France and Posts!

I have started about ten new posts, and I have posted none of them! So now I will post a short but sweet blog... about France. Oh France, how I love you, with your shops, wine, food, open country-side, and overly-proud population. Even me, so Americanized, refuses to let my true identity be known. In the streets today, I tried to appear as local and as knowledgable as I could. Even I could not stop myself from the shame of having lived in America, against my will... ha ha ha. Just kidding y'all, I love America, despite its lack of decent healthcare and even less decent public education.
Lyon, my hometown and also the second largest city of France, is filled with beauty and culture. Avenue Victor Hugo, a long avenue filled ith cafes, restaraunts, and shops, lead to the Bellecourt Square, where we are reminded of the great King Louis XIV and his uneventful death of old age, as he is sculpted with his horse, all four hooves on the ground. The square then continues into the Street of the Republic, where we are again enticed with shops and little cafes. I bought some new clothes that I desperatly needed (or more wanted, but when you're a girl, they're the same thing).
Despite the nice break, I could not help but check my email and see that my boss had sent me my schedule for August. Even on my vacation abroad I can't disconnect from work! AGH!!

Oh its been so long!

My blog post is more neglected than Jewish holidays in public schools, but I am here to rectify that right now! New year, new objectives, but with a new batch of intense work. this semester is going to involve a lot of lack of sleep and low-cost foods, complete with mastering the art of being in two places at once. Not only am I still working with Dr. Greif on her mentally-ill population to which we've added two new projects, but I'm also working on the GSU Public Housing Relocation Study with Dr. Oakley and her team, plus I got a job at a little mom-and-pop gelato shop right across from my apartment!

Interning is one of the most intense but exciting projects I have ever worked on. Basically it is a constant game of hide-and-seek with our sample, as we track them down through phone calls, by calling people who may know them, or by even heading out to areas of low-income and knocking on doors, looking for people. I spend about three to five hours a week just at the phone, calling people to interview them. Most people are happy to have you come out and ask them some questions, more so because they receive money. But today, for example, I called a respondent to tell them I was coming by to give them ten dollars, and she told me she wasn't feeling well. So I asked if I could come by another day and she responded "I already told you I wasn't feeling well!" So you see, dealing with a sample who doesn't even want to see you for money sometimes can make things a little difficult. But we love our sample, none-the-less.

And now Professor G and I are working on more projects, here we are trying to make the connections between financial desperation and poor health: pretty much does desperations to make ends meet lead to risky behavior, like prostitution? In these third world countries, it is common for women to prostitute themselves to provide for their children, to put food on the table, and to make rent. Our objective is to look at how much desperation it takes to lead these women to prostitution. I call it "Relative Desperation."

Last update worth mentioning: June seventh I will be taking the LSAT, my first step into my Law School deep-dive. I am not looking forward to the stupid amount of studying I have to do, on top of four classes, an internship, and research work, but I guess if I'm going to spend my life neck-deep in paperwork, might as well start getting used to it as soon as possible! I'm excited about Law School, despite my former high school economics teacher description of the first year: Its like trying to drink water from a water hydrant. I can only hope that these next years will, one day, provide me with occupational prestige and decent health coverage.

Well, thats all for now. I'm looking forward to a new year, hopefully this new decade will bring some economic prosperity for me and some academic prestige for my little Sociology major.

The Fortune says "Look Ahead for a New Beginning"

The Natural World has developed a wonderful way of continuing itself through the act of reproduction, combining some chromosomes with some DNA, and bam! you've got yourself a new generation. Humans added another component to the mess and developed these emotional relationships where we all go through this intense ritual of dating, having emotional sex, getting involved in in each others lives, and then maybe spending life together or maybe one day it bluntly ends. We also have a psychology behind all these intense romantic relationships that more or less guide us to finding what we want in a romantic relationship, including what needs to be compromised and what cannot.

