there are even smaller groups of people studying certain bills together and the  only thing that is keeping them in that group is the fact that they share the same belief on the issue and that they are trying to get other people to agree with that belief. These were the three main groups that I saw but there are also many other groups that people are involved in, you can probably find yourself in one of each actually. :)

last week

Last week was pretty crazy. I only had one full day of school, Monday. Tuesday I went to court just to show the judge my proof of insurance that took about 2 hours so i go back just in time for sociology lol (the class I'm blogging for right now). Then Wednesday and Thursday we got 2 feet of snow so school got called off for a snow day and I'm glad it did because there would have been no way to drive to school. The streets were insane, there were so many accidents happening that everyone would have been better off having a snow day. This really showed me how dependent people are on each other. If we had not had any snow plows we still would not be able to get anywhere and people would be starving to death by now and to think all because of snow. When you think of snow you don't really think about how deadly it is but in the dupage area alone 4 people died because of it. There was this one 57 year old woman who froze to death in her car because it wouldn't start so she ended up being there stuck over night. After hearing about this it makes you wonder how kids can stand to play in the snow for hours on end. Me on the other had have never liked snow, I hate the cold weather, this is probably because I grew up in Mississippi so I'm used to temperatures not getting below 20 degrees which is how id like it to stay lol. well getting off the point then after all that snow craziness we had to go back to school on Friday which was, in my opinion, pretty pointless. But anyway I again didn't make it to school that day until half-way through sociology because walking from my parking spot to the school i slipped and fell on the ice and then puked. A group of jerk teenage boys were laughing at me (I'm guessing because I looked funny falling flat on my face) so i started crying and walked (being careful not to slip again) back to my car and went home to clean myself up. So needless to say my day on Friday kinda sucked :P So that was my week, I'm glad its finally over and I get to start over with this week! yayyy at least I know it cant be worse then last weeks lol :)

About me...

Hi! My name is Samantha Lynn (not telling you my last name lol) I am the oldest of 5 children, 4 girls 1 boy. I have a dog named Butch and a boyfreiend that I love very much named Dillon. We have been dating for almost 11 months now. :) I am a senior in highschool and after highschool I'm planning on going to the community college and getting my RN's licence and becoming a Neonatal Nurse. I've always liked babies and I like helping people so that is what infuenced my career choice, if you did'nt already know a Neonatal Nurse is a nurse that works with premature babies that cant go home right away. I am an easygoing friendly person. I favorite things to do are read, sing, and draw. Im not good at ANY sports and I'm pretty clutsy in general lol. I am a Christian, and a Republican, surprising right? lol I dont have a "real" job at the moment but I babysit and volunteer at a hospital in the new life center (place where mommys have babies lol). Well I think thats about it so ttyl!!! :)

My First Post

Hello everyone! This is my first post for my sociology class. I don't really know what to write so I'm just going write random stuff. I just made this blog like 5 minutes ago and Ive never had a blog before, Ive never had a diary or a journal either so I don't really know what I'm supposed to write on this thing lol. :D Well yeah that's all I have to say right now so ttyl!!!