April 10th Serve

On Saturday nights, my sister and I volunteer in the junior high ministry at our church. But for "Celebration of Hope," This saturday night was different. We packed vegetable seeds that would be sent to communities in developing countries across the globe. During our shift, we packed cabbage seeds. All of the leaders went to stake out a table where our group would be packing and waited for the kids to come. My sister and I had a lot of oour girls show up, so it ended up being a really neat bonding experience, but I think the coolest thing about this serving experience was the video that was shown before we started. It showed a women, who had recieved seeds from our church last year, in her garden that was just flourishing. She was able to provide food for many people in her village and her income greatly increased. Its interesting to think about how dropping one little seed into a bag can travel so far and make such a large impact, while to me, it is just a seed.

Skin-Colored Marker

Since the school year is winding down and we have been doing a lot less work in most of our classes, on of my friends started to bring a coloring book and crayons to school. Earlier this week, a was coloring a face with a pale peach colored crayon and made the comment to my sister, "Do you remember in elementary school how frustrating it was to not have a skin-colored marker and we had to use a dried to orange or brown" She responded back with, "Well, someone's skin may be a color in the set." That comment really made me think. Then the next day in class, Sal showed us the picture and article of Michelle Obama wearing a "Flesh-colored" dress. I thought back to my comment about the marker; what made a peachy color marker normal "Skin" and not another colored marker?

When I was looking for a picture of crayola markers and I saw this one of "Multicultural" washable markers. I think this is really interesting.

Gasland and Social Class

First hour today in AP Environmental Science we watched a documentary called Gasland. While we were watching our video in sociology today, I kept getting the two movies confused and I was wondering why, but I think it was because of the Gasland's emphasis on social class. The Documentary was about the impact of drilling for natural gas. Big gas companies are drilling near low-income families, causing natural gas to contaminate water supplies, but doing nothing to fix the problem, they just keep drilling new wells. It has gotten so bad that many people's water will actually catch on fire. I found this really interesting because in the movie we watched in sociology, the upper-class citizens really emphasized their superiority to those who were finantially below them. These oil and gas companies, are run by the wealthy and their profit is more important than the health of those in the lower classes.

Make-Up blog from last week

This week we talked a lot about social class, but we focused on income. Looking at the overheads of the incomes of CEOs of companies made me think a lot about the show Secret Millionare. In this TV show, millianares, who are usually CEOs of companies, for a week live at poverty level, working low income jobs, and volunteering with non-profit programs. To not give up their true identity, they tell the other volunteers they work with they they are filming a documentarary. Its really interesting because people who are used to living a comfortable, wealthy life and experience it as someone who does not have those luxeries. At first, living a lower-income lifestyle is a culture shock, because within one city, there can be such a contrast between the social classes. but from the episodes I've seen, the millionares really gain a lot from the experience. At the end of the week, the millionares donate tens of thousands of dollars to the organizations they worked with.

True Independence Is Never Reached

This week in class, one topic we discussed was Independence, meaning, when do we truly become adults? Today, my sister and I walked into our painting class, only to realize that there was a substitute. She was an older woman, but I recognized her from previous classes. She started the video we were going to watch and I'm not sure why, but she came over to Sarah and I and started asking us about our college plans and just small talk. Then she went to her desk and grabbed a ziploc bag out of her purse and came back. She started telling us about her children and grandchildren and pulled out pictures from the ziploc bag. She gave us advice on college. saying that when we get to our school, it will be the first time we will experience independence and there is a greater importance in making the right decisions. She even gave us advice on marriage saying that it is okay to get married in your late thirties (that is what her daughter did) and just don't meet a boy the first week of school and lock in on him, not opening up to meeting any one else. She eventually went into telling us that her husband passed away in November and her eyes started to tear as she explained how her home is quiet and it has been difficult. She also told us about a conversation she had over the phone with her granddaughter as well. And how she really misses all of her kids since they live out west. Reflecting on all she said, I really started to think about what it means to be an adult. As seniors, we're all looking forward to going to college and gain independence, but we truly won't be on our own. We still will depend on our parents to pay our tuition and our friends for companionship and support. After college we will get married and that seems like a big step into independence, but we will still all be dependent on our spouse for some things. I saw this in my substitute, she has lived a fulfilling life and has been an adult for a long time, but since her husband passed away, there is a void because, a marriage is not an individual thing, it is a partnership. Since her husband passed, she has gained a greater dependence for her children, she longs for their companionship. She continually mentioned how much she loved them and how proud she was. They give her happiness. No matter how old we are or how far into adulthood we reach, true independence in never reached, but it is also never necessary. It was such a blessing to meet this women today!

We started this week by talking about Masculinity, then transitioned into Femininity, interestingly enough, in my English class, we started reading Doll House and to begin,  we made a list of characteristics of males and females. Much of what we talked about was a direct parallel to what we discussed in sociology. We read an article, "Girls will be boys, but boys can't be girls." It discussed how women are encouraged to be liberated, to be strong,  and are now allowed to take on characteristics that in the past have, by society, have only belonged to males. But men are still harassed for having any "Feminine" qualities. My English teacher shared that although he is educated on this issue, he has still caught his thoughts falling into this stereotype. For her birthday party his young niece wanted to have a Bob the Builder theme, and he really didn't think there was anything strange about that, but when at a different time, his nephew wanted to dress up like The Little Mermaid, he though "Wow, that's weird." It think the argument this article described is a very important one to be aware of.  In a country where only a couple decades ago it was taboo for a girl to wear pants, I think that it is interesting that is now completely normal for a girl to wear a t-shirt,  jeans, and sneakers, but if a boy wants to wear a skirt or clothes that are considered "feminine," suddenly that is a huge ordeal.

Celebration of Hope

Last Saturday I did my second service experience. There is a Compassion and Justice ministry at my church and every year they lead an event call Celebration of Hope. In mid spring the entire church participated in this celebration by supporting women in third world countries through the fair trade shop that is set up in the main lobby, participating in the "Five Day Challenge," and packing food and seeds with Feed My Starving Children. The "Five Day Challenge" is where the church is challenged to eat like some one in a third world country would. This includes one cup of oatmeal and one cup beans and rice a day and only drinking coffee and water. In preparation for the challenge, the Compassion and Justice ministry is giving away samples of the amount of food to eat to every family and they had 24,000 packages of food to pack. They really needed help finishing, so a group of students from the high school ministry worked from 9:00am to 3:00pm to put a can of kidney beans, two small bags of rice, and a package of oatmeal in canvas bags. Twenty bags were put into each box and 60 boxes were put onto a pallet. We stood in an assembly line at a table and rotated positions every once in a while. Some times we had to move pallets of the supplies when we ran out, break boxes, and make new boxes. It seems kind of silly, but everyone started bleeding at one point, sometimes from breaking a box, or opening a case of beans with scissors. But the killer was the oatmeal packets, they were sharp and kept giving us paper cuts as we tried to slide them into the bags. Despite the blood, it was a very worthwhile experience. It was interesting to get an understanding for all of the work that actually goes on behind the scenes to make some of these events at my church run. In addition, one of the leaders of the ministry gave all of the students a fair trade bracelet. She told us that they will be given away to all the church goers during Celebration of Hope. She said that it was such a self-esteem boost to these women that some one wanted such a big order of something they had made.

This is a link to the Celebration of Hope website!