Hunger

Usually I post about something I find interesting, and something that I can apply to myself. This time I decided to switch it up and talk about something that I find boring. Hunger. When most people look at me they say that I am skinny because I don't eat. But I say no. I am skinny because I don't get hungry. When we were filling out the eating survey in class, I realized that I never really get hungry. I realized the only times I eat are just when I want to procrastinate, when I have nothing else to do, or when I'm at Mrs. Perl's house and she forces me to eat or else I don't get invited back. Seriously. I was about to start writing this but I decided it probably would be "better" if I ate some chicken before I started, and that's what I did. I do eat. Because I understand the importance of eating. Food provides energy for your body. But I am just not as naturally hungry as other people.

Judaism's Acceptance Problem

This past summer I had the unique experience of working for the Sierra Club, helping arrange their summer programs. As part of my internship I attended one of the week long summer camps that I organized, coming as a participant. I was surprised to find out that over half of the other attendees were part of the LGBTQ community, openly identifying with their orientation. Having always been part of the sheltered Jewish community, the experience was quite eye-opening. I learned quite a lot about the LGBTQ community and what exactly it means to be part of it.

When I returned from my intern experience I set about researching why exactly the Orthodox Jewish community has such a negative response to LGBTQ members. I had expected a good track record considering the centuries of abuse we have suffered by the hands of our oppressors. I had expected that we would have done a exemplary job on accepting LGBTQ members considering that they were thrown into the crematoriums with us. I had expected to find that the renowned Jewish kindness would have extended to accept and support these people.  I was quite shocked at what I found. Orthodox Jews, it turns out, seem notorious for bad treatment of LGBTQ members. Students that have come out in schools have been kicked out and community members have been ostracized for revealing their true selves. It was with disgust that I read about the lawsuit against JONAH and what the organization had done. The archaic behavior of the religion does not seem to fit with the values that it apparently upholds.

Orthodox Jews have an acceptance problem. We, of all people, should not be discriminating against people. We need to move past our prejudices and accept these people for who they are, just as others accept us for who we are.

Eating Disorders

I want to take the fair position on 2 issues that are often seen in very negative lights. Two of the most prevalent eating disorders in the world are Anorexia and Bulimia.  People often overlook that these are actual psychological problems that the person suffering cannot solve by just "eating again." It is unfair and unreasonable when people think, "well, why don't they just start eating? What's so difficult?" These people don't know the truth. These are real problems that can't be fixed "just like that."

Anorexia is an obsessive desire to lose weight achieved by refusing food. In it, a person's weight drops below 15% of their normal weight, and they still feel overweight. It is more common in prominent White cultures where people want to show control over their environment. But still, it is a psychological issue that is potentially very harmful. Therefore, it should be discouraged and ended as soon as possible but NOT mocked.

And bulimia is a medical condition where one has insatiable eating. It is a process of binging and purging. Some people with bulimia only do the binge aspect, but the majority both eat great amounts at one time and then force themselves to vomit. This is another issue that should be dealt with seriously for it is also a psychological disorder. 

Sensitivity is really what I'm stressing. People have these problems, and they know it, and they aren't happy, so there's no need for others to make them more unhappy.

Social Motivation

Peer pressure is the darndest thing. So much of what we do is motivated by what others do. Last year in Gov we learned about political socialization. That's the process by which we develop our political views. We develop much of our political opinion based on the political opinion of others. This is just one of many examples that displays society's affect on who we become. We are motivated to wear certain clothes, listen to certain music, eat certain foods, all by society. We're all puppets in a world controlled by one grand puppet master. That master isn't God, it's some narcissistic dude who eats pancakes and plays video games all day, only breaking to check in on the human race. Ah, I'm rambling now. Anyway, it's sad how much our lives are controlled by society. I wish it wasn't this way.

Nature vs. Nurture Continued

     Earlier in the year, Mrs. Perl mentioned that the debate of nature vs. nurture was an ongoing debate that has many sides to it. The debate actually continues when looking at Skinner vs. Chomsky's contributions to the nature-nurture debate over how children acquire language. Skinner, a pro-behaviorist, takes on the nurture side to the debate of language-development. He says that we learn language by the familiar principles of association, where we put things of similar sights and sounds together to make words. He also focuses on imitation of words and syntax that we model after others and reinforcement, where we are smiled and hugged by our parents when we correctly say something.
     On the other hand, Chomsky takes on the nature position, and believes that we are born with language acquisition devices that are biological and that prepare us to learn language. His evidence lies in the species-wide presence of language and its underlying universal grammar. Children have an incredible capacity to learn new vocabulary, and this is a uniform sequence in the stages of language development.
     The nature-nurture debate lives on...

