Jarren Smiths Blog

 Aug 31st A time I completely changed my opinion on someone who was a student at school. The only time I had ever seen or heard from him were videos of him getting into fights, there were about 5 of them accumulated over 3 years so I thought he would be nothing but trouble. This year I was seated next to him at a pair of desks all alone and discovered he was actually a very nice person and super social, I thought that because he had gotten into so many altercations he was mean or loud mouthed, but he had changed into a completely different person and now he is a friend. 

Aug 28  I've had a wonderful time with this class, I've found it interesting and engaging, two things that school has always had a problem with getting me involved in. I believe the class discussions are fun and I learn a lot from reading about all these wonderful and diverse people. I think that properly answering questions has been a struggle for me and in the future I intend to improve on is my literacy skills as I want to make movie scripts so that is extremely important. 

 Aug 27 The amount of cultural identity that sits on my shoulder is the Jewish idea that education is important above all. College has always been this hanging weight over my head because on my moms side of the family your worth comes from how good of a school you go too, I don't see school as a priority in my life and I of course value my education but the idea that college is this crazy race to determine the rest of your life at least to me is ridiculous. So I don't involve myself in school conversations at gatherings (because that's all my family would talk about) and it sucks because its a toxic environment to begin with and I've never had the best grades, so I was always seen as an outcast.

 Aug 25 I believe class discussions to be the best way of learning. Especially in the class we have now of multicultural its enjoyable and better to receive multiple points of views from different people in the class. I think since having such a diverse class its beneficial to get everyone's opinion and discuss, I also believe it to be  more engaging so people stay awake.

 Aug 24 I face any Jewish stereotypes in my life, none really harmful or offensive except for way back in freshman year when the Palestinian bombs began to drop. a common misconception with Jewish people is that they are all in support of Israel, when in reality i am not. People began to shun me, call me names, ignore me, despise me. and I was so lost at the time because it had not become big news so I was confused until I finally put the pieces together when a entire fully functioning human blamed it on me. as if I had any say or doing  in the actions on the other side of the world.

 The gender role that is most prominent in my household is the male dynamic of doing all. living with a single mom I have to all the chores inside and outside. a long with that I have to do things like take my dog for walks, cook half the time, fix the TV when my mom screws it up. Basically doing everything besides bringing money in. I enjoy this role as it makes me feel useful not only to my life skills but to my mom and the overall well being of the house.

 Instead of walking back home like I had done every other day I decided it would be a lot easier if I sprinted. I thought to myself it would be strange along with the fact that I had a huge backpack on a huge hill and it was extraordinarily hot. I ran, ran like crazy straight home and the only person to see me was someone in their car whom I have never seen before. They looked me weird but I was bursting with energy from sitting all day I had never felt better.

 I feel lost most of the time. The feeling is about normal feeling lost or misplaced. A time I got really lost was when I thought my dad was gonna die, he had a heart attack and I did not know what to do with myself, everything I did felt useless and wrong. I ended up stressing so much that I just slept to get over myself, I didn't know what to do where to go or anything. Completely and utterly lost.

 I was not ready for the amount of discussions the class would have and throw at me. Constantly being on my toes ready to read or write or answer a question. Being able to get my opinion across easier and easier as the week went on was enjoyable as-well. The stories from videos are very interesting and hard to write about as there are multiple different perspectives making it harder to answer "correctly" along with re-adjusting to the school schedule that controls my life this class has been a twist and challenge to continue, but also enjoyable to figure out.

   I feel like other people would not be able to understand how complex I am as a human being. White people stereotypically are seen as bland, ignorant, easily offended. Even though I am barely American as my grandparents are from Italy and Ireland. I learned a lot as differing black people to African American people, I feel like I can differentiate people a lot easier and also learned to look at people not at all from face value at all.

      Today was a weird first day in class, I had been dropped into a completely new space in the middle of a lesson. I attempted to contribute as much as I could to the conversation being held. Without realizing anything I didn't know that there was so much that could be said about a woman wearing a hairstyle. I very much enjoyed the discussion even though there was a tense feeling in the air. Also interesting was the Korean poem, it gave me a new perspective on how other people may view the women from and living in America.