| Im done with this year >paper! |
"How I make sense of the American Way of Life"
I started off this year thinking that the only aspect that made up your American way of life was the routine that you did on an everyday basis and the activities you were interested in. As the year progressed I learned the many different things that could make up your American way of life like heath, birth, food and energy. Throughout each unit I gain new insight into the person that I am today and how broad my way of life actually was. All of the lessons have shown me to look deeper into new things that come up in my life so that my options are broader when I make decisions. It was in such shock by some of the things that I learned I went around to my loved ones to share the new insight that would also be affecting them as well. I now not only know more about myself and my way of life at the moment, I also know more about the decisions I’m going to make in the future and the life I want to live then.
Learning about the government and capitalism was extremely boring. I hated every moment of it and was delighted when it was over. I continuously rejected the slightest thought of capitalism and the government until after the unit when things that I was taught actually were showing up in my life and affecting it. I plan one day going into business, the thing that stood out the most to me was the supply and demand charts, I never really thought about how unstable a business could be and that changed my way of life a lot. I began to enjoy this unit after all and stopped trying to reject the boring subject from my way of life because it did affect my future way of life in the end.
Birth is still my favorite unit from this year. I never considered there to be much of an option when it came to birth. I never even considered birth to be a big part of my way of life at all. Well maybe 9 months of my life but that’s all. Now whenever the subject comes up I go on a tangent talking about my new insights on birth. I hope to one day have birth be a huge part of my life. At the start of this unit I thought or birth in many way except for the actual birthing process part. “In the future when I’m grown I know that my perspective is going to change, I will have more of a foundation to be confident in, and when the time comes I know I’m going to be excited for so long, excited to try for a baby, excited to be pregnant, have the baby shower, give birth and then watch them grown up. Overall I think birth is a wonder full experience just when the time is right and there is less of a chance for anything to turn out bad.” Now birthing is all I can think about when the idea of birth comes to mind. I learned so much about myself in this unit that it has spilled over into my way of life. I never saw how much birth was a part of mainstream America, until this unit. BIRTH became a trend and I couldn’t believe it, it was shocking in its own ways but the biggest thing that stood out to me was how much people let others influence their birth. This made me feel empowered and allowed me to think about my way of birth and the “trend’ that it won’t follow.
Health in America is so dumb! I can’t think of a more stupid system that won’t help others in need when they aren’t able to do it for themselves. As the year progressed I began to realize how much the government really didn’t care too much for its civilians. I even considered moving to Canada for a couple of years. I think this unit hit me the hardest, I began to fear how the outcome of my life would turn out if one day I wake up and am sick. I appreciate this unit the most because it hit home and made me start to realize the truth instead of a couple of facts that I know here and there.
I don’t want to starve to death, not be able to use the bathroom and have no electricity because the world has run out of oil! This unit scares the shit out of me!!!!! I am happy to know the underline meaning to the collapse in the world! It saddens me know to think we might end up like caveman but I think it would be good for the world in the scene of trying to rebuild itself ecological wise.
One of the main patterns that I have noticed in this class throughout each year was each individual topic. All of the topics that we covered in this class are all topics that I had little knowledge of. I think that because of this class I will approach every new thing with a new view on life. I am going to share my new insight with everyone that I come in contact with. If theses units could affect me in so many ways, it has to affect the people around me as well. I started off this unit thinking that I had such a boring American way of life that it shouldn’t even be considered interesting, Now I leave this year with new insight about the complexity that my life can actually have, and that empowers it.
Extra Credit:
I particularly liked Francesca’s insight into the food unit. I understand that Americans like variety but I never thought about what if we didn’t. She mentions the many different types of cereal and how that affects the supply and demand charts. By reading her paper I made me realize that Americans do in fact have way too much variety in life.
-Lauren
Kevin, you make me laugh, reading your paper showed me how much passion you have in your writing and the point that you were trying to prove. “I think it is dumb that we are still using fossil fuel because sooner or later we going to run out of it. Why don’t we use something that we have a lot of such as sunlight, air, or even water? But no they want to dig into the earth and try to get oil that will run out soon.” The way you write is impressive and I hope to write like that one day as well.
-Lauren
Sandy, thank you for involving me in your paper. I agree with your insight on the health care system and how people don’t voice their opinions. I didn’t think much about how people don’t voice their opinions in very situation. Reading your paper made me remember just how much I actually did hate seeing my dad not get the help that he needed. I plan to try and fight the system when ever I can now. This is also a general pattern I notice about the American way of life, because we depend so much on our authority which has so much power, we fear the power that they have and hold back on what we say despite our "Freedom of Speech" in the U.S.
-Lauren |
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| (1st Draft ) Done with this year paper |
"How I make sense of the American Way of Life"
I started off this year thinking that the only aspect that made up your American way of life was the routine that you did on an everyday basis and the activities you were interested in. As the year progressed I learned the many different things that could make up your American way of life like heath, birth, food and energy. Throughout each unit I gain new insight into the person that I am today and how broad my way of life actually was. All of the lessons have shown me to look deeper into new things that come up in my life so that my options are broader when I make decisions. It was in such shock by some of the things that I learned I went around to my loved ones to share the new insight that would also be affecting them as well. I now not only know more about myself and my way of life at the moment, I also know more about the decisions I’m going to make in the future and the life I want to live then.
