The Stress Myth?

Today, as I was quickly clicking through the top stories on AOL's homepage, I noticed that two out of the forty "top news stories" had to do with stress. I found this really interesting because, as I write my junior theme about stress, I am beginning to notice articles, news stories, and personal stories about stress everywhere. The first article,  Change to Make You More Positive, talks about the idea that stress characterizes our lives. It certainly isn't an uplifting article, but instead makes you think about why people whine about being stressed so often. Then, a few links later, you come across an article titled,  Reduce Stress in Just Six Seconds. I don't know if the editors of the AOL homepage did this on purpose, but it seems like they linked to the original article about stress and then felt guilty for being negative, so they added a link to this article to help people calm down. Overall, I just thought it was interesting that people in America are so focused on stress. Do you think stress could be considered a "Super-replicator"?

American Idol: Making it Big

While discussing The Great Gatsby in class, one of the main ideas we have talked about is the "American Dream". Jay Gatsby is a perfect example of a person who started off as the son of unsuccessful farmers and, through years of hard work, ended up becoming an extremely wealthy man. One term that came up in this discussion was "making it big". It seems that "making it big" is closely linked with the term "American". For example, the TV show, American Idol, is all about making it big and singers fulfilling their life-long dream of becoming a superstar. The fact that the producers chose to have the word "American" in the title of the show seems to be an attempt to link their show to the idea of the American dream. Do you think American Idol actually represents the American Dream? Or do you think the producers are just trying to link them to make people have positive thoughts about the show?

Adapting to Happiness

One topic that briefly came up in class a few days ago was the concept of "adapting to happiness". The concept is basically that, even if a person thinks they wouldn't be able to be happy in a certain situation, they would ultimately adapt to find happiness even in the worst situation possible. This idea made me think of a blog I have read a few times by a woman named Kelle Hampton. Her blog, "Enjoying the Small Things" talks about her life as a mother and her emotional journey learning about and coming to terms with the fact that the youngest of her two daughters, Nella, has Downs Syndrome. Kelle admits that when she found out the news about Nella, "My world was rocked to the core, and I was sure life as I knew it was over". However, after she had time to adapt to her new situation, she realized what a true blessing it was. On her blog, she wrote, "How wrong I was.  Between the outpouring of love and support we received, some hardcore life analysis and therapeutic insights I made on this blog through it all, I have arrived at the very beautiful place of Life is hard.  But it's also amazing, and I will rock the hell out of it." I think Kelle's story is a real inspiration, and is a perfect piece of evidence to show that no matter how difficult a situation may seem, people are designed to adapt and return to happiness.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Yesterday, I began reading the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua, as a source for my junior theme. This novel chronicles Ms. Chua's life as a "Chinese Mother" and her experiences of pushing her two daughters to achieve seemingly impossible goals. One very interesting line in the book says, "In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that 'stressing academic success is not good for their children'... By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way"(Chua, 5) It seems that, in America (especially in wealthier areas such as the North Shore), there is a huge emphasis on the amount of stress students have to deal with on a daily basis. Even though the schools and parents aren't doing much to eliminate stress, they still acknowledge the fact that the it exists and isn't necessarily a good thing. On the other hand, according to the study above, Chinese mothers embrace the stress and view it as a positive and necessary part of their child's success. Ms. Chua definitely agrees with the later point of view (as proven by every single page in her book). Which way of viewing stress do you think is most healthy/effective?

Stress About Stress

After a week of reading articles and watching videos about academic stress in teens, a few main things stick out in my mind. The top thing that keeps being emphasized in nearly every article I read is that the high level of stress in students is only common in middle and upper-middle class areas with top tier schools. There is a common fallacy that stress is an epidemic plaguing the entire country, but in reality it only effects the 10% of students who have aspirations of being admitted to an elite college. Another recurring idea I have noticed is that the amount of stress and pressure has gotten progressively larger over the past few decades. Though there are not any commonly accepted reasons for this, one popular hypothesis says that pressure on students has increased over time because acceptance to college has become more difficult. Instead of just applying to 2 or 3 colleges like our parents did, it is common for students to now apply to as many as 15 or 16 schools. This new born game of getting into college has encouraged students to take as many Advanced-Placement and honors courses as possible, fill their resume with sports and volunteer activities, and give up their much-needed sleep to instead stay up all night studying. All of these practices are rightfully thought to be at fault for the recent spike in stress among young students in wealthy areas.

