Connections

In class on Wednesday I started talking to Andrew. We figured out that we had graduated from the same high school, Pioneer. It was a funny realization because we both felt bad because we hadn't known each other before this class. As it turns out though we didn't even go there during the same time. He graduated in 2006 and I graduated in 2007 but I only went to Pioneer for my senior year (2006-2007). However, his Dad happens to be one of the most well known people at Pioneer. The swim coach. Pioneer is known for always having amazing aquatics programs. Although I only went to Pioneer I heard of Dennis Hill and how amazing he was.

The point of this story was, I love finding connections with people. Even if the connection is small such as we have the same major or we have a mutual friend. I believe it changes the way we perceive the other person. It changes the situation the two people are interacting in, usually for the better but not always. Thats one of the reasons I love this class. Don't get me wrong I am not a fan of writing or rhetoric but brett allows us to find connections not only with each other but in our work. We never have to write about something that doesn't interest us because we got to pick our subjects. But our small groups give us the time to connect to each other.

Just a thought I had during class on Wednesday.

Heritage and Identity

There was an article in the Week magazine a long time ago about this guy who was suing the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey for a suspension from school because during a cultural diversity class he claimed he was a white African-American. Both his fellow students and his professor found it offensive that he would call himself African-American when he was white. However, he was born in Mozambique and change his citizenship to the U.S. when he was older.

I don't know how the law suit ended up but I can just assume that the student won. Or let me rephrase that, I hope the student won.

I don't call myself Scottish-American so why do we label black people as African-American. They may not have even been born in Africa but their parents were. Doesn't that make them just American?

This happens not only to black people. But also people of Asian and Latin descent. If someone is Asian we call them Asian-American even though they were born in the U.S. Because we see them as different than just American do they feel like allegiance towards the U.S.? Do they even feel American?

I just thought this was an interesting article. Let me know what you think.

Conflicting Identities

Over fall break I went to Ithaca, NY to visit my boyfriend Bryan. My train leaves Toledo at 3:50am and since my parents live in Ann Arbor my Dad always drives me. When returning to Ann Arbor my train gets in at 6:00 am and my Dad comes back to pick me up. This trip was a little unexpected because I wasn't planning on going but I have been planning on going to Ithaca for Halloween.

On the way back from Toledo this morning with my Dad, who is a very calm and humerus guy, I brought up our ideas for Halloween costumes. I tell my dad the ideas, Toy Story characters, Mariachi Band, and an Old Lady and all of her cats, and all of a sudden he goes. YOU WILL NOT GO BACK FOR HALLOWEEN. YOUR IDENTITY AS A GIRLFRIEND IS OUTWEIGHING YOUR IDENTITY AND RESPONSIBILITY AS A STUDENT AND I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS. The last time I heard my dad yell at me was when I was in middle school and he was using words I didn't even know the meaning to and I just laughed and he started laughing and life was good. So, taking up a similar strategy I just started laughing. Needless to say that didn't go over well and I was told if I was going to ever go back to Ithaca I had to find my own transportation to and from Toledo because he was no longer going to condone me visiting him all the time (All the time being this was my first time this semester).

After thinking about this all day I started feeling guilty about wanting to be with my boyfriend. I have decided though that my identities have not changed. I have always been a student and continue to be a student and I have been a girlfriend and will (hopefully) continue to be a girlfriend. I think what my dad meant to say was my priorities in my identity have rearranged.

I have never been a fan of school but doing well in school has always been a huge deal to me. I used to cry if I got B's and I didn't get my first B until my second semester of my freshman year of college. The more I live and learn the more I think that school means less and less to me. Unfortunately it is the only way to get where I want to go (I want to be a doctor). My first couple of years I studied all the time and never really did anything fun with friends I was never that happy of a person either.

Being happy is a huge thing for me. At the beginning of this year I decided I was going to purposefully do things that I love and enjoy. One of them may be that its okay to get a B in a class if that means that I have more time to enjoy my friends or boyfriend. I don't want to get to the point where I feel like dropping my student identity completely but I think it is natural and okay to prioritize my identities depending my life. Being a student my life is in constant flux, which may mean my identities are in constant flux as well. As of right now my identity as a girlfriend is super important to me and it makes me happy to be with him so I am going to go visit him for Halloween but this doesn't mean that I don't still strongly care about school or that being a student isn't who I am anymore.

Convincing Brief

I was a little frightened when Brett gave us the prompt for our convincing paper. I feel like I had just figured out the inquiry paper and I am not ready to completely change my mode of thinking. I am going to try to get more of a head start with this paper so hopefully I can transition into my persuasive paper more easily. For our convincing paper we have to write a brief which I feel is analogous to the outline from the inquiry paper. I think the hardest part for me will be analyzing my audience just because our audience is so big and diverse I don't know if I can come up with similar beliefs or traditions. I am going to try and I would love any help you could give me.

Audience - students, professors, anyone in the U of M system.

Beliefs

• education is important
• all want to be the best
• pursuit of happiness
• most people go to the dr. when ill
• freedom in general
• most people in U.S. think family is important
• being ill is worse than being healthy

Currently most doctors make decisions about whether Alzheimer's patients should go into a residential care facility or participate in home care. If my audience thinks education is important I would say that patients and their families should receive unbiased information about the options to partake in after one is diagnosed. This way they would learn about each option and be able to make a choice that fits their identities and lives. This would also fit into the pursuit of happiness. It should be up to the patient and family if they want to put the patient into a residential care facility. If the patient doesn't want to go then they shouldn't have to but if that is the only option they are given what else are they supposed to do?

