Sam did not change my view on the war the least bit. He tried to make everyone believe that the only reason this war is taking place is because America wants their oil. He is trying to make us sound like we are putting the lives of thousands of soldiers every day just to get oil. That is complete bull shit the war we ware fighting is a war on terrorism we are ridding these countries of crazy radicals who want nothing more than to destroy human life. These terrorists have no value for life the will strap a bomb on their chest and blow themselves up just to kill innocent people. It is very rare that they have specific targets; they just want to kill as many people as they can. They torture the residents who live in these countries and that is why we are there we are trying to help them. It just happens to be that there is a lot of oil over there and I am not for a second saying that the oil is not on the mind of our government because we do need oil, but that is so far from being the main reason that we are there. The fact that Sam is saying that the war is solely for that reason is disrespectful to everyone who has ever been impacted by the horrible acts that terrorists commit. These people are crazy and out of their minds, if we leave that will just give the time to think of some other horrible shit that they can do. When he was talking about all the civilian deaths that these countries have taken because of this it made me think about 9/11. We are over their getting rid of bad guys to make the world as a whole a safer place and yes it is very tragic that innocent people get stuck in the crossfire. But 9/11 we lost thousands of civilians because of what? Some crazy terrorists wanted to make a point. Instead of going after our government or military they kill innocent people for no reason what so ever. Our men and women in the armed forces are over their day in and day out fighting for us and people like Sam are sitting here safe in their home bitching about the war. If you really wanted to know what this war was about you would pick up a fucking rifle and go fight and see first hand how these terrorists treat people over there. Than you will be able to see that our soldiers are fighting to make these countries safer for the people who live in them our soldiers don’t give a shit about the oil. You can say our government is in this war for oil, but our soldiers are there to make it a better place.

I think the past weeks of events have had a big effect on our school as a whole. No matter what happens in the future the people of the world are forever going to view us differently. Even though this situation should not have affected any of the current students of the Pennsylvania State University. People are too lazy to go do the research and actually get the whole story of a bad situation. They just want to watch the news and talk shows and believe all of their twisted opinions of what they want the public to believe are happening. Good news does not get viewers, its sad but people would rather watch a news channel covering a story involving criminal activity, than watch a story about volunteers. So that is exactly what the news does they take a complex story and present one side of it to the public so it makes it look horrible. Meanwhile if they actually presented all sides of the story and the actual facts instead of making assumptions people would have realized the school as a whole should not be involved or related to any of this shit. So I think if people view Penn state students differently because of this situation than they are very ill and informed and immature, and if they were a possible employer I would not want to work under them. Because people should not be affected by this situation, first of all it happened nearly ten years ago and involves none of the current students at Penn State. So people looking from the outside in should not have a bad opinion about the current or former students that attended our school. We have worked hard to make the Penn State name very respectable and honorable, and this one flaw will not bring our name down. Penn state alumni are some of the best alumni in the world and I know for a fact that they will fight tooth and nail along side of the over 40,000 current students to keep our name respected. I do not fear for a second that people will look down upon me because of the school that I attend. I was proud to be a Penn state student from the first day of classes and I will stay proud till the day that I die. I know that there are thousands of people who feel the same way as me and that is what helps me have faith in my school. Our name will remain the same no matter what happens and no one can take that away from us. We are still the same students that we have always been, We still are Penn State.

Does money really not equal happiness? I am a firm believer in the thought that money is a big factor in how happy a person is. I do not believe that money is the only thing you need to be happy but it is definitely a big part. We live our whole lives being taught to work hard in school to get into a good college. Than when you are in college you are taught to work hard so that when you graduate you can get a good job. With this good job comes money, why would we work all that time to get something that wouldn’t make us happy. People would not work their entire lives to get money if it didn’t make them happy. Money gives you opportunities that the majority of the people in the world will never be able to experience. People with money never have to argue about paying bills or spending too much money on unnecessary things. They do not have to worry about disappointing their kids on holidays and birthdays and I know it sounds shallow but every parent wants to be able to get their children everything they want.
Now, I’m not saying that every person with money is happy and thrilled about life. You need family and friends to be there to enjoy it with you. Without them you’ll have every material item in the world but you’ll still be missing something, which is love. If you have money though it makes it easier to be happy and loving with all your loved ones. Having money takes away the stress factor that the majority of the people in the world have. Constantly worrying if they are going to be able to put food on the table or pay the bills next month. The people who don’t have to worry about that have more time to help their children grow up to be mature responsible adults. So while money does not necessarily equal happiness it is a big factor in the equation for happiness.
When I am saying that money helps happiness, in no way am I saying that people without money are miserable. I am sure there are millions of people out there without a lot of money who are perfectly happy with their lives, and wouldn’t change a thing. That is good for them because they have managed to obtain happiness through friends, families, and the simple things in life. Which I believe is very difficult but if you can do it than more power to you. It would be great if we could all find happiness without having money, it would make the world a whole lot better. We would have a lot less problems.

