End of the year Meaningful life essay

How to live a good life is one of the most talked about and important philosophical subjects in the world. Everyday, people are searching for the way to achieve this good life goal. In the place we live in today, we get our ideas from outside sources. That is why: the corporate culture distorts our society into thinking that consumerism is the way to live a good life.
One of the most important questions people think about is what makes a meaningful life and what people feel to be a good and meaningful life? This question can be thought of in a few ways but the two main ways are: what does culture say about what a good and meaningful life should be and what do people consider to be a good and meaningful life? People see that a good and meaningful life consists of having a good job, a stable family, having power, being smart, finding your true self, and being happy.
People feel that a good and meaningful life is one that involves being smart, having a good job, being powerful which goes along with having a lot of money, and love. This idea is related to culture, which essentially tells us that these things listed above are what makes to be a good and meaningful life. Almost everyone has these ideas about a good and meaningful life. It was almost as if it was plugged into our brains. But it is a natural desire to have these ideas about a meaningful life because these are all very good things that everyone wants so its an instinct to want this. No one will be wishing to be sad, for instance because that makes for a meaningless life where you only focus on one thing. It also seems that people do not want to cause other people to have a bad life-it is almost a natural instinct to help someone who is in need. But I believe that that was not the case during Black Friday incident where a Walmart employee was trampled to death and nobody stopped to help him. They kept making a mad dash into the store just to get flat screen TVs and other material items and they completely disregarded another persons desire to live. That really shows what people's priorities are in this world.
I do believe that having a family, love, money and a stable job, having fun, and getting a good education makes for a good and meaningful life. This is because all of these things get you places in life. I believe that without an education, for example, I would not get a good job, I could not be powerful, and I would not get money. These ideas about a good life go hand-in-hand. I noticed that not many people put down having fun as one of their ideas on a good and meaningful life but I put that down because I think that you need to be able to be yourself and let loose at times. It just makes life more entertaining and fun which is important to me. This idea also goes along with love because you want to be able to have fun with someone you love.
I think that it is very hard to have a good and meaningful life. It does not just come to someone in the blink of an eye. People need to wait for it and be patient. People need to wait and work very hard in their job to become very powerful and make money and hopefully, they get the "dream job". It is the same thing to find your "one true love". There are some people who try very hard for this good and meaningful life and they sadly never get it. Some people wait their whole life for it. Speaking personally, I always try to live a good and meaningful life. I do this by trying to get a good education in order to prepare for college and jobs. I also try to have fun in life so that is one of my sources of entertainment besides technology.
Corporate culture is culture influenced by pop culture such as the media, TV, internet, magazines/books, and advertisements. Commodified culture is taking things that are not necessarily things you can sell but they are then turned into products you can sell and putting it in corporate culture. For example: people a long time ago when cars were first made that you should always look both left and right before you cross the street, and now that is commodified culture because it is put into ads and TV shows to show you this message. Corporate culture's message about a good life is ideas such as being happy, smart, finding your true self, and being unique among many more, but corporate culture also focuses a lot on asthetic aspects such as looking good and feeling good. But by culture telling us to be unique, we are not really being unique because we are following cultures' expectations of us. Everywhere you look, there is an advertisement for a new beauty product or a gym to help you look and feel better.
In class, we discussed and watched some movies that show different messages that corporate culture gives us about how to live a good and meaningful life. In Superbad, for instance, the message for living a good and meaningful life is to meet hot girls, get drunk, get stoned, have sex, have fun, and be very close with your buddies. This can be translated into a not very educational lifestyle where no one is really smart because fun is the only thing they do. In contrast, the movie Music of the Heart shows that in order to have a good and meaningful life, one must help others less fortunate than them, be selfless, and be smart. In the movie, the main character portrayed by Meryl Streep plays a Caucasian school teacher who teaches at a predominatly African-American school which is not good, and she teaches them how to behave and become good members in society.
