Culture Post

For my post on a different culture I found a Norwegian Folktale to write about. The story is about a mother making pancakes for her family and instead of making them how she always does, she uses a new milk this time. When she's making the pancake all of her children beg her for the chance to eat it, each one saying something sweeter and nicer added on. When she tells them to hold on and "wait until it turns itself," the pancake freaks out and tries to run away out of them pan, and does. After the entire family starts chasing it, the pancake gains so much distance on them that they can't see it anymore. Along the way the pancake rolls by a man, a hen, a cock, a duck, a goose, and a gander, all of whom try to eat him. The final creature it met was a pig, who tricked the pancake into sitting on it's snout to cross the river so the pancake didn't get wet. The pig ate the pancake.

Link

Change Post

The first thing I thought of when I knew that we had to do a blog about change was Barack Obama. I googled his name and the first website that came up was "Barack Obama and Joe Biden: Change we need." Every other sentence on the website had the word change in it. Sometimes change can be for the worst or for the best, and this was definately for the best. Once you go to the website you see right away an area that says three and a half million jobs have already been created or saved. Another thing I noticed was a big area that says American Recovery, which I know Barack Obama is going to do. He is going to save America and get everything back on track, even though it will probably take a while, I have faith in him and I know he'll do a great job running our country.

Hope Post

For my post on hope I chose to write about WWF which is the World Wildlife Fund. It is an organization that has been helping to protect the future of nature for more then 45 years. They are the largest multinational conservation organization in the world working in 100 countries and they are supported by about 5 million people nationally. The reason I chose to talk about the WWF is because it has a lot to do with hope. They are working to protect everything on our Earth and hoping to succeed with people's support and aid. Their goal is by 2020 to conserve 19 of the world's most important natural places. One of the things that scares me most is thinking about how much damage is happening to our planet and how much has happened. I'm really glad organizations like this exist. I think they give hope to lots of people all over the world. I know they give me hope about saving our planet.

WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

Religious Post

For my post on religious beliefs I chose to talk about St Valentine's Day. I found an article on it's history. When people think about Valentine's day they probably think of flowers, candy hearts or chocolates and the commercialized view of the holiday. Although the holiday is associated with the catholic saint, St. Valentine, it isn't a religious holiday. A very common custom is to hand out valentines to your friends, family, and loved ones.

Link to More Information

Gender Roles Post

For my blog on different gender roles I chose to write about the movie The Stepford Wives because I thought that it would fit perfectly with the topic of gender roles. At the beginning of the movie the family that moves into the gated community of Stepford the mom is a successful author and is making most of the family income. When they get to Beford everything changes. The community is really messed up and hiding a major secret. The men in the community all have perfect trophy wives that do nothing but serve them and make them happy. They are basically their servants but they don't care. There is only one normal wife living in the community other then the new one that just moved it. The two normal wives start thinking something is going on, while their husbands are completely clueless. Later on in the story the author starts acting different and her friend notices. She starts doing everything like the housework, taking care of the kids, grocery shopping, and other tasks that the "typical housewife" does. In the end it turns out that the "leader" of the community replaced all the real wives with robots because she believed they should all be pefrect like her, she had even made her husband a "perfect" one by making it a robot. Whenever I think of gender roles and stereotypes for them I think of this movie because it had the typical shovanistic views of women and what a lot of counrtries were like and some still are.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3119842073/
Link to movie preview!

The Stepford Wives. Frank Oz, Ira Levin, Paul Rudnick. Paramount Pictures, 2004.

A Culture Different From Your Own Post

For my class Psychology of Relations I'm doing a project on different marriage customs around the world. I learned about many different traditions that were unique to certain cultures and countries. For example, many weddings in Egypt are still arranged with the groom’s family proposing to the bride’s. Before the marriage vows a musical wedding march called the Zaffa is performed with traditional Egyptian music, belly dancers, drum horns and performers with flaming swords. Egyptians also believe that the ring finger has the “vein amoris”, the vein of love, which runs straight to the heart. A tradition in Bermuda is the wedding cakes of islanders is to have a tiny sapling on top and at the end the couple takes it home and plants it. It is then they can watch it grow, just at their marriage does. In Iceland marriage is a very serious matter. Long engagements are very common, sometimes lasting up to 3 or 4 years. Modern weddings in Iceland are mainly based off of American traditions. A groom is expected to ask the permission of the father-in-law before proposing in Venezuela. A civil ceremony is held two weeks before the religions ceremony at which the couple is officially married. It is also tradition for the newlyweds to sneak away from their reception without saying goodbye, it’s considered to bring good luck.

Overcoming Struggle Post

For my blog about someone overcoming a struggle I chose to talk about Harry Potter. In the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire, Harry participates in the tri-wizard tournament. Every task that he has to complete is an example of overcoming a struggle he has. The first thing that Harry has to do is try and steal and egg from a mother dragon guarding her nest. The next job that the competitors had to perform was to swim down to the bottom of the lake and rescue someone who meant a lot to them from the merpeople. There were these creatures in the water that tried and slow him down and stop him. One of the competitors failed to retrieve their loved one so Harry went back and rescued her. The last thing that Harry had to do was travel through a maze full of obstacles and reach the center where the trophy was. Not only did Harry Potter have to go through the many struggles in the tournament but also when he reached for the trophy him and Cedric were transported to a graveyard were Voldemort was waiting. I really liked this part of the book because it was always interesting and I never wanted to put the book down. The author does a great job describing how Harry felt through all of this. It was kind of like I could picture myself there in the stands at the tournament.

Rowling, JK. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. First American Edition. New York: Scholastic 2000.

Natural Disaster Post

For my blog post about natural disasters I found a website that has information about all the different kind of natural disasters that happen. The website also gives each of the natural disasters: floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, thunderstorms, volcanoes, earthquakes, wildfires, and winter storms. It tells information about previous cases of that specific natural disaster that's occurred, some of the disasters have more information and some even have quizzes. I thought that this website was a great informational help. It is also mostly for kids so it's easier for them to understand and the website is a little more decorative so they don't get bored of it.

Link to the website