Now relationships are not easy, that is a fact. They take work, they take time, they take lots and lots of patience. Sometimes we get in fights and we wonder if we will will work it out, or if the whole shebang is lost. There is no doubt that it is extremely hard to suddenly not think only about yourself 100% of the time and acknowledge that there is someone else there, someone who cares about you and the relationship. Its hard when you've always toughed it out on your own to adjust to opening up to your significant other, to spill your problems and your insecurities. So if relationships are so hard, why do we even bother? If break-ups are so nasty, so disgusting, so brutal, why do we still give love another chance?

Now I'm no pro when it comes to true love and all that blah blah, but I do know what is it like when someone cares about you and listens with open ears and an open heart to your problems and issues. There is something magical about this kind of deep respect that someone has for you, and it makes you want to return the favor. Loving someone is beyond just doing things with them, its about being there through the tough times and the fun times. Its about being interested in their lives as much as they are interested in yours. Its about being honest and opening up, not keeping them in the dark. Its about feeling comfortable with them, feeling like someone is rooting for you, always having a cheerleader.

I know this is not sociological but for some reason I feel it necessary to share to whoever is reading this how I feel about love. Love is an awesome feeling that no one should deny themselves. Not loving or denying yourself the ability to love is sad and I feel very sorry for you. Life without love must be a very dark, cold, and lonely life.

All you need is love!

Ah Public Radio

So I'm starting to get annoyed with The Rivers constant repative music... always Blue Oyster Cult or Eric Clapton or Heart... can't even play The Beatles all that much anymore. So I switched the dial to WABE (public Radio 90.1 FM) yesterday and discovered Gringo Star! A play on my favorite drummer, Ringo Starr, they have a little garage band sound that I'm actually really digging.

Perhaps my lack of television has also made me rediscover public radio a little more, but radio is a dying art that is more and more being headed up by mass radio companies, so for once this station has no commercials and great programs, like BBS News and A Prairie Home Companion... one of the best (and perhaps only) radio shows with Garrison Keillor. A must for the nostalgic and the nostalgic at heart!

Anyways, Gringo Star! They are awesome may I suggest you check them out... even though they've been around for a while. Their debut album, All Y'all, is for sale on iTunes too. Enjoy!

http://www.myspace.com/thegringostars

My Raging Functionalist...

I'm currently enrolled in this Sociology course called Race & Ethnic Relations. The basis of the course is to talk about issues and complications in racial and ethnic discriminations and prejudice. This class was right up my alley until I realized that if you bring up the "wrong opinion" you will chastized. Now I'm all for opinions and sharing ideas, I like to hear all about people's opinions and whatnot, but there are some people that are getting on my nerves.

Here is my philosophy on race & ethnicity: The basic concept is that we seperate ourselves based on skin color, but we also attach historical and political significance to it. People totally play the game of race & ethnicity when it suits them (St. Patricks Day, Black History Month, Cinco de Mayo...) and when it sets them apart in a positive light. But the moment that one is faced with negative consequences of these seperations, then its racism. But its all racism, its all seperation, and its all going to keep going on unless the idea of visual discrimination and prejudice had never existed in the first place.

I also believe that we like to place ourselves in groups, we like to belong to groups that set us apart from the vast billions of people in this world. The tighter and smaller our group we belong to, the more we find individualism: for example, I am a white female who goes to college, is a Sociology major, and has a religious obsession for The Beatles... now how many people are in my same boat, based on just those three things? Probably only a handful, which makes us all a tight group and we are able to set ourselves apart. This is how race and ethnicity works. It is a social construction that allows us to set ourselves apart that much more, thus we are seperating ourselves.

