Tokenism in Real Life

     So after our class discussion on tokenism on tv, I started to think about tokenism in my everyday life. The first thing that came to mind is kind of random, but it works: My mom's office. She is a lawyer and most of her co-workers are white. And as far as gender goes, I don't know the exact count, but I would say it is split pretty evenly between men and women. But the main lawyers she works with are white. However, her paralegal, which is basically just her assistant, is an African American woman and the secretary at the front desk is also an African American woman. To me, this is a perfect example of tokenism in real life. The African American women do not have the highest paid job in the office by any means. They are there to simply assist the white lawyers who dominate the office. They are the token black workers, so the firm can say that they are diverse.
     There is also tokenism at New Trier. There are not many African American teachers or faculty. I honestly cannot think of one teacher who is African American. But there are several African Americans who work on the PPS staff. And that is definitely tokenism. They are not teachers, so not in the spotlight, and they do not have the highest paid jobs, but they are there. So who could argue against New Trier that the staff is not diverse? We're diverse. Sort of. If you can call African American janitors diverse.
     So those are some of the real life examples that I could think of. I had never really noticed tokenism before Mr. Bolos' discussion. But now that I'm aware of it, it's amazing how often I see it. Everyone thinks America has come so far, but how far have we've really come?

Data Driven Society To The Max

     Yesterday in class we talked about how society is becoming increasingly more data driven. But I want to specifically elaborate on our discussion of the ACT and how it affects college admissions. Today, as most New Trier juniors know, the ACT scores from the required April test came out. I am now in the computer lab where everyone is chekcing their scores with a furious passion. Even though I was one of those students just seconds before, I realized that this is completely ridiculous. No one was happy with their scores. I hear sighs of regret in the background. New Trier is completely obsessed with data and it consumes our lives every day. But how accurate is this data?
     I have a very strong opinion when it comes to the ACT. I feel that the ACT is not a good indicator of someone's abilities and knowledge, and all it measures is how much money you have. People with tutors pretty much buy their ACT score. The first time I took the ACT, I took it without any tutoring; cold-turkey as they say, and I did okay. Not spectacular, probably the average score for New Trier students. After that I got a tutor and raised my score four points. But I didn't do anything special. Sure, I took about 100 practice tests. But anyone could do that. My higher score does not show that I am magically more intelligent than I was before, it simply shows that my parents could afford to hire an ACT tutor for me. My dad and I got into a pretty heated debate about this once, and let's just say he would kindly disagree with me. He thinks that if you have the money to afford a tutor, then everything is fair game. Although I disagree with him, I understand where he's coming from. He's worked really hard his whole life in order to give his family the best. And being able to afford an ACT tutor for his teenage daughter is just the pay off for all of his hard work. But it puts everyone else who can't afford a tutor at a disadvantage. And in the words of my dad, "That's life".

Junior Theme=Life

     I literally spent my entire weekend writing my junior theme. I ate, slept, read, and lived junior theme. It took me a lot longer than I thought it would; I figured out I tend to write in infrequent spurts of inspiration, but at least I have a rough draft completely done. It still needs to be edited majorly, though, so I thought I would save the week to do that. I also finished my annotated bibliography which I think is pretty good. The librarians' comments have been super helpful, so thank you!
     Last night I transcribed my interview with Dr. Easton, which only took me like two hours, so that was a whole lot of fun. But again, at least it's done. I decided to just get that all over with last night, instead of working on it the entire week like I thought I would do.
     But I think that's about it. I got my rough draft done. I typed out my interview. I finished my annotated bib. Oh yes, I knew I was forgetting something. I still have to talk with some people for the peer to peer requirement so I can add some little tid bits into my paper, but other than that (for reals now) I don't think there's a whole lot to be done. Just editing. Hopefully no all nighters this week.
TO DO LIST:   1) Talk with people for the peer to peer requirement
                          2) Edit!
                          3) Turn in paper and get an A++!

