extreme spontaneity

i don't know a lot of things in life.

i can't figure out how to upload pictures from my camera to my computer. i don't know how to change my homepage from that stupid one we have to use to get internet in the dorm. i honestly don't think i know how to go to bed early or use time management whatsoever. luckily we have google or i'd be lost for most of life.

thinking back on my first year of college i had a great time. i met so many new people and made so many new friends. but then when i compare my experience to other people's i wonder if i did it all right. i wonder if there was more that i was "supposed" to do and experience in my freshman year. theres all these things that you're supposed to do in college and i feel like i have so little time i need to make sure i fit it all in there.

but really, what we're supposed to do according to other people's standards shouldn't matter that much. i want to do things because i want to do them...not because i think i should. okay, now of course God has a whole plan lined up for my college experience too and i am so thankful for that or else i would be completely lost, but I'm talking about the in between stuff, the stuff that, yeah, God probably wants us to do, but if we don't go out there and do it ourselves it's not gonna happen. i'm talking about the spontaneous fun stuff that makes memories.
so here's to that
i'm going to be spontaneous next year, or even better, this summer.
if you talk to most people that know me well they'll probably tell you that i am spontaneous so i guess i have a head start. but. maybe ill go for extreme spontaneity. that's my goal...YOLO!

so life in the fast lane. living on the wire. changing it up. it's all gonna happen, just gotta make sure things don't get too crazy

freshman year

ok so i lied im not really feeling sleep right now...but when am i ever? except during the morning of course. i really do think I've converted to nocturnal most of the time....its kind of annoying actually.

but my life right now is kinda chaotic. i just moved out of the dorm at baylor earlier this week, then i drove to az with all my stuff, took it out of the car and repacked in a day then flew to indiana last night to start my summer school class this morning.
a busy week for sure.
i don't know if I've even really processed yet that my freshman year is over. next time i go to waco ill be getting ready to move into my new duplex with my 5 other roomies. I'm pumped for sure and really think it will be a great year but I'm going to feel so grown up..living in a place with no one to watch out for me...adults i mean. no rules no CLs no parents. i will really be on my own (except for the roomies i guess but who knows if ill ever actually live alone)
anyways a lot to process.

but overall i had a really great freshman year! so much fun and adventure-filled! i really didn't even realize how much id miss it until i started thinking about leaving. i didn't realize how close id gotten to so many people there till i thought about not being with them for 4 months. i know i sound like a baby...4 months isn't really all that long but it is in college terms! and now i only have 3 years of college left!? haha i feel like i want to stay there forever. and i know it will just get better and better :)
i couldn't be happier with my experiences at baylor this year and want to thank everyone who made me feel so welcome there :) i think that baylor is the perfect place for me to grow and learn and i can't wait to see what else God has in store for me there. i feel like I've already learned a lot about myself but i have a lot of growing to do also.

man i feel like this blog is all over the place right now..sorry about that.
but in the mean time i want to be ready and willing for God to use and grow me now :) 4 months is a long summer and even though mine is already busy and planned out i know God has fun things in store

miracles

so as i was about to go to bed tonight...take note that its 2am here now. i was reading matthew 9 and started thinking how crazy all these miracles Jesus did were! now i'm not a Bible expert and i am not trying to give a sermon here or anything, but i think a lot of the time we just brush over those miracles and things because we've (or at least i have) heard them so many times. like "oh yeah Jesus raised someone from the dead...He does that.." or maybe don't even think of it at all. but it's amazing! and it should be! because he's God! so i mean obvs he'll be able to do some crazy stuff but he was human too! and with our faith we're supposed to be able to "move mountains" or all this crazy other stuff....so how small is my faith? idk it's definitely interesting and i think something that could use a lot more thought, but i'll leave you all with that as i continue to ponder as i drift off to sleep.

speaking of sleep... i always go to bed hoping i will have some really fun crazy dream where i fly around and go on some cool adventure but it rarely happens...or maybe i just forget them. but here's to hoping you all have some crazy cool dreams in your future whether you fulfill them in your sleep or in life :)

goodnight world.

this was a blog for my sociology project but now that I'm done with the class, I'm thinking I'm gonna stick with it. follow along if you wanna hear more about my adventures through college at Baylor. :) i can't promise it'll be the most entertaining blog.....but i can promise that i WILL have adventures...and will write about them from time to time. I'm living life intentionally, choosing Jesus, choosing joy, being the change, loving life, livin young, wild, and free...and apparently livin with lots of trite aphorisms, too.

