Thursday, January 21, 2016

Brainstorming topics go HERE from Mike

Please tell us about your two best possible ideas in the Comments section below.

It pays to think through and express what you might write about before you do it.

All best,

Mike

Scott Price Introduction and Journal Two

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first blog post.
As you probably already know, since you clicked on the link that brought you here, my name is Scott Price.
The fun fact that was shared about me in class was that I liked music, movies and video games, which is true on all accounts.
I really enjoy alternative rock, but I like pretty much every genre of music, with my personal mood usually determining what I am listening to at any given moment. Some of my all time favorite bands are Radiohead, The Strokes, and Tame Impala, although they are only a few of the bands I listen to.
I like movies, despite having seen not nearly enough of them, but my favorite director is Quentin Tarantino, which probably says a lot about the kind of movies that I like.
As for what my favorite video games are, I play quite a few so it would be hard to pick a single one. I play a lot of League of Legends, and several games on Steam, and have an active voice chat channel, so if anyone is ever feeling bored and wants to play a few games, message me and I will tell you my usernames and such.

I believe that the best way to learn about culture is to experience it firsthand. While someone could easily research a cultural idea, I do not think that you can truly understand a culture without experiencing it yourself. Often times, a cultural idea only makes sense in the context of the society that it exists in. For example, the Hippie movement that took place in the 1960's would seem, at first glance, to be about thousands of young adults deciding to listen to psychedelic rock and experiment with drugs, when in reality, it was a backlash against the more popular culture of the '60's, founded in anti-war sentiment (although the drugs and music were definitely a part of it.) In the essay by Lorraine Ali, this belief that experiencing the culture is the only way to understand is echoed, when Ali writes, "My father's world only started to seem real to me when I visited Iraq". Ali had heard stories of her father's childhood throughout her life, but she was unable to really understand what his life was like until she visited the place where he grew up as a child.



Wednesday, January 20, 2016

                               Jornal 2 by Matt Porter



 Hello, my name is Matthew Porter, but you can call me Matt! I'm currently working on my undergrad for Environmental Public Health/Animal Sciences, and I have a very strange interest in infectious disease, particularly those that are zoonotic (diseases that transmit from animals to people); such as Ebola, Malaria, Lyme disease, and even HIV, Influenza, etc. I am also teaching myself Biblical Hebrew because religion is also a passion of mine. I know what you're thinking: "this kid likes diseases and Jesus? What a psycho! Well, that just might be true; what can I say, I'm strange! I am also working on a book series about four youths who work for a secret organization, whose mission is to protect their home from a vast gang of evildoers. But that's enough about me.


Something that stood out to me in the chapter was the writing by Lorraine Ali regarding America demonizing a whole religion and culture, making everyone in that religion look evil or overtly stupid and unhygienic. I understand the frustrations of radicals who would wish to endanger the ideals of America, that would attempt to attack her very foundations; but because of her strong foundation in equality and freedom of religion, we must stand by her strictest convictions of freedom and equality. I agree we must weed out terror, but terror comes in many different forms. Personally I do not agree with many aspects of Islam, but because I am an American I will accept someones differences and let them be free to worship or not worship any way they see fit, so long as it does not endanger the security of others. Well that's my rant for the night. As for the best way to learn about a culture; I believe is mostly research (for me, anyway), but I think experiencing them is also efficacious. We get most of our information unfortunately, it seems, from the media. We should get it from research, and delving ourselves into different cultures. I know people from many different cultures; from Philipino to Kenyan, from Palestinian to Israeli. There are many cultures out there, and there are things we can learn from each of them.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Journal Two by Patience



My name is Patience Alexandria Gamble. I moved around a lot growing up, and moved to Marion for college in August. I'm 19 and I plan to be a high school teacher after getting my bachelor's degree, but I plan to get my masters and eventually my doctorate and move on to a career as an English professor at a university. The fun fact shared about myself in class was that I'm named after the Guns n Roses song Patience.




The best way, in my opinion, to learn about culture is to actually be there. Talking to people of another culture and traveling and experiencing it all is the best way because reading doesn't do it justice.