Along with movies, music videos and songs show a lot about what culture believes to be a good and meaningful life. In Kanye West's song "Good Life," he states that in order to live a meaningful life, one needs to be famous, have a lot of beautiful women, be powerful, and have a lot of money. One way he describes being rich is by dropping names of expensive things for example: "I pop the hood, Ferrari". One lyric in the song says: "I'ma get on this TV mama." It shows that he is gonna become famous and be on the TV and live an amazing, luxurious life. In the music video, he is surrounded by pretty women, which shows when you are powerful, you can have all this money and all these women. All the messages from this song are connected to one another. A similar message of a good life is shown in Lil' Mama's song "Lip Gloss." The song describes that to have a good and meaningful life, you have to be popular, have all the boys on you and have girls jealous of you and you get that by having the perfect lip gloss. Lil' Mama says that "my lip gloss is popping/I'm standing at my locker/and all the boys keep stopping." She goes on to say that what people know about her is that she has fabulous lip gloss. Just like in the "Good Life" song, she also name drops lip gloss brands such as Mac and Loreal. The music video for this song also adds to this idea because at the beginning, she is insecure about going to a new school and her mom tells her that if she puts on lip gloss, she will be the envy of everybody and she will become popular. When she gets into school, she walks down the hall and no one can stop staring at her and even the teacher is liking her lip gloss. In contrast, The Beatles song "All You Need Is Love" shows a very different message for living a good and meaningful life. The songs' basic message is that all anybody should have is love and love basically is the fundamental for the world. They are also saying that the world really would not be good without love. One of the lyrics are "All you need is love...love is all you need." They go on to say that in love, "there's nothing you can do that can't be done." This means that love is everywhere and that you will be able to get love in some way or another. In the music video for this song, it shows The Beatles sitting around singing the song and a bunch of people are there so it is probably a party, which most likely represents unification with people and love.
On the opposite side of these arguments, there are marginal messages which are messages that are not considered to be that acceptable in society. For example, dropping out of school is a big marginal message in our culture. In the movie, Pump up the Volume, there are many marginal messages shown but the movie portrays those marginal messages to be the "correct" thing to do and anything else is bad. For instance, the dominant corporate culture tells us to lisen to authority and the marginal corporate message is that it is bad to go against the system whereas in this movie, itis bad to listen to authority and it is good to do your own thing and rebel against them. In the beginning of the movie, themain character, Mark, says about America: "Eat your cereal with a fork, do your homework in the dark." This is a marginal message because in this world, it is frowned upon and not accepted if you do these things. He asks: "Do you ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely fucked up?" He goes on to say that in America, "poor stay poor, rich get rich. Everywhere I look, everything is sold out." This is saying how the American society functions and this is not the patriotic approach to how America really is and this is different. Stated simply, Mark is saying that living a good life means having your own thoughts and being different while a bad life is becoming brainwashed by what the corporate culture is telling us and going along with it. This is also shown in the media in 2008 where people are telling you to "fight against the Man." The movie Foxfire also shows rebelling against "the Man" but in this movie they are rebelling against a teacher who tried to rape a female student. In both these films, the adults are the bad guys.
The next type of message are the folk messages. Those are the messages that are learned from parents and the things they taught you about how to live a good and meaningful life. As a personal example, my parents taught me that to have a good and meaningful life, I have to do very well in school, go to a good college, care a lot about family and friends, work hard then have fun, don't be a follower, and when I'm older, start a family. These messages stick with you for the rest of your life and you will most likely pass them down to future generations. I do think that folk messages derive from the dominant corporate culture messages because our parents probably do believe these things are what makes a good life, but their parents probably got the idea from corporate culture.
We also learned about how food can make for a good and meaningful life. Obviously, we can't live without food and I learned that it is important to know what food we eat and if we care what ingridients we put into our body. Considering that America is the fattest country, I think that most people wouldn't care what goes into their body and that is why many people are overweight from eating fast food a lot. I would think that because you only have 1 life, people would think it is important to know what goes into their food but that is not the case. According to Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan argues that everything we eat comes from corn. For example, high fructose corn syrup which is in all junk food.
In general, throughout this course, i learned about a lot of different ways as shown for how to live a good and meaningful life. There was a lot more but i think that these were the most important ones. I really enjoyed this class and i learned a lot from it. I think i took away a lot of good information on what it means to live a good and meaningful life.

