Fitting In...

I learned this week in sociology that we all try to fit in by adapting to new surroundings, and we sometimes change ourselves to fit in with a group of peers. I really do feel that goes on especially in high school during your freshman year. Your young and you want friends because high school is an important time in your life. Wanting to fit in can cause issues like we saw in Freaks and Geeks because Lindsey wants to be in the "cool" group she decides to throw a party just because the guy she likes wants to do that. She acts like she is okay with having one and she is trying to be really cool about it just so those kids like her. That is true because so many people do that just to have one night with the "cool" crew but I am sure there is more than that. Another example is with kids drinking and stuff people are more bound to do it because they see other kids doing it and if your at a party and then you see some kids doing it your more likely to do it to because you see them doing it and you want to fit in. It really is wrong how people do that to fit it because I am sure if everyone was their real self we could learn a whole lot more than someone pretending. Though that is a part of maturing and becoming older and more aware, and also just knowing more about yourself in general because I know I have learned more about myself and things I want to do from when I walked into high school as a freshman.

American Values

This week in class we discussed a lot about the values americans have. We read an article "The Values Americans Live By" by: L. Robert Kohls. In this article he mentioned 13 topics which he thought americans valued and discussed a little bit about each one. Three of them that really stood out that we spent most time on was change, time, and materialism. During our class discussion we talked about how people always are just going and doing things and looking for what is the next big thing. Which is true I agree with that because I feel that americans have basically made up this value system, and we hope that everyone will just live by it. For some people they don't need to live by this and they live their life more freely, but some are so stuck in the technology around them that they don't really know what is going on in the world. Especially with apple products they come out with a new iphone, or an ipad and you already have one, but you need the new one once it comes out. Because of this value system that we somehow made it makes people forget about what is going on now. We focus more on what we have to do next or in 3 days and it makes people so stressed out because your so worried about what time it is because your on some schedule that you need to get done in X amount of time. People begin to forget and they become so unappreciated about the things that actually matter, like relationships, and family. I think that if we all let go of this so called value system that really doesn't exist we would be able to accept more culture in our world and people.