A Changing Definition of Class

“Classes are groups of people of similar economic and social position; people who, for that reason, may share political attitudes, lifestyles, consumption patterns, cultural interests and opportunities to get ahead.” This definition of the class is directly from our honors article this week and I feel gives a fairly good definition in an uncertain society that struggles to define class. One thing that I am glad the honors article mentioned this week, which I found there was a definite lack of during the movie which we watched all week, was that class is extremely complex and that middle class nowadays means nothing. Class is so confusing and complex because is changes literally on a daily basis in so many different ways that we may not even think have anything to do with class. Although the honors article did address the idea that class is changing, it focused way too much on figuring out issues of class by using the past and did not change with the class changes. However, it was in no comparison to as bad and biased as the movie was which depicted (in my opinion) the upper class as always a snotty and uninformed level of class that doesn’t know anything about the lower classes. I disagree with this for the most part but I am forced to agree that yes there are some people that are way up there in the upper class that they are truly uninformed of the people even right below them. I feel that although there are people like that, which are the only upper class people they showed, that most of the upper class is not like this and instead are much more in touch with the classes below them (obviously more in touch with the classes that are closer in level first and then less in touch as you move down each class level). Another thing with the movie that bothered me about the changing ways of social classes was that the school in Texas was continually related to BHS. I will agree that some things between the two are fairly similar such as maybe the education or area. However, Mrs. Castelli even told us a story of how her daughter thought that everyone at BHS was very the same in how they acted and dressed while the students at the school seemed very diverse and different. Finally what bothered me the most about the movie was how fake the people became with their statements and thoughts to obviously just be able to get on camera. I feel that at BHS students would be less likely to talk about some of the things they mentioned in the movie and definitely would be less likely to express false ideas on how we may think class works. All in all I enjoyed the movie and especially the article just because it gave me a better sense of the true division of classes within our country, even though it was a few years out of date it still gave an overall sense.

Marx's Theory Today

Recently in 2^nd Hour Sociology with Mrs. Castelli, we have been learning about what some possible ideas are that determines our social class. The most interesting one to me by far was Karl Marx’s, but it wasn’t because he is the one that wrote the communist manifesto. His theory was interesting to me because he said that social class depends only on the relationship that people have with the means of production. However, that is not what amazes and interests me about his theory. What I find extremely fascinating is that Marx says that factors such as education, clothing, pay, and the material wealth you have are completely irrelevant. As I thought about how this could be possible I thought back to class and how Marx’s theory actually applies well when he created it, but even better nowadays. He noticed that there are really only two classes of people in society. One was the business or factory owner, which have the majority of the wealth and live in constant luxury which he called the bourgeoisie. On the other hand were the proletariats or the ones that work for the bourgeoisie and had very little to none of societies’ wealth even though they worked much harder than the bourgeoisie. All though I don’t necessarily agree with Marx from the standpoint of society only having two classes, I do agree somewhat with the idea that it depends on the person’s position in the means of production. This reminded me of a student at BHS named Emilio Baez who led a walkout last year, and eventually dropped out of school this year to protest with the “99% of America.” He is protesting that “We are the 99%” which says, like Marx’s theory, that only a small amount of the population (the 1%, aka bourgeoisie) own the country’s wealth while Emilio is part of the 99% of the US that is working for these bourgeoisie (aka proletariats). Like Marx predicted, the 99% realized that they are being oppressed by these owners and will eventually rebel against the owners to try to even everything back out because capitalism has created such a divide that is ever increasing, especially in our country and world today which is causing many different problems. These socioeconomic trends are causing these lower class people to be taken advantage of easily and unfortunately this is the case with human trafficking/slavery, which is the topic of our honors article this past week. The article exposes a terrible truth about what is going on around the world and although I feel much more aware than my peers about what’s going on, I am still in shock myself with how we are so ignorant to these things in this country. Much like how high class people like WASPs are ignorant to what’s going on in lower classes, our country’s population is mostly ignorant to other 3^rd world or poor countries and their very serious problems such as human trafficking. Although we have tried to help other countries and their slavery issues via legislation, at the same time we need to take a step back and consider the consequences of it. We have seen many times in history how the US has stepped into someone else’s problem and either made it worse or actually caused new or much more worse problems than there were before. I enjoyed the honors article not necessarily because it was about human trafficking but because of the thought that maybe my fellow classmates will be in shock and be motivated to help put an end to slavery and human trafficking for good.

