Monday, February 7, 2011

Volunteer Op: Habitat For Humanity This Saturday!

Habitat for Humanity sent out a request for 5 workers for this saturday. If you are interested please sign up on their website and also let me know. Once you are on the website, click on "volunteer" and register. For the space where it says church, you can put "Holy Family" because that is where our connection is from.

Students in the past have had a good experience there. If you can make it, I encourage you to go! You could end up with 8 hours. It would be this saturday. Plan to leave home by 7:15. The house is in Elgin. I will give you directions. Usually they work from like 8ish until 3ish with a lunch break. The work will likely be outside so dress warm - use lots of layers because you can always peel off a layer if you get warm.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

NOTE: Blog for this week

Thinking about the blog this week, with two days off it certainly poses some challenges. So, let's move the blog deadline to monday, classtime. However, I would appreciate if you tried to post by tomorrow if you get the chance. You can post about freaks and geeks, the social construction of reality, or the snow day.

Snowmaggedon 2011!


This is my driveway where the snow had drifted to 30+inches! It was higher than my snow thrower. If you are interested in thinking about the snowpocalypse sociologically, here are some ways to do that:
My first thought was about how out of tune (disrespectful) we are of nature. We live in an age where we want to go about our days despite nature, whereas our ancestors would have scheduled their days around nature. This was most evident on Tuesday afternoon as people attempted to drive home as the storm approached. There were even dozens (maybe hundreds) of people who simply abandoned their cars on the road. Do you see how we attempt to ignore nature? Do you think that being in tune with nature copuld be good for all of us?
A second way to think about the storm is the social cooperation it brings. Usually with storms and acts of nature, sociologists note that this brings people together in greater social cooperation. I saw many neighbors helping each other and socializing throughout the storm. Did you witness any of this? Were you a part of it?