NormalIsWeird
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Hw #58
Monday, May 23, 2011
Hw # 57
Prom, makes me recall all the images I’ve ever seen in magazines and movies about this theme. Which I will be comparing to the real event, to see it meets the expectations being promoted in our society on how great the night will be. There is a whole Seventeen magazine dedicated to prom styles for the dress, shoes, hair and makeup. My own experience with prom was not the usual stressing event, where one goes dress shopping for hours for a dress and then for shoes. I simply picked up first nice dress I saw that would be fit for the event and bought it. To tell you the truth I’m kind of sick of all the prom talk, especially this week when it is a few days away because it seems to be the topic of every conversation.
The importance of prom I believe is it being a rite of passage not just from adolescence to adulthood, but representing the end of high school! When we get to leave the house (if you are going away for college), live with little adult supervision and for most part fend on our own, a huge change from living at home.
Every one talks about prom, but we haven’t really talks about the after prom. For teens it is just as important to find a cool place to spend the rest of the night after prom. Or what about the before, what are teens doing before prom? The girls are doing their makeup but what about the guys? Some may be waiting around anxiously waiting to pick up dates or spraying themselves with a little too much cologne. The before and after are just as important as the actual event because it also play a part on how good the night goes.
Questions:
1) The history behind prom – When did it start to become a social norm?
2) What does the corsage symbolize?
3) Why is it just a heterosexual event?
4) Why do people decide to lose their virginity that night out of all nights?
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
COTD2
COTD1
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Hw # 56
Jay
You and Rossi went to funeral homes looking for more information and another view on the care of the dead, straight from the people who work in these homes. An aspect I valued from your post was the type of questions you asked the receptionist, because they received interesting responses from this woman. The reason why this project matters to me is that it let me understand why these people work in this industry, how I at first like you mentioned thinks it is weird to have such a passion fro death or the care of the dead. But now I wonder why is it so different from having a passion for fashion or computers? Is it because our society makes us look at this as weird? The only thing that you could've done to make this post even better would have been analyzing what she said a little more or even just comparing it to what you want done when you die. Overall good job!
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Hw # 55 - Culminating Project
" You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Everyone decides on how their final event in life should be arranged depending on their religion and/or culture. By letting one’s spouse or family members know how one wants to be cared for once dead. But who says the funeral arrangements one chooses is the wrong way or the right way to do it? Nietzsche is getting at the idea that most people look at this event or anything else through one perspective or lens. Believing it is the right way, even if there is no wrong or right way to bury someone. For this unit, I would like to open our perspective to not only the way Americans take care of the dead and view death, but how another country does and specifically in India.
In the Indian society, the people generally practice Buddhism or Hinduism thus affecting their rituals and ideas toward the dead. Culture has a great affect on how the people decide to care for their dead, because of the traditions and religions most practiced in the culture. “ Hinduism originated in India, with belief in the cycles of being born and dying in an infinite series of lives or successive creations” (Matzo, and Sherman, Witt 27). Those who practice Hindu do not believe that when we die it is the end of everything, as the atheists do and neither do they believe in Heaven and Hell as the Catholics do. Hindus believe that we are in a continuous cycle of birth and death. Of course, no one has died and told the story of what happens after death but wouldn’t it be nice to think that we are just born again or born as another creation? This book also states that in India they perform funeral pyres and when I looked up what a pyre was, it said a pyre was a structure made of wood to burn a body, a form of cremation where body is placed and set on fire. Those who practice Hindu and Sikh religion do this funeral rite.
The people who practice Buddhism do not believe in a God or a soul, “ Buddhism teaches that suffering is part of life and that in death there is transference of consciousness out of the body” ” (Matzo, and Sherman, Witt 27). This confused me so I searched the exact definition of each word, soul and consciousness. The dictionary described the word soul as a person’s essence while consciousness was described as the relationship between our mind and the world. But similarly to Hinduism, Buddhists believe in rebirth except of the simple transference of our consciousness to another body. In this part of the world cremating is popular the Harper’s Magazine states, “ By some the dead were burned and their ashes preserved in sacred urns. In India, and some other countries, this custom still prevails to some extent” ("Harper's Magazine" 310) To them the body is not important once person has died because they will be reborn in another leading to them cremating the deceased right away.
