Goals

After reading my goals for the class that I set at the beginning of the year I believed I fulfilled them all. I said I wanted to learn about new cultures and I think I did do that because I now know of many new cultures. I also think I have a better understanding on how to communicate with people from other cultures. Another thing I think I did a really good job on was attending class, I said at the beginning that I didn’t want to miss many classes before the season started and I don’t think I missed many.

Freedom Writers

I thought this movie was a really good and interesting movie. I think the beginning of the movie was the best part because that was when all of the gang fighting and harassing was going on. I did not like this part because of that but because it really gave the viewer a good prospective of what life was like in that area. They show when gang members kill other gang members over race, gender, and other things too. I thought this was crazy how a person can shoot someone just because they belong to a different group or because they are not of the same race as them. Coming from a big city I knew this stuff happened but I never really saw it or heard of it around the city. In the movie the teachers’ dad seems to be really racist towards her students, but mostly the black ones. He says that they are not smart and she is wasting her time trying to teach them things. Since her dad is so racist I think he is not very open minded towards other people. One part of the movie I remember and thought was interesting was when the teacher asked about the holocaust. The only person who knew what the holocaust was was the white kid in the classroom. Right when she asked the question I knew that the only person who was going to know about the holocaust was going to be the white kid. Then she asked who has ever been shot at in the class and most of the black kids and Hispanic kids in the room raised their hands, but not the white kid. A person could clearly see the difference between the people in the classroom. I think this movie if a very educational movie that everyone should watch and it really tells a good story!

Iron Jawed Angels

I recently watched the movie “Iron Jawed Angels” and saw and learned some very interesting things. At first I didn’t think I was going to enjoy the movie but as it progressed I got more into it. The beginning of the movie didn’t really make much sense to me because it was really slow and kind of boring. Towards the end of the movie was when I really started to pay attention. I think these women were doing everything right and had a really good point for what they were fighting for. I didn’t think it was right when these women were protesting in front of the white house and got arrested for “obstructing traffic”. In my eyes I don’t think these women were doing anything wrong fighting for what they believed in. While these women were in prison, I thought it was crazy how the one lady decided to starve herself. This led to most of the women following in her shoes. The one man in the movie said a quote, “give me liberty or give me death”, and I thought that’s exactly what these women were trying to prove. This movie was a type of movie that I don’t usually watch but I am glad I watched it.

Fargo

I watched the movie “Fargo” and I laughed throughout most of the movie. This wasn’t the first time I have seen the movie but it was the first time I actually paid close attention to all the different things they try to make fun of in the movie. This movie isn’t even based out of Fargo, ND so I am not really sure why they called the movie “Fargo”. I thought this movie was way off on the heavy accents they use in the movie. People from Fargo and also Minnesota don’t really have that heavy of an accent. Some of my favorite parts of the movie is when they say, “Yaaaa” and also when they use the phrase, “your darn tootin”, they also used the phrase, “yeah ya betcha” numerous times. I still think we should have watched the movie in class but I know that we didn’t have time for it. I think everyone should watch the movie “Fargo” with someone who is from around that area so they can explain what parts of the movie are true and what parts are misinterpreted.

Week of Class

This week of class was an interesting one I thought. The first movie we watched I thought was a little weird because the kid was kind of young and thought he was supposed to be a girl. They also talked about the lady boy’s that are in Bangkok. I was a little surprised by this and the amount of them there are in Bangkok. When this part came on it reminded me of the part in Hangover 2 when they are in the strip club. This movie made me realize how many people are transgender people there are in the world. I also did not realize how well these transformations turn out.

            On Thursday you had Ed talk to the class about him. At first I was not even sure if the guy on the screen was a transgender person. I was surprised how good the transformation was and you could hardly tell by looking at his face that he used to be a woman. I kind of felt awkward talking about this but I think Ed did a good job at making everyone feel comfortable talking about it. What really surprised me the most was that he tried to commit suicide when he was eleven twelve and fourteen. I thought this was crazy because you do not usually hear about kids that young trying to commit suicide a number of times like that. I thought it was neat how his brothers stuck with him throughout the transformation. He also said he had lots and lots of friends and family that supported him while transitioning. I thought it was pretty neat that he was able to grow facial hair, I think he might have been able to grow better facial hair than me. Ed was a cool experience to have and I enjoyed having him talk to the class.