Collapse Assignment 2

I think that one thing that will cause a collapse is peak oil. Peak oil is when the amount and price of oil starts to decline and getting oil is harder. In our society, money is obviously very important and one of the main sources of our money is oil so when both American oil and foreign oil starts to decrease, that is very bad for our economy. It also means cheap oil and other countries don't want cheap oil so that is also bad for us. Also, the production of oil drops because it takes too much money to do it and that is somewhat the beginning of the collapse. It is also very bad because we are already in an economic collapse so if more bad things start to happen economic wise, that is going to be the start of a bigger collapse

Collapse Assignment 1

One thing I noticed about Easter Island was that it was a way more self-sufficient form of society meaning that you had to farm to get your food and it had a lot of agriculture aspects to it whereas we obviously in a city where you can't farm or grow huge gardens like the Easter Islanders did. On page 10, the article also said that by the 1500s, many of the fresh, natural resources such as fish, birds, and plants to name a few began to decline and it was harder for the Islanders to get food. Then, the farmers had a harder time farming crops which was bad because it caused a chain effect of more people and animals dying because they had no food to eat and then the farmers couldn't make any money because they couldn't sell crops. This was the beginning of how Easter Island suffered from a collapse. This story of the Easter Islanders makes me think that sometime, we will suffer a collapse like this except it won't be farming or ancient techniques, it will probably be caused by an economic collapse or something having to do with global warming. I don't believe that it would be in the near future but it is bound to happen if we don't try to take immiediate action now.

Food Essay

The topic of ethics when it comes to food is huge. The main argument is that of meat: is it ethical to eat a living thing that was tortured and is it ok to eat meat of cattle that was living in horrible conditions?
In my opinion, I know that some cattle are treated very badly and that could at times effect how healthy the meat is, but in general, I do not care how the animal is treated because the food in the end tastes really good. At the same time, I do think it is mean that they are treated this way because they are living things and even though they can't express in words what they are feeling, we can imagine that they are in pain. But how the cattle is treated before it gets made into meat affects the end result of the meat because cattle that is treated very badly and is tortured gets more diseases than cattle who liven good conditions and if bad meat is eaten, people can get very sick from illnesses such as mad cow disease, e-coli, and salmonella.
This idea translates into where you can find this "bad" meat. Most of the bad or unhealthy meats get sent to Mcdonalds and other fast food chains where this lowest form of meat gets made into burgers, which is also shown in the "Cows with Guns" song. I believe that as long as we (the people) all know what is in the meat and how the cattle is raised, we should then make our decision on whether or not we should eat it. This means that the people in society should be told exactly what is in the meat by somebody such as an FDA administrator and then make our decision if we should at the meat or not. We should not be left in the dark about this situation.
In America especially which is the fattest country, many people eat meat and most Americans do not care about how the meat was produced and how it was treated which is why we have the highest rating of food-borne illnesses and deaths at around 5000 cases per year. One would think that because of this staggering number, society would be more careful about what is in their meat and food, but people still continue to eat fast food on a daily basis. On a personal level, I eat fast food but not often and I usually eat Mcdonalds. When I go there, I eat the chicken nuggets with fries. I do not get the burgers there because I don’t trust how they handle the beef. It is the lowest grade of beef and the things that are in the beef are most likely unmentionable products.
Some people don’t eat meat because they feel sorry for the cattle but some people take it to the extremes in protesting animal cruelty and the group is called PETA or the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals. They protest fast food chains that use meat, which was tortured in their cages and they try to get society to stop using animal-based products.
I think that the PETA people take this too far because not everybody agrees on exactly how they think animals should be treated and/or eaten. I do think, though, that it is not right how animals are treated in some different farms or factories but meat is crucial in surviving because they provide different vitamins and proteins such as iron that us humans need to stay healthy when eaten in moderation. Some may argue that there are other ways to stay healthy without having to kill innocent cows and animals but these foods taste very good and I believe that cows were meant to be eaten which is why they are here. In old times, people used to kill cows all the time and eat them so we should still eat them now. In conclusion, We should be aware of how the cows and cattle are treated but I think that after we know this information, we should then see if we would still eat meat or not and I personally could care less about how the cows are treated because the end result tastes very good, doesn’t it?

