I personally had a debate about the topic of having State Patty’s or not with one of my friends after class and we did not agree on the topic so it added to the conversation and gave us both a look at the other side of the issue. I don’t think it would be possible at all to get everyone to not celebrate. It just will not happen its unrealistic so I will explain why we should have it. I do not think that we as the Penn State student body need to give anything up or be punished or need to sacrifice anything in any way. We did absolutely nothing to involve ourselves in this disgusting scandal. It is truly a tragedy and we have all suffered entirely too much already. State patty’s may actually be a way to bring the student body together and to heal. It’s the one thing we have that makes us different than anything else. We have our own holiday. It is ultimately a good thing rather than a bad. Sure the media will cover it and make it look absolutely awful. But is it really that bad? No, we aren’t destructing the town or anything of the sort. I mean I know it is a holiday that is all about drinking, but isn’t any other holiday? I personally do not think its worth it. Giving up state pattys won’t cause any press action to display us in a better way, so why would we give something that actually means a lot to us up. It doesn’t make sense to me. I know with state pattys there is bad press, but not having it isn’t making our situation any better at all. And having it as I said may make it better because it is a way to draw us all together as one. It unites the campus in something that we created we are proud of it and it displays how passionate we are about our school in a way. Its not all negative the only negative part is drinking everything else is one hundred percent positive! It will be somewhat of a healing process for us. It will make things seem normal and seem as if we are capable of going about things regular and as we always have and we can move forward and continue living our lives as current penn state students who have passion and respect for our school. We are proud of who we are we should not be ashamed. The scandal is not our faults we did nothing so why should we continue to suffer and sacrifice? It just isn’t logical to me. I think we should put it behind us and be who we always have been. We are students of one of the most established institutions of higher education. We are students of the number one student section in the country. We are students of the penn state university and we are happy and proud to say that we are!

People are experiencing so many emotions from this whole crisis. We aren’t exactly even sure how to feel, we just know what we are feeling is unexplainable. I think that everyone has learned many lessons throughout this time as well. I know myself that I most certainly have. It has taught me that living life with perfect morals is basically not possible. Everyone makes mistakes and at the time of making them no one may know just how hurtful and serious they may be. Sometimes people who don’t deserve the after treatment still get it. The media can twist a story in any way they choose necessary and feel absolutely no remorse for it. A story is a story and that is all that they want and are looking for. Throughout everything that has happened I have personally learned that being the best person you can be is always a necessity. If I feel I have something to say about any situation I am more inclined now than ever to say everything I need to. It has taught me to be a better person and to think before I speak or act. I am very cautious as to everything I do and say now and I wish to not step on anyone’s toes or even say or do anything to cause even the smallest bad reaction from anyone. The media can portray a story in anyway they choose and it really just makes me more careful as to how anyone, including the media may interpret things I say and do. Normally I am a very outgoing and loud person, but this whole thing has kind of caused me to just watch my opinions and keep a lot more to myself than I ever have before. People even associated with something can take the brunt of it even more than the person who actually did what was wrong. Of course I cannot say who is right and wrong with the whole situation, but I do have my opinions about it and I have learned through them. I have learned to stay on task and do my job that is at hand to the best of my abilities and stay out of any drama at all. I will not talk badly about anyone and I will make sure that I double think everything that I may say about someone to see every way in wich it could be understood by anyone. I want nothing I say to hurt anyone and entail anything it should not. I keep myself busy with my work and just worry about doing the right thing and being the best person that I can be. I want to hurt no one and focus on the thing in life that I should be focusing on.

Even though no one man’s actions can define an entire university, it is still causing all of the individuals at the university to suffer in some way. We are all grieving over this and it is absolutely horrible that these events these past few days have occurred. The entire campus is heartbroken. I walk around and just feel lost. The energy is gone and everyone seems to not know exactly what to do about their feelings let alone even know how to feel about the current situation. The media is making all of our lives ten times worse. The outward appearance of our university is a complete mess. We are being viewed as barbarians. The reason why the students are rioting and acting in ways that may not be the best is because the media. They are constantly in our faces asking biased questions hoping to get a response that they want. It is disgusting to me how they can shape any situation in whatever way they choose. People all over the world are viewing our education institution as a mockery basically. All of these years we were portrayed as being the best of the best. Now all anyone views us as is the rape scandal. It was one individuals actions and in some ways it is shaping our entire university. Our beloved Joe Pa is taking the brunt of the situation when it should be Sandusky, I mean after all Sandusky was the one who actually committed a crime the last time I checked. Joe Pa did what any person at any level of business would do. He told his superior. That was his job and he did it. The media is simply looking for a story and they know they have one in Joe Pa. He is an icon around the world and in ways a figure head of the university. Over the past week I can’t remember the last time I heard Sandusky’s name and not Joe Paterno. Because of one individual everyone at the university is suffering. Some more than others. But I do know that some students have lost internships and jobs because of the events that are taking place. Company’s plan to ask as one of their first questions how we reacting to everything that has happened or what our take on the situation is. How exactly are we supposed to answer this when we don’t even know how to feel about the situation. The entire campus is being affected by this. But even so it will not define us, we will overcome this, it will take some time, but afterall we still are one of the finest higher level institution of learning there is. And this chain of events will not define us as a whole. It will build our character and we will move on from this, but the grieving and the morning will take palce. We will have to deal with the outer people looking in and we will have to deal with hatred. But it is making everyone here a stronger indivdual and ultimately bringing us closer. Also it is raising awareness for a great cause.