Review of Sociological Themes in Disney Movies

The project that we recently just completed on the sociological themes in disney movies was very different and new to me. It was not the sociological ideas that were new to me but the idea of the project. Initially i was skeptical of it because we were confused as to what exactly to do, we did not have that strict of guidelines in other words. The project itself was not hard, but it was just very time consuming. In the future I would say that there should be 1-2 more days in the lab. Even though we had around 2.5 days in the lab to work on it, it still wasnt enough to do what we wanted to do. However the biggest criticism i have is that we did not have any constraints for the project or guidelines to follow. I understand it was the first time that its been done just to test it out but it still proved much harder than it should have been for us to complete it. All in all I was indifferent to the project but I think I would have really enjoyed it if we had been given some more guidelines on what exactly we had to do and present.

Gauging Gender and Sex

Many people consider gender and sex the same thing, however they are very different. One must understand that sex is the physical sex of a person as in which type of genitals they have, male or female. Gender is what the person’s brain chemicals make them feel like and what makes them either think like a male or female. In the article, the scientists say that it is not necessarily our genes that define our sex or gender but also the society and our culture in which we are raised. For example, the Samoan culture may raise a male boy to become a Fafafini. A Fafafini is a person with male genitals who dresses and acts like a woman, has sex with other males, and takes on a woman’s tasks. All of this is done without being considered gay and is not frowned upon in the Samoan culture because it is socially acceptable. Why is it socially acceptable one may ask? In Samoan culture if someone acts like a woman, even though they have male genitals, then they are considered a woman. So these Fafafini are considered “women” so it is not frowned upon. I put women in quotes because the Fafafini are actually considered to be a third gender in Samoan culture because they take on the manly and tough tasks that males have to normally do but also are the women within a household. There are many ways that the article says how scientists decided how sex and gender are determined. Many believe that the society and culture in which we are raised is what determines what gender we will likely take on. On the other hand, many believe that the genes we are born with determine from the start what gender we will feel like. Personally, I believe it is actually a combination of both because I do not think one of those possibilities by itself can determine how someone will likely feel in there lives. It is hard to decide on which one is correct because there is so much research that supports both sides, so for now I will settle on a mutual agreement. In one part of the article it talked about how men have to “detach twice” from their mother in the womb when they are born while women have to “detach once” from their mother. Personally I feel like you can say that this may be the cause for some of the differences between men and women. Although I feel that men act the way the act mostly because society and culture teach them to be that way, I think you can also say that because they have to detach twice, they are probably a little bit different because of it. It is a little bit of a stretch however, one will understand when they think about how much influence culture has and how this may aid in that.

Bullying in Your Genes

               This week’s article “The Politics of the Gene: Social Status and Beliefs about Genetics for Individual Outcomes” discusses the topic of our genes which give us our traits and helps us determine which characteristics we adopt in the end. The article discusses how there is the possibility that the genetics in races determine say how good someone is at math, athletics, tendency for violence, or their motivation. In class this week we also discussed cyber bullying and slightly touched on bullying in general. With the article in mind, you could say that a bully is determined by their genetics. However in class we discussed cyber bullying and some videos (and from my own personal experience) we were able to see how everyone is a bully in some form or another in their life and/or online. Personally I do not believe that genetics are a determining factor on whether or not someone will become a bully. I believe this because I have seen how people who are raised in a very positive and non hostile environment whose parents and grandparents seem like the most kind people around and how those people still have the possibility to tear someone down and be a bully. If one were to argue that being a bully is already in our genes then that person would also have to say that we all have that gene already because I have seen most everyone in some form or another be a bully.

