wawa sandwich meets a culture basher!

okay so earlier today i  went to get my favorite sandwich at wawa and as i was waiting for mine to be made i could not help but hear the sandwich making employee talkiing very loudly to her coworker. She was talking about her cousins who live in Naples, Italy. She said that everytime they come to visit it is so annoying because all they do is complain about how fat and rufe americans are. Then she added that they were qp times more annoying simply because they are italian. and finally she said she hates when they come because they can not understand that the rules in Italy are not the same as here in the us. I just thought it was hilarious how she was so blunt about all of this, it seemed about as stereotypical american as you can get! not to mention, i wanted my sandwich and she was just blabbing away with no care in the world! i guess im pretty American too....

Clever Commercial!

Okay so the other day I saw this commercial for the first time and I thought it was really funny and clever! Like I would totally love to do that to my kids if I had them! But today my Grandmother was talking about this commercial and she thought it was a disgrace that anyone would ever do that to their kids! So I guess that shows the differences between a 15 year old and a 65 year old.....and I kinda think it has to do with the way both of us were brought up in such different time periods!

Easter :)

Today I got to thinking about how strange our holidays are in the US. If you think about it, a whole lot of people here celebrate Easter here, but I'm pretty sure many of them don't even believe in the religious aspect. It's all about the egg hunts and bunnies! Then think about how we tell our young kids that some huge rabbit drops off a basket full of goodies for them on Easter, like seriously what is that? Where does that come from? I'm pretty interested. But either way, most businesses and schools have Easter breaks of some sort, which I still don't really get! Americans just loveee time off I suppose.

Prom!

On Friday night I attended CSW's prom. and it was my first prom ever. Going into it I had pretty high expectations and I was thinking it was going to be sooo much fun, but afterwards I realized it really was not all I had expected. I think that TV shows and movies depict prom as being the best night ever or just being wonderful, yet the image they portray is a little skewed. I mean I'm not saying it was horrible or that I did not enjoy myself, because that's not the case, it just felt different than how I thought it would. It was over so quick and then I was like whoa, it's over? I don't know, it was just a weird feeling. I think that's another example of how the media in America is not always accurate, they tend to exaggerate a bit I would say. Oh well, it reallly was an awesome experience, I just expected something more!

Competition

I definitely think it's safe to say that America thrives and largely revolves around competition. Whether it's sports, academics, or business, the average American tends to desire to be ahead of everyone around them-their competitors. I mean at Charter it's no secret that most of the students would like to be earning higher grades or honors than other certain classmates. We all want to be the smartest! And then you have commercial examples, like when you see five different coffee shops all within a mile of one another on the road. Each shop advertises their own special deals or sales in hopes that they'll catch the majority of consumer's attentions. All of this is normal to us because we see it every single day. I sometimes wonder what it'd be like if competition were not a factor, and every business were government owned and standardized. I feel like it'd be pretty boring! One thing I recently noticed during a two mile race I ran at a meet was that passing my competitors is seriously so much fun. I have no idea how I disregarded this feeling before, but now all I want to do is go faster and pass people instead of just passively be passed. Maybe our society relates to this, they must realize how gratifying it is to be stronger than others too, not in a mean way though of course!

Twinkie minion cupcakes= easy entertainment!

Today my older brother, who is almost 18, decided he, his girlfriend, and I were going to make some really cool cupcakes. They were themed after the minion characters from the movie "Despicable Me" and they turned out aboslutely adorable! Once we finished our decorating, all three of us were so proud and felt so accomplished.. When I realized just how satisfied we were with our cupcakes, it occurred to me how easily entertained we could be. I think this actually speaks for the majority of America's teenagers, the littlest things can give us hours of laughs or fun, which I think is great.I also realized how lucky we are that we have the ability to do little fun things like this whenever we want to. There are so many people out there who would never be able to do that. So I guess even though in America our culture may seem all business at first glance, we know how to enjoy ourselves too, at least while we're still young. Oh,, and the cupcakes were delicious too!

Time Time Time

I always seem to blog about what happens in culture identity class, and I'm doing it again! I guess it's just because we talk about some really thought provoking topics sometimes, things that are really really hard to truly wrap your head around, and it kind of drives me crazy! So this past week, the big thing that we talked about was time. I prefer to just not think about how we as humans created time and things like that, and just take it for what it is- days, hours, minutes, whatever. But then I realized that we really have created this concept of time, and in America especially, we allow it to completely control us! That's pretty insane, I sort of wish we could actually control it a little better, and go back in time or pause it, that would be pretty cool. Another thing I noticed was that during our "time" discussion, our teacher was asking us questions instead of giving us information, which was very difficult for me beacuse I like to just be given the info from my teacher, and that is that. So very Charter of me, I must say. I guess I have a very hard time being creative when it comes to learning in the classroom. I should work on that too!

First Day of Spring!

It's finally finally the first day of Spring, and for most of my friends, that is synonomous with one thing in particular- free Rita's water ice. So I was thinking about it as I stood in line earlier, and I realized that on any other day a regular sized water ice only costs about 2 dollars. This seems kind of funny becuase I then realized that so many people stand in insanely long lines for free Rita's on the first day of spring, yet it barely costs anything to begin with! I think this is pretty funny, and also pretty typical of our culture. We honeslty will do almost anything for something if it's free, no effort involved. That is just the way we like it! And free food is even more thrilling for most of us teenagers. It really is the little things in life that make us the most content sometimes.

