Step 2 (Service Project)

Today I decided to start with posting about the service that I've been doing at Bernie's Book Bank. My church goes to Bernie's and the PADS homeless shelters every Wednesday after school for anyone who wants to come. I've been going almost every week since last year and it's a lot of fun. I remember originally going and wondering how it could possibly be fun to just sit and put stickers on books, or sort them, or put them in bags and then boxes, or any of the other things that Greg or Brian will ask us to do. My expectation going into it was that it would be boring and I would just do it because it was the right thing to do, but then I realized that with some of my friends there, it was really just another excuse to hang out during the school week. We talk about all kinds of things because the work there doesn't normally require a whole lot of thinking being devoted to it, and I think that it's cool to see all of the different people who go there to volunteer. I was there today from about 4:30-5:30, and I put stickers on books and packaged them for distribution to the kids and schools that they would be sent to. I didn't get the address or the email or phone number just because I've been going there for so long that I know where it is! I'll add that next week when I can find out, and I'm happy to be doing something that I know helps a lot of kids out.

A Bronx Tale

Last week in sociology we watched a movie called "A Bronx Tale." It tells the story of a kid nicknamed C who grows up in the Bronx in the 1960's, in an apartment building next to a bar. Although the movie is great, we watched it in order to study the different social construction of reality that existed in urban life in the 60's. The film shows the difference in how people were viewed by each other back then through the way that music is used. As different neighborhoods and people are introduced, specifically outlining the difference between the African American neighborhood and the Italian neighborhood, the music changes in the movie to exemplify both their feelings towards each other and also the physical separation that occurs between them. Sonny keeps saying throughout the movie that parts of an honest life aren't for him, such as trusting in anyone around him. He finally trusts C, and in being happy to see him he gets shot in the head. While this is extremely unrealistic in my life to happen to one of my friends, I think that what Sonny said can apply to my life and my friends. There are a lot of people who I know through school that I wouldn't trust as much as my closest friends, and by trusting some people it is very easy to be hurt in some way. It really shows the difference in the sociological imagination between myself and C in the movie, because if Sonny had said what he said to me, it would mean that I could have my reputation hurt or I could lose a friend or something far less significant that my life. To C, that was exactly what it would have meant.

Week #3

I've been a little... lazy the past few weeks so I thought I'd get a head start on this week's blog post. Today in class we talked about Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day and how his view of conducting a sociological experiment was so different from others in his field. I think that the best part about what he was doing was the fact that doing a simple study just wasn't enough for him to get the kind of perspective he was looking for, so he tried his own way. He tried something different, and it worked.

I think that for so many people, having a one and only way of doing something works, but for me, that isn't always the case. I've always found it funny when in math class the teacher will finish going over how to do a practice problem and there's always at least one kid in the class who raises his hand and says the classic line, "I did it a different way." There's always the sideways glances and the here we go again kind of looks, and I always wonder why. The social construction of reality in our classrooms is that there is one way of doing things, the right way. I think that at least 80% of the time that is completely ridiculous. We look at the people who do things differently as being strange, as being abnormal, but if it works for them, why shouldn't they be able to use their way? Who are we to decide that the way that someone else solved a problem is wrong? Venkatesh wanted to see how the reality in the poor neighborhoods around him was constructed by the people who lived there, and how their sociological imagination was affected. In a way, by doing something radical he was able to come to a conclusion that he probably would not have come to through the course of what would be considered "normal." His abnormal approach to the people living in those areas was considered strange, but for him it worked.

Maybe we should give that kid in math class a break.