I can't believe I'm stuck in this social class...

This week we watched a movie in class with a part in it about a woman named Tammy who had a family and was stuck in lower class. She has been in a low class all her life and she can't seem to get out. Her oldest son is embarrassed of her and his family and living conditions and thinks he should be part of the middle class and plans on going to college and making something of his life. It is so sad because the mom went off of welfare and got a job so that her son would think more highly of her. They don't have a car that works so she has to walk 10 and a half miles to work at burger king as a janitor. She barely makes any money and they live in a shitty trailer. It's so sad to see that people are stuck like that and have no way out whether you like it or not. When asked what I was thankful for this weekend this story came to mind and I am so glad that I have the life that I have and don't live like that and that my family isn't ashamed of me. I feel awful that life can be like that and sometimes you can't get out of that hole.

30 days...

Watching 30 days was cool. The way that he chooses to relate to other people and to show the rest of the world what they think they know is very interesting. Morgan's roommate George seemed like such a nice person that really knew what he wanted when he got out of prison. It's just so sad to see that within 2 weeks he was right back in and didn't make the choices that he thought he was going to carry out. Travis who was only 25 had been down the wrong path since he was 15 and also seemed so much better and i actually thought he would get a job and stop because he saw what it did to his family and himself, but within 2 months he was back in prison as well. In a way it doesn't really surprise me to see that these two men went back to prison because that is what we are used to hearing about or seeing. There can be some instances where people actually do turn their lives around and learn to be a new and improved citizen. In some ways prison didn't seem that bad, obviously it is, but if your homeless and don't have any family that cares for you and you just do drugs then maybe that's the best way out? You get three meals a day, a bed (even though you might have to sleep on the ground because its over crowded, but it also beats the pavement if you are homeless), warmth and possibly gaining a couple of friends. Of course there are cons to being in prison but in order to keep sane you need to look at both ends and know what is the good things and what is bad.

Do you think that's deviant ?...

This week we learned about deviance and that it isn't always a bad thing. At first we learned about bad deviance examples and then Sal read us a story about a person that was deviant in a good way. Someone pulled a knife out on him and tried to rob him and as the boy was running away the man asked him if he wanted his jacket as well. This completely caught the boy off guard and in the end he took the boy to dinner. This is very rare, no one would ever think to take their thief out to dinner after he tries to steal from you. This story was also very surprising to me because personally I would never do that. More people should be like this because normally when someone steals from us we find a way to get them back and normally this leads to violence or we just don't know how to react because we never thought that something like that would happen to you. We were also supposed to do an act of deviance and what I did was pay for someone behind me, I didn't know the person and I don't know their reaction either but it made me feel great. It doesn't seem like something very big but when you do it it's different. Im always grateful for when my mom buys me things and I don't ask or really expect her to get me something. So maybe for them it was a feeling like that?

You're an adult now.....

I think it's unfair for teens to just be expected to turn into adults in a day. In my house my mom gives me responsibilities such as doing everyones laundry when she can't, the dishes and cleaning. My mom doesn't come home until around 6 or 7 at night and my dad moved to Oklahoma for work so I have to take the responsibility of driving my sister to soccer practice or after school activities, or picking my brother up from school or driving him to friends houses. I also have to go to work on top of that so we have to build our schedules to work together. My brother who is a year younger than me barely has any responsibilities and my mom doesn't expect anything from him except for getting his homework done and my sister who is 4 years younger than me just took the step of really wearing make-up. My mom used to always tell me to get a job and now that I have one she says that I don't have enough time to do it and i need to focus on school work and getting good grades. I work at hollister and no one is older than their late 20's so it's just like working with other kids and I feel equal and there are no adult influences around. People there help  you understand the concept and what needs to be done and how and ever since having this job I think I have become more mature and learned the concept of responsibility even more.