Journal Two from Alli Clark

Journal Two

About Me:

Hello! My name is Allison Clark but I go by Alli. I'm from Delaware, OH and I'm a Social Studies Education major. I intend to teach high school but my mind is still open to possibly teaching middle school. One thing that I truly love is music, anything from the Doors to Of Monsters of Men. My love for music is driven by my vinyl collection (I have nearly 200 now). Another fun fact about me is that I've been to over 25 concerts in the past two years. I'm a truly busy person by nature, I'm always doing something. I keep myself busy visiting with friends and family and working at Son of Thurman, a burger restaurant that has been on Man v. Food! My family is one of the most important aspects of my life, as you learned in class my favorite thing to do with them is to visit the Outer Banks, North Carolina. The Outer Banks is my home away from home and the memories that I hold there mean the world to me. My ultimate goal in life is to experience all that I can, I want to see all that the world has to offer and learn something from every person that I encounter. Like this class is centered around, I'm a dreamer and always will be. I'm excited for that all that is to come out of this class and the rest of my college career.
             In Mirror on America, it discussed the prejudices that we create in our society and the stereotypes. This really stood out to me because of the stereotypes and prejudices that I face in society as well. Whether it be racially or culturally, I feel like it's extremely important for everyone to be aware that these are created in our society so that we can start making everyone feel accepted no matter what background that they come from. This really means something to me because all of my life I have been judged from the background that I come from. My mom had me when she was only 17 years old, not only that but my parents were only together for the first year of life. Many stereotypes come from the fact that many think that I would go on to follow in my mom's footsteps and have kids young and not go to college. All of my life, I have beat these stereotypes. I'm in college, and currently work 2 jobs. To me, that goes to prove that regardless of what has happened in your life you should be given fair opportunities to succeed and achieve all that you wish too.

Journal Entry Two Omar Shehadeh

            Hello everybody my name is Omar Shehadeh. I am currently attending campus at Marion as well as Columbus. I live in Lewis Center so I do a lot of driving which seems to exhaust me at times. As of this moment I am a Political Science major with a focus on Pre-medical. I am hoping to become a doctor but if for whatever reason that does not work out I will instead try to become a lawyer which is why I figured Political Science is the perfect major for myself. Exploring new places has always excited me, which is exactly why I would go to Greenland. It is a massive place with mountains that scale higher than I can imagine and conversely gorges deeper than I have ever seen. Just standing at the foot of a snow capped mountain while facing giant open fields and a clear blue sky sounds breath taking to me and I would be euphoric to wake up to that every morning.

           The theme that everyone is different and sometimes these differences can cause someone to be excluded or even discriminated against stood out to me the most while reading this chapter. This is important because most people are un-aware of these issues unless they are a part of a minority race and are directly exposed to it themselves. I believe Randi even commented to me that she was never aware of the discrimination Arabs faced until after she read the first narrative in this chapter. This theme is important to me as I experienced the exact same kind of prejudice that Sarah faced in They've Got To Be Taught Carefully. I've lost track of the number of times i've been referenced to as a terrorist or explicitly called a terrorist, whether jokingly or maliciously. While it might seem like a joke to some people, when you're the subject of the joke their is nothing funny about it.

            I personally believe the best way to learn about culture is to experience it first hand. Your culture is derived from wherever you are born and wherever your parents are from. So naturally as a first generation American, I have developed my own culture. But to better understand where my family is from I have studied my Arab culture heavily in the past and many of my mannerisms are derived from this but the majority of my culture at this point in my life is heavily Americanized as this is what I have experienced my entire life.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Journal Two

Journal Two
 My name is Randi Goney and I have lived in Marion for most of my life. I am currently a senior at Harding High School and plan to attend Ohio State Main Campus in the Fall of 2016. I would like to go into the fields of Animal Sciences and possibly Veterinary Medicine to further my education with animals. My fun/interesting fact was that I was named after my Grandfather Randy on my mother's side of the family.

My 12 year old brother & I



The first reading by Lorraine Ali was very interesting to me. If more people would just understood and accept different cultures and different people from different places, the world would be a much safer and loving environment. So then why is accepting different so hard??
I believe the best way to learn about culture is definitely through both experience and study/research. Growing up we have been taught multiple different cultures outside the United States, and even within, but there is no way to fully understand every aspect without first hand experience.
 Religion, cooking, or norms of society are all examples of what we could have a better grasp on if we actually experienced outside of textbook and internet readings. This is not to say that study/research is not important. It would be a great idea to understand the basics of a culture before diving right into experiencing it. Doing some research first, then going through some type of experience would result in the best way to understand our culture and the multitude of them around the world.

