Scenes from Honors’ Sociology 1306 1.0

Scenes from Honors’ Sociology 1306 1.0

In the group project, the class was divided up in five groups and each was given a portion of $20 in accordance with that group’s percentage of national income. The portion ranged from $10.10 for the top fifth, to $ .80 for the bottom fifth. My group was the fourth fifth and received $1.72

With that, we bought a box of Wal-Mart Brand Pop Tarts and called it a day.

What follows is my “feelings paper”

The meaning of life often varies depending on the point of view of the man/woman living it. For some, life is a never ending quest for new challenges and mountains to conquer. For others, the very act of living life is a challenge. I grew up in a working class household where there was a meal on the table every single day. It wasn’t always a new meal, as my mother had elevated the art of the leftover to an art form, but it was a meal, meat, starch, vegetable. Maybe it was canned vegetables, maybe it was frozen, but there were vegetables to be had every night. I knew we were hardly rich, because my mother announced that with every purchase. I knew we lived from paycheck to paycheck because I always noticed the meals getting more and more creative as the first or the fifteenth approached. I had classmates who weren’t eating every night and many of the ones who were eating meals that bore no resemblance to well balanced four food group signs I saw at school.

I remember vividly the feeling had when I realized what kind of project we were to undertake. As an economics buff and someone who grew up in less than ideal circumstances, income distribution and the issues caused by it are pivotal issues in my life. When I saw the amount that we had, I had already outlined about 4 or 5 different options in my head. It is like second nature to me. Not a month passes by where I don’t find myself counting the money in my wallet and stretching that money over multiple meals. As someone who grew up working class who has gone on to a moderate level of affluence by virtue of making a living serving the truly affluent in one capacity or another, I am acutely aware of the chasm that exists between the classes and the lifestyle differences caused by the access to resources or lack thereof.

It is easy to presume that this kind of experiment would open the eyes of people to income distribution, but I am not so sure. Such an isolated experience does not affect the kind of lifestyle change that would truly have an impact. If the experiment were extended long enough to force the subjects to adapt their lifestyles to such a reduction in income then perhaps more of an effect can be seen. Piecing together a meal (that can easily be supplemented later) doesn’t have nearly the effect of 7 days of careful and meticulous menu selection.

Live from English Class vol. 1

Man vs. Backyard

February 5, 2009 ENGL 1301

I am, by definition, not an outdoorsy sort. I was born and raised in a very urban environment and I suffer from allergies and asthma, so I rarely find myself one-on-one with nature. There was an occasion where I had no recourse but to take on nature myself. I moved into a house where the backyard had been severely neglected. The grass had grown to a height that would hide even the largest toddler from plain sight. The combination of greens, tans and browns that the grass, weeds and foliage presented was seemed to combine into one large ocean of plant life. From the lonely square of a concrete patio that stood as an island of sanity in a confusing sea of leaves, blades of grass, and stalks of botanical mysteries, my eyes glazed over at the unrestrained power of plant-life. This was not a backyard, but a wildlife preserve. My sense of sight was soon overwhelmed by the undeniable presence of animal waste. The pervasive nature of the smell was more reminiscent of livestock than of man’s best friend or a mouse’s worst enemy. The smell bombarded me from so many directions that it was clear that it would be futile to actually go and look for the offending pile, not that even the most prodigious pile of excrement would be visible over these amber and green waves that would snicker derisively at even the most powerful of lawnmowers. I closed my eyes and listened to the silence to see if the yard had any last words. Only the occasional cat call from a bird whistling at my misfortune could be heard. I started to walk slowly from the back door to the each corner of the yard, until I realized three steps in that the wearing shorts may have been the right thing to do in light of the blistering morning sunshine of a Texas early-morning in July, but that my bare legs would fall victim to enough scratches and scrapes and general moments of itchiness that would make merely being hot a much more bearable fate. After changing into a pair of beat-up jeans, I resumed my trek throughout the yard, attempting to gauge the actual resistance that the yard would put up to being tamed. While the yard had clearly gotten much too out of control to allow safe passage of any kind of lawn mower, I was able to step tall through the grass, making a path of sorts and allowing myself to actually see the ground. I vowed victory, turned on my Ipod, grabbed a weedwhacker and went to work.