Week of Class

On Tuesday in class most of the time we took to get in our groups for our C.R.I.B.S event we have this week. I think our group has everything pretty well planned out for the event and I think the event we put on will be exciting and a lot of people are going to show up. Doing some research for this project was kind of neat because I had the chance to learn some things about Canada that I did not know. It also helped that Ian is in our group and since he is from Canada, he can give us a lot of information as well and teach us some things too.

            Thursday’s class was one that I thought was very interesting. I thought Mary was a nice lady and she gave us a lot of information on the lesbian, gay, bi, and transsexual community. I thought what she was talking about was kind of weird at first but once she started explaining everything it started to make sense what she was talking about. I learned that when a person has transphobia, this means they are not sure what gender they are or should be attracted to. I was very surprised when Mary told the class that she is a lesbian and has been for almost thirty years. I thought it was kind of awkward how her and her partner were friends before deciding to be together. I think it is awkward because most women who are best friends do not usually tend to start having feelings for one another. I think this next week of class will be really interesting with the speaker we have coming in. I think it will be a good learning experience for the class. I am looking forward to hearing more from this group of people.

Week of Class

This week of class I thought was pretty interesting. On Tuesday we were talking about some things and the topic of certain words and how they are pronounced came up and the word was “aunt”, and some people pronounce it “ant” and others pronounce it “aunt”, which how I think it should be pronounced. You also said how language is living and I kind of thought about that a little bit and I would agree with that. Another thing we talked about was denotation and connotation. I remember learning about these in earlier schooling but didn’t really remember but now that we talk about it again I remember what those words mean. We also talked a little bit about proxemics and how people need their personal space. With some people they really get bothered when people stand really close to them or talk to them really close. I do not really get bothered when people I know talk or stand close to me but when people I do not know talk to me up close I kind of get annoyed and step back hoping to not offend them, but sometimes it does. On Thursday Matt talked to the class about disabilities and I thought that was very interesting. Every person with a disability is different, but people with disabilities should be treated the same as people without disabilities. He told us some courtesy things for when you come across a person with a disability such as treating them the same, not to stare at them, and not to ignore them as well. When you start to talk to a person with a disability you want to start the conversation the same way you would with any other person. Tanya also talked about how she became disabled and I really thought that was a touching story. I also learned how CP is not genetic and it can happen to anyone. 

Week of Class

            This past week of class was a short one for me because I accidently slept through class on Tuesday. I heard from classmates that you were not present and Ian gave his presentation on Canada. I am mad I missed this class because I was looking forward to seeing what Ian had to say about his home country and also to learn about the country a little more since that is our country we are doing for our class event. On Thursday the video we watched was pretty interesting I thought. It talked about a lot of different things that were new information to me. At the beginning I thought it was awkward because there were two people walking through a mall naked, which is not the normal thing to do. The movie talked about many different types of things relating to humans, including our lack of hair, which is not similar to other mammals. The movie talks about many different types of handshakes that could all mean something different. Some people only touch palms some shake hands throughout the whole deal, others touch their own forearm, and people also sometimes kiss their own hand while grasping the other people’s hand. They also talked about people giving other people rude signs, such as the middle finger, or making the gesture of the forearm being stiff. One thing I thought was neat from the movie was when they talked about head nodding and how some people wobble their head back and fourth in agreement. I also thought it was neat how they talked about “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” and how it originated. They also talked about how certain people can tend to have staring eyes and also how people have their partner feed them when they are trying to be romantic.

Week of Class

The past week in class someone brought in peanut butter spaghetti for their cultural and I thought it was pretty good. I read my article to the class and explained the article the best I could. The class got a few handouts from you and I thought they were both pretty interesting, especially the one that was taking place in Duluth Minnesota. I thought it was crazy it was taking in a small town of Minnesota. I didn’t really think Minnesota had many racist people but I guess I was wrong. This article doesn’t really make sense to me because it says its for people who are sick of getting made fun of because of the color of their skin. Later in the article it states that the rally is to be focused on one group so allowing anyone to attend kind of contradicts the one group thing.

