Let's give it up for the Y-M-C-A!

Giving back to the community is always such a great thing to do; everyone should do a little community service once in a while or more! How did I give back to the community? Well, I volunteered not too long ago at a YMCA program, which is a program for disabled and handicapped children. I volunteered there for about 1 year and a half, almost two years. I loved volunteering there because I got to help children that really needed help and guidance, which was one reason I volunteered there. My little sister, at the time, was in this program, which is the second reason I volunteered there. Volunteering at the YMCA partially helped me make my decision on what I’d like to do for my future occupation—being a clinical psychologist or a therapist (the other part that helped my decision is taking psychology and having Ms. Scher as the best psychology teacher everJ.) A little volunteering can help you in a humongous way, just like the Hands-On lady said yesterday! It help me figure out my future, imagine what it can do for you.

Social Stratification

Social stratification is the division of a society according to four things: age, class, gender, and ethnicity. Social stratification explains, basically, why inequality exists among us today.

Let’s start off with Age. Age in social stratification means that you’re discriminated against because of you’re age, either how young or old you are. Some examples would be how certain playgrounds say only 12 and under can play in it or how only senior citizens can live in certain places and etc.

 

Class is next. Class basically means your status, as is how much money you have. There are three classes: high class (wealthy), middle class (average), low class (poor). Now-a-days certain items that only used to broadcast to the high class now broadcasts to all three classes such as cruises, cars, even expensive chocolates.

Gender brings a new trail to the mix. People are sometimes discriminated against because of their gender (cough, cough, females.) An example would be how in our society, females and males would have the same exact job, yet the males get paid more. Why? Because they’re guys and supposedly, as said in a previous blog made by Raul, their genetic makeup makes them inherently better then us females. Though there are feminists people in the world trying to set the equality standard for us females, it will never be exactly equal between the two genders.

Ethnicity, as we all should know, has a HUMOUNGOUS part in being divided and discriminated in a society. It’s a horrible thing, that someone is judged and set to certain standards just because of a skin color, even though, as the great Martin Luther King Jr. once said in a speech, “ if you prick us do we not bleed? . . . If you cut us what color do we both bleed? RED!”

Social and School Pressures

The social and school pressures for adolescents now-a-days are pretty harsh. They come from friends, teachers, even family.

School pressures, especially as a teenager, are absolutely horrible. The pressures from parents and teachers to do well in school and succeed are as high as the sky itself. On top of that, the social pressures to fit in! Ugh! It’s all too much! The pressures to wear the latest trends and have the cool hairstyles pushes us teens very hard; especially the teenagers whose families don’t have the means to support all that spending. But that’s not all; now, female teens have, on top of wearing the right shirt and shoes, the worry of having the right weight. I know from personal experience that being told more than once over a period of time that they way you are, body wise, isn’t good enough and that people would like you better if you lost a couple dozen pounds hurts like heck. It doesn’t make the pressure to lose weight any better by going into any establishes that sells magazines and seeing models the size of toothpicks or seeing all of your most of your female friends being ‘skinny’ and noticing all the attention they grab over yourself.  This is one of the main reasons why teenage girls are anorexic and/or bulimic.  All I can say now is that the pressures that we receive today are exceeding and will probably never go away, but in fact increase.

Peer Pressure

Peer pressure—something everyone knows of and has experienced at least once in their lifetime. Children, teens, even adults go through it.

Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms, according to the dictionary.

Though it affects everyone,Peer pressure, is at its greatest among adolescents; for the reason that at this point in time teenagers and children are very easy to shape and mold because their minds are still developing. Also because this is the era in our lifetime when one of the things we want most is to fit in, no one like to be an outcast—even the people who purposely consider themselves just that.  Now, one might think that peer pressure is just persuasion with a little extra push, but, the way i see it (opinions may vary),  persuasion is more like the vacuum man coming to your door persuading you to buy his newest vacuum, while peer pressure is a peer that is encouraging, or pressuring, you to buy a vacuum after you already said you didn’t like it—hence peer pressure.

Peer pressure isn’t always exerted by a friend or someone your age—it can be from anyone.  Peer pressure can be as simple as a friend telling you to buy a shirt you don’t want because everyone as has it and it looks ‘rad’, ‘groovy’, or whatever the youngster are saying now-a-days or be as serious as a friend telling you to lie, steal, or do something very extreme that you know is wrong and against your own morals.

Peer pressure can be caused by just wanting friends, being afraid to say no, or just personal insecurities. Peer pressure is wrong; we all know it, yet still today, especially in our society, we are still a victim. Stop peer pressure! Listen to big bubba! (well, just the last line.) 