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4

conformity

conformity is something I think happens so often we often don't even notice it. I know that I have conformed in many ways since coming to Texas. I'm from Arizona, so all of this country stuff is new to me. Coming from home I promised I would never say "y'all", but there have been many times where it has almost slipped out or I've been tempted to use it because, as they say, it's just so convenient. Also, I have always been the type to wear dresses, all the time, anywhere, just because I like them. But since coming to Baylor, because often so many girls wear nike shorts or leggings and big t-shirts to class, I have started to conform. First, I just started wearing nike shorts every once in a while, but that turned into more often and as my tshirt collection grew, I just had to wear all the new ones all the time. Either way, looking back I barely noticed the changes, but I definitely have conformed to Baylor fads.

women around the world

this picture shows us the different gender roles for women in different cultures. they are both evaluated differently by their cultures and each allow different freedoms to the woman. it is interesting to think of how others must view our own culture here in America.

Pretty Woman

I had never seen the movie before but it was on TV recently so I decided to watch it. I thought it was a really cute movie but what really stood out to me were how societal norms were illustrated. In the movie, Julia Roberts's character isn't used to the society that she is put in, she doesn't know norms for aristocratical society, nor does she care about them. She acts as she pleases and breaks many social norms along the way. In contrast, Richard Gere's character is all about following social norms. He wants her to dress right, act right, not chew gum in public, and give a good impression. He cares a lot about what other people think, so he follows social norms and tries to get her to, too. In the end the contrast of their reactions to social norms show the differences in how they were brought up and what their culture is.

here's the trailer for the movie and it shows the different ways they react to social norms

Baylor sports

It has been a fun year at Baylor sports-wise. We did so well in football and our RG3 was the Heisman trophy winner, our men's basketball team went all the way to the Elite 8 and our women's bball team finished number 1 winning the championship. All of this made for some fun celebrations for Baylor students. And while it is great that Baylor has been doing so well in sports this year, apparently some of our recruiters disobeyed some rules. They texted and called saying things they weren't allowed to and now there are "sanctions" against Baylor, or punishments. These sanctions are included in the link below.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7801565/ncaa-puts-baylor-bears-probation-accepts-self-imposed-penalties-text-messages

rumors

Everytime I go to the grocery store I always look at the gossip magazines while I wait in the check out line. And I was thinking back on different things I've read in those magazines and realized how half of the time the things they state about celebrities live or pop culture or things they predict about different pop culture events never come true. These statements that they print as fact are really just rumors and should not be so easily believed. Now, of course I knew not to believe everything you read, but it's interesting to look back and see how much of what they say really turns out to be true.

functionalism

I think functionalism is my favorite sociological perspective. maybe I would be a functionalist, if i educated myself more on each of them. i think a really great example of functionalism is that of social stratification. the way people are put in different social classes keeps society running smoothly the way it does. I don't mean that that cannot change, but our society would have to be very different for our social classes to work differently. I noticed this the other day driving through Waco. On one street, you have some very run down houses and unkempt lawns but then on the next street, the houses could be very nice and cute places to live. the social stratification here is very evident.

also, here's a picture about distributed wealth i thought was funny:

family

this weekend I went home for my grandfather's 80 birthday. my whole family was there to surprise him for his party and I had so much fun! but I really got a chance to see family interactions. it is interesting to see how we are all about the same social group as well. everyone the same race (white) and same social class and they used to all follow the gender stereotypes by having the men work while the women are stay-at-home moms. however lately that has been changing with my aunt who recently became a nurse so now both parents work and my sister, who is a nurse practitioner, so both she and her husband work also. it is interesting to see the way sociology plays out in my own family.