Also there is historical context in this, as we like to constantly teach in classes.
The enslavement of African people in the USA took a greater toll on our society than most of us even realize. It was dirty, it was power-driven, it was humiliating, it was wrong, it was pretty much the most horrible, disgusting slave-business ever run in the history of humanity, and it happened only about 150 years ago. And now the problem is that now we are still fighting it. We can fight it by learning about different races and ethnicities and by understanding that all this idea that one group is less superior is complete bogus, but to completely understand and solve a problem you have to understand it first... Oh my god look Functionalist Theory! If you want to solve the problem, you have to understand first HOW it functions in society! You have to look at the reality, the historical context... theorizing about ideal solutions and fantasty worlds where "everyone is equal" isn't going to get anyone anywhere. To eliminate racism, you have to completely stop seperating people and you have to stop making such a big deal about racism. I know it sounds ignorant and very blunt, but if you're not thinking about something, its not an issue. Period.

I needed to vent, those girls just made me mad. Seriously, I'm not ignorant, I'm trying to understand all perspectives of the problem. I'm a Functionalist, get used to it!

ASSHOLE! Did I get your attention? Ok good...

One of my close friends has come up with possibly the greatest website ever... and I encourage you to check it out! Not only is it an excellent place to vent, but you can read about other people's misfortunes and such, PLUS you will learn what not to do to piss people off!

Check it out: http://www.dearasshole.net/

It will change your life!

My Inner Sociologist and My Raging Liberal... all-in-one!

This afternoon was the most inspiring I've had in a while. I went to library with the intention to brainstorm on some potential and perhaps original research topics. I don't really know whats going on with my research work load (three projects with Professor Greif and now I'm adding my own...) but since all my classes overlap, I need something to do! I've heard the phrase "informed consent" way too many times this week in three classes, so its time for some work to distract me.

Now the trick with a research topic is you have to come up with something useful that people will care about, but it has to be original. If you're studying something that people already have written about, you need to put a new spin on it. Well after I toyed around with my typical interests (sex-ed, teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, etc) I began to wonder how differently sex-ed is taught in a public school versus a private. Inspired with my creative twist, I began to think about why anyone would care... and I concluded that if one group of kids were less likely to get pregnant than the other group, then maybe I had my topic! But just to spice it up, I decided to draw comparisions between two cities: a "liberal" one and a "conservative" one.

So here it is folks, my Objective: to compare and contrasts the depths of sexual education & abstinence programs in public schools and private schools, and to see if there is an affect on that city's teen pregnancy rates.

It needs a little work, I feel like I have two objectives in one in there, but maybe I can make my case. Now there are some obvious questions I have to ask myself, like what two cities I want to study. Because I'm already studying Atlanta and Los Angeles, I think I'll avoid those two... instead I was considering New York City (the "liberal") and Houston (the "conservative"). Both are major cities in major states with a heavy political influence.

I like these two cities because they have distinct minority groups that are actually comparable (Mostly Hispanic, which are interestingly heavy on the Catholocism...), and both are large enough to include a variety of public and private schools. It would be interesting which of the two has the lowest teen-pregnancy rate, and also the ratio of public schools to private ones. My inner Sociologist begs to ask so many questions: What are the racial/ethnic rates in each school system? Where are the schools located? What is the property tax in these areas?

Then I'll have to look into each school system's sexual-education program. At what age or grade to they begin to administer the programs? Do they encourage abstinence in middle school, high school, or both? Are the programs co-ed, seperated, or a mix of both? How much weight is put on abstinence versus sexual-education? Are the kids taught to put on condoms, and if they are, is it all the kids or just the boys? Do they teach the girls about Birth Control, or even how to insert a tampon?

I'm still toying with the teen-pregnancy rate bit though. My meek, quiet side feels like its too much, like I'll have to do a study on the public and private schools and compare them in both cities, but my raging political side sees no point in comparing the two if I can't prove something, and this case would be proving that one program decreases teen pregnancies... but I won't go there because thats just my Raging Liberal that will get the best of me. Objective Research Claire! Stay Objective!

If you've stuck out this long, would you have suggestions? I love new ideas... and if you see a flaw or something that can be improved on please let me know! Or just let me know what you think... My Inner Sociologist and Raging Liberal thank you.