Kristen M. Journal Two

Hello, my name is Kristen. I am a business major and hope to open up my own business one day. I was born in West Virginia, but moved to Ohio at a young age and currently live in Delaware. I am also a full time Manager at the Burger King where I live. My interesting fact was that I quit my dream of playing basketball in college after receiving several offers to pursue a different goal of mine, which is to have school as my main focus with minimal distractions and to graduate with close to no debt.


The theme that stood out to me after our first reading assignment in the book Mirror on America was prejudice. From what I read people were being judged based on their names or physical traits. For example, in the first short story, Lorraine Ali said she would be asked if she was a terrorist simply because her last name sounded Arabic. This is really important to me because I have been judged based upon somethings that I have no control over. I believe that people shouldn't be judged based upon their outer appearance or the actions of others, but by the actions of themselves.

Journal 2: Matthew Hines

 Journal 2: Matthew Hines

      My name is Matthew Hines. I was born in Ohio, and I grew up in Bellefontaine. My family moved to Marysville when I was about 9. I've always been a fairly quiet person, so I don't have many close friends outside of my family. I enjoy video games, YouTube, movies, and some television shows. My fun fact was that I don't idolize anyone.
        I believe we get most of our information about other people and cultures from our own experiences and from the media. I think that the information that we should trust the most is the information that we get from our own experiences. I think that any information we get about other cultures from the media should be taken with a grain of salt.

Journal Two by Rebecca Aleshire

     My name is Rebecca Nicole Linn Aleshire, my birthday is on January 20th. I am a transfer student from Columbus State and I plan on becoming a Dental Hygienist. I also, love helping people so it helped me to choose my major. I am a twin and she also goes to Ohio State Marion. My fun fact was that I met my other "twin" in college.
     The things that stood out in the book Mirror On America that we read was the diversity and the prejudice of the world. The stories were about how we prejudge people before we know them. First, I find that being prejudice changes how people treat other people. Think of it in this case as what if you had a boss that was different than you, from another culture it would be hard to work together. So, I feel that we should not judge people based on their culture. We should judge them based on their skills and personality. I feel like this is important because the world would be a lot different if we could get rid of being prejudice. War would be limited and people could live without problems more effective.



Friday, January 15, 2016

Antonio: Journal Entry Two

My name is Antonio and I am a student at OSU working towards a degree in computer science. My fun-fact is that I am looking to move to North Carolina with my significant other and my soon to be born daughter. I enjoy watching movies, especially at the theater. English was not my strong suit in high school, however I always look to improve myself.

What I was drawn to in this chapter was the negative influence media can have on the population. The news put an evil lens over anyone who was of middle eastern descent. What's more, this issue continues to be relevant in today's news with the immigrants from Syria. The media can lay out a story and tell it in such a manner that you are persuaded to agree with them. This type of news can be dangerous if it leads to hate, which it sometimes does.

The second essay we read was fascinating in that cultural diversity, which is usually encouraged, was looked at in a different way than usual. I agreed with the author to some extent that focusing on what makes us different is less important than what bring us together. Cultural diversity is relatively new. When immigrants came over in the early twentieth century they were expected to assimilate into America and become "American". How this has changed over the years is not necessarily, but I do find it interesting.


Thursday, January 14, 2016

Journal Two: My First Blog Post

Hey, my name is Dillan Hooper. I am an English major, and I am a senior. I work part time as a customer service associate at one of the local stores here in Marion. I've been working in customer service for over two years now. It turns out that I don't want to spend my life working at the bottom of a convenience store, so I guess I am excited to finish my education so that I can make my great escape from there. Currently, I am starting my own family, which only further encourages me to wrap up my college education and begin to take those big steps into "the real world." Being a family man was my fun fact for the class, so that may be a fair way to remember who I am.
This is an older picture of me, but it is what I found when I googled myself...
The biggest theme that stuck out to me was how subtly racist our media can be. Now, I wasn't oblivious to this racism prior to reading this chapter, but reading these few pages did allow me to reflect on how dramatically the common perception of Arabian culture has been changed since my own childhood. I remember a point in time in which a child could think of Arabs or Arabia and their mind would turn toward genies, vast deserts, ancient mysteries, and golden palaces. Now, it seems that even in the most basic forms of media the topic of Arab culture is either wholly avoided or the Arab people are depicted as barbaric extremist, which this depiction is made to demonize them or mock them. I think that it is important that we all recognize this theme of racism in our media because there are Arabs that are simply normal people attempting to live their lives, and these people deserve to be treated with the same common decency and respect that we attempt to give to all people in this modern age.

