Becoming a Man?

Title: Becoming a Man?

Topic: Rites of Passage

Source: This week’s reading in the ANTHO textbook, talking about Rite of Passage and what Arnold van Gennep considers to be the "rituals that mark a person's passage from one identity or status to another" (Robins, p. 139)

Relation: Growing up in a single-parent household, I never understood what "Rite of Passage" was or why people considered it to be important. With my dad gone, I had no one to teach me about it. When I was a freshmen in high school, I was told what Rite of Passage meant. It was the thing or things that turned a person into an adult or from one stage in their life to the next. 

Description: While in high school, I was told that Rite of Passage was something that people did to consider themselves closer to adulthood or to the next step in their lives. I had a friend that saw getting his driver license as a rite of passage. I personally never got that chance because I still, to this day, do not have a car nor a drivers license. I didn't do a lot of things that most people consider rites of passage. I know that getting married and going to college were viewed as passages as well, but while being in high school, I wasn't going to college anytime soon and I surely wasn't going to get married. So then I decided to view something else as my own rite of passage. This was the day I became the Battalion Commander for the Army JROTC program at my high school. Getting into this position was no easy "walk in the park". There was a lot of work and skills that I needed to learn and do in order to get the position. What a BC (Battalion Commander) does is he/she is the "boss" of the program in which they supervise and maintain all cadets and cadet staff within the program. I was put in charge of 250 students, just like myself, during my senior year of high school. I knew that this was one of my biggest rites of passage. I went from being a little freshmen to being the person who was well known and trusted within 4 years. 

Commentary/Analysis: Going into my third year in college, I realize that rites of passage are anything that takes a person from one stage to another in their life. Wether it being getting a car and drivers license, or becoming a BC and running a program of 250 students. Just like the young men in the Maasai community, they are circumcised to represent their entry into adulthood (Robins p. 140), I personally looked at being the BC as my rite into becoming an adult because if I could be trusted with leading 250 students to greatness, then I knew I was ready for life. Now, I have my own home (that isn't my mothers), going to college and being my third year here and having my first job at the HSU bookstore. I have definitely changed from being a shy freshmen in high school to being a Battalion Commander for the JROTC program to becoming a college student with my bills and house. (Not happy about the bills part of adulthood).  

Love Is For Everyone

Title: Love Is For Everyone

Topic: Love

Relation: In our ANTHO text book, Robbins talked about three different groups of people and their love life. The groups are the Ju/wasi, Trobriand islanders and the chinese (Robbins, p. 124-125). The main things in these groups are love, sex and wealth; each having different role in them. In the Ju/wasi, wealth does not play a big part in their lives, but for the women in this group, love, sex and beauty are very important.  The reason why this relates to me is because not only am I in a relationship with a man, but I also look at the values that the Ju/wasi live by. 

Description: Being raised in a house hold that had mexican values, my mother always taught me that money wasn't always everything. As I grew up and learned more about myself, I figured out that "love" and having the "special one" was not about having money, but to have amazing feelings for someone. During the summer of my post high school senior year, I met my boyfriend while we were taking our entrance exams for the CSU systems. On our freshmen year, we became roommates and the moved into our townhouse by our 2nd year. While it was super hard to maintain the relationship that my boyfriend and I had, it became harder to maintain myself due to short of money. Finding a job here in Arcata seemed almost impossible, but with luck, I was hired during the summer of 11' to work as a house keeper for the Housing + Dining office. There would be times in which I would have nothing to eat because all of my money went to my cell phone bills, and my boyfriend would have money, but my mother taught me not to take money that I didn't earn myself. Also with the fact that I have a man instead of a woman, society thinks that this is a wrong thing. But I feel that slowly, but surely society is letting it go. Being almost two years together, my boyfriend and I have been through a lot of things together and have learned that money, society or anything else that involves bad karma can stop us from being together because we "love" each other. No one really knows what love is, but I think that someone makes their own definition when they feel something different with someone. 

Commentary/Analysis: After being together for almost two years, my boyfriend and I have learned a lot about each other and feeling as though we have gotten closer. Love to me is something that feels amazing. I feel someone different for the person I love. I love my mother, my family, but the love the I feel with my significant other is bigger than the love for my family. Wealth does nothing, but cause problems and there is always a bad that comes out of it. 