Smoking is Just as Bad as Fast Food

Social norms are, and always will be, evolving to fit what the society and that culture wants at that time. Smoking used to be one of the largest agriculture products in the United States at one time, and it has chronically declined with the invention of better healthcare techniques and the realization that smoking is actually bad for you. While flipping through one of my Mom’s old high school year books, I saw someone smoking on almost every single page and I questioned if smoking really was that big back then. She told me how every magazine had an advertisement in it and many tobacco brands advertised to young children. I thought about how I really have never truly seen an advertisement for smoking and came to the realization that it was because of my generation had put a bad rep on smoking which basically has almost wiped it out (compared to what it used to be). My mom then questioned how smoking was so common only 20-30, or even less years ago, and how it had came to being such a disgusting and socially unacceptable habit. I then again realized that there will never be a situation where a previous generation is not confused or shocked by a new set of social parameters introduced by the following generation.

            We put ourselves with our social norms so that we can basically defy our previous or parental generations and then when the time comes to rethink these social norms and to open up to new norms it is extremely difficult, no matter what the case. Although smoking may have gone downward when the generation just before me had questioned it, almost all of the generations before had questioned it. Now comes a time that I can directly relate a generation adjusting to a new social norm because the generation just above me is currently trying to readjust to the evolving social norm of eating healthier. For the past 20 years it has been the norm that it was okay to eat fast food in large quantities and to “pig out” on whatever we want. Now the social norms are shifting, just like how the norms of smoking had too around 20 years ago. My generation is now in the position that the generation just above me was with smoking; we are trying to change the social norms of eating extremely unhealthy not necessarily for our own benefit, but to actually defy the generations above us who have been eating extremely unhealthy foods. All in all I believe that our social norms are every changing and each generation seems to want to "one up" the previous.

I thought this was a good depiction of how a social norm has changed. This 100 lady is shown lighting her cigarette up, which would have been the social norm when she was younger. However in the past 20 years it has changed to which it is looked down upon if you smoke.


-Tommy Harvey

I will be turning in a Castelli Coupon tomorrow before class, again I apologize for my blogs being so late. I followed the rubrics and the stuff you wrote out for me when I have came in early directly as you have put it so I can achieve all if not as many of the points as possible.

Culture Shocked by the Yanomamo

In the beginning of this article there was a very strong display of ethnocentrism by the author who gave a harshly critical description of the Yanomamo value system when he first arrived. I think that the Yanomamo provided a very good example of a culture that was very primitive which helped show extremely clear effects of culture shock and the value system of a culture that has barely even been touched by the ever evolving outside world’s influence. For me, I found that the author’s experience of culture shock was actually not that surprising. Normally one would think that being an anthropologist, you would be able to expect things and not be that affected if not at all affected by a culture shock. However the author was not immune from it and I don’t think that anyone who has lived in a non-primitive culture like the Yanomamo will ever be immune from it either.

            Another thing that I was fascinated by was how the Yanomamo’s culture was much more based on respect, NOT violence, although at times I could see how one may see it as violence. I was fascinated by this because it made me think of how our culture was once based on respect, or at least more so based on respect than it is now. As time moves on, our culture has moved away from respect (not necessarily respect through violence) towards one that is based on the trust with others and our honesty we have with others on the hierarchy of social values.

            In class we watched a film on Peter and Santino, two boys who moved from Africa to the United States where they tried to start up a new life. Peter and Santino experienced the culture shock that I was previously talking about that comes from the respect that we have inherently gotten and give to each other. With their culture, they were used to respecting their elders, neighbors, and all people as family while when they came to the United States they experienced a great culture shock because we do not treat strangers or even some of our closer neighbors as family. Instead we treat out neighbors and others with a respect that we have inherently gotten.  The connection between culture shock and ethnocentrism are very close and it is clear that the more ethnocentric you are, then the more of a culture shock you will experience.

I thought that this picture was a funny example of different people experiencing culture shock.

-Tommy Harvey

I apologize for this blog and my next blog being so late, I have been having trouble with how to write this and the next blog because I wanted to do as good as I possibly could on both. I will turn in two "Castelli Coupons" when I turn these blogs in tomorrow.