Food Journal # 8

I read: The Seven Deadly Myths of Industrial Agriculture. This article said that industrial food, contrary to most people's beliefs, is actually very expensive when you include the health, environmental, and social costs to the supermarket price of the food. The article is also saying that the price of food and how it is made is actually way more expensive than how the food is priced in supermarkets. This is because the food and crops undergo a lot of "technology" and pesticides to get the produce to grow faster. Most people and consumers are not aware of this.
Industrial foods and farming ruins our environment because of all the water, soil, and air being used up as well as the pesticides being sprayed on the crops. Since 1960, we have lost half of our topsoil. Also, the food travels at least 1,300 miles from the field to our supermarkets and that is also fossil fuel being emmited into the air which helps cause pollution which then goes back into our crops, food, and lungs.
For health costs, many people get sick per year because of food-related illnesses. These sicknesses can be contributed to the pesticides, hormones, and other chemicals put into our food. Manure also put in food can contribute to this. Agriculture farming is the most accident prone career in this culture.

Food Journal # 7

Grilled Cheese:
- 1 slice of Kraft American cheese
- 2 pieces of whole grain or white bread from the bag
- 1/2 tomato sliced
- 2 pieces of turkey or regular bacon
- 1/4 spoon of butter

1. Take out a pan and turn the stove on to a medium flame.
2. Put the butter in the pan and stir it around the pan till melted. There should be a lot.
3. Put the 2 pieces of bread into the pan and leave it their for about 1 1/2 minutes.
4. When the bread looks a bit brown and crispy, put the slice of cheese on 1 piece of bread.http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/2291637/grilledcheese-main_Full.jpg
5. Quickly, put the tomatoes on the cheese and tear little strips of bacon on top of that.
6. Flip the other side of bread onto the other side and press the spatula on top of the bread so everything melts and stays together.
7. Serve and cut in half.
This is how it should look:http://i.ehowgrilledcheese-main_Full.jpg

Chapter 5 Omnivores Dilemma

In chapter 5 of The Omnivores Dilemma, Pollan investigates on how corn is processed. He said that even though we don't eat a lot of corn, we still ocnsume a lot of it in ways we don't expect: the meat that was once cattle was fed corn gets into our body, alcohol is made from corn, fossil fuel, things fried in corn oil, and much more. In addition, corn enzymes are broken down into carbs that starts a long chain of different organic compounds. Corn is also found in processed food in this way: glucose, fructose, maltodextrin, methanol to name a few. Plowing the corn takes a lot of energy in the tractor-about 10 calories of fossil fuel is burned by gathering a ton of corn which is a big amount. The processed food companies also trick us. For example, if the cost of soy or corn spikes, the company will switch to fat and call it natural substances so that is why many items say: "contains one or more of the following ingriedients: corn, soybean, or sunflower oil."Also, the more ingriedients a product has, the less healthy it is because it means that many unnatural and unhealthy items are used to re-create the final processed food. They mix ingriedients together to get the product to look appealing and to fool the consumers. That is why processed food companies are a bit hesistant to give out ingriedients in the product because then the people would know exactly what is in the food and stop buying it and also to prevent other companies from stealing their ideas.

Chapter 4 Omnivores Dillema

In chapter 4 of The Omnivores Dilemma, the main topic is how meat is processed and even before the meat is made, what raising the cattle is like. Even though this is already a known fact, Pollan confirmed for us that the cattle which is made into meat are kept in unsanitary conditions and are fed cheap corn so that the herders don't need to spend as much money for good corn for the animals. Pollan noted that the feedlot owners care a little bit about bacteria and do attempt to keep bacteria away but it just costs too much money to do that.

Chapter 2 Omnivores Dilemma

In chapter 2 of The Omnivores Dilemma, The author was saying how he went to a corn field with a farmer named George Naylor and he got to see what went on and how the corn husking industry works. Pollan noted that it was almost hypnotic in the motion of plowing the corn and gathering it up day in and day out. He also said that very good corn has to be fertilized by the sun and for that to happen, farmers need to wait a long time because the weather in the Midwest usually is not all that great so to speed up the process, farmers use artificial fertilizers that act as sun so that the corn could give off the impression of being fertile by the real sun. According to Pollan, this is why there is hardly any "ecological" process of farming crops these days-it takes too long and crops aren't sold. On another subject, Pollan talked about the economic toll on farmers of growing crops. For example, the price of vegetables are dropping and corn, for instance, used to be $3 and now its $2 therefore, farmers make less money than they produce the food. Also, there is competition between farmers in areas mainly occupied by farmers. The farmers see who can get most of the profit and sell the most corn. I agree that these results are interesting and it stresses for me even more why it is so difficult to be a farmer in today's world.