"Do you Believe In Magic?"

Title: "Do you Believe In Magic?"

Topic: Magic

Source: Robbins textbook Ch. 4, pg. 87. Section is about the metaphors of Contemporary Witchcraft and Magic and how Tanya M. Luhrmann got to see some of the urbanites magic with "New Age" ideology. 

Relation: I feel that when people thing of the word "magic", they picture a man in a cape with playing cards about to throw them in the air and preform a trick. In modern days, people might think about the big- hit movies "Harry Potter", but I think that people don't know the true about magic and if it really is "real". The middle-class urbanites from England emphasize natural foods, food health, and personal stability. Their "magical" practices consist of mainly conjuring spirits, reading the tarot, and magical healing. When I was a young boy, I saw my first and only magic show at an amusement park. I could't believe my eyes. 

Description: I think I was about six or seven years old when I saw my first magic show. I was at an amusement park and they had a Big Top tent that was used as a restaurant. There was a sign outside of it that read "Magic Show in five minutes". I begged my mother if we could go, so after all the whinnying and screaming, we went. the only thing that I remember to this day was the guy on the stage with a cape and big, black, Abraham Lincoln looking hat, putting his thumb through a five dollar bill that he got from an audience member. I was so disappointed when nothing was neither real or entertaining. But one thing that I didn't know was that my mother knew and visited a shop where they read her tarot cards. I would always be in the waiting room wondering where I was. I would see pictures of Jesus, but then I would see candles in the shape of the Grim Reaper. I knew that I was in a store, but was to young to understand. my mother would tell me it was a place where she could get help that didn't involve a doctor or high bills. I didn't care so I never really asked. As I grew older, I met the lady who my mother would go see and I didn't feel like she was a witch or anything dangerous. She reminded me  of my grandmother because she was so nice and joyful. To this day I don't know if I believe in magic, but some people believe it is true and others think it doesn't. 

Commentary/Analysis: Being in college, I still don't understand "magic", but I believe that it is something that people need to believe in so that it can be true. Taking "Karma" for instance, people believe that if you do something nice, you will receive good karma in return, but mess with someone or talk shit about someone else, then in return you get bad karma. This is a believe that most younger generations believe in and if its real or not, who knows. Can it be looked at as magic? Maybe. It all depends if someone believes. 

What the Heck is an iPod?!

Title:  What the Heck is an iPod?!

Topic:  Cultural Change

Source:  Robbins "ANTHRO" and own experience

Relation:  As I reminisced about my first music media player which was a CD player, I began to wonder how much music media has changed since I was a child.

Description:  Growing up in a low income family, I never had the privilege to have nice things. My friends would talk about having Nintendo game systems and stereos to listen to their music, but I never had one. When I was in 6th grade, I was able to purchase my first CD player. I was so excited that I couldn't believe I had a CD player and could carry my music everywhere I went, well until the batteries died. Going into middle school, I thought I was cool because I had a CD player, but then I started seeing people with blocks in their hands. I didn't know what they were or why they had them. I soon found out that they were music media devices called iPods. I asked one of my friends to see what it was and he said it's like a CD player, just all digital. I began to get sad because I had just convinced my mother to buy me a CD player and now I had to buy something new. It wasn't until my Junior year of high school when I got my first iPod which was the 32 GB video iPod. It only lasted until the beginning of my Senior year because the screen had broke and yet again there was a new iPod, therefore I couldn't get a replacement. I began to realize that as the years went on, the music media device that was an iPod continued to get smaller and thinner. By the end of my Senior year, there was an iPod touch which was super thin and had a touch screen. In the modern day of 2012, the iPod nano went from looking like a stick to looking like a bottom on a jacket. As the years keep progressing, so is the music media device. they continue to make them "better". At least I think they are trying.

Commentary/Analysis: As I think back to when I was a child and wonder why people would buy all these devices, I never would have thought that the world would make more of them. The Apple iPod family alone has grown so much that there are more iPods then anyone can remember. That doesn't include other music media devices such as regular MP3s and what once was called Zune. But why does the music industry continue to put out new produces when there are good ones already? Money? makes them feel better? Who knows, but someday in the future someone will talk about iPods and say "What the hell is an iPod?!"

Title: Fútbol or Football?

