Do You Know Your Frenemy?

Hey hey there party people! Anna here. This week, I've handed the task of posting on my blog to my friend Jordyn, who has her own blog about music. Check it out here! Enjoy her post!


"Hi there! My name is Jordyn, and I am guest blogging for my friend today. Since her blog focus is interpersonal relationships (and today is my birthday), I figured I'd say something about some of the people that make birthdays the best: your friends. I spend a lot of time with my friends; we like to go out, hang out, and just be together. But according to one of the surveys I took in 17 Magazine, there at many different types of friends -- and I can't even be sure my best ones are even all that close to me.

A couple of weeks ago I was thumbing through an old magazine looking for a specific picture to show my mom, and I came across a survey, "Who Are Your Best Friends?" It had questions like: how often do you spend time with your friends, what do you like to go out and do with your friends, and what do you like to discuss with your friends (kind of like this one). So I checked all the little boxes that applied, and looked at the "results", and the magazine writers' analysis. According to the results page, none of my friends were actually my friends. Why? Because we like to discuss TV shows that we watch together. 

Does discussing something as simple as a TV show that we like to watch mean that we're not really friends? It's not like we don't discuss other things - heavier and more important issues - because we do. But I think that there is some value to being able to talk about things that aren't so important. It's the same way that a student needs a ten minute break while writing a twenty page paper; it gives people time to relax and take a break. So I think that, while it may be superficial and a "filler" conversation, it shows that people understand when their friends need to take a break. A conversation about something silly like a TV show or song may not have much real depth to the actual conversation but it may have depth depending on the nature of the friends. At least, I know it does for me."

With which race do you identify? (Mark all that apply)

From the Population Reference Bureau's Questions on Race in the Census (2010)

The blog Sociological Images recently featured a post about the past and present of the US Census, detailing the change from 200 years of enumerators to the past 40 years of mail-in surveys. The ultimate effect of the sudden shift away from sending government workers out to collect a family's personal information with a *knock knock knock* on their door was... an explosion of race.

Not literally an explosion, as race had existed in the United States since its foundation. Rather, certain races suddenly multiplied while others shrank in number, undergoing changes to the racial population on par with a major ethnic cleansing. Only no such occurrence took place. The truth was that the enumerators had classified the US population's race based on sight-- a first impression. But in 1970, people were free to self-identify their race, causing the astronomical changes that augmented the Native American population by 110%, for example. No longer were people just white, black, or brown.

This post got me thinking about first impressions of race today, 40 years after the aforementioned change, and their implementation on the most recent census. A good friend of mine (check out her blog here) is half-Indian, half-Norwegian, giving her a slightly-darker-than-olive-but-lighter-than-black skin tone. I have been approached by countless classmates over the last five years asking me whether she is Puerto Rican, Arab, half-Black, or Mediterranean. This, along with the changes to the census, obviously proves that you can't categorize a person's race and ethnicity merely by sight.

Speaking on a personal level, I was treated as French in France, was assumed to be Italian in Italy (I got babbled at a lot, but they stopped when I responded with a petrified look), have been asked if I am Russian, Irish, German, and more. Sure, they're all predominantly white countries, seeing as I am clearly a white person. I admit, lots of white people look like they can be from anywhere. But if it's so difficult to discern from sight, why am I not afforded the chance to tell the US government with what race I identify? If I were given the chance on a census, I would call myself what I am, Eastern European or Czechoslovakian, over just "white".

Ultimately, since the census has made such important changes as to allow self-identification, why is it that "white" is still a category? Isn't that as culturally insensitive as calling everyone from Central America, Latin America, India, and the Middle East, "brown"? I don't think of myself as being the same as a person from France, England, Russia, Finland, or Greece; I have very different cultural and ethnic roots that help to define my identity within America. Different races of people from the Asian continent have nine categories on the census, which is a fantastic change.Yet why are all of us white people (with subtle but definite differences in appearance) still lumped together? Thoughts? Post them below!

The College Dilemma: A Changing Reality

Forget March Madness! It's College Madness for all the fourth quarter seniors in my school district; ever since the April 1st notification deadline, everyone wants to know who got into their first choice school, who was placed on the dreaded wait-list, who got a scholarship, who is majoring in Psychology, History, Chemistry... In my home, college is the primary topic of conversation, and I have my own answered questions about my personal situation. The one I just can't shake is "what does a college education even mean for a future in society?"

During the generations of my parents and grandparents, college was definitely not as important as it is marketed to be today. More often than not, people went to trade school or skipped college entirely, finding stable careers despite only having a 12th grade education (at best). My grandfather was among the few who went to technical college. He became an engineer and had a long and prosperous career. My grandmother, however, never went to college, and instead focused on her chosen life as a stay-at-home mother.

My parents' generation picked up on schooling in order to have a better life than their parents did. Both my mom and dad attended their only-choice school, the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. My father went on to graduate school for Architecture and my mother recently earned her Master's degree, working now as an employment coach for underprivileged young adults.

The generations before me whisper of success stories as far as the eye can see (or the ear can hear). In my family, it's clear to me that higher education has bettered all of our lives. Yet I'm no longer convinced that going to college is the instant way to ensure a better life than my parents' generation. The rising cost and competition in admissions are making college a different struggle than it was in the past. But because this "Harvard example" of success is slowly becoming the American standard, what will happen to those who choose not to attend college, or cannot?

I mean, it's a genuine concern; the cost of all of the schools to which I applied is around $60,000 per year, a shockingly steep price for a pursuit with a "terrible return on investment", as my mother says. And what if an American citizen's true calling lies in careers that don't require much higher education? What if they choose to work as a plumber or a construction worker (some of which have higher starting salaries than a recent law school graduate)? Will the educated look down on them as the bottom of the social pyramid?

With the rate things are going, I think the social pyramid will invert somewhat in regards to careers and higher education. The fact of the matter is, students and families won't be able to put up with $200,000 of loans at the age of 22. College graduates won't furrow their brows at the kid who decides to join the military or go to trade school instead of jumping into a 4-year college. And attending a certain college over another won't mean what it used to. Something's gotta give. And it will.