Hierarchy of Needs

When originally studying Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs we discussed how once a person is able to fulfill their drive to complete the first part, they continue on to the second. The pyramid with physiological needs, than safety, than social, than ego, and finally ending with self actualization. We originally said a person begins with the basic necessities in life, and then slowly develops more complicated drives. When looking at this with more detail I had thought of a slightly different concept. A person begins by developing a drive for human necessities, such as hunger and thirst. After assuring himself these necessities he continues by gaining a drive for a sense of safety. Some may see this as a completely different drive, but I see this as an assurance that the first step will always be there. The same is for a sense of belonging. A person develops a circle of friends who, no matter the situation, will be there to help him out and ensure he will be safe. To be sure he always has a circle of friends, the person is required to build up an ego, other people looking up to him. This way there will always be a group of people who want to join his circle of friends. Finally the person must accomplish things so he will always have a high ego. This is done through completing challenging tasks and creative projects.

I Want to Create a Language

Before I make a language, I have to think to myself, "What types of rules and sounds do I need to create to make my language successful?" Well, every language has letters, whether the letters are a, b, c, d or alef, bet, gimel, daled; it doesn't matter, but every language needs letters. Every language also needs phonemes, which are the most basic sounds, and morphemes, which are the smallest unit of sound that still has meaning such as a prefix or a suffix. For example, in the word "absolutely," there are supposedly 3 morphemes: ab, solute, and ly. My language also needs grammar or a set of rules so that everybody can be able to understand the language and communicate with one another. Looks like I'm good to go. I've got the basic parts of language down; now it's time to create it.   

Eating Habits During Long Weekends

I absolutely love long weekends due mainly to the fact that we are out of school for one extra day. The only problem I have with long weekends is that it seems that my eating habits change from eating because I am hungry and actually need to eat to eating because I am bored and have nothing better to do. Especially during the summer, I find myself in the pantry a lot of times constantly eating chips or cookies, but then I realize that I am not really hungry. Also, today, I was watching some football and I was not particularly hungry but I saw a nice box of cheese balls on the top of the fridge so I took it down and started eating because there is nothing better than eating some good cheese balls even if you are not hungry.
The moral of my story is that we should try to eat three large meals a day and some healthy snacks mixed in throughout the day instead of constantly snacking on unhealthy treats, and the next time you are sitting at home and the cheese balls on the top of the fridge are screaming at you, "Eat me! Eat me!" Stop, think about the possible repercussions  and then open the pantry and take a healthy snack out, and you will feel better as a result.

skiing

this past monday i had a ton of fun skiing with my friends in hidden valley. my only complaint is that at the time they were making snow. this is really annoying because when you are speeding down the hill and the falling snow hits your cold face it really hurt. the only way to stop the pain is to wear goggles. my goggles happen to have not been clear. they were a little tinted. (this is useful for when it is sunny.) one interesting thing i noticed was that after some time, even though the goggles were shaded, everything looked perfectly clear as if i was not wearing the tinted goggles at all. at first i thought it was because of sensory adaptation but then i remembered that we learned that our eyes do not adapt in the same way as our other senses so i wondered why everything looked normal. that night it hit me. COLOR CONSTANCY!!!!! that was the solution to all my problems. our brain calculate the average illumination conditions of a scene and then subtrack those conditions. so when i put the goggles on everything looked blueish but then my eyes subtract blue from everything so that color will remain constant of what i know it to be. color constancy is the reason why a blue object will look blue no matter what light you look at it under. color constancy is responsible for a really cool trick that i dont think we mentioned in class called the land effect.  (take a look at the link below)
http://www.grand-illusions.com/acatalog/Land_Effect.html
the land effect is basically a picture that only contains one color but because of how our vision works we subtract that main color and we can see other colors as well. it is really cool.
the picture in the link is only red but it looks like it contains other colors as well.
when i take my goggles off i experience another phenomena we talked about in class the opponent process theory. since my blue cones kept on firing over and over when i took the goggles off all the yellow rushed in and everything looked a shade closer to yellow (just like we had experienced in class).

Prototypes of People

Psychology says that we have preconceived notions of concepts, called prototypes. Therefore when someone says animal, the first thing I think of is a tiger, my prototype of animals. As the description continues, my envisioned picture does as well. The farther it goes from my prototype, the less I think of it as an animal. We all have different prototypes for all types of things, be it fish, tables, or teachers. As we learn more information, or prototype changes, reflecting the new info that our brain now has.

We all have prototypes of people as well. We think of Asians as being super smart, driven, and at the top of their class. Many of us have negative prototypes of Muslims, allowing the few radical Islamic terrorists form the prototype for over a billion people. And Justin Baker had his own prototype of a Jew. He had never met any Jews but he didn't let that stop his mind from forming the bigoted prototype that led him to vandalize our property in Jackson.

Although our mind automatically forms these prototypes and assimilates the info we learn into these notions, it is important to keep in mind that not everything we think is correct. That not everything we believe is right. It is paramount that we strive to form the most complete prototype that we can, ensuring that we don't have chauvinistic prototypes.