I believe that immigration is viewed negatively because it some circumstances it has a right to be. There are a lot of costs that do actually outweigh benefits that come along with immigration. Jobs of american workers are being taken by immigrants because they are cheaper for labor. This is actually at an expense to our economy though. Taking american jobs is one thing that the United States economy absolutely does not need right now considering all of the hype about how awful it is currently in the job market for americans. our economy is currently plummeting dramatically. part of this is due to immigration. jobs that american workers could be working are being taken by immigrants even illegal immigrants. our system for immigration is tough, I do understand that, but living here is a privilege I believe that does require some effort and work towards accomplishing. my ancestors made it possible for me to live here. on both sides of my family my great grandparents left everything to start a new life, so i don't feel bad for current immigrants. they need to go through the same things that my ancestors went through. its important for our system to be strict because then everyone and their brother would be moving to the United States in search of a better life. they may accomplish a better life, but many current americans would suffer and be at their expense. with this said it seems that current americans would view that the costs do out weigh the benefits. our country was built upon certain standards and principles and we cannot forget them. we are open arms for all people, but they should do it the right way. having illegal immigrants here can be viewed as degrading because we do have pride in our country and we do welcome others, so they should be willing to make the effort and take the time to become a legal citizen. i know that i sound quite harsh, but i'm just giving one side of the story. this is how some people would view the costs outweighing the benefits. there are benefits however to immigration. it makes our country more diverse and gives us dimension. we are given opportunities to learn about other cultures and advance ours. we truly are a melting pot and i think that everyone here is proud of it. we just believe that people should be willing to go through the elements to become legal because out ancestors went through a lot in order to get here and we completely cherish that. so basically what i am saying illegal immigrants are viewed as a cost to us, but legal immigrants are viewed as a benefit. this may sound confusing, but if you think about what i have said throughout this post it does make sense. this is because we want our country to be as diverse as possible, but with american citizen, legal american citizens. they can be of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. it really doesn't matter, just as long as they are legal.

I absolutely do not think that hanging out with people of different races than you makes someone a poser. If this is how people think then I’m not quite sure I understand why the thought would even cross a person’s mind. To me it seems like an absolutely ridiculous remark to make. I for one am mostly around people who are not white like myself. Normally on a day to day basis I am surrounded by friends who are asian and black or brown. I would hope that they are not classifying me as a poser, but I know I surely do not classify myself as one. We are all fully aware of our different races and we do not choose to act as if we are one another’s races. Rather we choose to embrace who we are and portray that and use it to benefit our friendship. We do not see each other as trying to pose as one another because we all understand that we are different. I can openly say things that may offend different races and my friends will just say “you’re so white”. They say this a lot to me for many different reasons one of which is just from being me. it really doesn’t bother me at all either. Because I’m proud of being white I have absolutely no problem with it and I find that there is nothing wrong with associating myself with people of other races. I find that I learn about their cultures and things that set them apart from me, but I don’t lose myself in the process. I believe that is the key in order for people who are ignorant upon the situation to understand and not consider your efforts and your friendship as posing. I believe some people may interpret being friends with people of different races as posing because some people may lose themselves in the friendship process. People may feel the need to be more like their friends and in a way they may portray themselves as a poser because they are kind of trying to be something they are not. If an individual loses themselves and begins to act as if they are of a different race then this is the way that it can be viewed as posing. In most cases I find that people are just trying to understand aspects of different races though. The stage that would be considered posing I believe would fade when they truly begin to understand their friends race. When the individual realizes they will be accepted for who they are and not for being like their friend then they will have moved out of the stage that can be understood as posing. Basically either way you look at it the person is not posing they are just exploring something new and different and reacting to that.