The Cardinal Assumption is Reforming

Prior to reading this article I knew that culture molds our habits of thoughts, however I never expected it to also mold how we think in the first place. Before the article I had agreed with the cardinal assumption: that the same basic processes underlie all human thought, no matter where someone is. Now I agree with most of the scholars who presented studies in the article. The article proved to be one of my favorites so far and I think that is because I was able to understand it through connection.
                Dr.Richard Nisbett found that people who grow up in different cultures do not just think about different things: they think differently. I knew that there is some variation on how people process things and think about them, but I had no idea how different people actually were.  In one of the studies it said that:

“Easterners, appear to think more ‘holistically,’ paying greater attention to the context and relationship, relying more on experience-based knowledge than abstract logic and showing more tolerance for contradiction. Westerners are more ‘analytic’ in their thinking, tending to detach objects from their context, to avoid contradictions and to rely more heavily on formal logic.”

                WOW.  After reading this I was astonished because I realized that all those things are true and I never really thought about how different we were. I now can understand why Asians are more holistic and take after their experience whether that be their own or their families pasts. Their culture influences all of this because of the strictness and how connected they are with their past causes them to become more holistic. While the American culture influences how we are more analytic and rely on formal logic. This is because our culture is revolved around independence and we have grown up being taught that we need to use our logic and analyze situations thoroughly.

                Another study showed Japanese and American students an animated underwater scene, in which one larger “focal” fish swam among smaller fishes and other aquatic life and they were required to describe what they saw.  Dr.Nisbett did a very good job, in my opinion, of telling how the “Americans were much more likely to zero in on the biggest fish, the brightest object, the fish moving the fastest because that’s where the money is as far as they’re concerned.” This gives a very good example of how the American culture of money and gaining power molds a person’s mind into picking out things where those are.

Describe what YOU see...



One of the paragraphs and studies I thought was the most interesting was how East Asians and Americans responded to contradiction. “Presented with weaker arguments running contrary to their own, Americans were likely to solidify their opinions, Dr.Nisbett said, ‘clobbering the weaker arguments,’ and resolving the threatened contradiction in their own minds. Asians, however, were more likely to modify their own position, acknowledging that even the weaker arguments had some merit.” Immediately I felt connected because I noticed that in my own life I do the same thing that Dr.Nisbett said Americans do. I almost always use weaker arguments to my advantage by making my argument stronger and I rarely reconsider my argument. This has inspired me to change, from now on I will try to think the way that East Asians do and use those weaker arguments to modify my position.

Eating Your Friends Is the Hardest

This week’s article brings up how our world is socially constructed, and that nothing contains built-in meaning. Some may argue that some things contain a built in meaning, but ultimately they do not. The article about the Uruguayan rugby team is a perfect example of this. Prior to the plane crash, the world (for the most part) considered cannibalism as an out of this world idea. That idea everyone inherited from their uprising, which is why it may seem like it already has a built in meaning because we are so used to it. However after the plane crash of F-227 and the events necessary to survival, the world (mainly media) transformed the idea of cannibalism as an act which was formerly unconceivable to something that was, and could be necessary in times.

                Immediately after reading the article I made a connection to what we had talked about in class a few days ago. We were discussing how the world is socially constructed and whatever meaning something has, it’s arbitrary. We brought up the idea of saliva/spit. Normally we think of spit as that disgusting liquid in our mouth that we spit out. Our outlook on it changes under different circumstances like when we are kissing someone. The spit is no longer “spit” and isn’t disgusting, its saliva and something that is part of kissing and is desirable (to some).

                These two things tie in to one another because spit will always be spit, but is only socially acceptable when kissing. While eating a peer is not okay to normally choose and is only acceptable if it is under complete necessity.

                On another note about the article, I thought it was very interesting and a few of the parts were pretty hard to imagine but caught my attention. One of the paragraphs talked about how a survivor was sleeping inside the fuselage and a frozen hand rubbed against his face because someone had “gotten a late night snack.” Besides it being already hard enough to eat a friend, I imagine it must have been even harder to be the first one to take a bite of human flesh. I also thought it was interesting how they ultimately decided on cannibalism, which was they determined the bodies were no longer people because their souls had left them. Overall I enjoyed reading the article and the author’s social connection’s at the end of it and I will probably watch the movie again sometime soon.

I have seen the movie about the flight of F-227 and I remember starting the book and seeing a disturbing picture, which also relates to how it is only socially acceptable to eat a friend when it is absolutely necessary for survival. Here is the picture, notice the human spine and ribs next to the guys on the right. Yet they are still smiling because they are surviving because they ate their friends because it was necessary to survival.

