Throughout the last few months, we have done a variety of tasks to raise money for scholarships for youth in Ghana and help organize the event for the Ghana Independence Day Celebration at the Burnaby Lake Rowing Pavilion, which took place on Saturday, March 10th. At the beginning of the project, we contacted several banks to ask them for donations. These banks included VanCity, Coast Capital Savings, and TD Canada Trust. We also started selling chocolates as soon as possible, which we continued to do up until the event, at least once a week in the main building of the Kwantlen Surrey Campus. During these chocolate sales, we would have many curious customers come by and ask us about our cause, in which case we would explain to them what we were there for. Throughout this experience, we made a few friends and several interesting acquaintances. In February, we contacted several more businesses for potential donations. We sent letters to The Bay, Zellers, Wal-Mart, and Home Outfitters. As the event drew closer, we sold 7 tickets for the event to friends and family. On the day of the event itself, Haley went to Langley to meet up with Gifty Frimpong to get the decoration materials. In addition, Katelin went to the Kwantlen Surrey Campus to pick up a projector, a screen, and the USB, which contained the PowerPoint presentation for the evening. When we got to the Burnaby Lake Rowing Pavilion, we decorated the hall with flowers, balloons, table clothes and set the door prizes up. When we were finished, we stayed to experience the event as much as we could and really enjoyed the warmth of the people and the atmosphere of the place. It was quite an enjoyable evening, we only regret having to leave early on account of work-related circumstances. We’ve both highly enjoyed the experience and have found it to be extremely rewarding, and given the opportunity, would jump at the chance to do it again.
Last class when the groups started presenting their projects; I was a little disappointed in a couple of my classmates, particularly in the project about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. This is a subject that is extremely close to my heart, because not only do I have many homosexual friends, but I have engage in same sex relations as well. When people of the LGBT community are not treated fairly or are made to feel inferior to heterosexual people, it absolutely tears me up inside. Similar to racism, homophobia is a social creation. It negatively affects people everyday and it is anything but necessary or beneficial to society. To see people doing a presentation about a subject as huge as LGBT rights and present themselves and their information in a way that makes them look like they don’t even care, it makes me tremendously angry. People don’t realize how difficult it is to be raised in a society where one’s sexual orientation is considered a taboo, and for what reason? Some might say it is considered blasphemous to be gay; however, if there were a god, wouldn’t he want everyone to be accepted and considered equal? Therefore, it seems only natural that Christians would be willing to be open and accepting to all types of people. Another reason why people tend to shut down homosexuals is the fact that the type of sex they engage in doesn’t create new lives. This is absolutely ridiculous, because heterosexual people engage in sexual acts that are not for the purpose of birth on a regular basis. In conclusion, people need to be aware of how relevant certain topics are and realize that their peers are dealing with these issues on a regular basis.
Washington State has recently decided to legalize gay marriages, making them the seventh state to do so thus far. Large movements, such as this one, prove that the concept of functionalism does not work. Society is always changing. It is an absolutely ridiculous notion to believe that each part of society is constantly working together to function, because it is not realistic to think that it is constantly integrating new parts into it.
I imagine that the legalization of gay marriages in Washington will initially cause some dysfunction to a number of inhabitants of the state, for there are a number of people of the Christian religion who live in Washington, who happen to be against homosexuality. However, I believe that once people get used to the idea of same-sex couples who decide to get married, it will become another social norm, that people in future generations will not think twice about.
When I think about how everyone around the world affects one another, it absolutely astounds me. I believe that one of the largest ways that the world interacts is through the manufacturing and sharing of products, such as food, clothing and ideas.
It is very rare that people nourish themselves with food that is purely from their own hometowns. In fact, it is the complete opposite. We are eating products from around the world, without even knowing it, on a daily basis. For example, after watching the video “What Have my Cocoa Beans Got to Do with Canada”, I realized that if something as simple as cocoa beans come from somewhere as far away as Ghana, who knows where everything else we eat comes from?