Groceries

I noticed that in grocery stores, the first thing you see usually is the fresh fruit and vegetable area. Then the dairy and juice area. And then there are rows and rows of frozen food aisles and the sweets and unhealthy things are towards the back. My guess is that supermarkets want to appeal to consumers in showing that you should buy healthy an then work your way to the back where sweets are. I read somewhere that stores arrange their food strategically to appeal to customers. For example, things that are used a lot go in the back and things in front are the less needed items. In my household, my mom tries to cook healthy because she has cholestrol problems but she also cooks things that aren't always healthy such as steak. But when my mom buys things such as meat, she only buys the organic kind. She might buy food that is generally unhealthy but she always buys the "healthier" version so that it could at least help a little bit.

food eaten in a week

in a typical week, I eat alot of each category of food which are grains/beans, vegetables, fruits, and maybe meat? My meals are mostly out of pastas and potatoes which are grains and I eat alot of vegetables such as lettuce and string beans. But one of my favorite things to eat are fruits. During the summer, I'll eat a lot of peaches, cherries, and plums. I also enjoy mangoes, strawberries, pineapple, apples, oranges, and there are more. I think it's good to eat in moderation from all these categories because too much of one can be unhealthy. For example, If I only ate fruit I wouldn't be healthy because even though fruit is very healthy, there is still sugars in there that aren't healthy for you in large quantities.

May Day

I do not think that understanding May Day is the key to understanding a good life. I think it is hard for me to understand it because I am not a worker and I do not know a worker. Also, in the U.S. we do not celebrate or recognize May Day-we recognize Labor Day and even then, it isn't a big celebration like May Day is. Labor Day is just BBQs, going to the beach, and kind of partying it up. It does not really have many intellectual events going on and Labor Day is just a day to relax. It is a more low-key then May Day. May Day there are actually protests and big parades. It is a bigger affair and it has more meaning than Labor Day, in my opinion. The principal is important because it is celebrating workers rights. My dad is in Paris and he was there on May Day and he said the streets were packed and there were parades and protests going on. He told me he watched a protest. It is interesting to learn how different places celebrate different holidays. This holiday is obviously more significant for the union workers and workers than for average people.

My Eating Habits

Over the past 24 hours I've eaten:
-Turkey burgers, green salad with mom's dressing, and potato salad for last night's dinner.
-Candy from Tasti-D-Lite (gummies mostly)
-Chocolate chip ice cream
-Corn flakes with milk for my pre-bed snack.
-Today for breakfast, I had 2 cookies.

I usually eat a light/medium breakfast, a medium lunch, and then a heavy dinner. I eat more when I am at home than I do outside. I sometimes eat a lot of food during dinner and on the occasion that I am still hungry afterwards, I eat a lot of sweets. I have to have dessert after dinner even if I'm stuffed. At home, i eat food much faster than when I am outside and that is probably because I usually eat out with friends and I like talking to them so that slows my eating down, but with my parents, I want to leave the table so I eat pretty fast. If I like the meal I'm eating at home, I eat faster. If I eat something heavy right before dinner time, I stay in the living room and watch TV while everyone else eats. I usually eat weird things for breakfast such as leftover Chinese and I'm not a huge fan of bagels but there are times when I have cravings for breakfast foods at night and in the morning, I don't like them. Sometimes, I have cereal and milk at night before bed or I might have a toasted bagel with butter. There are also times when I'll be craving a certain food for a whole week and I eat it every day but the things I crave aren't healthy. For example, there was 1 week recently when I only wanted to eat Cheetos for a snack and then another week where all I wanted to eat was a chocolate glazed donut from Dunkin Donuts.Of course, I like to eat unhealthy foods but I also eat healthy foods such as salad. I love salads, vegetables, and fruit especially. My parents never gave me fast food when I was younger, so I guess I'm "catching up" on it now. I have a fast metabolism so I can eat a lot and it's hard for me to gain weight. I can't tolerate heavy foods for long periods of time, though. For example, when i went to Serbia in 2005 for a month, most of their food is extremely rich and I gained a lot of weight and my eating habits were thrown out of whack when i got back to the States and I only wanted to eat light foods for a while. I didn't feel good at all. I think most of the time, I have good eating habits.

