HW 18 - Health & Illness & Feasting

During my 2010 Thanksgiving break, my family and I ate a lot of food. Just like any other family, we all argue and fight for different reasons in different ways. Eating food somewhat calmed the fact that we were all angry at each other at one point, and switched to being happy with our stomachs full. During our feast, family members came over to my home, and we spent time together eating together. Sometimes I wonder why peoples personalities change when certain people are around. It is weird, but I know that for some reason it clears the atmosphere around us, and cuts the tension at times.

During our meal, we also watched a movie. It was one of the most exciting movies that came out in 2010, and it was a good choice at that moment. "The Expendables" was the movie we saw. Everyone was hooked to the movie, and they all including myself, were so glued to the movie. I saw the movie tons of times, and I agree with everyones addiction to the movie. For some reason that I don't know, the movie went well with our family gathering.

During the whole feast, there was never any lack of movement. Everyone was walking and talking, telling old hilarious family stories, and acknowledging the ones who weren't with us at the time. Once te movie started, everyone was different, and it was as if they were enslaved to the telovision. It was weird, but still kind of awesome at the same time. I was just happy that some of my family that was still alive, was there with me. The ones who were not, will always be remembered in some way. In a good, bad, funny, or crazy way, they will always be remembered.

HW 23 - Illness & Dying Book, Part 2

Book: Tuesday's with Morrie by Mitch Albom.
Publisher and year: Doubleday 1997

Precis: I am focusing on "The Third Tuesday We Talk About Regrets" chapter. Morrie wanted to have Mitch record what he was saying. He wanted someone to hear what he was saying, so that when he died, (and he knew that time was comming soon) someone would know what happened to him, and what he wanted to say to the world. He wasn't like others, because he reacted to the realism of death totally different from how other humans would.

"Mitch," he continued, softly now,  "you don't understand. I want to tell you about my life. I want to tell you before I can't tell you anymore" p.63 What Morrie was trying to do, wa encourage Mitch to listen to him, because he didn't know how much time he had left to live.

"We all need teachers in our lives, and mine was sitting in front of me." p.65 What Mitch said actually touched me, because it made so much sense. It was something that I have once thoght about in my life, and someone in a book was actually agreeing with me. It made me feel confident in expressing my thoughts, and knowing that there was someone else in the world who thought like me.

"He was standing on the tracks listening to death's locomotive whistle, and he was very clear about the important things in life." p.66 I liked this quote, because it showed how accepting Morrie was to his death. It's interesting and unique, because there aren't many people who are like that.

This third of the book was good. I think it really showed how illness and dying affected Morrie, Mitch, and outsiders. Morrie is so far accepting the fact that he doesn't have much time to live. the only request he has, is for Mitch to be there with him, and listen to his final words. Mitch on the other hand can't believe this is happenning to his former professor. Of course he feels bad, but at the same time, he has to let Morrie deal with his problem, and just be there for him. The outsiders. The people who "care" so much for Morrie. Most of them really don't care about Morrie, they just care that a dying man was on television, and he doesn't give a s**t. The ones who send letters,and notes to him are the ones who care. They share there own experiences with him when it comes to illness and dying,and he writes back, which keeps them interested, and attracted to him. 

HW 19 - Family Perspectives on Illness & Dying

   My mother was always considered the "kind" parent to me, but my dad was alright also. This is because she was raised to be a kind, generous, and a compassionate person. When it came to people dying, or love ones dying or being ill, she always wanted me to go visit them even if I didn't know them that well. She wanted me to visit them, and she also kept telling me to tell them "I love you (family member's name)". Sometimes when I didn't really want to go anywhere, she would say, "Fine. But when you get old, remember how you treated (family member's name)." And she would only say that, because her mother always used to tell her that, whenever my mother didn't want to go anywhere. So basically she developed that tactic from my grandmother, and is now using it against me, to make me feel guilty if I don't cooperate....

   My father was a nice person too, but he was always more strict. When he was a child, his prents usually weren't around. His father was in jail, and his mother died. The only person he had was his grandmother. Even though he had her, she never really looked after him like she was supposed to, so he ended up in a foster home. He was on his own his whole life, so he didn't have much time to show compassion for ill or dying people unless they were super close to him; literaly. He never tought me to feel as though if someone died it was the end of my life. There really wasn't much he could say when it came to that situation; so I did the same.

   My mother and father were definately raised differently. They are both nice and kind to me, but I can sense the difference in personalities. I didn't really know which parent I was going to side with the most, so I decided to adopt both of their ways of approaching that situation. Ever since I turned 14, I decided that whenever someone died I would feel bad, and show respect by visiting them, but at the same time I wouldn't think it was the end of the world.