If I was Green I Would Die! So I'm Blue:)

 No offense to the wonderful Mrs. Hautigan, but it’s all about the blue tape! Blue tape is absolutely AMAZING! That’s why it is now mandatory that it be put on every single white board in our school, and boy! Am I happy to see that! I know now exactly where to look when I want to see the day’s lessons. It helped me through a rough time in my life. (Flashback) You see, before blue tape came into my life, I could never ever find the lesson of the day. I used to look left, right, down, up, and then left again! I was so confused! But then the best thing happened, better than when they put jellyfish jelly on the krabby patties! My teachers put blue tape on the board! I could see clearly now that the blue tapes put on! I can see all the homework for to-daeeeeyyy! It was an absolute miracle! It’s not like I was always on the honor roll previous to its great appearance in my life, or anything (heh heh). Tape by any other color, is NOT as sweet! I know have something purposeful to look forward to every weekday from 7: 40 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and that is walking into a classroom with blue tape all over the board. Like, can life get any better?! 

" I'm Gonna Beat You 'TIl There's Nothing Else to Beat!"

Domestic violence has many names, like domestic abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence (IPV)Domestic violence is a problem that has been around for centuries, whether it’s been known or not. It’s a problem that shouldn't, but can happen to any and everyone. Domestic violence can be physical), verbal (threats), sexual, emotional, and even economic.  

Physical abuse consists of kicking, biting, slapping, throwing objects, and etc. Verbal abuse is a form of abusive behavior involving the use of language; most times contain profanity and threats. Sexual abuse is any situation when sexual activity is forced and unwanted. Emotional abuse can include controlling the victim, choosing what they can and can’t do, and holding information from or against the victim or even humiliating the victim privately or publicly. Economic abuse is a form of abuse when one partner has control of the economic resources of the other partner.

Any type of these abuses can cause serious damage to everyone, family members, friends, even young children. It is known that in certain households, more than you’d think, women, children and sometimes, but rarely, even men are abused. One in four women and one in nine men has experienced some type of domestic violence in their lifetime. Every hour 115 kids are being abused , which, in the long run, affects the child and the child’s children’s and so on because studies show that most victim of a violent home or of being abused , end up abusing children of their own. According to turningpointservices.org Abused children or children that witness domestic violence in their homes, end up being arrested four times more often than a child who hasn’t been abused at all and that they are more likely to do bad in school and make trouble making friends. This shows how it affects everyone, even the innocent ones.

The effects of a traumatizing event like this results in high amount of stress, fear, and anxiety. The affects on children include them suffering in emotional and psychological welfare. It also affects how the child develops emotionally, socially, and behaviorally. But these symptoms aren’t for everyone for the reason that everyone responds to certain situations differently than other.  

There are many explanations on the causes of domestic violence. Whether they’re good explanations or not, no one in their lifetime should have to deal with this type of mental stress that will follow them all throughout their lives and predict how they’ll grow up and treat their future family.

If you hear, see, or think there is some type  of domestic violence going on in your environment, report it—tell an adult, a teacher, or a parent. Get help for the one in need; even if it is you. you have the power to Help put a stop to the torture the victim is going through. You can go on the National Domestic Hotline at http://www.thehotline.org/ for help or call their number(s) 1-800-799- SAFE (7233) or 1-800-787-3224. remeber, no one deserves to be hit, help stop the violence.

Poverty and Obesity

The topic of this blog is none other than poverty and obesity. As seen in the comic above, poverty and obesity correlate differently depending on the area and country the poverty is taking place in. In some countries, being poverty-stricken means having no money at all—meaning no food at all, which would cause them to be underweight, and in other countries, like America, it can mean that you’re obese. Some would think that the two aren’t related, for the reasons that I just stated, but that is somewhat incorrect.

In order to understand the correlation between the two you must think about the people in poverty and how they have very little, if not any, money at all. You must also consider the fact that most of the highest obesity rates occur amongst the areas that are highest in poverty and have the least amount of education.

Because of this unfortunate situation, they are associated with lower-quality foods and lower vegetables and fruit consumption. Whenever they do get money to buy food and support their families it doesn’t go towards Whole Foods supermarket, or even the Green Wise Isle at Publix, it goes towards the nasty, carb-filled, greasy, unhealthy, cheap, junk foods that they can afford. When you incessantly consume foods that serve no good purpose to your body, other than to fill it, it turns into fat that, overtime, the body starts to store. When this happens you start to gain weight and increase the percentage of fat in all areas of your body.

Either way, being in poverty isn’t the best life, as far as I know, because you’re either obese and over weight or you’re an under weight twig on the very verge of breaking D:. No one should have to experience either if the two and should be able to have access to fresh fruit and vegetable resources.