Eating Dinner

In my house, my mom cooks the meals and once in a blue moon, we order in. We eat a lot of dishes with meat and/or potatoes in them because my mom is Serbian and that is what most Serbian dishes contain or we eat a lot of pasta. We eat these foods because it is easiest to make. Usually, though, my mom makes food in advance so when we do eat the dinner, all she has to do is heat it up. My family usually eats our dinner at 8-ish and we always sit at the kitchen table. My mom, my dad, my sister, and I always sit in the same place. At the table, we have to tell things about our day and how it went, things like that. My parents, especially my dad, get mad if I don't tell them what goes on with me. We also aren't allowed to drink sweet drinks with dinner. My sister and I also aren't allowed to watch TV during dinner but there are exceptions when I watch a show on Monday or if it is some awards show like the Oscars or if we are sick. Eating dinner is pretty rigid in my house.

Food

The question I had about food was: are there certain fast food chains that are more healthy than others? According to Health magazine and CBS news, there are some chains that are healthier than others. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/02/earlyshow/health/main4837425_page2.shtml.) I found it very interesting that Mcdonalds was number 8 on this list because most of us know how unhealthy it is but at the same time, they cut out the supersize meals and they also sell salad which is loaded with things but at least it's still salad. I also noticed that most of the things on the list are places that I have heard of and most people probably never heard of them either. For example, I have never heard of Jason's Deli. I also noticed that most of these places sell hardly any fried things and is mostly organic fast food which makes it so healthy. Places like Burger King and Wendy's aren't on it and I have heard that Wendy's is actually more healthy than Mcdonalds. I was also surprised that I didn't see the L.A. burger place, In-and-Out burger on there because In the book Fast Food Nation, the author said that it has fresh meat and fresh ingriedients. The money is probably more expensive but is better for you than other places.

Morals

One of the big topics in life are morals. All our life, our friends, family, and the society/media have told us to be moral people and to not do things such as lie, steal, or kill people without a reason among some of the things. Most people have followed not to kill but people still steal and lie all the time. Even though we have had the idea of morals drilled into our head since we were little, people choose to not follow them. People might say that they are moral, but not everyone is moral. All people have some sort of unmoralness to them because everyone lies, for instance. Some people have more moral ways of living than others but there isn't one person who is 100% moral. Our society really stresses this. We all have a universal definition of what morality means but there are certain exceptions and people have different ides of what morality is-it differs. For example, it is umnoral to kill someone but if you were being attacked, then it is ok to kill someone because you are trying to protect yourself. Morals also mean being honest. Recently, I lost my phone and everyone I talked to said that these days, no one will give back a phone if lost, but a classmate of mine found it and gave it back to me. That's a very honest and moral thing to do.

Fridge

In my fridge I have: grapefruit and apple juice, eggs, lemons, butter/margarine, yeast, ketchup, vodka, tuna, whip cream, sofrito, jam, soy milk/milk, peppers, wheat germ, ham/sausage, maple syrup, mustard/mayo, cheese, beans, pickles, salad, pineapple juice, celery, carrots, spinach, random dishes, cream cheese, and strawberries. I am not sure but I think that some moral issues that are found in food could be eating meat and/or dairy products. Some people such as PETA argue that eating those things are "morally wrong" because we are killing innocent animals to eat when we have so many other alternatives as to what to eat. I could also see from my fridge, other than moral issues, is health. vodka and the meats aren't too healthy for you when not drank or eaten in moderation.