Unhealthy American Culture

This week as I sat in culture and identity class a feeling of anger and helplessness washed over me. This was pretty strange to me because I actually love this class- but what got me was what we were discussing. As we read selections about how culture affects our health and safety I longed to just change American culture altgether, a task much too great for me to complete by myself. You see, we learned abot a small self sufficient town in Pennsylvania that was founded by Italian immigrants and modeled exactly as their home town in Italy was.Over the years doctors discovered that the rate of heart disease in this town was greatly lower than in the rest of America, and the only difffernetial factor was the light hearted culture, not diet or exercise. This clearly shows that in America our ideal of health is certainly skewed. We simply have way too much stress! And honeslty who likes stress? I certainly don't, but in America there is virtually no way to be successful in life without tons of stress. Basically I just wish that our culture was not so centered on efficiency and convenience and time, because if It wasn't, we'd all likely be much healthier.

Running, running, running

Running is my thing, it's what I do, it's what my life tends to center around, and it's what makes me happiest and maddest all at once. The thing is, sometimes I wonder why I let such a seemingly unimportant activity rule my life to such an extent. Millions of Americans do the same thing, especially teenagers. I guess we find pleasure in sports and other after school activities and that is what makes us so interested and eager to pursue them. Plus, we're never assigned an actual grade- the progress we make is soley related to how much we want to succeed on our own, and the only negative consequence we face is not improving or winning. What really made me think about all of this is how today at track practice I didn't run as fast as I would have liked, and it automatically caused my mood to spiral downward and a whole lot of frusturation. I felt like I'd obviously been slacking if I was running that slow during the workout, and I began thinking of all of the things I need to change in order to get faster. Not only this, but I felt like I was letting down my coaches, like they were upset with me, when all I really want is for them to be proud! These are the problems I battle every day as I run, but once again I just can't figure out why I place so much weight with my running. I mean running is probably not getting me into college, or getting me a good job, or building my future at all. I have to wonder if this is just an American thing, or if people all over the world go through this as well. Who knows!

Who's right??

This past week I have been thinking a whole lot about my beliefs and opinons versus the beliefs and opinons of everyone else around me. I'm pretty stumped at this point, because it feels impossible to ever know for sure who is right. In fact, I'm starting to see that in reality there is nobody who is actually one hundred percent right. Everyone holds tiny pieces of the truth, but it is impossible for one person to hold all of it. It's just so hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that there are so many people out there who think nothing like I do, and would certainly disagree with most every value and belief that builds the foundation of my life. It's hard to think that everything I believe and know could be a complete, although unintentional, lie. Furthermore, I realized that many of my friends, all of whom are American, place a great amount of weight on holding their very own, very strong opinion. Nobody wants to conform to the beliefs of others. But once I considered this, I realized that there has to be somebody who influenced all of us to think that way. So in essence the people who urge us to form our own opinions are actually impressing their own opinons on us! Basically, I'm beginnig to think that there may be no one out there who forms their opinons or beliefs all by themselves, even though the like to think they do. Opinions and beliefs can not be formed in the absence of previous opinions and beliefs. But where in the world did it all start?

Disney World

So i'm at disney world and being surrounded by so many people trying to accomplish so many activities I have definitely noticed one thing-how controlled everyone is by time. Well atleast the americans for sure, since evrywhere I turn there are signs for wait times, and park-goers standing impatiently in lines. Even with my own family i have noticed the fact that with every activity we plan, there are always time consIrtaints. Even on vacation we are on a schedule!

American Teens and Technology

In response to the assembly we had at school just yesterday about responsibilty when it comes to technology, quite a few qualities of Amercian teenagers today stood out to me. I mean just by the fact that after the assembly almost every student in the kid was freaking out about what they've posted on facebook or texted to people in the past certainly proves something. American teenagers are so plugged in that they hardly remeber or realize that cyberspace is certianly no place for privacy. Now that we all now how 70 percent of college admissions officers check up on applicant's facebook profiles, I feel like some of us will be rethinking our actions on line. After all, it is like a streaming autobiography, and quite simply the unfortunate posts or pictures can not be magically erased. I definietly think we as American teenagers should try and stop the over use of all forms of technology, and go back to the old school way of communicating- face to face!

Super Bowl!

As I sat and watched the super bowl with my family and a few of my friends last night, I couldn't help but notice countless instances of good old American culture both on the field and during the commercials. Just thinking about how many other Americans were watching this same football game made me realize how huge it really is for our country as a whole. I'd definitely say  that the commercials have the central role in portraying our culture. I noticed that the majority were about food, cars, and beer when I thought about it. And of course most of them served us with a good, stupid laugh, or at least attempted to. Basically I saw that America certainly has a very unique culture- one where a game of grown men tackling each other for a football unifies its people more than any religious tradition ever could.

UD Mens Running Teams Cut

Two weeks ago, the University of Delaware cut both their mens cross country and track teams, in an apparent effort to meet the standards of a legislation to create equality between men and women within interscholastic athletics and activities. This has created quite a bit of unrest within the running community, since so many thriving and sucessful male runners at UD are now being faced with a very tough decision- leave their well loved school, or give up their competitve running careers. Both options involve their own pros and cons, but what makes the situation even worse is the fact that they and their coach had no forewarning of this major cut. Basically the athletic director of UD has cited the fact that there are too many men and not enough women participating in athletics, so these mens teams had to be cut in order to ensure participation number equality between the genders. Needless to say the women still have all of their runnig programs intact and a womens golf team will also be added next year.This is certainly wonderful for the women, since it shows how far their freedoms and rights have come over the years.Still in essence, the legislation for equality is beinning to illustrate reverse discrimination, since many men are being forced to give up their positions on competive teams such as the cross country and track and field teams. This clearly shows how our societys culture has changed over the years. Women were once discouraged from participating in athletics, while now they are receiving even more ooprotunites than men are. Well except of course if the men are on the football or basketball teams, which here in America are unfortunatley seen as much more valuable and profitable than any running sport. I just hope the best for the men who's lives have been affected by these team cuts, and also for all of the women who are now given so many new chances to participate in society as a whole.