            The other article was about a woman who revealed her true religion on the campus of North Dakota State University. When you showed us a picture of her I would not have guessed she was of that religion. I don’t think it is right for people to treat a person a certain way just because they believe in other religions or dress differently than most people. I think it took a lot of confidence for her to be able to dress like that knowing people are going to look at you different or make fun of you. I think what she did was really neat and its pretty cool how she says it was a really amazing experience.

            A few things I found interesting in class was when we talked about “Christmas break” and how people aren’t supposed to call it that anymore. I think people and schools should be able to call it what they want and people that attend that school should not look into what the school calls the break any further than they have to.  I also learned that the black part of the Jamaican Flag represents the people of the country.

Cultural Article

            The article I was able to find was about troops over in Afghanistan who inadvertently burned more than one Quran. President Barrack Obama apologized to the Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the troops acts of disrespect. After the burning of the Qurans there were many deaths of troops but local officials can not determine if the killings were out of revenge or if the killings just happened to happen right after the burnings. There were also burnings of civilian vehicles but again they could not determine if it was due to the burnings of the Qurans. The Taliban Thursday, which is a newspaper I am guessing, rejected the apologies. “So-called show(s) of apologies, but in reality they let their inhuman soldiers insult our holy book” is what they had to say about the burnings. I think the troops did these burnings on purpose. I believe this because if you are going to be in a foreign country for a long period of time I think you would do some research on the country and the certain religions that are in that country. I also think the troops should be educated on certain countries and religions they will be serving in so situations like this do not continue to happen. The article says they are still uncertain if these burnings of the Quran were intentional or if the troops did this to make many Muslims angry. Whichever one it is, this is still a careless act and considered “a crime committed against the holiest book of two billion Muslims around the world.” I would agree with this statement because if you are not sure what type of book you are burning and you are in a foreign country, I do not think a person should just go and burn it because they want to get rid of it.

week of class

I completely forgot about this weeks blog until now so this is my blog and I know I will be receiving a bad grade for it but that is what I deserve for putting it off so long. Sorry Kim.

Week of Class

During the Tuesday class period we had a speaker from Ole Miss who I thought was pretty interesting. I thought it was pretty neat how she was all the way in Mississippi and we were in Williston and she was able to talk to us over the IVN system. However I did not like when she was saying how the high temperature there was going to be in the 70’s and we had snow falling on the ground. I did learn some things that were interesting to me including how they say certain things after saying the word such as Muhammad and Allah. I also thought the part when she talked about the Qur’an. I found it was interesting how families have a family Qur’an and how people will not touch the Qur’an after they have drank alcohol. I didn’t know that Muslims would have daily prayers and pray up to five times a day. I did not really get into it that much because it was something that doesn’t relate to me to be honest but it was good to learn the basic outline of the religion.

            On Thursday were supposed to listen to Ian talk about the country of Canada but we couldn’t get the video camera so we just decided to watch an episode of Sister Wives. When you first told us we were going to watch this series I kind of thought to myself oh great this is going to be a series about a bunch of women arguing. But after watching the first episode, this is a really crazy and good show! I thought it was crazy how the guy was able to deal with not one, not two, but three wives! I can see from the women’s perspective how being married to a guy with two other wives could be a plus. I think it would kind of be awkward for the children to technically have three moms. At the end of the episode they said the guy was going to soon have another wife! I am beginning to think this is the craziest guy on the planet, or the smartest, I am still trying to figure it out!

Holiday I Do Not Celebrate

My holiday that I chose to learn more about is Kwanzaa. I do not celebrate Kwanzaa because it is a holiday that is celebrated by the people of the African-American race. The festival of Kwanzaa begins on December 26 and ends on the first of January. A guy named Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga created the holiday in the year 1966. Dr. Karenga created this holiday for African-Americans to stress the goals of having a strong family and to learn about the African-American history. Dr. Karenga studied some other African-American festivals and found that a good number of them revolved around harvest. So Dr. Karenga decided he would use the word “Kwanzaa”, which comes from the Kiswahili word meaning “fresh fruits”. He used seven principles of the African-American culture and used them in creating Kwanzaa. These principles include unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.