I would like to first start by saying that I definitely have gone through all of the stages up until stage four which is where I believe I am now. I started here at Penn State at a level one for sure. I was never exposed to any other race expcept for the few black people form my high school. By few I mean like three. Race was never a factor in my life and I never experienced having to deal with it. I viewed everyone around me as the same. When I came here it was a huge culture shock because I was bombarded with race. It was shoved in my face everywhere I went. People of all different races appeared everywhere and I was completely overwhelmed and didn’t know how to handle myself in any situation. Then when I started to talk with everyone and understand all of these new people in my life I was a little disappointed in my own race. I kind of felt so bad for others that I began to hate white people. But as this continued and I kept associating with people of color things took a major change. I began to get upset when they would bash white people constantly. They played mind games with them and they thought it was so fun. It was a common part of their every day lives. I was so confused because all this time they were telling me how upset they were with white people and how they are still experiencing racism, but it seemed to me that they were making white people feel tremendous guilt for things in the past. I hated how they would turn any situation with a white person into something about race. It was like they were looking to discuss it and possibly fight with people. They wanted confrontation and would stop at nothing until they would get it. I am still very turned off by this. I have many many friends of color and I love them dearly but I do notice how they are keeping white people from progressing. I feel as if more racism is coming from the black and brown community than from the white community. It makes me feel like they are stopping the progress of overcoming racism. Its as if they want it to continue. Its very confusing to me and I don’t think I will ever be able to understand it. With that being said I’m not sure if I will be able to advance into the fifth or the sixth stage because I just do not find it at all acceptable for black and brown people to continue putting white people down. I want to just escape racism and it seems that they keep shoving it in my face day in and day out.

First I would just like to start by saying that women and men are extremely different. A lot of the time women are dressing purely for themselves or even for other girls. Guys don’t feel the need to do this. They are comfortable in wearing whatever and it doesn’t phase them whether or not every other guy is dressed nice or dressed like a bum. They don’t judge other guys by what they wear, but girl definitely do. We are quick to judge others when it comes to what we are wearing. Most nights girls are just trying to top each other. We aren’t looking for guys to notice all of the time that we are trying to look good. It’s mainly just so we feel confident and comfortable with ourselves when we are going out with a bunch of other girls. Were just worried about having other girls judge us and be like “well she sure doesn’t look good tonight” or “she definitely did not make an effort”. Even if we aren’t concerned about what other girls are thinking about us we just like to look good for ourselves. It just gives us confidence when we think we look nice. It gives us a feeling of comfort to know that we look good because otherwise we are worrying all night about our hair or our clothes our just anything about our general appearance. It may be confusing to a guy to think about this, but its confusing to us girls that guys don’t want to look good. Do they really think we want to look at sweatpants and t-shirts when we made an effort to get ready for the night. Sure we may not have gotten ready to look good for the guys, or we may have, it really doesn’t matter. They should want to look nice too whether its for themselves or for someone else. I understand they don’t feel a need to impress one another like girls do. I think we also forget that in a lot of other places girls dress up through out the day. Here we live a very laid back lifestyle and wear sneakers and sweats to classes, but in many places girls are wearing heels and dresses to go to school. We it be viewed differently here if girls were to also dress up through out the day and not just at night? I honestly think it may because then it would be more of a common thing that would have been gotten used to, but its still the same concept whether dressing up for day or night. Girls really just want to look good. We have many different influences of this and I just don’t think that guys understand it because they don’t deal with the same pressure as we do to look a certain way.

I was quite surprised by the bike thief video. The first one was the white boy and I wasn’t surprised by the people’s reaction because I just thought, “well no one really ever wants to get involved with things that would could possibly be of inconvenience to them or something that just doesn’t involve them.” If I were in the situation that is what would be my reaction to seeing this person trying to take the bike. I would be wondering what he’s doing but all in all I wouldn’t want to get involved with the situation at hand. For the most part everyone’s reactions to this were as mine would be. Some would stop and talk to him but nobody really involved themselves they just got the information they wanted and then went on their way. The same was true for some people with the second boy. This boy was a black boy of the same age and seeming to wear the same clothes and life nearly the same life as he white boy. It seemed as if people were more interested this time but they were still not entirely involving themselves. The man who did eventually call the cops on the boy was older though. I believe that maybe this had to do something with his reaction. Maybe its possible for elder individuals to have more of an opposition to other races than many people do today. I find talking to my grandparents and to their elder friends that this does hold true. It is the time they were raised in and it also has some ties to several wars it appears from my grandfather I have found. Most of the individuals walking by were older and possibly may be more opposed to other races. I believe that maybe my generation may be the one to have the least racism and I believe that is continuing to get better as time goes on. When the woman was trying to steal the bike I didn’t find it strange that everyone was willing to help her. It was quite funny to me actually. I feel that people may have seen this woman trying to do something that may have seemed manly. Like using tools and lifting something fairly heavy kind of seemed like the “traditional” view of manly tasks. I think that people may have felt compelled to help her because of this. Its also traditional for men to help a woman when they see her in need. She appeared to be having trouble with taking the bike and people just felt it was right to help her. I’m not saying that this is right in any way. I’m not a feminist and I’m not opposed to feminism. So to me I just viewed it as someone helping a woman in need of help. I thought as I watched that if I were in her position someone would also probably have helped me to take the bike.