All of my research has lead me to finally create my "why?" question that I will try to answer through my research for my Junior theme: Why has stress among students in affluent communities increased in recent years?

The Evolution of MyAmerica: Part II

     After re-reading my recent blog posts, I realized the thing that has changed the most this quarter is that I realized I have an audience outside of our AS class. I first realized this when I got a couple of random comments on my Miley Cyrus blog. It was right around the time of the Miley Cyrus bong scandal and someone had obviously been googling her name and came upon my blog. The comments didn't have anything to do with the overarching topic, but used many profanities to describe Miley and her father (which I had to delete to keep my blog PG). After this incident, I found the "stats" button on the blogger homepage and saw that I had viewers in the Philippines, Latvia, and a bunch of other countries. This new discovery changed my style of blogging by making me write more directed to a general audience, not just people who know exactly what is going on in our class. I think it also makes blogging a little more rewarding because now I know my ideas are being heard by people around the world.

      Another thing I noticed when I looked back at my blog this quarter was that I hadn't blogged as frequently as I would have liked to. Though I think this was mainly because of winter break and the stressful week of school before the holidays, I was a bit disappointed in myself for not keeping up on my blog. Now, after spending some time on my blog before the end of the semester, I realized again how cool this assignment is. I really enjoy that our teachers have embraced modern technology and given us a public forum to discuss the things that we don't have time for in class.
 P.S. The blog I would like you to grade is "Exempt By Association?"

Cee Lo's Secret Exposure

Ever since I wrote my first post about Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the N-word, I've continued to think about it a lot and see connections all over the place. The other day I was listening to Cee Lo Green's song "F**k You" and singing along and all of the sudden I heard the N-word come out of my mouth. This is one of my favorite songs and my friends and I sing along to it all the time, but I had never noticed that the song had the N-word in it, yet I had been singing it at the top of my lungs for weeks. It makes me wonder why people pay attention to the word in Huck Finn (a time when it is used for an actual purpose) but don't complain about its overuse in rap music (for no apparent reason at all). Personally, I think it's better for kids to be exposed to the N-word in a classroom environment where a teacher can tell them that it isn't a word to use and teach them about the historical significance of the word rather than just hearing it in their favorite music. What do you think?

Toy Story: My Story

 *SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen Toy Story 3 and don't want to have the ending ruined, do not read past the second paragraph or watch the video clip!!! (If you have, enjoy the entire blog post...)*

     Tonight, I decided to take a break from studying and finally watch Toy Story 3. Let me start by saying it was AMAZING and I definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't already seen it. It was a hilarious and clever movie, but the thing that struck me the most about it was how it speaks to kids our age and the many similarities between Andy's life and my own.
     Ever since junior year started, I have been getting questioned about college and what I want to do with my life. Though I'm really excited to go to college and experience new things out on my own, I feel like I am being pushed to grow up just because I am at "that age" (the age everyone assumes is the end of childhood, whether you, personally, are ready for it or not). Similarly, at the beginning of the movie, Andy's mom pressures him to make a decision about what to do with his toys as he is preparing to leave for college. Throughout the movie, Andy struggles with the dilemma of what to do with his toys- throw them away, keep them in the attic, or bring them to college with him. I see these options as representing ways to "dispose" of your childhood- become an adult immediately and never be childlike again, keep some childish qualities but still live your adult life, or never grow up.

     Eventually, Andy decides to pick answer D- "none of the above"- and hands off his treasured childhood toys to a tutu-clad little girl who promises to take good care of them and play with them all the time. I think this choice represents another way of dealing with growing up- embracing adulthood and passing on the childish fun to the next generation (while still having fun like a kid every once in awhile). What will you do?

