Blog 6

Today we started watching this really sad movie. It was about a teacher who was dying with a disease that paralyzes you. One of his students, now a sports reporter, finally after 16 years took the time to go and see his dying former professor. As soon as they saw each other it was like seeing an old family member. They clicked and they were just plain happy together. Many interesting discussions came up about the need for time, and the need to always be on the move. As the professor said, "1, 2, 3....12. Last week I could go up to 16." In our culture today, we are always on the move. Always needing to be doing something and always having a perfect schedule. Free styling it is not acceptable. Even if we have free time it is planned in. Also, this movie really puts into perspective what we truly value. Do we value our jobs more than our love, or our friendship? Sadly, the answer seems to be yes. Now most Americans would jump at that statement and say NO! We value family more than our jobs is this really true? Phrases like, "hold on one sec" or "coming in just a minute" kind of prove that what we are doing always takes precedence till the last possible moment before we move on to a new activity.

That is a culture that I would be afraid to live in. Where material things mean more than indescribable values.

For this blog we were supposed to write about the folkway that we did. I had a really hard time coming up with something that wouldn't me in trouble. I finally settled on this. During the school day, I would randomly pop into my old teachers classrooms while they were teaching and I used the Kanye West speech that he gave at the Music Awards, "Hold on, I'm going to let you finish...." I decided to see the reaction I got from teachers and students and to my surprise they varied. Some teachers said laughed and some got upset. I didn't get in trouble at all, but I also did make a fool out of myself. I really enjoyed seeing how the people got upset from an interruption. The funniest thing that happened though, was the seeing all the people that got it versus the people who were completely baffled as to what I was talking about.

I felt awkward during this observation. Looking back I don't know why I was but I think it was the bursting into a classroom part that got me. However, each time I did it I felt more comfortable. I think that this is the perfect example of why people are so afraid to break norms. People are so conservative in their ideas of following the normal way of life that they are prone to shock when something else happens.