            At the beginning of the celebration there is a straw hat that is placed in the middle of the table. They then place a seven-candle holder on top of the straw hat. I asked myself how they would balance a candleholder with seven candles on it but couldn’t come up with an answer. They then place the seven candles in the holder, including three red ones on one side, three green ones on the other side, and one black one in the center. They also place ears of corn and a unity cup on the hat as well. The black candle represents the people of the African-American race, the red ones represent their struggles and the green candles represent their future. Since there are seven days during Kwanzaa and there are seven principles and also seven candles, one candle is lit each day and focused on one principle a day. During the candle lighting ceremonies, each participant discusses what that principle means to them. They also exchange gifts during these ceremonies and on December 31 there is a feast that includes honoring ancestors, music, and dancing.

            I chose to learn more about this holiday because I figured it was a holiday that African-American people in the United States celebrate and thought I should learn more about it. 

Week of Class

In this past week of class I thought it was mainly based on religion throughout the world. I learned there are many types of different religions throughout the world and religion varies in different cultures. I learned what the term world view means. I learned that world view pretty much is why and how you see the world through your own eyes. It also means how you view others, your attitude toward things, and also your beliefs. I would explain my worldview as being open to try new things, treating everyone equal, and having a positive attitude towards everything that I approach. For example, if I go into one of my baseball practices thinking that practice is going to be hard and we will have a lot of running, the practice will not be any fun. However, if I come to practice with a positive attitude and I will have a much more fun practices than if I were to come into the practice with a bad attitude. I also try to treat everyone I meet the same. I do this because I know how it feels to be treated like a outsider when I meet new people and its not a very good feeling. I also think with having an open approach to people will allow a person to meet new people and make more friends. I also learned about different religions in the eastern and western parts of the world. In the eastern parts of the world I learned that the more popular religions are Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Shintoism, and Taoism. The religions in the western parts of the world include Judaism, Christian, and Islam. I learned that when a person is Islamic they only believe in one god. Another thing that I got cleared up in the week of class was that Islamic is the religion and Muslim is the people of that religion.

Week of Class

This week in class we talked about many things. We got into our groups for our event we are putting on in April. I think our group had a pretty good discussion about what we wanted to do for our country, which is Canada. We talked about things such as what type of food we are going to have, what type of music we will have playing, type of different decorations we will have up at our booth, and types of prizes we will be giving away. We all had good ideas and we all agreed on everything. We have Ian in our group so I think that will help a lot since he is from Canada and has knowledge about the country and they way people in Canada do things. During the class periods I learned about othering and I learned that othering pretty much happens everyday, big and small. I also learned what monochronic and polychronic means. Monochronic means doing one thing at a time and polychronic means the exact opposite, doing more than one thing at a time, also known as multitasking. We also talked about what prejudice means to different people and a lot of people had their own meaning of the definition. On Friday we started to watch a movie about people making fun of others because of their sexual orientation. One part in the movie that really threw me off was when one guy said him and his buddies would look for gay guys and go up to them and beat the guy up and then take their money and just leave the person there. Another thing I though was crazy was when Matthew got beat up so bad by those people that their family could barely tell that it was their son. I think the rest of the movie should be pretty interesting. 

Lefsa

Today I had to bring in my snack from my culture. I chose to bring in lefse because this food has kind of been a major thing in my family. My grandpa and grandma on my moms side used to make lefse in their basement and sell it to local grocery stores. My mom and my aunts and uncles would help make lefse when they were younger. I also had the chance to make lefse with my grandparents in their basement where they used to distribute it from. The lefse was called “Elaine’s Lefse”, Elaine was my grandmas’ name. I was not able to make the lefse because I did not have the correct equipment and time but if I would have had these things I think I would have been able to make some homemade lefse for the class to taste. I have grown up around lefse and it has been part of our holidays ever since I was born. I thought it was kind of funny when some of the class did not know what this was. But then I remembered it is a Norwegian food and not many people in the class were from North Dakota or even Norwegian. My family has always put butter and sugar and also brown sugar sometimes on the lefse. I have always lefse and I think it will be something I will pass down to my children as well and also maybe even teach them how to make it. Making lefse is not an easy task as it takes some patients and concentration as well. You use potatoes and then take a rolling pin and roll it out until it is pretty thin and about fifteen inches circular. Then you cook it on a lefse cooker I guess you could call it and it is a circular grill that is flat and you use a flat wooden stick to flip it and you only flip it once and it only takes a few minutes to cook. 