We talk, kids listen

Today, while discussing childhood in class, I started to think about what things were emphasized in my house when I was younger. The common focuses came to mind first; sharing is caring, cleaning up is fun, and no whining allowed. After thinking for awhile longer, I realized that the things that were taught when I was young are responsible for the things that make me who I am today. For example, one of my pet-peeves is bad grammar. Whenever I hear someone say "Do you want to come with?", "Me and Ellie had fun!" or "I really need to do good on this test", I cringe at the sound of the words. When I thought back to when this pet-peeve started, I realized that it was because my parents always corrected our grammar (even when we were very young). Even though it's annoying to be bothered by bad grammar, I am still thankful for this small quirk in my personality because it's one of the things that make me who I am. When you think about it, who you are as a person is really just a combination of everything and everyone who has ever influenced you.

Think before posting

          Today, one of the students in my class brought to our attention some extremely inappropriate and hurtful  comments that were written on his blog. After discussing his specific situation for awhile, a bigger question came up- when, if ever, should the right to freedom of speech be breached (in cases involving the Internet) in order to ensure the safety of an individual?

          Though censorship doesn't seem like an American ideal, I think it is necessary in certain cases to keep violent or malicious Internet-writers in check. In the past, our government has deemed it necessary to censor newspapers and other types of media for the benefit of the country, so they should have the same right with the Internet. If anything, the Internet is more dangerous than the official media because anyone can write anything they want online. Another factor that makes the Internet dangerous has to do with its easy anonymity. When a person is saying something in person, their conscience effects them and they censor themselves to not say anything that would cause offense to their listener. On the other hand, when a person is sitting in front of a computer screen, typing their thoughts rather than saying them out loud, they feel free to say exactly what comes to their mind no matter how hurtful or offensive it may be. I think having some restrictions in place would cause people to think before posting, which would definitely be for the better of the Internet as a whole. Do you think there are any other solutions to this problem?

*for additional information about Internet censorship and how other countries have dealt with this issue click here

Exempt by association?

Lately, there has been a lot of controversy regarding the classic novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the use of the "N" word (to read more click here). Many people feel that exposing our youth to this type of language is unacceptable and that the book should be censored by replacing the "N" word with the word "slave". Though people all over the country have been reacting strongly to this proposal, one of the most famous reactions was that of Roger Ebert. Ebert posted a tweet that said, "I'd rather be called a [N-word] than a slave." Many people found this tweet offensive because Ebert is not black and would never have to deal with being called either name (click here to see one reader's response). However, others argue that he does have the right to make this statement because he is married to a black woman. This argument brings up the bigger issue of whether or not a person can be exempt from being called a racist because they are associated with a person of color. For example, after Obama was elected president, I heard the excuse "I'm not a racist- I voted for Obama!" as a very common argument when anyone was accused of being a racist. Even though many people accept this as a good enough excuse and move on, I don't think it is a reason to make racist remarks.

This idea of being exempt by association applies to things other than racism, such as using the "R" word. I am a huge proponent of not using the word "retarded" when referring to people with disabilities or any time, so whenever any of my friends uses it, I mention to them that they shouldn't say that. It's shocking how many times I've heard the excuse, "Well, I have a cousin with special needs so it's fine" or something along those lines. But, I don't think there is any excuse to ever use that word. I think the same rule goes along with the N-word- just because you know or support a person of color does not mean you have the right to use racist language.

P.S. If you want to join the campaign against the R-word, click here

The Lost Boys

As we begin reading the classic book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of the topics that has come up in discussion is the idea of extended adolescence. After some research online, I stumbled upon the concept of the "Boomerang Generation", which is a term used to describe the current generation of young adults who move in and out of their parents' house or "boomerang" back and forth from adolescence to adulthood. Though this term doesn't describe the entire generation, I think it is a pretty good summary of the type of young adults in our country right now.

Being the youngest child of three, I have a lot of experience with twenty-somethings who have finished college, but have yet to find a full-time job. Though both of my siblings are working or going to school, they have noticed that out of their close friends from high school, only about 10% have "actual" jobs, while the other 90% are living at home or teaching English in a foreign country. The obvious cause for this change in the lives of young college graduates is the recent economic crisis. Since there are so many experienced adults unemployed, the first-time job hunters are having an even harder time finding a job in the industry they studied in school. I think the economic instability of this generation is forcing them to rely on their parents and keeping them in a perpetual state of adolescence. Do you think there is any way for a young adult to reach adulthood without economic stability?

Free the Tots!

