The past few weeks we have been talking about groups. Who makes up different groups and what their interactions are with the people around them. Making a web of all the groups I'm involved in shocked me. I never realized how many groups I was a part of. And also, all of them have different names! My favorite is interest groups because you get to pick what you want to be a part of. It's much more fun when you choose to do it rather than being forced to be in it.

While we were on the topic, I tried to pay close attention to the groups that surrounded me while I was at cheerleading. There's the whole gym, which is a group altogether. Then it breaks down to being on a youth, junior, or senior team. Then it breaks down to all the different levels and teams. Then it breaks down even further to the different friend groups in all of the teams. It could even go down to the different schools everyone goes to. It amazed me watching and being involved in all of these different groups when all I did was sign up for cheerleading. I like how when everything is broken down like that everyone gets a name or a label. The whole gym is Cheer Alliance. Then teams would be kittens, lions, pink panthers, jaguars, cheetahs, and pumas. Groups divide all of our lives into little sections and splits everyone up. It's actually really interesting.

People Watching!

This past weekend I had a cheerleading competition with over 35,000 cheerleaders competing. So I took some time to watch people and their quirky things they did when they thought no one was watching them. This sounds really creepy to me so I probably wasn't too good at it but I tried my best! The first person I saw was a little boy probably 5 or 6 years old. He was sitting outside of the competition watching all the girls in the half uniforms with huge bows and 10 pounds of make up on. Nobody really seemed to notice him. Then he started to kick his feet back and fourth and as another cheerleader walked by he kicked her and started to giggle. He then made an effort to kick every girl that walked past him. It was like he was playing his own game inside of his head.

The next person I decided to watch was a group of girls cheering on their friends team as they performed. They stood right up close to the stage and were screaming their heads off for the girls. They was jumping up and down and about halfway through the routine one of the girls got so into it her shoe lace somehow got wrapped around on the baracades lining the stage. So now as she was yelling and screaming for this team she was also trying to get her shoe off of the baracade. It looked as though she didn't want any of her friends to notice though. So at the end of the routine she kicked her shoe off and let her friends get a little in front of her before she bent down to grab it and run off.

The last person I wasn't really watching, it just kind of happened. On my flight home I was sitting next to my sister and one of my friends and the flight attendant kept giving us really weird looks. We thought we did something wrong so we were acting on our best behavior. But as I watched I noticed that she was giving everyone really weird looks. This was weird to me because usually flight attendants are really nice and happy. So we sat through our flight and once we landed my sister went to the bathroom and overheard the flight attendant say she thought she was pregnant on the phone to someone. Which explained all the nasty looks and the attitude of stay away. I thought it was interesting to watch someone be so angry for no reason but then realize they acctually have a good reason.

This weekend showed me how weird some people are. I don't know if I just was coincidentally catching people at really bad times but it was a train wreck. I think with so many people around this weekend and all the cheerleaders being, well, cheerleaders it was just a long weekend for everyone. Very entertaining on my end though! My sister, my friend Kristi and I all enjoyed this sociology assignment!

Theft

This week in class, we have been asked the question, "Will the kindness of strangers stop theft?" This goes along with socioloy because it's pointing fingers at different groups of people and figuring out if society would help them or if they would just turn their backs on them in time of need. We learned that if just asked the question, "would you help a stranger by stopping a theft?" everyone would say yes of course, because they want to look like a good person. But when their identity is hidden, it's a completely different story. Most people would say that it depends on the situation. Some people even said that they wouldn't help at all. I think when one answers depending on the situation it could mean a lot of different things; if the theft was a male, if the stranger was obnoxious, if the stranger was a teenager or an adult, etc. The location, time, and the amount of people around could have a major effect on if someone would help or not, also.

This week my older sister told me that she saw a theft take place from across the street. And I asked what happened and what she did about it. My sister said that a man went up behind an older lady and grabbed her purse and ran. She told me that she felt bad for the lady who just had her stuff stolen but my sister was too scared to go over and help. She also said that a man walking down the street tried to chase the theft down but never came back. I think overall, stopping a theft depends on the situation.