I find it very uncomfortable when people are speaking another language around you. Because it makes you think that they are talking about you especially if you know they can speak English. It makes it worse because it makes it seem like they are trying to hide something from you. It always feels like they are talking about you because you think if they weren’t saying anything bad than they would just speak English in front of you. I think it is an exception when you are on vacation or in a place where you do not live because than most likely the people of that area speak a different language. It doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable than because I don’t know if they can speak English so they might just be having a normal conversation. It still is a little uncomfortable because they could be making fun of you right to your face or talking about you and you would have no idea.
I understand why people would want to speak their native language when they are with friends or family. But I think they should take into account of whom they are surrounded by. Because it does make a lot of people uncomfortable when they here a different language being spoken around them. But at the same time I think people have to realize that other languages are spoken. If I go to some places that speak a different language I don’t speak their language, which probably makes them feel uncomfortable. So you have to look at it from both sides. I’m not going to learn a language just because I am going on a week vacation, so I do the same thing I am saying that makes me feel uncomfortable. So I think we all have to realize that we like speaking our own language and it makes more comfortable. So we shouldn’t care how it makes everyone else feel, when your in public. But if you can help it than it would be nice to try to make the people around you feel comfortable. But I personally am still going to speak English no matter where I am in the world. I would try to make it better but there is no way I am learning another language just to make other people feel comfortable. I still stand strong by if you live in a place than learn the dominant language, I feel like if you don’t than it is an insult to the society you are in. if you want to live in a new place than simply learn the language and everything will be good. That is what I think about being around different languages.

I don’t know what the world would look like if it were a black majority world. Everything in this country has always been run by the white man. Its hard to say because there is such a sigma between the two. If the world we lived in today was majority black people some things would defiantly be different. For instance Obama would not have been president. One of the biggest reasons Obama was president was because he was the first “Black” running candidates. People voted for him for change thinking that he was going to be the leader of the new world. There are other major differences too such as white people would feel underprivileged. It’s a “norm” now that black people feel uncomfortable in circumstances within white people presences. It’s sad that were even saying this but it’s a fact that people treat individuals differently according to their color. However, back in the nineteenth century, this was not true. In a world devised of white- imperial powers, Africa was looked upon as the ‘gold mine’ of Eastern Europe. The gluttony and over- ambition of white powers led the nations involved looking elsewhere for resources, workers, food and precious metals. In the end, Africa proved to be a great source for all of the aforementioned. In turn, they raped the African people of their rare and valuable natural resources, including cheap labor and precious metals. Africans, aware of these valuable resources, would have taken advantage of them for not their culture and belief in taboo in both science and medicine. In Things Fall Apart, a novel based on African indigenous lifestyles, Africans subject their people to suicide, kill healthy babies, sacrifice healthy individuals to god, kill each other in small- tribal wars and eventually end up trading each other through slave markets. The key point to remember here is the taboo culture the Africans have and still do till this day, stubbornly believe in. These beliefs block out external advances in science, technology, medicine, philosophy, engineering and so many others. In refusing to accept Western ideals in the former mentioned areas of civilization, they had chosen to decline as a populace outright. In disregarding new- age improvements, the African people had chosen to live by pre- historic means, forcing both death in mass numbers and steady birthrate through years to come. Instead of accepting things that would increase population size, keep it healthier and ultimately produce a civilized populace. Instead, they refuse simple societal conveniences, which in turn create social stagnation in people born and people killing each other. Without accepting modern, first- world conveniences and scientific advancements, black people would and will never be a majority. Had they accepted these prior advancements, possible global power may have been achievable. It is their refusal nowadays, especially in the utter avoidance of Caucasian culture, which includes organization, world dominance and advancement beyond human capacity, that holds them back from becoming a world power.