Junior Theme Update

     This weekend I had my interview with Dr. Easton. He turned out to be the perfect person to interview because he was so knowledgeable and just had a lot to say. I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to respond to all the questions, since they dealt with a wide variety of topics, but he answered all of them and knew a lot about all of them too. I learned a lot from him and the interview gave me new things to look at that I hadn't necessarily gone into before.
     Also over the weekend I started to write a body paragraph like Mr. O'Connor and Mr. Bolos said to do. Originally I thought I was go straight into discussing lobotomy, but after I thought about it, I thought that it might be better to give a brief (or at least as brief as I could make it) description of treatments in the early 20th century. Since my Why Question deals with treatment for mental illness dramatically changing, I thought that it would help readers to know where we were coming from to better understand where we are today. And that would also show how dramatically treatments really have changed. But I'm not sure if that's what Mr. O'Connor and Mr. Bolos are looking for because it's not really analytical it's just historical information. So I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about that.
     It's getting pretty stressful because there are a lot of big decision that I need to make for my paper. After looking at some sample essays in class yesterday, and how much it was scrutinized to every last detail, I'm a little worried about what the class would say about my paper if they saw it. But I'm trying to work on it every night and I'm still doing research and I still need to finish my annotated bib.
       THINGS TO DO:
                                  1) annotate bibliography
                                  2) type transcript of interview
                                  3) continue research
                                  4) keep writing!

And I Have an Intro!

     I procrastinated all night, putting off my intro until the last possible moment. But I did it and I'm actually really happy with it. It took me about an hour to write, which is way longer than I had thought it would take. But I was so excited to finally finish it that I even read it to my brother at 11:30 at night and he could've probably cared less about it. But it's done! Hooray!
     Now I'm wondering if I should start writing the rest of my paper. I haven't scheduled my interview yet, but I know who I'm interviewing, as I explained in my last blog post, so I don't think it will be a problem. But I still feel like I don't have enough information. I'm thinking that as I start to write the paper I'll figure out what information I actually need and that can help to refine my searches. But other than that I'm not too worried. Every night I have been researching my topic and looking for articles. I just wish that we had some sort of timeline/deadlines because I think that would really help me. Right now I feel like I'm just floating around in a pool not really knowing what direction I'm going in. I liked the deadline for the intro because then I actually got it done. I mean, it's not like I'm not going to write the paper, but with deadlines you can do it in increments instead of one big, hurried chunk. For some reason this year, with every paper I write, it takes me such a long time to put words onto the page. I have to think so hard about each word and how it's phrased that it just ends up taking me a really long time to do.
     So the game plan: do a little more research and start writing!
     Things to do: 1) schedule interview
                         2) think of interview questions

Life and Times of Junior Theme

     Well junior theme is still stressing me out. I have a vague idea for a thesis but I still need to research my arguments. I read "Girl, Interrupted" and last night I finished another book called "Mad in America," which was extremely helpful. It gave me a ton of information and a great historical context. But I think I'm definietly lacking in other sources. I have two books but I don't have many sources from the databases. I'm trying to look for some useful articles.
     Also, I wasn't sure if Mr. O'Connor and Mr. Bolos were kidding about having an intro done. I thought they were serious but everyone else told me that they were kidding, but now I think that they were actually serious which kind of worries me. I don't have a clear thesis statement yet and I'm not completely sure what my arguments are going to be because I feel like I still need to do a ton of research.
     As for the interview, I have not yet e-mailed the person, (I'm planning on interviewing my friend's dad who works for the psychiatric ward at Rush Hospital) but I'm not really worried. We're practically neighbors so I'm sure he'll be able to fit in an interview some time. So that's pretty much all that's going on concerning junior theme.

Junior Theme: My Sweat and Tears

     The start of the infamous (and sometimes feared) junior theme has brought some added stress into my life, but not as much as I expected. The most stressful part for me so far is actually choosing a topic and a good book to go along with that topic. Many times I've felt lost, like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. But today I made a major breakthrough. I've finally decided on a topic that, as of now, I plan to stick with. And that is: mental illness. I'm not exactly sure which direction I'm going to take with it, but I know that it's going to be about the treatment of mental illness, specifically.
     Before deciding on my (hopefully) final topic, I was thinking about researching prescription drug abuse and depression. But after doing a little research on depression and reading a little blurb about the history of mental institutions and the treatment of mental illness in general, I decided to switch to that. It just seems more interesting and like something I won't get bored of. So now that I know what I want to do, the problem lies in finding a book. The two books that I'm thinking about are "One Flies Over the Cuckoo's  Nest" and "Girl, Interrupted." They were both made into movies so which ever book I don't read, I figure I can just see the movie. But I'm not sure which book would be more helpful for my research. "One Flies Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is fiction and "Girl, Interrupted" is based on the author's real experiences, so that's why I'm not sure which one I should read. I also asked my mom for any suggestions and she told me about the movie called "Frances Farmer." The movie was made in the 80's and it's based on the true strory of Frances Farmer who was committed to a mental institution, so I'll definitely see this movie.
     So I guess what I really need to work on is finding a book. I'm glad that I at least have a topic but I also need to formulate some more WHY Q's. So that's the end of my first junior theme update!