Learning about the government and capitalism was extremely boring. I hated every moment of it and was delighted when it was over. I continuously rejected the slightest thought of capitalism and the government until after the unit when things that I was taught actually were showing up in my life and affecting it. I plan one day going into business, the thing that stood out the most to me was the supply and demand charts, I never really thought about how unstable a business could be and that changed my way of life a lot. I began to enjoy this unit after all and stopped trying to reject the boring subject from my way of life because it did affect my future way of life in the end.
Birth is still my favorite unit from this year. I never considered there to be much of an option when it came to birth. I never even considered birth to be a big part of my way of life at all. Well maybe 9 months of my life but that’s all. Now whenever the subject comes up I go on a tangent talking about my new insights on birth. I hope to one day have birth be a huge part of my life. At the start of this unit I thought or birth in many way except for the actual birthing process part. “In the future when I’m grown I know that my perspective is going to change, I will have more of a foundation to be confident in, and when the time comes I know I’m going to be excited for so long, excited to try for a baby, excited to be pregnant, have the baby shower, give birth and then watch them grown up. Overall I think birth is a wonder full experience just when the time is right and there is less of a chance for anything to turn out bad.” Now birthing is all I can think about when the idea of birth comes to mind. I learned so much about myself in this unit that it has spilled over into my way of life. I never saw how much birth was a part of mainstream America, until this unit. BIRTH became a trend and I couldn’t believe it, it was shocking in its own ways but the biggest thing that stood out to me was how much people let others influence their birth. This made me feel empowered and allowed me to think about my way of birth and the “trend’ that it won’t follow.
Health in America is so dumb! I can’t think of a more stupid system that won’t help others in need when they aren’t able to do it for themselves.
• health care
• economic inequality
• Food
• Energy
• connect them to each other and to deeper underlying patterns.
• You should share your orientation towards the American Way of Life
• Do you resist it?
• Enjoy it?
• Enjoy and resist different aspects?
• What aspects of the mainstream American Way of Life account for its global dominance and dominance here in the U.S.?
• What aspects of the American Way of Life are particularly tragic or dumb?
• How did the essential aspects of the American Way of Life develop and where are we headed?
• Please include some quotes from your own or others' earlier work that expresses strongly what you believe or what you don't (any longer) believe. |
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| the possible collapse of our way of life |
It’s not the end of the world…(not yet at least). I don’t view the United States passing the oil peak as such a bad collapse. Collapse in America might not be such a bad thing right now. Global warming is approaching so rapidly, that maybe having a global oil collapse is just what the doctor ordered. The transformation back to walking and riding bikes might be horrifying to some but I see it as a positive thing for saving the world.
In history many civilizations have collapsed. In class we focused on the rapid collapse of Easter Island and how it resembled the collapse of America. The demise of Easter Island was the waste of their resources, like Easter Island America is wasting our resources as well. Esther Islands main resource was there trees; once they used up all of their resources there civilization fell. Seeing the way Easter Island fell made me realize that America is not only wasting 1 main resource which is oil but 2 main resources because we are cutting down trees at a rapid pace as well. Once the oil supplies become unbearable, I think people are going to start viewing trees in a different light and we will build a better country after the oil collapse.
I like the possibility that having an oil collapse will improve the world in many aspects. The Olduvai theory believes that energy production per capita will fall to its 1930 value by 2030, thus giving Industrial Civilization a lifetime of less than or equal to 100 years (Richard C. Duncan). Basically that evolution is going to take a full turn around and go back to the stone ages. From the actions that people are taking this theory is most likely to happen unless something is done. “Fossil fuels make the world go around” so when we run out the collapse of oil will eventually movie into the collapse of the world. |
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| the possible collapse of our way of life (first draft) |
>the possible collapse of our way of life<
-Easter Island chapter
-information from class
-film clips
-students' perspectives
-lecture
-online research.
It’s not the end of the world…(not yet at least). I don’t view the United States passing the oil peak as such a bad collapse. Collapse in America might not be such a bad thing right now. Global warming is approaching so rapidly, that maybe having a global oil collapse is just what the doctor ordered. The transformation back to walking and riding bikes might be horrifying to some but I see it as a positive thing for saving the world.
-The Olduvai theory (Im a big believer, i think we will be the best cavemen ever!)
-Save the world (no more air pollution)
-Give people jobs (since the oil is still in the ground and America is so addicted to there oil, they might rely on the energy of people to get it out instead of the oil that is used to get it out.)
-Lower the economic prices (the cost of cars will become close to nothing that we might just pull our selves out of this recession)
-We might suffer worst than Easter island (“there trees are our oil”, we are using up both our trees and our oil)
-Nothing will be made up of oil anymore but made up of energy (energy from humans)
-Collapse will stop “horrible capitalism” from growing (more socialist economy) |
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| Easter Island chapter |
As I read the chapter I felt like the main argument…. Well there really wasn’t an argument; he just seemed to go on and on about those statues that brought a civilization to its end. I do think that first thing off, the United States is still thriving while the population on Easter Island is zip. The rate that the once rich civilization fell is shocking. I thought it was so interesting that a whole civilization became hypnotized into building these statues that it led to them going extinct. In comparison to Easter Island, America is semi-like them. Unlike Easter Island our motivation is not building statues but trying to maintain an expanding society and this is the cause of our demise. Easter Island and America are on the same path, I just feel that America can survive better than the Eastern Islanders did. They used every resource available until there last resort was cannibalism. Overall I think America is prepared for our fossil fuels to run out; although the world will completely change I think that it will be good, we will become a lot more eco-friendly and probably bike ride more. I also think America can do a lot better at in general than the Eastern Islanders did. >I feel like I’m going in circles so ill stop, hope I got my point across. < |
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posted by Lauren at 