Trying to see what stage I am in is actually a hard question because sometimes I feel like I have a little bit of multiple stages in me. I feel like I am mostly stage 2 because I don’t think about race that much on a normal day. But when I read or hear about racial problems on the news or in the paper it gets me thinking about it. I realize that I try to stay politically correct when I am around people of other races. Not because I am scared of what they will do. I do it subconsciously because I do not want to offend anyone. I do the same thing when I am talking to a white person like myself I watch what I say around them if I don’t know them well just because I do not want to offend them. But at the same time I can start to feel myself be a little of stage four too because I getting tired of hearing people of color complaining about how they are so worse off and how they have everything harder. And they always think that they are the only ones that get in trouble with the police, and except for a few cases of course the majority of the time they are breaking a law, which gives the police a reason to stop and question them. Ever since taking the class though it has really opened up my eyes and helped me see how things really are. When Sam shows us all the charts and studies that show how people of color actually do have a harder time at getting high paying jobs, and they actually have to work a lot harder to get them. It has helped me see that they do actually have some circumstances that make their life journey a little more difficult a majority of the time. I still feel that everyone has the same advantages as long as they are determined enough the color of your skin can not stop you from being successful in life. So being involved in the race discussions and classes has really helped me be more open with my thoughts and feelings around people from different races. Which in turn has made me be able to understand the different races a lot better. I now can see a little bit of what they go through on a normal day in their life. So I am really glad I took this class to help me open up my views and hopefully progress in my racial state. So that one day I might be able to be a stage six and try to make a difference in this world.

If my roommate told me he was gay I would not have a problem with it. As long as he didn’t try to shove it in my face. If he was cool I wouldn’t care if he liked women or men, it wouldn’t matter to me. But I wouldn’t want to come home to him having another guy over the room. It would be the same as if I had a straight roommate; I still wouldn’t want them to have girls over the room all the time. I feel like it would definitely be a little more difficult to deal with a gay roommate, because you will always be watching what you are saying to make sure you don’t offend him. So in that aspect it would be a little easier to be roommates with a straight guy but it would not be the worst thing to have a gay roommate. He might even have some hot girlfriends that hang out in the room so that would be cool. At the same time I would have to worry a lot more about bringing girls back all the time and offending him. It would definitely be easier to bring girls back when you have a straight roommate. It would definitely be interesting to live with someone who has different views than you and they might actually have good advice to help you out. I can’t wait to see everyone’s views in my discussion group next week. It is going to be very interesting to see how everyone looks at this situation. I think if my roommate told me halfway through the year that he was gay I would be a little weirded out. I would definitely rather him have told me in the beginning of the year. I feel like I would have offended him the whole first half of the year. I like almost all of my friends use the word gay very loosely in my daily life. Anything that we think is stupid or not fun is referred to as gay. Even though we don’t mean to be offensive to the gay community, it is just a word we use. I think it is used more just because it is so common, everyone uses it in a bad way, so I feel it just caught on and now everyone just got used to it so it definitely would suck. Having a homosexual roommate would expose me to their lifestyle and make me more diverse and open-minded. My brother lives with a gay roommate and ever since that living situation he has a different outlook on the gay community. Through experience I will never use the word faggot again, knowing that it is a derogatory an hurtful name.

First off I want to start with talking about Suze and her candied peanuts. I think it is amazing how much work she does just to make an income. She has to take a two-hour trip every three days just to get her raw materials. Than she has to put in many man- hours to just create one batch of candied peanuts. Once the peanuts are baked she has to go through another time-consuming process of putting the nuts in caps and sealing them so she could sell them in the streets. Than she has to pay her vendors who actually go out into the town to sell the candied peanuts. This process from start to finish takes a lot of time and hard work. It is all done to make a very small amount of money that she has to use to support herself and friends. If we can just put our many minds together and think of different methods and ways that will make her process quicker so she can produce more product in a less amount of time, than it will greatly help her out. With Figaro she is a pastry maker in Haiti and needs to support herself and her children with that income. Her business is very good and she has a lot of customers but she cannot produce enough pastries to make enough money. If we all could donate a small amount of money to her she could use it to buy a industrial size mixer that will greatly help her to be able to bake more pastries in a shorter amount of time. Another thing she needs is some sort of transportation so she will be able to deliver her goods to further places away. She gets a lot of orders from places all the way across town. When this happens she has to pay a driver to take the pastries there for her, but the only problem is that it cost her more money to pay the driver than she makes from selling the pastries. So it is a very hard situation and it is not that easy to just get someone a car so we have to figure out a better way for her to deliver her goods to her customers. Noncent makes sandals and eveningwear from scratch at her work shop. She has a couple workers who she has to pay to help her but she doesn’t have the proper equipment to efficiently make her products. She makes everything from scratch the sandals, the dresses, all from the raw materials. If we were to all donate the small amount of money than it could help out Noncent get some new equipment for her shop so she could create more products, in turn more profit.

