Blog #5: Breaking Free of Traditions

It can be hard to break free from a cultural heritage, at least in my opinion. It can be hard because since its something that a person's family, friends, or even community does they are faced with it often. When they are placed in the position where that heritage is redundant its hard to try to break free of what they think is normal and right. Society tries to keep us in line by telling us who we should be friends with, who not to be friends with, what to wear, what to eat, how much to eat, the "right" model weight or else no one will love us and a million other things. Society has gotten under the skin that we forget that we are all individuals with our own minds and we can in fact decide what we believe is right and wrong. For example, we see bullying happening in schools very often and yes, society tells us that it is wrong but another part of society seems to think its okay because of what they think to be a justified reasons. We could as individuals choose to see that this is not what we need, what we need to do is step up and fight back against it but not in the physical way. If more people would stand up and argue that bullying was wrong and report it we could be more open as to who we see as friends. More and more television is giving us the idea for women of what the "dream girl" looks like and nine times out of ten it is a model who is a size zero and roughly about that size. If we weren't so closed minded we could exactly see what truly matters, the inner beauty. But we struggle to see that and in turn make a negative impact. Some people break free by standing out and voicing their different opinions. They try to get others to see that there are other options out there if they just opened their minds to new things. I don't think there is a great deal of disregarding societal norms because it shows that you actually care about something and are passionate about it being known to others.

"The Love of My Life" : Blog 5

To say that China and Jeremy were condemned by their peers could be wrong. I say this because China made a reference to the other kids in their school, she didn't want to be one of the statistics. "I will never, never be like those breeders that bring their puffed-up squalling little red-faced babies to class," ("The Love of my Life, pg. 560). China told those exact words to Jeremy to put an emphasis on that idea. Just from that statement I don't think her peers would show complete condemnation over the couple. Yes, they would feel some kind of way because the baby was killed but the fact that China was pregnant probably didn't phase them. Personally, I would probably feel some condemnation for the couple because instead of letting the baby be taken to a hospital or fire station they decided on killing the baby girl. The baby could have still been alive and living a healthy life in a safe home with adopted parents. It was a selfish move on their part in my honest opinion

From the way that China was talking in the beginning of the story it made it seem like the two were the "perfect couple." 

Boyle did persuade me to see that an event like this could happen to anyone. It was easy for him because we hear about teens getting pregnant so young, but for them to just throw away the baby, that's something so crazy. I do not believe there is a true reason as to how behavior like this can be explained. For someone to just throw a baby away without feeling some remorse it unacceptable because there are always better options. It's not hard to believe that something like this happens because we hear about it in the news, we just would rather not have to see or hear about it.

Peer Revising

 By reading my peers' essays it helped me in ways to look at how others view alcohol on campus as an issue. I was able to connect with their papers so it helped to reinforce my stand on the issue. Peer revising helped to prove that there are more people who see the drinking in dorms for undergrads to be a problem. I feel as though it also allowed me to see where my weaknesses are in the essay and opened up opportunities to suggestions that benefit my writing. My essay still needs some revision, not too major but with my peers' opinions I can easily adjust my essay to better fit the requirements. Much of the issues would be minor words that could be changed so that it transitioned better to the next topic and a few run on sentences. All in all reading my peers' essays was helpful in the ways that they reinforce, but yet opened up my view to other points against drinking as an undergrad. With the help of this I am able to fix these errors and finish with a better paper in the end.