Journal Two- Introduction To Me, Devon.

My name is Devon. I'm from Marion. I graduated Harding High School in 2015. I'm majoring in English with minors in creative Writing and professional Writing. I would like to be a professor but if that does not happen  I plan on going into publishing or marketing. I work at Meijers. I'm a cashier and work at the service desk.


A huge theme that stood out to me after I read these chapters was discrimination  and also how much we all are alike. Lorraine Ali was just like your typical American girl but a huge difference was that she was half Arabian. She was asked questions like " are you a terrorist". People almost acted as though she was a bad person just because of her nationality. It was almost as though she was not a person. On cartoons Arabs were portrayed as being bad. Her dad even hid who he was from his daughters to protect them. I thought it was sad that he did this but can understand why he did. Would you want your children to be like you if you were the public enemy? Although people would question if she was a terrorist. She was a human just like them. She had feelings. She had family. When Kuwait was attacked she watched in horror. She had family living there and was worried about them. When she went back to work though people showed her no sympathy.

Bubba Spaulding Journal #2


Hello My name is Jody Spaulding but everyone calls me Bubba. I am a 43 year old, non-traditional student. I am going to college to get my Bachelors in Computer Science Engineering. I work at the Whirlpool Corporation. I have been there for 23 years and plan on being a Quality Engineer someday. I love to solve the problems that come about at work everyday. There is something different all the time. I have lived in Marion most of my life. There was a short period of time that I lived in Anchorage, Alaska. I was born there, my dad was in the Air Force and that is where he was stationed at the time I was born. I am married and have 3 boys, 21, 20 and 11 years old. I also have 3 dogs, 5 cats (not all inside), 7 goats, 15 chickens and soon to be 2 cows. I live in the country trying to be as self sufficient as possible. My favorite place to vacation so far is Miami Florida.


Unfortunately, I believe that we the people as a whole will never judging one another. We will always discriminate against on another. The women that had the name that sounded, or was Arabic was judged to quickly and was not even given a chance to prove what type of person she was. I am ashamed to say that I have done things similar to that. I try not to  for there is only one man that has the right to judge and I am not Him.

Journal two from Theo

Hi! I'm Theodor "Theo" Potts. My fun fact was that I want to travel around the world then come back and get my Ph.D. Some other fun facts about me are that I like to workout and for a year after high school I was training for the military. Unfortunately (also obviously) I did not get in. I had LasiK surgery as a graduation present so now I don't need glasses, but since my eyes were bad before the military I was permanently disqualified from every branch of the military. Don't feel bad for me though, because I'm loving college and can't wait to get started with my life plan!


The theme that really stood out to me in our readings is just how much more work we need to do as a country in cultural diversity. It seems to me that we preach diversity but never practice it. Like the girl who got asked if she was a terrorist just because she has a aribic last name. Its really sad because we all know people who think that way, because most of America thinks it's ok to discriminate against people from a country that we just keep ruining.

Welcome from Mike Lohre

Hello students and you will have a handout to guide you through this first blog post for Journal Two.

We hope to use this interface to really read and write in a medium that is popular and allows us to use media and technology to express ourselves,  and also explore and share ideas.

Have fun and you'll hear a lot of stories from me this semester so I won't say much here, but here's a picture of my wife and I in Florida for an eco-tour of the mangroves last year.  We both love learning about nature and we farm part-time together.  My wife's name is Irene and she works at Willow Brook in Delaware and really loves to garden and care for the elderly. 

Please read your instructions for the blog and for Journal Two,and then post your words and images to this site.  Good luck, and see you soon on this blog!

Mike


In a mangrove forest in Florida with my wife Irene.