HW 17 - First Thoughts on the Illness & Dying Unit

   Illness and dying is something that nobody really wants to go through, but is something everyone goes through. Illness my not be part of life, but dying is. I have been in many situations where I have experienced illness, but not yet experienced my own death. Family losses are part of life, even if that person isn't close to you, there is an obvious fact that you have lost someone.
 
   My parents try to comfort me as much as possible, well at least my mom does. My dad really doesn't care if I experience someone dying, my mom would rather "baby" me, and try to explain that it's just part of life. Like I don't know that already. Between them both giving me different types of feedback on how to approach this concept, I was able to develope my own approach to to this concept: Death is part of life, and so is illness. It happens to everyone at some point of their lives. Wheather it is at a young, mid, or old age.

   I know that my life is going to end at some point. I know that I will be ill at some point in my life; maybe more than once. That is what I am sure of. The only thing that I am unsure of, and that makes me nervous, is when. I don't know when this is going to happen. It sometimes freaks me out, because I don't know when my last day is going to be. If I did, I would be able to attempt whatever I wasn't able to fufill in life yet. It makes me wonder. What have I not yet completed in life? What have I completed in life? When will I die? What happens to you when you die? Where do you go when you die? Too many questions, and too many answeres.
  

HW 12 - Final Food Project 2 - Outline

Thesis: Many of the dominant social practices in our society - practices that define a "normal" life - on further investigation turn out to involve nightmares and industrial atrocities. 

Major claim:How our society makes foods is disturbing. It is wrong the way we kill and treat our animals, and non animal food. Also the way we sell the food to our society, without them knowing what actually is in the food.

Supporting claim 1: It is wrong the way we kill and treat our animals, and non animal food.

Evidence # 1: http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/pretrial/factsheet.html
Evidence 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HPnULHzJVc
Evidence 3:http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/681/do-mcdonalds-milkshakes-contain-seaweed

Supporting claim 2: Why we sell food products to our society,without them knowing 100% of what is in our food.

Evidence 1:http://www.NaturalNews.com/028030_high_fructose_corn_syrup_health.html

Evidence 2:http://www.NaturalNews.com/028030_high_fructose_corn_syrup_health.html
Evidence 3: Fast Food nation p.120- Using beef fat to make fries
Evidence 4: Fast Food Nation p.117- Fries from fast food places aren't hand made, they are al

Everything above is basically my hyperlink, and pieces of evidence.

Epilogue: Fast Food Nation

Precis: Lasater Ranch occupies about 30,000 acres of shortgrass. Lasater's cattle were denied. Tom Lasater failed to graduate from Princeton, and became a rancher. He had an idea, to mix Herefords, Shortthorns, and Brahmans. Cattle was thought to be more benefitial from the challenges of the ecosystem.

Gems:  "He thought cattle benefited more from the challenges of a natural ecosystem than from any human efforts to control the environment."(p.256)

Thoughts/Questions: I didn't know it was that easy to become a farmer, and start a company. I think that it was a good idea for tom to combine different cattle to make the best kind. It was probably a technique that he started, and possibly others followed afterwards.

Chapter 10: Fast Food Nation

Precis: Plauen used to be the smallest market town, and then at the end of the nineteenth century, came a textile industry. The city's population trippled. Plauen had the most suicides, and highest unemployment rate at the time. The U.S. Army bombed Plauen, and took over. Plauen was considered lifeless to some people.

Gems: "At the end of the war, 75% of Plauen lay in ruins."(p.227)

Thoughts/Questions: It's amazing(in a bad way) how someplace so known and beautiful could become almost basically lifeless. This isn't good, and it is partially America's fault.

Chapter 9: Fast Food Nation

Precis: Going to resturants make you think that there isn't anything wrong with there food. The food can sometimes taste or smell bad. You would expect that it would be poisonous, but getting food poisoning doesn't alwayscome from the food you think it came from. You never know what is in your food.

Gems: "Gallegos disagreed. E. coli O157:H7 was rarely found in chicken. She asked if Harding had consumed any ground beef lately. Harding recalled eating a hamburger a couple of days before visiting the Mexican resturant. But he doubted the hamburger could have made him ill."(p.194)

Thoughts/Questions: I agree that any food can possibly give you food poisonong if you are not careful. Sometimes the most unlikely possibilities are the answer.

Chapter 8:Fast Food Nation

Precis: People who work at the slaughter house, don't want many people what goes on there. It is built so that everything inside is hidden from the outside. None of the workers talk to each other, because they are too busy, and don't want to fall behind. The tools used are somewhat different from each other, but most of them are electronic. There are many different jobs within the factory, each job is taken serious, and can't be finished without every worker doing their job.

