Food, Glorious Food.

   I am a foodie. I love food and all of its flavors. From a young age, my family had exposed me to different tastes and it had often left me wanting to go out and keep trying new foods. Often when I try something new, I want to share the same experience with others. It seems most logical right? But it never fails to shock me how close minded my friends can be. Non-materially speaking, why wouldn't you want to try something new and different? The worst thing that could happen is that you don't like the food in which case you don't have to continue to eat it. But that also doesn't mean that you should never try a new food again and stick to what you know. All food and things are new to us at one point or another.
    Rachel Herz from the Wall Street Journal pointed out that within the last few years, there has been a huge interest in research on disgust.

   "Most children get their first lessons in disgust around the time that they are potty trained. After that, the triggers of disgust are quickly acquired from the responses and rules of parents, peers and, most importantly, the wider culture. One of the best places to look for the vast differences in what is or is not considered disgusting in different parts of the globe is food, especially distinctive foods, like every culture's favorite fermented dish.
    Take cheese, considered by Westerners to be anything from a comfort food to a luxurious delicacy. A good taleggio, Gorgonzola or Brie might be described as sweaty or slimy. Cheese also has its fair share of aromatic obstacles and, depending on the circumstances, may be confused with vomit, stinky feet or a garbage spill. Many Asians regard all cheese, from processed American slices to Stilton, as utterly disgusting—the equivalent of cow excrement."

  So maybe that's it, that while I'm not afraid to try something new, other people may be afraid to try it because they think it's disgusting? That it all depends on where you come from and where you grew up.

Link to article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204661604577186843056231170.html

Ahh, social networking.

 
This week we learned about three different theories, Conflict, Structural functionalism and Symbolic Interactionism theory and their effect on social networking in our lives.It's interesting to think about who really has power in the world of social networking. The people or the people who create the sites? If we look at conflict theory, we ask who has the power? and when you have the power, what can you do with it? People often want to have their voices heard, and when this does happen, great change or a big ripple can occur. Take the riots in Egypt not so long ago, that all started on social networking sites. Not only was the message heard by a large volume of people, eventually, words became actions and the people of Egypt overthrew their long time president causing great social change.
   With structural functionalism, we have the ability to connect with others almost effortlessly. You can post a question and have an answer in the matter of minuets. But this also causes excess posting, and you can then find people posting about every detail that happens in their lives.
    Lastly we have Symbolic interactionism. What makes a post different than a message? What does it mean if you spell love instead of luv. Really, the symbols are like saying, hey, your worth having a private conversation with and for once in my life, I will actually spell out words.
   The way I relate myself to the ideas above is that yes, I am very apart of Facebook, but I don't have to post my every move there. If I find something funny, and I think it's worth sharing, I'll post it. If I feel that a conversation is becoming too deep while posting, I'll switch over to a private message or actually call that person on the phone. Some may argue what I'm doing now relates to Structural functionalism, that I'm posting too much, but in a sense, I'm ok with that because in order to explain an idea you have to go into the details of the idea in the hopes of other people understanding.

Time

This past week, we discussed the idea of time, how most people can't go throughout their day without knowing what time it is. I get that. I was one of the few people in class that actually wore a watch, without it, my entire day would be thrown off and I feel like I have lost the entire day because I don't know the time. With that being said, has anyone ever noticed that during the summer or a vacation, that you have no idea what time it is, and it's ok! No one cares and they end up enjoying their selves more. It's almost freeing.

  In Salvador Dali's painting, The Persistence of Memory, he takes the idea of time and makes fun of it. As Dawn Ades wrote, "The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order." Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I really think the painting is trying to portray is our fear of losing time, that without it, or without keeping track of it, we will ulitimately miss out on somehting leaving us with regret.

'tis all!
Ariel