Mark Hertzgaard's Visit

Mark Hertzgaard visited the FYS classes in a lecture in Irion Hall. Beforehand a couple of students from each of the class, and some of the professors had lunch and a discussion with him. We focused a lot on our FYS class Local Choices, Global Effects. He seemed very impressed with our class and what we were doing with waste management, sustainable living, and energy. He also talked about the presidential candidates, and where to find information on what they stand for in the climate change/going green areas of their campaigns. He was very intent upon not telling us which party or candidate he supported. I completely respect this, because as a journalist, his responsibility is to give unbiased information about the candidates and what they stand for---not to persuade the public to follow his opinion.

Event 2

On Tuesday, October 30 I went to the showing of Smoke Signals in the Illinois room at 4:00 pm. This movie was about two Native American teenagers living on a Reserve in the United States. These two boys, who were not friends, go on a journey to Arizona to recover the dead body of one of the boys’ father. These two boys leave the Reserve into basically a different country where stereotypes about Native Americans rule what people think of them. They run into some very interesting characters including a substitute for the Olympics, two very prejudiced white police officers, a drunken abusive man and his wife and their friends, and a friend of the boy’s father. Many of these individuals hold their own views of what Native Americans are like, and treat the boys thusly. Slowly, as the boys make their journey, the stereotypes that many Americans have about Native Americans disappear. This movie ends with the boy recovering the ashes of his father, and coming to the terms with the fact that although his father left him and his mother, he did genuinely love them. The two boys split the man’s ashes and one dumps the ashes into the river, and the other gives the ashes to the mother. The boys form a very strong bond that cannot be broken, even if they don’t remain good friends.
After the movie, we talked as a group about the movie and the stereotypes that many Americans have about Native Americans. We all agreed that this movie had a great balance between viewing Native Americans as savages, and Romanticizing them, like some movies do (like Dances With Wolves). This movie educated all of us about the Native American culture and the stereotypes about them. I would recommend this movie to anyone who was interested in this topic.

Sustainable Living Project Presentation Reflection

For this project, I was responsible for coming up with ideas for new courses on sustainable living, while my partner researched what our school already offered on this subject. I felt like the two of us did a really thorough job on our topic, and our audience seemed very interested in the ideas that we came up with. I think that if I had more time, I would have extended what other schools offered in courses, and what we would take from that.
Overall, I think we did a pretty good job on our presentation. I felt like this time, our actual presentations skills were improved, but our information was lacking a bit in comparison to our first project. I know that we didn’t follow through on our due dates because of extenuating circumstances, but I believe that there should have been a back-up plan because it wasn’t really fair to Jason (our power-point creator). I preferred our audience during this presentation to our previous audience. They seemed much more genuinely interested in what we had to say, and seemed genuinely interested in changing things about our school in order to make it better. They asked a lot of good questions about our presentation, our opinions, and the class in general.
Also, many of my classmates seemed much more confident, well dressed, and prepared for the project. It was actually very cool to see the normally quiet students speak up, present and defend their ideas, and answer good questions. I also saw a lot of students encouraging one another before they presented, which was also a cool bonding experience.

Event: Dr Goldsmith's Lecture

On Wednesday, October 24th, I attended a small dinner at the Chaplain's house followed by a psychology lecture by Dr. Goldsmith on Erikson's works. Since I had no idea who Erikson was, and have no interest in studying psychology, I was quite confused for the most part. However, there were some points that I thought were very useful. He told a story about how one of his patients was a two year old girl, who was developmentally behind. Apparently, the child would not go to sleep in her own bed--even if she started out in her own bed, she would sneak into her parents' room in the middle of the night. It had become somewhat of a routine. The mother was distressed about this and asked Dr. Goldsmith what to do. He gave her great advice, saying that she should make the child's room into a fun theme, and have playtime in the girl's room, so the little girl would associate her room and her bed as a positive and happy place. Since it was around Halloween the previous year, the mother decorated the young girl's room in a pumpkin patch, and played with her daughter like she was told. When the girl and the mother came back for the next visit, Dr. Goldsmith was told that the little girl slept in her bed alone, every night. I particularly liked this story because I babysit for a developmentally behind four year old with the same problem. I relayed Dr. Goldsmith's advice to this woman, and I hope that it works for them.
Overall, Dr. Goldsmith's lecture focused on different ages and what they need developmentally. He also focused on three aspects of life: work, love and leisure. He really stressed our need to have an appropriate balance of these in order to be content with our lives. I thought this was a great point--since a lot of us can either get too caught up in our work, or too lazy and leisurely to do any work. I somewhat enjoyed this lecture--but I think that the psychology students appreciated it a lot more--since they actually knew the majority of what he was talking about.