Gems: "Nobody is smiling or chatting, they're too busy, anxiously trying not to fall behing."(p.170)

Thoughts/Questions: I think that it is crazy that people take their job serious. I actually realize now that they really need to, because those are the people who keep McDonalds, Wendy's, Burger King, and other fast food spots around. I realize that they need to work as hard as they possibly can no matter what circumstance. I need to say this, no matter how much that situation disgusts me. 

Freakinomics response:

1. Ther are many moves that served as the basis for freakinomics, for example bridery. Bribery was also one of the tools used in the movie, for example when the kids were getting money just for having good grades. Another tool, was analyzation of  someone's name in life, for example when they were trying to find out who named their child that way, and for what reason; As a symbol?
 to look cool? A final tool was to find out if tere was cheating going on in sumo wrestling. This was important, because they were trying to fnd out who really should win the compititions.

3. They weren't talking about causation, but was talking more about corrieation

Statemet: I agree that freakinomics needs to help others explore what everything is. For  example, when finding out cheating was coming from sumo. We woulb be able to explore that, and.

Chapter 7:Fast Food Nation

Precis: The smell of Greeley Colorado gives itself away before anyone knows that it is there. People usually don't recognize the smell there, because they are so used to it. The industialization of cattle-raising and meatpacking has gone from one of the nation's best paying manufacturing jobs, to the lowest. ConAgra runs the biggest meatpacking complex in Greeley, and owns both a sheep and beef slaughterhouse.

Gems:"They have turned one of the nation's best-paying manufacturing jobs into one of the lowest paying."(p.149)

Thoughts:I thought it was crazy that you could smeel a place before you actually see the place. That doesn't make sense. That means that the place is basically known for one thing...slaughtering animals.

HW #9

Chapter 4:
In Colorado,there are a lot of pizza places. There have been many other resturants opened around. A mall was built, which brought in places like Applebee's, movie theaters, Olive Garden etc. Mostly people who get the pizza there are college students, regular workers, large families and the poor. "Little Caesars pizzas are big and inexpensive, often providing enough food for more than one meal."(p.92) I think that it is interesting that Caesars pizza is brought up, so it could atract all types of people, because they are so cheap. This means that they are atracting more people to get fast food.

Chapter 5
"Gold dust." Gold dust was used as a method to dry potatos. This was used to supply food for the American military during World War II. "The Caldwell facility became the largest dehydrating plant in the world."(p.113) I was surprised, because I never knew that during the war, dried potatos were the main meal. I didn't even know whem dried potatos were created.

Growing own food.

It feels good to grow my own food. I have grown plants in the past, but never to actually eat. It actually tought me how to care for a plant better. This makes me realize that it really isn't that hard to grow something like food from seeds. All you need is the right time and place to do it. Also never to neglect the plant or forget about it. to me, the process seemed sacred to me. I will always remember this.

Hw # 8: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

Chapter 3:
Colorodo went from being a mining town with real outlaws, to a casino outpost. Downtown Colorado isn't that interesting. Mostly old fashioned. Homes in Colorado were similar to homes in California. "Many of the problems that caused white, middle class families to leave southern California are now appearing in Rocky Mountain states."(p.64) It's interesting to notice that since the style of California and colorado are so much alike, so should the problems.

Hw # 7: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

Intro:
Companies in Cheyenne Mountan were used to eating cafateria food. They got tired of doing that which resulted in them either calling Dominos pizza or going to McDonalds. Mcdondalds hires about one million people, which is more than any company. Mcdonalds earns most of it's money by collecting rent, compared to selling food. "When the men and women stationed at Cheyenne Mountain get tired of the food in the cafeteria, they often send somebody over to the Burger King at Fort Carson, a nearby army base. Or they call Domino's."(p.2) I feel as though people have become even more lazy as time went on. Eventually there aren't going to be many places actually growing food still.

Chapter 1:
Carl N. Karcher is one of the fast food industry's pioneers. Carl was born on a farm in Ohio in 1917. Carl's uncle invited him to go to California and work for him. Carl worked for his uncle 76 hours a week."This is heaven."(p.13) It's intersting to know that Carl likes the west more than the east. The west side is like a whole new world for him.

Chapter 2:
Merchandise for Mcdonalds is everywhere. You can buy t-shirts and other clothing supporting Mcdonalds. Telephones were shaped like fries, and ordinary objects were customized to enforce the Mcdonalds logo. Ray kroc made sure that the Mcdonald's industry spread nationwide. "Ray Kroc took the Mcdonald brothers' Speedee Service System and spread it nationwide, creating a fast food empire."(p.34)
I think that it is pretty cool to think about how a little company could be shot from not much, to the biggest thing in the world.

Hw # 6

This is a glass of milk that I drank before I went to bed.

This is a sandwich I had for lunch, because I was hungry.