I would just like to start by saying that these individuals are absolutely incredible. They aren’t sitting around and just moping about this down turn of their lives. They are working hard and making an effort to get to where they want to be. I absolutely admire that because I can’t stand to see people who complain about being in a bad position, but in the end they don’t do anything to change it around for themselves. With the peanut video I think it is remarkable admirable for this woman to wish to give these children lunches at school. They most definitely need to develop a plan in order to enable the children to have a lunch after all they are paying to attend school. I would never be able to spend an entire school day without lunch. The video regarding the jean bags and the shirts was also very inspiring. I am surprised as to how much quality appears in the shirts and bags because they do not have to proper equipment for producing these products. I’m very impressed with the people in these videos. When I picture people from Haiti in my head entrepreneurs and business-minded people never crossed my mind, until now that is. Its very interesting to me though how they plan to continue on with their businesses when they do not have the equipment needed for this. The wrong screen print for shirts and the wrong baking appliances aren’t helping with their efforts at all. A strange observation is that the women are mainly starting these businesses, which is slightly surprising only in the sense that the men aren’t. I’m not saying men should be the ones I’m simply pointing out that the women are doing it and not the men. For right now and the videos that I watched Clorene’s video really caught my attention. Her products look very substantial and seem as if they are of good quality. Her bags and shirts are similar to products that are already currently made which may be an advantage or disadvantage to her, but in the sense of it being an advantage we already know that these products sell, so it will be profitable to her. If she were able to create these products in bulk and with the correct machinery I believe she could make a substantial profit to support her business and her family. Using the logos she buys from the store is slightly confusing to me though. If she is spending money on them, then maybe she should consider spending the money to attach her own label. Of course she would need the resources to do this, but we could possibly be of help to her with this. We could help her design one if she would need to and find the material it should be made of and also to find a way for her to actually produce the labels. I’m currently still wondering how my group could help each of these individuals, but I believe that with some brainstorming this project could be very beneficial to Haiti and these individuals.

There are so many different sports that athletes can be part of. Each sport has a different look or appearance of athletes involved in them. There is a stereotype of an athlete’s appearance that we now categorize as the standard for the appearance of an athlete. There are even sites and stores that promote this “athlete look”. Some of them even claim to make you look more like an athlete, but little do you know that you may already have the appearance of an athlete, just not the one of the stereotypical athlete. An athletic body today is thought to be tall, thin, and muscular to name a few attributes. This actually only covers a small range of athletes though. The reason we probably categorize most athletes in this way is because the most popular sports are ones in which the athletes who play bodies look like this. The overall look of an athlete is considered to be healthy and fit. It has basically developed itself into a brand. Certain products are selling because they are said to be “athletic”. The products themselves are not athletic or healthy, but the makers and users say they will somehow turn you into an athlete. They actually will not do this. If you buy a certain pair of sneakers because the media has scammed you into thinking it will make you perform better in sports you are most likely wrong. People think buying shoes will help them with their basketball game, but in all actuality your basketball game depends on the athlete that you are. Using this correct definition of an athlete is appropriate because then you are actually the player of this sport thus in turn making you an athlete, not your shoes making you an athlete. I personally am short and considered to be somewhat petite. I am a dancer though and dancers are said to be short. It helps us move quickly and contort our bodes in ways that a tall perhaps lanky person could not. There are set backs in dance to being short though. Many ballet dancers are preferred if they are taller. It is said to look better on stage when a dancer has longer legs and arms for this style of dance. Shorter dancers are said to make better jazz, contemporary, and hip-hop dancers. My favorite type of dance is ballet and pointe, so my body type is not the ideal or said to be perfect type for this kind of dance. This makes me have to work twice as hard as a taller ballerina, just because their body type is preferred over mine. Personally I believe it should be judged on dance skill only, but in reality some body types work better for different styles of dance.