Family Tree

Great Grandmother    Neltha Peterson     5-16-1900    5-16-1934                Eva Schmidt            Great Grandfather    Gilbert Peterson    9-20-1900    1-10-1990                Matt Schmidt
Great grandmother    Ella Eicholtz/Marie Eicholtz                                     Ida Fried
Great Grandfather    Ike Eicholtz            7-11-1904    12-21-1989  Joe Fried 6-5-1912    7-1-2000
Grandmother             Elaine Eicholtz        4-13-1930    8-26-2010     Marcy Schmidt      3-17-1940
Grandfather              Earl Eicholtz           7-8-1928    3-17-2009        James Schmidt       3-8-1937
Mother                    Debby Schmidt          6-7-1960                Father Kevin Schmidt        4-24-1960
  Kolby Schmidt    12-11-1991
This is my family tree for both my mothers and my fathers side of the family. 

As you can tell my great grand parents date back to the 1900’s. My mother’s family is of Norwegian descent and my father’s family side is of German descent. I am not quite sure where my great grandparents came from but I do know they are Norwegian. My dad is German and I also don’t know where his ancestors came from German descent. I never have really known much about my ancestors because I have never really had to do research on them. I got research from my mother and my grandmother but they didn’t really give me much information besides my family tree.

Class

            During last week of class I learned some new things about certain topics. I learned about what culture means and we discussed the topic of culture for a little while. I learned that culture is the way people live, your lifestyle, your religion, your family’s history, your age, your sex, and also a person’s moral. Also culture is learned and not how you were brought up. Another thing I learned was the melting pot. I learned that the melting pot was a bunch of cultures are mixed together. I also learned about “tossed salad” and that is when you can tell the differences between the cultures but they live in the same location. I also learned about people who are foreign to the United States and how forty seven percent of scientists and engineers are foreign born. Also people often come to the United States for an education because the United States is a lot more technically advanced for schooling. We also were taught about what symbolic, dynamic, and ethnocentric mean. We also had to write down five things that we thought was our culture and the five things I wrote down were male, twenty-years old, from West Fargo, ND, family, and also Lutheran. I think this describes my culture pretty well in five topics.

            We also learned about organizations. Organizations can involve certain things and can all be different and can be process-orientated, job-orientated, professional, an open system, have tight control or loose control, and can be either pragmatic or normative; meaning either flexible or rigid. You also reminded me that I have to bring a snack to class tomorrow. I have been thinking about what I am going to bring for a while now and I think I have a good idea what I am going to bring in. 

Week of Class

The couple days of class we had this week I found to be pretty interesting. There were some things I learned about and there were also some things I already knew a little about when we talked about them. The first day of class was pretty much like every other class I had. We went over the syllabus and covered all the guidelines of the class for the semester. The syllabus was pretty much self-explanatory and it was straightforward. We were told how to do our blogs and what you expected out of our blogging. The first blog we did was about some of our goals for the class and I knew I was going to have to give you some goals at the beginning of the semester because of the other class I had with you, so I was expecting that. I also like the fact that you are calling our tests knowledge celebrations. I think this gives the class a “comfort zone” I guess you could say because I think the class wont stress out as much hearing the words knowledge celebration, as apposed to test.

            I thought the second class session we had was a quite interesting one. The movie we watched made me think about some things and it also made be laugh because it was a little bit on the cheesy side. However, the movie did get its point across. From my point of view, the movie was one that made a point that I think almost everyone could relate to and it did this quite often. When you brought up that we had to plan an event for the college, I wasn’t too thrilled right away but after the class started talking about it a little bit I kind of changed my mind. I think the project we will be doing will be pretty fun. The group I am in is doing Canada and I think that will be cool because I don’t really know much about Canada and I wouldn’t mind learning about it a little bit. This was pretty much all we did in the two class sessions we had and I think the classes we had were good ones.