Break Homework

I feel emotionally healthy when I am doing my homework and when I am being active and when I am talking to people because I know that doing these three things are good for me. When I don't do these things, I feel unhealthy because I feel like I am just wasting my life. I also feel unhealthy when I fly into a rage, which is kind of often, because it makes me feel crazy and unnormal and that I could express anger in a better way. Society probably told us to think this way so we grew up thing of the "right" way to behave. It is almost as if we are emotionally unhealthy if we act a certain way in different situations for example: not crying at sadness.
I don't think that emotionally healthy is the same thing as being constantly happy because not everyone can be constantly happy all the time: people can try and look happy but they are not always feeling the same thing their expressions show. It is not healthy to always be happy because it shows that you do not really understand fully what's going on and life isn't fair: no one can be like that always. The theories we researched in class relate to emotional health because some people can improve their emotional health by having therapy. One form of therapy is to talk to people and for many patients, it works well. Also, when proffesionals who know a a lot about this talk to someone in need, they get a good perspective about how to live a good emotional life. At the same time, the way people express different events can be different than the way the therapist sees it. But in general, this is what emotional health looks like.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is one type of psychiatry that aims to make people feel better about themselves and develop a very close relationship with the patient. The psychotherapists main job is helping patients grow closer with people and help patients communicate better with people around them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotherapy

Emotional Health Stories

Lola had a little sister, Suzie, who she would watch when her parents were at work. Because Suzie was so young and innocent looking, they never blamed her for anything and claimed she had no "responsibilities" whereas Lola had many. One day, Suzie kept touching Lola's phone and iPod and obviously, Lola was upset. She at first told Suzie nicely to stop touching her stuff but that did not work. Suzie kept talking back to her sister and kept getting on her last nerve. That is when Lola started screaming at Suzie at the top of her lungs and Suzie and her got into a screaming match. Lola could not take it anymore and she just slapped Lola multiple times. Suzie got aggressive but scared and decided to fight back a little bit. Her parents got home and Lola of course got in trouble. She almost wanted to cut herself because she was so mad. The End. This story depicts an emotionally unstable person because Lola can't get her anger out in any other way but to hit her sister. In my opinion, being emotionally unhealthy means that you can't express your feelings in a positive or nice way-you go out of control and start to put yourself in others in danger. Also, people who are emotionally unstable act too crazy or emotional on the "scale" of emotions or act too "happy" on the same scale.

Elizabeth was an employee at a high-powered P.R. firm. She loved the job except for her boss, who was a very opinionated person and on almost every topic they discussed, they always butt heads. She knew she couldn't do a whole lot about it because he was the boss and she could get fired. One day, he got on her last nerve and she decided to have a nice, polite talk about it. She realized afterwards that even though he did not get much nicer, she handled the situation in a good "emotionally stable" way. Elizabeth didn't behave in a crazy, erratic way-she behaved maturely and in a way everybody would consider normal. She was emotionally stable and this is what our society likes.

Obstacles in percievinfg that we are animals is: scientific classifaction, evolution, 45% of our time is spent with human beings, and and non-animal traits that we have. Sciemtific classification is that scientists percieved us to be animals based on scientific explanation. It is alledgedly scientifically proven that we have no animal in us and if we think like this, we will never see ourselves as being animals. The second is evolution which states that we evolved from apes and Neanderthals. We have been taught this since forever and because we never really questioned it when we were younger, it is hard for us to question it now because we grew up and have it implanted in our brains that we aren't animals. The third is 45% of our time is spent with humans. If we grow up mostly around humans, we will never know what real animal behavior is so it would be harfd to deternmine what animal behavior is even though sme of us have pets. The fourth is the non-animal traits we have. There are many things animals and us have in common but there are many trhings we don't have such as tails and licking ourselves to get clean. If we think of humans as not having any animal-like traits at al, then we won't be able to think of ourselves as animals. These are some of the obstacles we have to deal with in percieving ourselves to be animals.
Some benefits in percieving we are animal are: we give birth like animals, we know how to protect our bodies, and we know the proper way to think. If we just think about the way we birth is the same as animals and that we don't need any kinds of medicines to give birth because animals don't need fancy birth methods, we shouldn't do it either. Most humans take care of themselves physicaly, mentally, and emotionally and just like animals, we try to be active and move around just like wild animals do. We know the proper way to think means that we think about things in a good way such as morals and just basic everyday things such as where to bathe etc. These are some of the benefits in percieving ourselves as animals.
While doing this unit on animals, it is actually making me think that I might possibly be an animal. When I think of the same attributes animals and humans have in common such as we bathe, we have babies, and we eat among many things, we actually do have more in common with animals then expected. All of these points made really make me think himans and animals might be the same, after all.

