WhY do we even celebrate this mom and dad?

     Born in a heavily Mexican culture influenced home has taught my siblings and I that family comes first. Every major holiday, our family along with my uncles family, would gather and celebrate thsee holidays like Thanksgiving as one big happy family. Over the years things have changed, what once was a house full of younger children is now a home half-full with young adults. The tradition of celebrating as a family has been diminishing over the years but we all attempt  to remain closely-knitted as we once were. However things change, people change, their views and personality also change. The tradition once enforced by our parents started to crumble and seemed to fade away in the new society we have adopted.
     With all this unraveling infront of me, I can only agree with Amel Saleh. I still remember as a young child the amount of quality time we would spend together as a family during Thanksgiving and the stories and meaning told by our parentc on Christmas eve as we waited until midnight for the birth of Jesus Christ. Now this time has been replaced with a gift. It seems that today's society excuses time missed with an expensive gift, and to some people it is perfectly acceptable. To me, there is no substitution to time spent with love ones. There is no monetary value on time; yet, holidays celebrated in today's society permit the absence.
     I have witnessed first hand the decreasing meaning of presents over time. Gifts I received as a child had more significance. My parents have never been of wealth, but the sacrifice my mother made to give us one gift to unwrap for the festive holidays, gave them meaning. It was not about the value in currency rather the significance of sacrifice; which, in the Catholic religion, was the symbolic sacrifice god made by giving us his only son. I'm not saying that gifts no longer have meaning but if we want these holidays to maintain its ethical value, we must educate and lead by example these values.
     

Almost There.
It's the half-way mark in the semester and all I've been hearing from my professors is, "This is the hardest part of the semester guys." I think back at the beginning of the semester and realized how excited I was to start school once more. I had taken almost two years off from school and the transition, at first, was a bit of a challenge. I had to readjust my entire mentality of time balance. No longer were night marathons on Netflix acceptable. I had to make time to study for the classes I would take. Currently I see my Psychology class a bit more of a challenge than any other class. Dr.C was straightforward in the beginning of the semester and said that her class would not be a push over class like we hoped it would be. Since all the other intro classes I've taken have been a breeze, I assumed this one would be no different; little did I know that I was in for a treat. Off the bat she as singed a seven page minimum research paper to be done APA style. I had no idea what that was, i mean i had heard of it before but not once did i do an APA format paper just MLA which i was accustomed to doing since high-school. Nonetheless, I got it done.
Apart from Psychology, I also have English R101, Art Appreciation R101 and Environmental Science Resource and Managements R100. As of right now, I like them all. I never thought that I would ever become a full-time student in college, but here I am doing just that. I always knew college was more work and in a way tried to anticipate it, yet I still see my self from time to time wondering what happened to the time I had before the homework or project was due.
College is a bit of a challenge but i don't let it get the best of me, on the contrary, I keep reminding me that I am doing this for myself and for my future children. This allows me to re-focus and get back in the groove of things. I believe that if an individual has no self-motivation, they have nothing. Nothing great is achieved without sacrifice, the time and effort i put in each class is that price I am paying now to prevail tomorrow.

Bad T.V

            Growing up in a Mexican culture influenced home, life was very particular. Family over anything, and the news was constantly on T.V to look at what was going on back at home. As a child, I thought of the news as a boring pass-time which older people, such as my parents, would do. I stuck to the good old Saturday morning cartoons and left it at that. My parents, mainly my father, would criticize me for being able to wake up early on Saturday mornings to watch these cartoons but was unable to wake up early for school. It is quite mind bobbling to look back at my younger self and realize how much influence television had on a younger mind.

            Times have changed quite a bit, I no longer force myself off the warm cozy bed in order to get my morning fix of cartoons, but who has not been indulged in a television series? The television was made as an entertainment for the masses and it is doing just that. Reality television is essentially giving that morning fix I craved as a younger child to the population. Reality T.V has taken broadcasting into a different direction. No longer are people interested in the news, talking among themselves about what is happening in the world and how we are being influenced. Children are no-longer given the sense of innocence and childhood they once held.

            In today’s society, the viewer’s crave the drama and cultural differences which reality T.V provides. We now see younger and younger audiences being influenced in a negative way by these programs like the “Jersey Shore’s.”  Children and adolescents’ are affected more so than adults by what they see on T.V. They see these shows and assume that it is the social norm. What examples are we giving the younger generations as to what an acceptable ethical standing and attitude is?

            Personally I do not watch reality T.V and have no interests in the lives of others to whom I will most likely never meet or associate with. I believe that these types of shows tend to have more of a negative impact in society than good. We see the outcome of these show’s in our sociological sway, as in what is expected to be normal now. I do agree that teen pregnancy has been around for years prior to reality T.V, but I feel that the younger generation now see this a not a big deal and it has had an impact in their opinion of marriage, relationships, and their sex lives. I am not restrained on the old mentality and I believe I’m an individual with an open mentality, but the negative effect that is reality T.V outweighs the positive effects, if any, it has in our social structure. I believe everyone has the right to express themselves in any way they see fit as long as it does not have a negative effect in any one else and they do not inflict pain on themselves or anyone else. I simply believe that parents should take in to consideration what their offspring watch and regulate what they take part in.