(note: i don't know who these families are)

cruisin'

So over spring break I went on a cruise to the Caribbean. Cruises are really good places to people watch. It's interesting to see how people group together and find their "in groups" for the week. Also you could tell that most of the people that go on cruises are well-off or wealthy, in the upper classes of social stratification. People had nice clothes and purses and shoes and everything that wealthy people buy to show off their wealth.

sororities

this might be a bit of a touchy subject for some, but it's just has to be analyzed. sororities are a girl's "in group". she feels closer to those girls, and even if she doesn't know another girl really well, if they are in the same sorority, they have a special bond and are friends...or at least smile and wave at each other. it's a very interesting thing, because I'm sure the girls in other sororities besides one's own are just as nice and friendly, yet we only specially acknowledge the girls in our own. what if we smiled and waved to anyone whom with we had eye contact? it might get tiresome and fake, but it is interesting the way we decide some people are worthy of a wave and others...well we just avert our eyes as we pass the rest.

kony 2012

http://vimeo.com/invisible/kony2012


this video is about these children in Uganda and now other parts of Northern Africa that are being forced to kill. they're taken from their home and forced to kill their families and then go on to do the same to other children. its a war just for the sake of keeping power started by a man named Joseph Kony. these children are forced into slavery, I suppose closest to chattel slavery. It is an awful thing that's happening and this slavery and war should be stopped.

KONY 2012. make him famous. so the world knows the terrible things he continues to do and has been doing for the last 26 years.

desperate housewives

confession: I regularly watch the TV show Desperate Housewives. I've watched it for forever and it's just something I love and don't even want to stop watching, call it my "guilty pleasure" or whatever but I enjoy it :). On the show, the women are constantly gossiping and any time someone new moves into the neighborhood, she's not usually included. The main women definitely have an "in-group" and there have been times through the show that other women have been jealous and wanted to be in their group. They also are a very good example of feminine stereotypes. Although, at times they defy them, often, they are portrayed as the stay-at-home mom who cooks and cleans and gossips with her girlfriends all day. Overall, it makes for very entertaining TV. :)

social classes

Every time we talk about social classes in class, I think of the tv show Gossip Girl. In my head, the characters are a very good example of what upper/elite class. These people have so much money, they don't know what to do with it, and, in the show, that can be the root of many of their problems. In addition, the show takes place in New York, which I think is a very good place to easily observe all of the classes. You have the very rich to the many homeless people on the streets and everything in between all within a few blocks of each other. New york is definitely an interesting place.

this is the cast of Gossip Girl posing in New York so you can see the skyline

an image of Times Square in New York contrasting with a homeless man in New York

people watching

lately I've been spending a lot more time studying in public places. I've realized that I get more done out of my room so I've been going to places like the libraries and Common Grounds to do my work. its very interesting to see all the things some people do when they get comfortable in a place. you can observe people in their daily routines. I've discovered I really enjoy people watching (creepy?) but I feel like that is a big part of sociology. that is what sociologists do, observe people, or society. I think the way I have been observing people is much more symbolic interactionism, since I am seeing people individually. 

saving face

Today my friend spilled her iced tea all over the table at a banquet. It was pretty embarrassing but to save face, she laughed it off, one of the common responses to embarrassing situations. Here's a picture of the spill and girls:

obviously laughing to save face :)

baylor memes

So theres a new Facebook page that is becoming very popular among all my Baylor friends and I on Facebook. its called Baylor memes and they have funny pictures or cartoons with captions that poke fun at different students or groups or stereotypes specific to Baylor. it's pretty entertaining and sometimes really accurate. many of these memes talk about social roles and refer to social classes while some are simply Baylor "inside jokes". they're definitely a fun thing to look at and be entertained by.

Sociology Blog

This blog is for my sociology class at Baylor University. It is a blog to recognize and analyze the things we are learning about in class, in everyday life. I hope to gain a new perspective and be able to better analyze these things through this project. Hope you enjoy it!