Interview Questions

1. Do you think you lived a good and meaningful life?
2. Is there one particular moment that made your life seem more meaningful?
3. Is there any moment you experienced that made you feel your life was meaningless?
4. Do you CURRENTLY feel you are living a good and meaningful life?
5. What do you percieve a good and meaningful life to be and what would others think of your life?

Barack Obama's Inauguration

Obviously, yesterday was Barack Obama's inauguration. I was very happy about that because it was a very historic moment for America to have the first African-American president and it was great to live through a historic time. Mostly, I here about world-changing experiences my parents and much older people went through and it is cool to experience something like this. I will definetly be telling my kids and grandkids about this. I also was very happy about this because Obama is such a smart guy and he is an amazing public speaker and I think he could put America back on the right track after the big mess that Bush made. I was also happy that Bush isn't president anymore because he was very uneducated. Obama does have a lot to clean up from Bush's mess such as the economic crisis and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the first time in a very long time I actually felt proud to be an American and to be able to have the common feelings with many other Americans, also. While watching his inauguration on TV and seeing about 2 million people in Washington D.C. and seeing how many people all over the world were celebrating, it really shows how important it is to everybody even people who live in different countries. I think that Bush made so many people all around the world (Americans included), Anti-American and most people hated us but now that Obama is president, that will change drastically and we will have more allies and more help in times of need. For example, my friend who now lives in London and my family in Serbia were also watching this monumental day. Everyone cares about this. I noticed that practically every TV channel was playing the inauguration and that also proves how special it is-if god forbid it was a Republican president, it would get hardly any coverage mostly because people are sick of them.

Easter

Easter is all about pure innocent things such as bunnies and baby chicks and flowers. This is because it is two days after Jesus' crucifixaction, so the people must esentially honor him and be good. Most Christians go to church on this day and the children do things such as scavenger hunts. Kids also get a lot of candy such as Peeps and chocolate covered eggs. The customary colors for Easter are light pastel colors. Another thing the corporate culture tells us about Easter is that little kids are supposed to dye the eggs into coloring. That is one of Easter's traditions. Like most holidays, the corporate culture tells us that Easter is the time to be with your family and eat a big, hearty meal. Also, stores sell a lot of plastic eggs, Easter-themed chocolates in the shape of eggs, bunnies, and baby chicks, little baskets with the little ribbons in them, and egg-dyeing kits. I think the reason why eggs are so huge in this holiday is because eggs represent something new and after Jesus died, the people were celebrating a "new", resurrected Jesus. But I feel that if you don't celebrate this holiday, other people might not be as shocked and ask "Why?" Whereas, if you don't celebrate Mother's day or Christmas, for example, people would be surprised. My family and I don't really celebrate Easter but when my sister and I were little, we would celebrate it so that we would fit in with all the little kids. But as we grew older, we unerstood that this is a more religious holiday, so we dont celebrate it.

Christmas

Christmas was fine this year except for the fact that I was sick. I went to Westchester to see my dad's friend and his family. Again, we talked about school and SATS, which shows that school means a good and meaningful life. We also talked about people but we hardly brought up corporate culture, which is something that hardly ever happens and as we were talking about that, I was observing this fact. Also, we got presents which is also defeating Jesus' meaning of Christmas, which is to not get presents but to give presents to people worse off than you. My family and I talked about it but we still didn't "follow" the rule; we are not religious people. My dad did say that by us giving presents, we are doing that to make our loved ones happy and to celebrate spending time with our family. More religious people believe giving presents is to honor Jesus and all of the good things that he did. A majority of people give presents for the reason my family does. I also believe that this is what corporate culture told us to believe and that some folk cultures tell us to give presents instead of recieving presents. The resents during Christmas time was definitely shown to us by the corporate culture because presents are materials and we live in a very materialistic society.