The reason why I wnated to choose these meals, was because at the time I felt the best afterwards. I felt good, because when I was eating the sandwich I knew that I made it with my own skill. When I make food straight from my hands without having help, I enjoy my meal even more. I feel as though it should be praised, because in my house I am not known to make my own food. When I was drinking the milk I felt good. I don't really know why. For some reason I was craving milk, and I was satisfied afterwards. It was like one of those moments when you like something but the only way to describe it is to say it fit into that situation.

HW # 5

 What we are learning in this unit, is dominant discourse. My definition of a dominant discourse is a conversation in wich anything goes, and there is a dominant side that most of the people agree with. The side with the dominance could be authoritys, or just plain people. There is no right answer until someone actually says something that everyone else agrees with, and they belive anything else is wrong. The problem is that only certain people are "allowed" to be taken seriously.

People who are given a chance by other people to set an example, and make good decisions that could help others are portrayed as dominant discourses. Say a doctor always tells you to eat healthy so that you will live longer. That doctor is listened to, because everyone thinks that a doctor is always right, and always knows what he or she is talking about. "He recalled a major breakfast gathering he attended several years ago: “I came in a bit late and was struck by the surreal image of senior scientists feeding on junk while discussing solutions to national nutritional problems." (New York Times- Doctor's orders: Eat Well to Be Well)That is exactly what most of the world doesn't know. Just because men and women dressed in white coats are called doctors, doesn't always mean they know what they are talking about.

Therefore this shows that people who believe that doctors are always trying to help you, and know what they are talking about, are wong. We fall into the trap of trusting people who don't enforce their own beliefs, and this is because they the doctors are one of the dominant discourses when it comes to food and health.

HW # 3 Picture

This is my refrigerator. A dominant discourse when it comes to food, is a source that apparently knows everything about what you should eat. What makes it dominant, is that whoever is in charge of that source, is trusted more than a random persontrying to tell you the opposite. Even if it was the truth. I have a lot of breads,juices, fruits,vegetables and water. I have a lot of those things, because I am told that it is healthy for me, and that I will get sick if I don't eat only healthy foods. In that situation I was in, doctors and parents were the dominant discourse.

HW # 2 Edit

My priorities in food are 1. It has to taste good, like sweet or taste like chicken or bread. 2. It has to be free or not that expensive. If so, then it has to be worth it. A typical meal could fail by me not making the right choice about what I buy. For example buying something that I would usually get but realizing that it doesn't taste as well as the first time. I would probably get angry because I would sometimes wasted my money. For food to be sacred, it would mean it is extreamly special to me everyday. In that case, I do believe that food is sacred, because everyone needs it. If it isn't to anyone else, it is at least to me.

 When I eat food, I could sometimes feel tired or happy. When I was a kid, I used to like eating ice cream, and when I was finished I actually felt sad. I used to love ice cream so much that I felt sad when I was done, and I went back to what ever I was doing. I would feel tired if my mom or dad took me to the park afterwards. It was a good type of tired, I always thought that life was all about fun with no worries. Even if I was tired I would still be happy.

In my house, if someone wants to eat, they eat. But it depends on who is going to fix them food. I would usually fix my own food if there was no one there to do it for me. If my parents were really tired, I would probably fix them something. If they are sick, I would usually do the same. We don't depend on others to do anything, but sometimes we will offer, or be asked to do something for someone else. I feel as though the ice cream situation sort of connects to this situation, because I had a mind set of being a kid with no worries while eating ice cream. Now I grew up, and I have to start depending on myself. I realize now that life can seem at times, care free. I have to admit that there are times when life can be so confusing and horrible.

Hw 2-food initial thoughts

My priorities in food are 1. It has to taste good, like sweet or taste like chicken or bread. 2. It has to be free or not that expensive. If so, then it has to be worth it. Atypical meal couyld fail by me not making the right choice about what I buy. For example buying something that I would usually get but realizing that it doesn't taste as well as the first time. I would probably get angry because I wasted my money. For food to sacred, it would mean it is extreamly special to me everyday. In that case, i do believe that food is sacred, because everyone needs it. If it isn't to anyone else, it is at least to me.

 When I eat food, I could sometimes feel tired or happy. When I was a kid, I used to like eating ice cream, and when I was finished, I actually felt sad. I used to love ice cream so much that I felt sad when I was done, and I went back to what ever I was doing. I would feel tired if my mom or dad took me to the park afterwards. It was a good type of tired, I always thought that life was all about fun with no worries.

In my house, if someone wants to eat, they eat. But ii depends on who is going to fix them food. I would usually fix my own food if there was no one there todo it for me. If my parents were really tired, I would probably fix them something. If they are sick, I would usually do the same. We don't depend on others to do anything, but sometimes we will offer, or be asked to do something for someone else. I feel as though the ice cream situation sort of connects to this situation, because I had a mind set of being a kid with no worries while eaating ice cream. Now I grew up, and i have to start depending on myself.