Topic: Cultural Texts (Balinese Cockfight and American Football)

Source: This week’s reading in ANTHRO, and own culture

Relation: cockfights and American Football are both sports in totally different places, but sometimes not everyone understands why such as Latinos who think Fútbol is played with their feet.  

Description: Growing up, I never had a fascination with sports like most young boys have. I never got into sports, maybe because I found it to be very boring. While in elementary school, my class would play little sport games such as basketball, dodgeball, soccer, and kickball. I thought that those games were great, but I always wondering who invented the games and why? Where did the names come from? I never found out the histories about this sports, but I went along with them. When in sixth grade, my mother tried to get me to go along with society and enroll me into Little League Baseball, this was the worse experience of my life. I always had a fear of getting hit with the small, but deadly ball and little did I know that one day it was going to get me. It was the last inning, all bases were full and I was next to bat. As I swung to hit the ball, everyone yelled at me to run for it. So much was going on that I froze in place. Everyone soon turns to me and start to scream "are you okay?!" I didn't know what was going on, but as I turned my head down, I saw blood gushing out of my right thumb. After that, I never played sports again. Going into middle school, I met a boy who was from Mexico and had just moved to the U.S. One day he asked it I wanted to play Fútbol, I told him no thank you. I already lost one nail, I don't need to lose another. He looked at me as though I was on something. "You don't need your hands to play Fútbol, you kick the ball". being latino, I didn't really know about the sports in Mexico. I only knew about the 'American' sports. From that day, I knew that people always mistake sports and some have a hard time realizing what makes a sport in different parts of the world.  Another thing I found out was that cockfights is also a sport in Mexico and it is sort of looked as a dueling/"who's the better man" kind of sport. 

Commentary/Analysis: As I looked at other world's sports, I began to think about what makes a sport. I think a sport can be anything that brings together groups of people to have "fun". The reason for fun being in quotation is because every person has their own definition of fun. When I would visit my family in Tijuana, Mexico, they would always ask me, "Porque juegan ustedes  Fútbol con las manos y no con los pies?" I personally couldn't answer their question because I didn't know why Americans played football with their hands and not feet. Why not call it handball? I still don't know why it was called this, but I guessing it was all culture. Latinos call soccer, Fútbol, Americans call football, football.  All around the world, people wonder how a certain sport is a sport, but its all about the culture of the people who play the "sport". 

Food? What Food?

Topic: Food

Source:
- Going through my fridge in my apartment.

Relation:
- The reason why I chose to write about food was because it is all around us, even when people don't realize it. At the beginning of this week, we had an assignment in which it listed foods from all around the world. Some of the things that were on the list I personally thought was crazy, but thats food in other places.

Description:
- When I opened my fridge in my room, I was a little shocked. I thought that I had thrown away my cherries that I had from two weeks ago. As I look to see if there was anything else I should've got ride of, I saw some milk that would expire on the 5th of February, so that still worked. I have some mexican candy that had frozen over time. A half empty jar of jelly and a half empty jar of apple sauce.

Commentary/Analysis:
- After over looking my fridge, I began to wonder why I had the things I had. The jelly was for my peanut butter jelly sandwiches, but I had run out of peanut butter about two weeks ago, so there it sat. I then began to question all the things I had was just sugar. Every item had more than 5% sugar in it. I began to think about when I lived with my mother, how I would rarely have so much sugar, but when I moved to HSU, I felt as though I was free to eat what I wanted. living in the dorms my freshmen year was the worst thing I could have done when it came to food. Everything at the  campus stores was either pre-packaged or was made in the store, but was super greasy. I couldn't believe that this was being considered food. I guess some people thought of college students as being poor or not knowing how to cook, therefore they get microwaveable foods. The culture of college has built up to this that no place on campus sold anything health. The cafeteria on campus which is called "The J" serves almost the same thing everyday. Most of their foods has gallons of greasy. It was so unhealthy and for me being a freshmen in college, I didn't know any better. Now that I live with my boyfriend and roommates in a townhouse, we share most of our foods. On most days we cook chicken with rice, and on some occasions, we each take turns making Mexican dishes or Peruvian dishes. But I still feel that mostly everything has a lot of grease here in college and many freshmen don't have a great diet due to the fact that they are given the freedom to eat it all without their parents being there to stop them.