Addicted to Danger

A couple of months ago I read a book called Addicted to Danger by the famous, and one of the best high altitude climbers, Jim Wickwire. In the book he travels the world in search of the new best high, which he gets by putting himself at risk. I was thinking one day during class about climbing mountains and that’s when I remembered about how I read this book a couple of months ago. One of the questions the book had asked was “where is the line between climbing in high altitude for your own personal glory or for publicity?” As an avid climber, I feel this question is attached to any climbers back when it comes to a dangerous climb. I would consider myself “addicted to danger” because I like that thrill of being on the edge. At the same time, that addiction to danger for me also stems from sociological ideas. Some of these ideas being that climbing something so dangerous is equivalent to being a god among mortals and that idea is what drives the addiction to danger.

            In most cases with regular mountaineering that is truly just for pleasure (no sponsors, no Sherpa’s, etc.), there are little to none of these sociological pressures I think of. However when you get to higher altitude and more risk climbs, the personal glory reason for the climb can only take you so far. There is a point where outside pressures to climb an extremely dangerous mountain play in. Some of these points could be a company that sponsors a climber to climb and will pay for all expenses, pay the climber, and make the climber famous, if they are able to complete the climb. Something like that is the determining factor on whether or not a climber will come down to safety, or climb on to certain death.

            This is a short blog post on something I read which relates to sociology, and I know it is also a very confusing one. With many of my connections between my experiences or something I read/saw and sociology I feel like they can be very hard to understand in my writing. I believe that in most cases it is harder to put what you feel or what you are thinking down on paper than it is to say it out loud. That is the case with most of my blog posts and work in every class, not just sociology. I think this is a neat connection which I also think most people would not make. If this is confusing for you, then ask me to explain it in person and I’d be happy to explain it to you!

-TH

Here is a link with the "Addicted to Danger" book on amazon.com
I highly recommend reading it...
http://www.amazon.com/Addicted-Danger-Jim-Wickwire/dp/B005FOH4CS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315290450&sr=8-1

The First Honors Reading

I thought I would start off with a very exciting video on "What is Sociology?", so here it is:

             With that behind, this blog post is my first Honors reading blog post, so bear with me. The first article I was assigned for my honors reading was called What is Sociology? Comparing Sociology and the Other Social Sciences. After reading the article, I didn’t know what to think at first. There was no doubt that I thought it was interesting, but I just didn’t know if it was the good or bad kind of interesting. After I thought about it some more I realized it was the good type of interesting, which is what I was hoping for. It was the good type of interesting because it provided distinct characterizations of the different social sciences. I enjoyed reading how the different social sciences compare to sociology and I found myself relating them in my head later in the day after I was done reading.

            One of the things that caught my eye was of a relationship between the author’s idea of sociological situations and what we did in class a few days ago. On one of the days in class we went over in groups why there could be juvenile delinquency and what were some sociological factors that played in along with psychological factors to cause juvenile delinquency. I immediately made that connection in my head because we went over it in class.

            I can relate the purpose of this article which is the vagueness of the definition of sociology with my own life with relationships. With relationships I do not mean just dating, I mean human interaction and friendships as a whole. Just like introductory students with the ambiguity of the definition of sociology, I felt uncertainty as a first born child with relationships. I had nothing to base my ideas off of and I also had nothing to relate to which would have helped me understand relationships with peers and others better. I’m sorry if that doesn’t quite make sense to you; I had trouble trying to write that connection out on paper. If you have a question about that relation I made then you can ask me so that I can hopefully try to explain it better and more clearly.

            I have already seen my own “biography” influenced by my personal history in so many ways. There are also many different levels which one is influenced. There are many different possibilities that can factor it. Things like going to an all boys or coed school, or a private catholic versus a public school. At the same time, small things like who you pass and say hello to in the hall can also have a very strong effect on a person’s sociological and psychological outcome.

-TH

Post Script: I apologize for not puting my signature "TH" at the bottom of my "The REAL First Post"

The REAL First Post

For the real first post I am supposed to write “Who Am I? Write a blog entry that defines who you are. Explain to the class what makes up the person you are. What are the biggest influences in your life? What are your goals/purposes?”
            Personally I feel this is too difficult for me to answer through writing, but seeing as this is an assignment I guess I have to. It’s much easier I think for someone to see who I am by meeting and talking or being in my class with me.