     Over this wonderful Thanksgiving break, I have been catching up on the episodes of Glee I have missed in the past few weeks. In a recent episode one of the main plots is the students campaigning to get tater tots back into the cafeteria. When Mercedes, one of the glee club girls, decides to protest the ban, she ends up getting in trouble for making her voice heard.

     This episode reminded me of when we discussed how you lose a lot of your rights when you walk through the doors of your school. I was curious about this so I did some research. After looking at numerous articles on this topic, the two main reasons that kept reappearing were maturity level of children and an idea called "in loco parentis". In loco parentis basically says that when a child is at school, the school has both the right and responsibility to act as their parents, which gives them ways to infringe upon a child's national rights in order to keep them safe.
     Even though I understand both of these arguments, I don't think they apply to freedom of speech. In the case of Mercedes on Glee, she wasn't harming anyone by protesting the ban of tater tots, so why did the school have the right to quiet her? Do you agree that the school had this right?

Born Colorblind

After I wrote my first blog post about racial tokenism, I have been noticing it everywhere. Today, when I was helping out in a Sunday school room at my church, I noticed these posters on the wall. Despite the fact that the class I help with has very little diversity, the posters all over the room are extremely racially diverse. At first, you would think that the kids in the classroom wouldn't relate to kids of other ethnicities as well as those of their own, but none of them seem to notice race at all. After observing how young children don't seem to see race a lot (or at all), it makes me wish that adults and teenagers could be that way too. If everyone in the world was colorblind, it would be a lot more peaceful place.

The Evolution of MyAmerica

Even though all of my blog posts were written by the same person (me), when you look back and read them all , it is very apparent that my writing style has changed a ton over the past 8 weeks. When I read my first couple of posts, I was shocked to see how impersonal and matter-of-fact they were. I think the reason for this is because I wasn't 100% comfortable with the idea of blogging yet and thought of it more as a paper than a journal (which is what I think of blogging as now). Over time, I ended up developing a style of writing that I enjoyed and an area of discussion I loved talking about. This topic turned out to be relating AS discussions to media and pop-culture.

Originally, I was a little nervous to cross the line of school and personal life, but once I did so I noticed a big improvement in my blog posts. When I started blogging about things like TV shows and music, I started getting more comments and enjoyed writing my posts a lot more. In fact, my favorite post, "The Secret Life of Racial Tokenism" was about a TV show, but still addressed a major idea from the class discussion of that day. I really enjoyed writing that post because it allowed me to really start thinking critically about everything around me all the time and not just when I'm in school.

About halfway through the quarter, I started seeing blog posts in everything. I even had to edit down my ideas because I would end up with 10 or 12 after one weekend because I was thinking about it all the time. My friends and I even started saying "You should write a blog about that!" whenever anyone said anything that even closely related to an AS discussion. And that's why I love having these blogs for class. It allows us to study the real America around us 24/7, which is what I really think American Studies is about.

Subliminal Spongebob & Messages from Miley

Tonight, when I logged onto AOL, the first two articles that popped up were about Miley Cyrus's new video and Spongebob Squarepants. Ordinarily, these wouldn't seem like things that would make you think of American Studies, but that's what I did immediately. For the past couple weeks, a researcher from Northwestern University has been observing our class. She is conducting a study on how media effects today's youth. Both these articles are about how kids are effected by what they watch and who they look up to. Though it's sad that young girls are watching Miley while she sets a very bad example for them, I think it's awesome that Spongebob has added some important lessons to their seamingly pointless show. Do you remember any lessons or messages you got from media when you were younger?

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?

Is slavery a GLEEful topic?

This weekend, when I had some time to catch up on my favorite TV show, Glee, I was excited to see that it was a Brittney Spears episode. At the same time, I was wracking my brain to think of something to write a blog post on. About 15 minutes into the show, they burst out into song, singing Brittney Spears' "I'm A Slave 4 U". Immediately, a question popped into my mind. Even though the majority of our class thinks that Americans still aren't over the emotional scars of slavery, why is it okay for pop culture to address slavery in such a non-chalant way? I am still not sure what my ideas about this are, but I just wanted to pose the question and see what others think.