Another ritual in India is Teravih, which is “ a period of mourning observed by Indian people, starting from the day of the death of a particular person, whether male, female or children, to the 13th day after his/her funeral” ("iloveindia.com"). This is a Hindu death ceremony; it is done to ensure the person’s “peaceful crossover to the next level of his/her existence”. ("iloveindia.com"). During which they did not do certain things like wearing new clothes or indulging in sweets or attending any festivities, all done out of respect to the deceased.
The Heart of Hinduism website gave information on how the Hindu ceremony is observed. First the body is cleaned, dressed in a fresh cloth and covered in flowers, then “A few drops of Ganges water are placed in the mouth. The corpse is then carried on a stretcher to the cremation grounds accompanied by kirtan, chanting mantras such as "Ram Nam Satya Hai" (the name of Rama is truth). The eldest son lights the funeral pyre. For renunciates, it is considered important that the skull is cracked, and this is sometimes part of the ritual, apparently urging the departed soul to move on. Towards the end of the ceremony a priest or relative recites appropriate verses from scripture” ("Antyeshti: Funeral Rites"). The natural world is important to the Indian people from the flowers to wood the dead are burned in to the ashes placed in Ganga or a sacred river. In the ceremony the important part is the breaking of skull because it shows how they believe the body is now useless so the soul can now move on to the next body.
After doing this paper I learned more about India’s culture and the religions practiced there, on death and the care of the dead there. Hope as a reader, it has been informative on another perspective of this unit.
Bibliography
Harper's Magazine. 33 Vols. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1866. 310. eBook.
"Indian Funeral Traditions." iloveindia.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 May 2011.
Matzo, Marianne, and Sherman, Deborah. Palliative Care Nursing: Quality Care to the End of Life. 3rd Ed. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company, 2009. 27. Print.
"the heart of hinduism." Antyeshti: Funeral Rites. ISKON Educational Services, 2004. Web. 14 May 2011.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Hw # 54
I grew up going to church every Sunday of my life from the moment I was a crying baby to today and probably will continue to until the end of my life. This was something very important to my parents because they had been taken to church every week and had been passed down this religion, so they wanted to do the same with their own kids. The priest at my church talked of this way parents would enforce their religion on their kids back in the day and now due to growth of technology and many more ideas taught in school he believed that these days were over. He told me how one time a young couple came into the church that had been standing shyly in the back, so he approached them. He asked them what they were observing and they said how beautiful the church was. Thus leading him to ask them what they believed in, the young man quickly responded science, he spoke of how science can explain everything even life. The young girl responded she was a Buddhist. This reminded me of a part I read in Curtains, of author saying how believing in something whether it in science or Catholicism it keeps us going on with our day, to believe that there is an explanation for life, for death and the afterlife or else we’d just be shriveled up in a corner.
Then in a text we read in church on the Sunday of mother's day it connected to the whole aspect of the afterlife and Heaven from A reading from the Act of the Apostles 2:14, 22 – 23, it said “ I saw the lord ever before me, with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed. Therefore my heart has been glad and my tongue has been exulted; my flesh too, will dwell in hope, because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence” (Liturgical Press 253). In the last sentence David speaks of how God will not abandon him into the “netherworld”; nothingness the minute he dies but instead will go to heaven at his side. This is the part of this religion that is comforting to the catholic people or even those who just believe the idea of a Heaven because it is nice to believe that death is not the end of everything. This thought can be overwhelming because anyone who loves life and living, don’t want to think that after death there is just a gaping hole of nothingness. This according to Bible and the priest the way you go to Heaven, if you follow the path of God and if one ever commits a sin must confess to be cleansed of our sins when the day comes to meet God.
Then my little brother told me about a place called the Purgatory that he was taught about in Sunday school by a catechist, where he has to attend to be confirmed. She told him of how when someone dies in an accident and/or dies without having their sins forgiven; they will not go to Heaven or Hell but a place called the Purgatory. Where the person’s soul (soul is what goes to Heaven or Hell while our body rots and eaten by worms), remains in the " in between" between Heaven and Hell while family below prays for the person’s forgiveness of their sins and if they regretted their sins they will go to Heaven. If they did not they would go to Hell. In Sunday school, children are taught fully in depth all the ideas of this religion and have their questions answered to actually know about the religion they are practicing.