Define Your Looks

Today in class, Sal was talking about how different cultures define people on the way they look. For example in the United States you are either caucasian, african american, asian, pasific islander, or indian. In African there are 8 different categories of race. You can change your race as long as you can prove your ancestry unlike in America you are what you look like. Other countries have different categories for different races. My freshman year of high school during world history my teacher had on the board "What is your nationality?" and you discussed it with the people around you. Everyone was saying my mom is from this country or my grandparents are from this country. I consider myself to be 50% German, 25% polish and 25% Russian because that is all were my grandparents are from, but how can you be only part Russian or Polish? At the end of the activity we discussed with the class and everyone walked out trying to figure out why we wasted the whole class time on this. It took me until my junior year to understand that fact. In American we consider our self to be from different countries that our nationality isn't American. Why is this? Just like in Africa you can change your race category, Americans don't view themselves in one way but in many ways. Why do we want to change who we are?

May I go to the bathroom?

This week in classs we talked about culture shock. Mr. Salituro talked about his experience with a Japenese toilet and being culture shocked after he got off the airplane and wanted to go to the bathroom. The Japanese toilet is in the ground and you have to squat to go into it. Just like Mr. Salituro I had an experience with a Japenese toilet but it was more modernized like the toilets we use. In Hawaii there is a huge population of Japenese residents and also tourist, so naturally Honolulu (a city on one of the islands) caters to the customs of the Japanese. Me and my family got stuck in a Japanese mall about a month ago in Hawaii. We were culture shocked as to how to get out because it is like a maze to get out a Japanese mall they take you by every store so you have to look. Also my family really needed to go to the bathroom. As my mom came with me to the bathroom she told me not to use the cleaning device...being the unknown to Japanese culture I had no idea what she was talking about. As I walked in the stall I soon found out what she meant, I saw there was this control panel and you could tilt the toilet so it could clean you off with the spraying water. Naturally my culture shock threw me off and thankfully there was toilet paper because other wise I would be just like Mr.Salituro and not know what to do. It was strange to me that Japanese didn't use toilet paper but after Mr.Salituro explained in class why they go to the bathroom the way they do it started to kind of make sense. My brother was also fortunate enough to go on a trip called birthright, which is a free trip to Israel. On the trip he told us that Israeli's use a different kind of toilet flusher in order to save on water because Israel is low on fresh water. So there is a yellow tab you pull if you go numder 1 and uses less water and tab number 2 as you guessed it was brown and used more water. It's interesting to see that different cultures have different reasons for going to the bathroom.

Keep an Open Mind

In class this week our teacher put up a video of a man that was born with his feet backwards. In this video the man tries to get people to stop being so judgmental that he has a backwards feet. He tells his audience that they need to keep an open mind in the beginning of his performance. In Operation Snowball it is the exact same way. Operation snowball is a school sponsored organization that for one weekend you go to a camp and do different activities and learn team work along with meeting really cool new people. During Operation Snowball they tell you to keep an open mind. When I first went on snowball I wasnt so sure about going and I didnt have that much of an open mind but when I got there and realized it was a ton of fun I let myself be open. I was open just like the guy in the video because if I wasnt I would have hated the entire weekend and may have end up ruining somneone else's weekend. Keeping an open mind when doing a new active or seeing someone is different is the key to life.

Ruach

I am currently in a group called BBYO, which is a international organization. In BBYO there are different chapters. I am in Ruach. In Ruach we have an elected board and the other girls. I currently amthe gizboit(treasure) of the chapter. In F227 the strong told the weak what job to do and how to survive. This is the same case in Ruach. The strong are the elected board members but since we are a newer chapter I survival rests on the "strong" new 8th graders. Our own chapter isn't even run by our president it is run by a sophmore in our group because she will help Ruach survive since we are a newer chapter (started in 2007). The oldest members that started this chapter are only juniors and it is hard to know that majority of us are juniors and after we leave their may not be a ruach anymore. Ruach right now is about survival but not to the extremes in f227.