HW 57 - Initial Thoughts on Prom.

   When I think of prom the first thing that comes to my mind is the last hurrah or bash before before the year is over. Prom is like a celebratory synopsis of the end of your high-school career. Some first questions that pop into my mind are when was this idea set in stone? What does it emulate? What is the significance? Are there social links to this festive idea of adolescent celebration? What dominant social factors does prom  bring out? If you consider not attending how are you seen by your peers? Why are drugs and alcohol such a big part of the event? Questions like this are just my initial thoughts on the subject but as I did some personal research it only lead me to thin deeper about the subject. "Proms first began in the elite colleges of the Northeast, taking their cue from the debutante balls of the rich and well bred. Middle class parents admired the poise and composure of debutantes and their escorts and began to institute formal dances as a means of instilling social skills and etiquette in their children. The dances were strictly chaperoned and were often restricted to only the senior class."("HIstory of Porm" 1-1)From this piece of information I find it intriguing that proms were first chaperoned and started at such an early age in time. As well I had a feeling that the whole idea of the prom was created by the students of the previous years as well as teachers and parents which I'm assuming were the chaperones. The entire idea that was created from college seniors was passed down to high school students early on, for instance in the 80's especially and to current day. Specifically I though it's crazy to realize just how prom has changed through the era's of evolution in time.


   An insight that came to my mind when I was in class one day working in groups talking about the the topic at hand was a very interesting concept that I divulged from my thoughts.The concept that I thought of is specifically dealing with the topic of prom, the conquest of gathering materials of interest that have appeal and flaunting them  to the best of their ability. Now the materials depend the eyes of the current social agenda of that time that is in fact appealing to the masses. "Today's proms have become expensive, all-night affairs, with after-prom activities often extending into the dawn of the next day. Stretch Hummers, fancy dresses, and glamorous ballrooms are now prom-night standards. Still, the prom has begun to relax a little in its dating requirements. While tradition still dictates that a boy ask a girl to the prom, more and more girls are beginning to take their prom destinies into their own hands and do the asking. Nontraditional couples are also becoming a more common sight at the prom. In practically every way, prom has moved beyond the days of strictly chaperoned, etiquette banquets to glamorous extravaganzas where nearly anything goes."("HIstory of Porm" 1-1) Prom now a days have come a long way from the proms of the past. The quote above is a great example of how prom are "suppose" to be and are like today. I even agree with how it was depicted here in the text. Almost every day I hear my peers talking about how they are driving in an escalade or chaffering a limo to have them be dropped off at the prom. They talk about this excessively almost everyday. Although my peers indulge themselves in these fantasy's yet to come true , these events are what really makes the prom experience maintain the one aspect that has kept it going since the late 1800's and that's "glamour". Glamour is what makes up the reasoning in even going to pro, some people take it very seriously and plan in advance what they are wearing and how they are getting there and then there are others that have the desire to experience it but do not harness the initiative to try as hard as ones whom care to an excessive extent. For instance in getting my suit today and its a monday and our schools prom is on a thursday. I have the initiative and have the same desire of glamour just as my peers but I do not have the same approach to the event. To me prom is something that is going to be an amazing synopsis to the end of our high school career and I plan on going out with a bang and experiencing it the way I choose to experience it, the lay back kinda way, no stress involved.


Citation:


"Pretty For Prom." HIstory of Porm 2006: 1-1. Web. 22 May 2011. <http://www.prettyforprom.com/prom-history.html>.

Extra Credit Opportunities-COTD3 "Bodies Exhibit"

   When I went to the Bodies it seemed very sketchy when I walked in I felt like i was walking into an OTB office and placing bets with shady people around me but I when I went there was absolutely nobody in the ticket booth area but me and the ticket salesgirl. When I went to buy the ticket I was surprised that the complex was very dark , there were barely any lights other than the entrance lights and the lights from up stairs. As I went up the escalator after getting my mass amounts of tickets I went to begin the exhibition. i found the ticket lady and first gave her the wrong tickets which were my receipt tickets and once that mix up was fixed I began my tour. First i was in a room where the walls were covered with scientific professor bio's about their specific science of the body that they dealt with and then there was a screen at the end of the room. Dr. Oz appeared on the screen and talked about the exhibit and the human body for a few moments and then welcomed me officially into the exhibit.

   As I entered into the main maze of rooms when I finally got into the exhibit there was many pictures and information segments of different body parts and functions of the body and inner and outer images and displays of the body. Something that especially stood out to me was the real life bodies that they used to depict the images that they wished to portray for each different segment of information. What I found really interesting was that at the entrance of the exhibit I was given an audio device that I used to pretty much breakdown all the segments of information that were in front of my eyes. They broke it down like this, there were numbers next to all of the diagrams and displays and segments of information and when you plugged in these numbers to the phone looking audio device it played an audio tape that summed up all of the information being displayed. I used this audio device for numerous parts of the exhibit until I got bored. Then I came to an exhibit that really caught my attention. I went into a room that was almost completely dark. Inside this room were huge vials, these vials contained of ,which I'm assuming were aborted infant fetuses. They had  maybe about 10  to 8 vials in total and under the vials it read the amount of weeks the baby was able to develop. It gauged from 20 weeks to 1 week and they had an ominous glow to them. To me when I came upon this part of the exhibit although I found it to be interesting I also found it to be inhuman. To bottle up a potential human life for the entertainment of other living humans, the idea just seems unmorally wrong.

The video above was one that I took covertly inside of the exhibit of the aborted babies/ fetuses room. Although I was able to get pictures and videos from this exhibit it wasn't going about getting these things. After the first ten minutes I got caught taking pictures of the exhibit and the security official made me delete a lot of good pictures that I took before. But this in my opinion was the best video that I got of the baby's exhibit.