Check out the video from Glee below

The Secret Life of Racial Tokenism

This week in class, we talked a lot about slavery and race. One of the ideas that came up quite a few times was 'racial tokenism'. Racial tokenism is basically when someone chooses to include people of another race just to make whatever they are including them in look diverse. I think the main place this shows up is in the media, and specifically on many TV shows. One of the programs where I have noticed this the most is called "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" on ABC Family. This is show is basically trying to capture exactly what the "real life" of a teenager is, but does so in an incredibly cheesy way. Since they are on ABC Family (which obviously has an emphasis on family programing) they have a very diverse cast. At first, this seems very nice and refreshing, but when I looked deeper than just the inclusion of different races, I noticed that they put all of the people of one race together and are very stereotypical in doing so. Even though all of the characters (no matter what their races are) are friends, they all date people of their same races. For example, the two Asian characters on the show are going out, while the two African American characters are also dating. I think it's almost worse to do this than not including diversity at all. It just seems like they are trying to send the message that all people should hang out with other people very similar to themselves. I definitely don't have a problem with a person dating another person with their same skin color, but it just annoys me that the creators of this show have put a huge effort in grouping races together. Now that I started thinking about racial tokenism in the media, I notice it everywhere and I'm sure you will too.

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?

Are HISTORY and GOSSIP synonymous?

This week in class, we have been discussing oral histories. We are also preparing to start a project where we will interview someone and use their words to create an oral history. Through thinking about this project, I have started to think more and more about history and where/who it comes from. When we were younger, history came from our teachers and textbooks. We were taught to listen to these sources and believe them 100% of the time. Now, as we delve deeper and deeper into our studies, we have to wonder where this information is coming from.

 

I have been thinking about this for awhile now, and have been trying to think of a way to relate this idea to my life to put it into perspective. The parallel I came up with is gossip. Like most teenagers, I have heard my fair share of rumors. From my experience with gossip, it tends to be false in about 9 out of 10 cases. I think the reason this happens is because we tend to get our information from 1 or 2 exclusive sources and decide to listen to them blindly. If teenagers suddenly decided to start corroborating their sources and speak to 10 people (preferably who don't all talk to each other), they would find that most of what they are hearing is false.I have a feeling that, like gossip, many histories are one-sided and more of a variation on the story rather that the 100% truth.

Who writes history?

This week in class, we spent a lot of time talking about textbooks. It got me thinking about who actually writes the textbooks we read in school? Is it the author who's name is on the cover or someone completely different? I then went to google news and searched "textbooks" and one of the top hits was this article about the changes different states' boards of education have made to the textbooks they buy. I have a huge problem with the fact that only a small handful of adults get to choose what goes into textbooks and what gets exluded. Even though it would be impossible to include every event that every happened in the history of America, but I think that there are definitely a few that need to be included. Obviously the California/Texas state boards of education would disagree with me. Even though I do believe everything I already talked about, I am still a bit conflicted on how I feel about this issue. On one hand, I think censorship is certainly not a good thing, but on the other hand, I think it is each school's responsibility to decide which textbooks to use and what they teach. I'm still deciding, but have you made up your mind on this issue?

American Artifacts

This week in class, we were confronted with the (fake) "death" of our teacher, Mr. Bolos. Our assignment was to write a biography of him based solely on artifacts, interviews, and the internet. When I first heard about the assignment, I was sure it was going to be impossible to find out much beyond the basics, but boy was I wrong! His large imprint left on the world got me thinking. If one person leaves this many artifacts when they die, how many artifacts would the US leave behind (if everyone in the country suddenly disappeared)?
Take a second to think about the top 4 "artifacts" you think America would leave behind. Here's my list...

1) McDonalds- Even though it's sad that this is one of the first things that comes to mind when I think about America, it is definitely something that tells you a lot about how modern day Americans live their lives. From this artifact, future historians would gather that we are fat and eat food that doesn't ever decompose

2) Our major cities- Now, this one sheds a much more positive light on America as a whole. It shows that we are advanced and are smart enough to build skyscrapers as tall as the Empire State Building and  Sears Tower.

3) The Statue of Liberty- One of the most iconic things in America, the Statue of Liberty definitely makes sense to the majority of the American population. But, if aliens were to stumble upon Lady Liberty, they would have no clue what to make of the giant green woman.

4) The Internet- This is the artifact that completely changes the game. Since we have internet and records of nearly everything possible, future historians will definitely have a lot easier time learning about us than we did about ancient civilizations.