Blog #2

Ever since I was younger, all of my family would tell me how bad it was to drink coffee. I never understood why, but my mom, grandma, grandma, aunt, and uncle would tell me that coffee stunts growth, you get addicted, and it hurts a “young brain” because of the overwhelming amounts of caffeine. In result of this fear being placed into my mind for years, I never drank coffee until freshman year. It was genuinely a horror of mine to drink coffee, because of what everyone had said to me when I was younger. I never really got to have my own opinion, I just did what my family, friends, and I realize now, society had said…don’t drink coffee. I don’t know when the exact moment was, but I realized that all the adults I know drink coffee, so why cant I? It was that year, when I noticed how malleable my opinion was, if someone who was older (supposedly wiser) said something, I would automatically agree or believe what they said. I can just be the fact that I was naïve, but it’s also the fact that sociological imagination & mindfulness exists within this world. Mostly everything I believed and even now, things that I believe are based upon what society has to say. Knowing that others had an impact on me and that I had an impact on others, I did what I believed and I thought “ Dang, I love coffee”, so from that day on, I have become an avid coffee drinker & I’ve never told the younger generation to never drink coffee because it is “bad for you”. I understand that it may really be bad for us, but I’ve realized it’s more important to allow others to make that decision for themselves. Not only does society impact our views on little things like coffee, but it can make us view situations with larger impacts such a gay marriage as an “unacceptable thing” or that “dropping out of school” is the last thing that you should do. 

Another interesting thing that I’ve learned in the past week is about Symbolic Interactionism views, specifically in sports. In class, we learned how people dress in a specific way to that they can either show their support for a team, to prove to themselves that their stylish, to represent that they play on a certain team, or that they are part of a certain religion. Last year, I remember that there was a huge debate on whether to choose Black or Green for our team sweatshirts and the two important things to our team was “which one would look better with leggings AND jeans” and “which color is most intimidating”. Symbolic interactionism views were very present within our team because we were concerned with being stylish, but also making an impression on the other teams by looking more “intimidating” based upon the color we all wore. Half of our team wanted green because you could wear them with leggings while some believed that we should get black because it was the most intimidating color. Society associates black with fear and power and seeing that in society, people in gangs and most police are generally all dressed in all black, it gave a sense of capability and superiority over the other team. End of story, we chose Black and the sense of dominance that came along with it; lead us to be champions of our last tournament.

In class we learned about the social contruction of reality and how people across the world, view certain customs and traditions as odd or unique. In class we had a special visitor who came from Japan, so Mr. Sal decided that it would be intresting to compare what be believed to be true (when teaching social contruction of reality with and example with Japan) vs what was actually true. Learning this was very intresting and useful, because it allowed me to recognize that the scoiety around us deeply effects our opinions and habits of everyday life. When we first learned about Japan and the bathtubs, I wasn't as shocked or amazed as everyone else was, because of my Korean backround. In Korea it is very similar to Japan in the way the washroom works I realized that my social contruction of reality was alittle different than everyone else becuase I was also apart of a Korean society and practiced some of the traditions they have all the way across the world. It was an amzing lesson because I became aware of how the world effects me, my opinion, actions, and overally my everyday life.