Extra Credit Opportunities - COTD1 Grave Yard Project.

   These are just some of the pictures that I took with my father when I visited the two closest cemeteries to my house. I visited Saint Paul's Episcopalian church and Trinity Church, both of these churches have grave yards in that are connected with them. When I walked through Trinity cemetery with my father I felt as if I was at another funeral for my own family members. When we walked through although I felt like I was at a funeral I felt a feeling of peacefulness. There was much greenery around and birds flying everywhere so I had to feel at peace and relaxed. Although I felt at peace I found it hard as always to break my child hood rule when it comes to being around cemeteries. What I was taught as a child growing up in a catholic home and going to catholic school as a child was that whenever you see a cemetery you should never look at it directly and breathe because you don't want to breathe in evil sprits that the cemetery could contain. So while I was walking although I was breaking my rule at times I would close my eyes and breathe.

   Something that came into my mind when I was in Saint Paul's cemetery was how could someone be buried in such a huge structure. The reason for this question popping into my head is because of the huge mausoleum that was sitting in the corner of the cemetery on a huge bed of grass. I wondered how persevered the body or bodies were inside of the gigantic tomb, as well I wondered just how rich the family of this person was. The question of was this really a necessary use of money to spend on a person's death was something I was thinking about as I gazed at the top of the of the structure, it must of been at least 50 to 60 feet high. As well I  make some assumptions about the family of the deceased, either they were just plain out rich or maybe this man or woman had such an impact of the lives around that person that as a memorial they all decided that it was vest for the individual to be remembered in this way. As I continued walking I noticed that some of the graves around me were from the early nineteen hundreds and even the late eighteen hundreds. While I was reading the grave stones I imagined what the world must of been like during the time these people were put six feet under, I cringed. After reading about their death years I began to dwell on the topic of my own death, thinking about what year I could die in. Someone could be writing about my death being in the early two thousands, but then I decided that my own death is a topic I shouldn't be trying to predict because it is seen by my family as bad luck to talk about.

Extra Credit Opportunities-COTD4 Annotated Bibliography.

Extra Credit Opportunities - COTD2 Response To "Harold & Maude"

In the first scene of the movie when the boys mother sees her son hung by an elastic nose ther view on death seems to be a type of calm assuring feeling,But when the mother walked in om her son in the bathroom scene after the dinner scene she was overwhelmed with the amount of work he put in to creating a plausible death scene
-meets maud at the church when he went to a funeral
chemistry lab boarding school blew up the lab
police came and told his mother he was dead she collapsed in the door way because of itthen he decided he would be better off dead
got a jaguar and turned it into a hurst
mother makes him almost go to the service and he fakes killling maud to prevent it
when they are at the junk yard she shows him the holocaust bar code tatoo o her arm
ruins his first date fin his mothers eyes failed death attempt to trick the girl
he slept with a 79!yead old! told his mother he is marrying her
priest and uncle military
he made her happy in her last ohours of life and she popped pills  the boy fell in love with her he wanted to get married with her. all she wanted was for her to feel young again and die now so now he learned the fooling that he was attempting to make everyone else go through and he was touched by her interesting death and then the fake death of him using his car was him showing himself being comfortable again and takeing in her death

HW55-Culminating Project-Care of the Dead.

HW - Independent Research B.

   This weekend when I was in the subway I was transferring from the 6 train to the 2 train and as I was walking into the train I ran into a  one of those crazy christian religious fanatics that was passing out flyers promoting christian extremism. He was spewing all this garbage about all non believers being casted out to hell and the rapture saving all those faith to the lord Jesus Christ. I stopped the guy and had a short conversation with him about his views on his Extreme Protestant Christian religion. His views were very radical he was describing to me chapters of the book of god the bible what I recognized that he was saying was from the bible specifically Matthew 24:40. In that part of the bible Matthew is talking about the description of the rapture saying that god will descend down from the heavens and the faithful christian will be taken and all others will be cast down to the depth of hell. He also had some anti semitic views which I found to be disgusting, he said that , and I quote "the Blacks, all the Jews and towel headed non believers of christ will be shunned and burn for eternity in hell". After I heard this I felt a little compelled to leave because this individual was out of his mind. Racial Extremism through the Christian view is just a pretty crazy just like most religions in their extremist form. This is the type of extremism that should not even be represented or seen as a part of the Christian religion. Growing up in  Catholic household  has taught me simply there was heaven and hell and if you committed sin you would have to go to confession and go to church every sunday as well. While I was in Catholic school I was taught all of this.

   For my interview I decided that once I was home from taking the train I would go to Saint Paul's Chapel which is an episcopalian church very close to my home. when I finally go there after walking from the train I went into the confession booth and talked to the father. After the confession booth I told the father that I wanted to interview him on his religious beliefs and what he think about to concepts of heaven and hell. So we sat in the first row of benches in the church and talked. He described to me that him being a follower of god he was taught at a young age as he was becoming a priest to preach the words of god at all times. He gestured multiple times to me that as a christian we are taught to believe that god created this good earth and that god hath the power to take it away and that one day, a day that we never know is coming. God will save all of his followers and bring them to heaven during the coming of Armageddon. What I liked that he told me was that all of these stupid people whom believe that the rapture will happen on May 25th or on all of these stupid dates are insane. The father told me that when the lord Jesus Christ himself decides the day will come, that that is the day it will be bestowed upon us. As well we as children of god do not know information such as this, so we being children of god make educated guess's and want to think that we really know but we really don't. According to the father only god knows and we will just have to wait and see.