To summarize who I am is something I don’t normally think about doing. But I would say I am very different than many of the people who live around here. While people around here may like going outdoors, I truly enjoy being in the outdoors. I’m an avid hiker, climber, and skier. Unfortunately living where I do, I am unable to do those things without having to travel quite a bit. One cool thing that I can think of about me right now is that I plan to climb and ski down Mt.Elbrus is Western Russia this coming summer. Mt.Elbrus is the highest point in Europe at around 18,510 feet. It also is apparently home to the world's "Nastiest Outhouse" said Outside magazine in 1993, I'm really looking forward to that.

I care for the environment, but would consider myself a very hypocritical person when it comes to it. That is probably because of the Edward Abbey books I have read so far (Desert Solitaire, and The Monkey Wrench Gang), along with the book Hayduke Lives!, which I just started reading. These books are written by their eco terroristic author who uses his own past experiences to tell fictional tales of characters. I believe these books have changed who I am in the past year, especially how I feel about the environment since I first read one of his books. I would say that he is one of the influences on my life. I would also say that all my peers, teachers, and the rest of the world are my biggest influences in my life because I don’t really look up to anyone in particular.

At this point in my life, I don’t really know what my goals or purposes in life are. I have a few things on my bucket list, which I guess could be used as “my goals or purposes in life” for now. A few of those things are climbing the 7 summits (highest points on each continent), hike the Appalachian trail, Kayak down the Mississippi River, ride behind the Tour De France for the entire race, and a few other things which come and go as I remember them or as I gain new interests. My other goals are to get straight A’s for the rest of high school because I didn’t do so well freshman or sophomore year (2.455 GPA Freshman year, 2.8 GPA Sophomore year). I was able to get straight A’s and get a 4.1 GPA last year (Junior year), and I hope to also get straight A’s this year because I must for 1^st semester of this year if I want to go to the college of my dreams. That is another goal you could say of mine in my life right now, is get straight A’s so that I can get into the college of my dreams, which is Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado where I could also play Divison 3 lacrosse. I am way below their average GPA to get in, but I would be the 3^rd generation of my family to go and 5^th member of my family to go if I ended up going to CC. Other than that I can’t recall any other goals, but I’m sure I will remember them later. I’m sorry if this is a bland summary of “who I am” but the only thing I can say is that it would be better to meet me and see how I act in class and around people.

Here is a 3D model of Mt.Elbrus is Western Russia...
Elbrus_3D_version_1.gif‎

And here is a video of the CC Division 3 lacrosse team about You vs. Them... I think its a pretty sweet video, but thats probably because this is where I want to go and play lacrosse.

Welcome to the Tommy Harvey Experience (THE Blog)

Hello,
 and welcome to the Tommy Harvey Experience Blog, otherwise known as THE Blog. I have created this blog for my sociology class so I apologize if it may be VERY bland at times.

My first agenda is step #5 on my sheet which tells me to write and upload my first post, which i am doing. However it requires me to answer a few questions. It says "Who am I? Write a blog entry that defines who you are. Explain to the class what makes up the person you are. What are the biggest influences in your life? What are your goals/purposes in life?"

I dont feel like actually answering these questions right now (ill do it for real later, maybe). So ive decided to share with you something that describes someone else.

College application essays are much like what step #5 is asking, so I have found a college application essay written by a applicant a few years ago that describes him in a very different way. You may have heard or seen it before so i apologize if that's the case.

This can be found all over the internet but here is a citation for it... From Harper's: "This essay, by Hugh Gallagher, won first prize in the humor category of the 1990 Scholastic Writing Awards. It appeared in the May issue of Literary_Calvalcade, a magazine of contemporary fiction and student writing published by Scholastic in NYC. Gallagher, who is 18, grew up in Newtown Square, PA, and will attend NYU this fall." Here is the essay...

"IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.
I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets. I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.
I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four-course meals using only a Mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
But I have not yet gone to college."


I felt like making this my first post and ill answer the questions about myself for the class in another post.

-TH