Why do some people find certain accents attractive and others unattractive? I think the reason that people find accents attractive is just because it is exotic to them. When people grow up in one area their entire life they are used to hearing everyone talk the same way. So when they hear someone speak with an accent that is different than theirs its different and appealing to a lot of people. I for one, love girls with accents, I feel like it definitely adds to their attractiveness. If I hear a girl talk with an accent its exotic and appealing to me mainly because I’m just not used to it. I love Australian accents, but if I grew up in Australia I probably would not find the accent as appealing as I do now. Than at the same time some people could find some accents unappealing for the same reasons. If they aren’t used to hearing the accent it could sound weird and be a turn off for them. For example I don’t like Staten Island accents, even though I grew up around them I just hate the way they talk. It all depends on where you are from and what you are used to hearing and be around. Just like every other thing in this world people see things differently and have different views on them. So certain accents are going to sound attractive to certain people and others unattractive. For me there is something about the Australian accent that makes me find the girl more attractive. But for others it could be a jersey accent or a European accent. If I hear a girl talk with an accent its exotic and appealing to me mainly because I’m just not used to it. I love Australian accents, but if I grew up in Australia I probably would not find the accent as appealing as I do now. Than at the same time some people could find some accents unappealing for the same reasons. If they aren’t used to hearing the accent it could sound weird and be a turn off for them. For example I don’t like Staten Island accents, even though I grew up around them I just hate the way they talk. It all depends on where you are from and what you are used to hearing and be around. Just like every other thing in this world people see things differently and have different views on them. I feel that people sound smarter with certain accents too. For example I believe a British accent makes a person sound smarter and more intelligent. That is why I think that certain accents are found attractive and others are not.

I think people describe themselves as their nationalities because that is their root. That is where their family started their lives, sometimes not that far back and sometimes hundreds of years ago. Everyone loves America but you also have to have respect for where your family started. America is one of the youngest countries; there are very few people who can actually trace their heritage back to Native Americans. When someone asks you what are you say I am Italian, German, Irish, Mexican, or whatever your not insulting America. Everyone born here is American first than you pay respect to your family by saying where they started their lives. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Me personally I am Irish, Italian, and German. But most of all I am an American and I am damn proud to be able to call myself that because not many people in the world can. I don’t think it takes away from the power of our country at all. I actually believe it is what makes us great because we all have such different backgrounds and experiences from our families that no two people are the same. In a lot of other countries like Russia everyone there is the same nationality but it does not mean that they have more unity than us. There families have all been there for their whole lives so most of their beliefs and upbringings are practically the same. I don’t understand how they make progression like that because all of them have only been around other Russians. Here in America we live side by side with people from all around the world we get to experience so many different cultures and backgrounds. It truly is the a giant melting pot and it is what makes America great. Everyone’s family has their own little traditions and celebrations and here you’re free to follow whatever you want. I feel in like other European countries such as Russia or Ireland it is frowned up when you are an outsider. Not here in America everyone is welcome and able to pursue their own source of happiness. It is great because we get to experience these different cultures coming together and I feel it is definitely one of the many reasons why America has always been and will be a powerhouse of the world. I would not want America to be any other way it is the greatest country in the world and I am extremely proud to have been born here. And to have experienced this great life that America offers. That is one of the many reasons that I am going to volunteer at least four years of my life to protect this country as a United States Marine. So when people say they are a different nationality it does not mean they do not like America, they are just paying respect to their ancestors.