One Size Fits All?

This week in class, we talked a lot about how numbers effect us (mostly in a negative way) in our daily lives. The main examples used were grades, time, and prices. The other day, I realized that another stressful use of numbers is clothing sizes.

Whenever I go shopping with my friends, at least one person says something like, "I wish I could fit into the size 4 dress instead of the 6." It has always bothered me when someone says something like this, but I have just brushed it off as another unavoidable part of life. Even though many different stores have tried to remedy this problem in the past, none of their solutions have stuck. For example, even though Chicos has tried to put different names on sizes, after a few months, everyone had figured out the new system and went back to their old ways. Thinking about it, I'm not sure there can ever be a solution to naming sizes for clothes. Even if different sizes weren't named by numbers, do you think anyone could ever stop caring about their size?

Elementary Thinking

Today in class, we had a long discussion about how communities are built in certain ways to separate different types of people. Being from the North Shore (an affluent northern suburb of Chicago), I have a great deal of experience with this sort of thing. In Wilmette, one of the main dividers is which elementary school you went to. It may not seem like a big deal to people who don't live in Wilmette, since elementary school is not going to make or break your future, but to everyone from my town, it is a very familiar idea. In 5th grade, all of the elementary schools are mashed together into Highcrest Middle School, where the stereotypes begin. During my 4 years in middle school and junior high, I would hear "He's a Romona kid" or "She went to Central" probably 10 times a day. And these statements were not just being said in a matter-of-fact way, but had many stereotypes associated with them (some good and some not-so-nice).

When I was preparing for freshman year at New Trier, I assumed the 'categorizing by where you're from' would end, but, boy, was I wrong! In high school, the divisions are on an even larger scale. Instead of being labeled by your elementary school, you get labeled by what town you live in. During the first week of school, I learned a new phrase- the "Wilmetto". When I first heard it, i thought that person was just one idiot being obnoxious, but then I heard it another time. It turns out that it's a pretty well-known nickname for Wilmette used to label Wilmette as the "ghetto" of the North Shore. I actually find it pretty hilarious now, that a town that is still incredibly wealthy in terms of anyone else in the world can be called a "ghetto". From both of my experiences of separation, I learned that it will never end. However sad this realization is, it is true all over the world. I'm sure everyone has had at least one encounter with this. What was yours?