This concept also rings true regarding the clothes that we wear. When we look at the labels in our clothes, it usually says that they are made in countries such as China, Japan, and Mexico.
When I think about how I personally affect the world, I feel that it is through my ideas, shown through what I say and how I present myself in settings that are unfamiliar to me. For instance, last summer I went to visit a friend in a very small town in Germany. For the most part, people my age were shocked to hear about my eccentric lifestyle of regular visits to Wreck Beach and how I felt an intimate kinship with my fellow man, not to mention my near desensitization to nudity. After hearing this, most were shocked, but after carefully explaining what I meant, most began to understand that although my lifestyle was different from there’s, I was happy, leading them to accept me for who I am.
The Nacirema society is unique to any society I have ever heard of. On the one hand they are incredibly uptight about everyday human practices such as excretion and sexual intercourse. On the other hand, they seem to be extremely untraditional with their common healing processes, which were described as “sadistic” on the side of the men who perform these processes, and “masochistic” regarding those who receive them. Although, the practices discussed in this article are completely different from anything we are used to in modern day North America, the beliefs behind these practices are not far off from are own. For instance, when a “holy-mouth-man” enlarges any holes caused by decay in the client’s mouth or creates new holes to insert “magical materials”, it is obviously extremely painful. However, I imagine that they abide by the popular North American philosophy; “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” North Americans refer to this saying whenever they face challenging situations, including difficult academic and athletic endeavors. Another similar phenomenon is the popular opinion that women should have large breasts. In both our culture and the Nacirema culture, there are very few women that feel content with their breasts; therefore, they engage in “ritual fasts” in order to enlarge them, just as many North American women undergo plastic surgery. It seems that no matter where one is, there will always be certain pressures that cause insecurities. In addition, it appears that the majority of people will blindly follow traditions without questioning their significances.
After learning of the above statement, a somewhat unsettling feeling came over me. I don’t like the idea of people being manipulated by the rules that they themselves create. Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree with the statement; however, I believe that if we are creating our own norms, we should make them more lenient. People should accept others who dare to be different and put those strains on society, for after all, those so-called strains are what are causing society to move forward as a whole and become more progressive. I know it has been said time and time again that we must be more open and accepting of others, but that isn’t enough. The primary reason that people aren’t more accepting of others is that they are afraid of things that they aren’t knowledgeable on, when in reality there isn’t any real reason to feel threatened. If more people were aware of the fact that humans create that which creates them, we wouldn’t be creating such a harsh and judgmental environment in which we live. Instead, everyone would live in harmony and instead of condemning others for their unique qualities, people would embrace them with open arms. As this course continues on and I expand my knowledge on society, I hope to learn why this ideal state of being is close to impossible for society to achieve. In addition, I hope to learn about new ways of breaking down these barriers of close-mindedness and open my peers up to the exciting, not to mention diverse, world that surrounds them.
My name is Katelin Knapp. I love alternative fashion, rock and roll music and I am one of the biggest Aerosmith fans out there. I graduated from Burnsview Secondary School in the French Immersion program. This is my second semester at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and I am a psychology major. Personally, I understand sociology to be the study of society and the ways that people interact within it. In addition, I see sociology as a study of how people began their practices of social interaction. How people differ from society to society is something that truly interests me. I have never taken a sociology course before and to be quite honest, I am not exactly sure what to expect. I enrolled in Sociology 1125 because the course seemed quite interesting and extremely relevant to day to day life. I hope to gain knowledge and insight on the reasons that my peers function in ways that they do. At this point in my studies, I’m thinking of becoming a counselor and I believe sociology would be relevant to that pursuit. I think sociology will be of particular interest to me because of the common stereotypes that society imposes. I, myself don’t always conform to society’s stereotypical mold; therefore, I am extremely curious to learn what makes the majority of the population feel the need to conform to the many expectations and norms that exist in each and every society. I hope this course enhances my ability to understand mainstream society.