To go along with that it's usually the doctor who recommends either going into a residential care facility or home care. Currently more doctors tend to think putting Alzheimer's patients in residential care facilities as soon as possible is the best for the patient and family. Doctors think this because if the patient is there while they are still functional then they will have time to get used to the place and the routines at the RCF before they get too ill to change routines and to function for themselves. That seems logical but they don't give other options just to put them in a RCF. But most people assume doctors know best so they do what the doctor says.

Since family is important to many people providing home care for a family member with Alzheimer's is usually a valid and option. Home care allows the family to stay involved with the Alzheimer's patients treatments and life. It also allows the Alzheimer's patient to continue with a similar routine as before the diagnosis. Also, when someone is ill the support of family has a huge impact on how the patient copes with their illness. So, more than ever a person who is ill needs the support of their family.

That's as far as I can think. This is hard for me because when reading my inquiry paper I imagined my audience being as doctors not as students and professors of the university. Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions. Thanks.

Spirituality/Religious

I talked to Kip after class yesterday to ask him what he was writing about because Brett commented in class that our topics may be similar. If you don't know, Kip is writing about spirituality and how that applies to the healing process or coping of an illness(I think). That's what I got out of it anyways. I found that very interesting because it is not an idea that pops into most scientists minds.

After I talked to him I was wondering he chose spirituality instead of religious because in our discussions he specifically kept using religion as his personal example. It made me reflect on my own identity and whether I would consider it spritual or religious. I had to define which each one meant to me.

I think spirituality is a knowing of and believing in a higher power but not having a certain set of beliefs to follow but rather can make up your own. Religious would be following beliefs that someone else has set up in the past and believing in a higher power. My initial thoughts was that do the definition of a rectangle and square. A square can be rectangle but a rectangle cannot be a square. I think someone can be spiritual withough being religious but I don't think someone can be religious if they aren't spiritual.

Some people prefer to view organized religion as maybe apart of the conformist self. I prefer to think of both my religious and spiritual identity as the inner-directed.It is something very private for me but also very powerful for me.

I was wondering how I could relate this to my paper. Most residential care facilites are secular so the patients don't have the opportunity to attend services or express their religoius habits other than in the privacy of their own room. If someone only participates in religion when they are in worship or within a church community this whole aspect of their life could be taken away.

Maybe part of expanding the types of residential care facilites should be to have ones that are religiously affiliated or ones could be created that have groups and services for all kinds of religions.

I don't know what is best but I know that the support of a spiritual or religious comunity and the support of a higher power can have huge effects on how a patient copes or heals. So, I think we should provide more of those services to people in residential care facilities.

I'll just leave you with my favorite religious quote.

"Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words." - St. Francis of Assisi

I had a meeting with Brett during class yesterday and she asked me to read a couple of my sentences out loud because they weren't well written sentences so she was trying to see if I could fix them on my own or something like that. There were a few sentences that we had to do that for. I finally told her that sentence structure is not one of my strong suits and ever since the 7th grade English I have been told that I don't understand sentence structure. Writing is a struggle for me so not having any faith in my writing knowledge or skills I believed everything my teachers told me. I don't understand sentence structure, I can't organize a paper properly, etc. I believed them. I think I am a bad writer and I have no comprehension for how to put a sentence together.

Brett was a little taken aback by that because she said I have do understand sentence structure because when I read a sentence out loud that I had already written I knew what was wrong with it and how to change it before Brett even told me what was wrong. She said people telling me that I don't know how to do it is prohibiting me in a way. Its not allowing me to put my thoughts down on the paper because I don't think I know how to do it.

Interestingly enough, this is a similar concept to one I am writing about in my inquiry paper just a different aspect of it. I am writing about the identity of Alzheimer's patients and one of the views that I have is that when someone is told that they have Alzheimer's the person is treated differently. Family and friends automatically think they can't do this they can't do that. In related to my experience with Brett and what she said that would correlate to the patients thinking that they can't carry our their normal lives anymore because they are being told they can't do different activities anymore so they start believing it even if its not true.

This all fits into a social self theory. According to Mead one takes into consideration their role in relation to others and then that determines the self. If one role in life changes to dependent because that's how others are treating you then you may start believing you are dependent and making that your new self.

Its just interesting to see how many times what we talk about in class applies to my entire life.

My Identity as a student

Brett was right. This is the time of year when I always question why I am a student. I have so much going on. I am away from my apartment for at least 12 hours a day and I still need to do my homework. It seems that life would be so much easier if I just got a full time job. My sister just graduated from college and she is living at home not paying for rent having no responsibility after she gets off of work and she is happy. College is supposed to be the best time of my life. Why am I not happy?

As much as I complain and get frustrated with my work I don't want to lose my identity as a student. I have been a student for the last 15 years. I wouldn't be anyone if I wasn't a student. I probably wouldn't even have a social self anymore because I wouldn't have a social life. No one to interact with because I would be leaving all my friends and I don't know how to make new friends.

Luckily having a saturated self is no good because I wouldn't have anything to fill my time. I may complain about having too much to do but I like having things to do. It makes me feel important or needed.

I just need to start looking into the positive qualities of being a student. I go to one of the best universities in the country. Our football team is 4-1 and it's finally exciting to watch their games. I get to interact with hundreds of intelligent students everyday who make me smarter just by osmosis. I also have thousands of opportunities and resources available to me at the tips of my fingers.

Yes, I do contemplate why I am here, why I am a student. But I am so lucky to be here to be a student because I would be nothing if not for a student. I better get used to it as well because going into the medical profession your saturated self will become supersaturated and your social self, will probably disappear. However, I will have a great professional self (if that is such a thing).

Well, it's time to suck it up and study for my physics exam and write my inquiry paper.