This question, “What does 300,000 really mean to us?” really resonated with me. That is almost 7 Penn State University Park campuses!!!
I think that it is amazing that Haiti news only was on the news for a few weeks at most and even after a few days, people considered it old news and past information. Even though the earthquake is over and the destruction has occurred does not mean that the situation in Haiti has diminished or ended. On the contrary, the disaster and worst part of it all is simply beginning. Homeless families with no shelter, food, education, government, clothing, or jobs are stranded out in what is now a barren land with no organization or control. It is pure chaos gripped with uncertainty of how life will continue in Haiti.
Because I have not visited Haiti, I can only view pictures and hear stories of the destruction and civil unrest. Then I imagine if I were in their shoes. I would have absolutely nothing. 300,000 people just died around me? How is that even a tangible number to inscribe in my brain? The problem is that it is not tangible, and I will never be fully aware of the gravity of the situation because I become preoccupied with my own life as a college student, daughter, friend, and cousin to so many people. Their small daily activities consume my life and allow me to forget the big picture and what is currently happening in my world, even if certain events do not directly affect me. It is easy for someone to say, “Oh, that’s unfortunate,” and move on with their lives after handing a dollar bill to a Haiti relief fund. It is also easy to say that our country is still thriving so why should we really care about others? Do not people forget that we are all humans? We are all a part of this world, despite our language barriers, our skin differences, and our cultures and ethnicities? We are united in the stride for survival, the need for love and compassion to break down our walls. We need to care for the other person as we would hope he or she would do the same for us. We are all bound by egocentrism as individualistic peoples. However, we need to experience enthocentricism and the opportunities it creates for us to open our minds and hearts to our fellow brothers and sisters on this Earth. Once we are able to open our minds in this light, we can feel a heart pouring desire to help each other. Communication, dedication, and love are the ingredients needed to establish peace between our nations. Let’s ignore those barriers and help the Haitians and others in our world.

This question, “What does 300,000 really mean to us?” really resonated with me. That is almost 7 Penn State University Park campuses!!!
I think that it is amazing that Haiti news only was on the news for a few weeks at most and even after a few days, people considered it old news and past information. Even though the earthquake is over and the destruction has occurred does not mean that the situation in Haiti has diminished or ended. On the contrary, the disaster and worst part of it all is simply beginning. Homeless families with no shelter, food, education, government, clothing, or jobs are stranded out in what is now a barren land with no organization or control. It is pure chaos gripped with uncertainty of how life will continue in Haiti.
Because I have not visited Haiti, I can only view pictures and hear stories of the destruction and civil unrest. Then I imagine if I were in their shoes. I would have absolutely nothing. 300,000 people just died around me? How is that even a tangible number to inscribe in my brain? The problem is that it is not tangible, and I will never be fully aware of the gravity of the situation because I become preoccupied with my own life as a college student, daughter, friend, and cousin to so many people. Their small daily activities consume my life and allow me to forget the big picture and what is currently happening in my world, even if certain events do not directly affect me. It is easy for someone to say, “Oh, that’s unfortunate,” and move on with their lives after handing a dollar bill to a Haiti relief fund. It is also easy to say that our country is still thriving so why should we really care about others? Do not people forget that we are all humans? We are all a part of this world, despite our language barriers, our skin differences, and our cultures and ethnicities? We are united in the stride for survival, the need for love and compassion to break down our walls. We need to care for the other person as we would hope he or she would do the same for us. We are all bound by egocentrism as individualistic peoples. However, we need to experience enthocentricism and the opportunities it creates for us to open our minds and hearts to our fellow brothers and sisters on this Earth. Once we are able to open our minds in this light, we can feel a heart pouring desire to help each other. Communication, dedication, and love are the ingredients needed to establish peace between our nations. Let’s ignore those barriers and help the Haitians and others in our world.

I LOVED this lecture. I thought it was the best class of the entire semester. I finally learned what ethnocentrism is and I finally understand the other side of the story. All my life I thought Jihad and Muslims were insane and psycho because I did not know fully their motives for their actions. I did not understand that they interpret Americans’ defensive actions as threatening to their goals in life. I am not saying that I agree with Muslims or Jihad with seeking world domination and killing in order to accomplish that goal. However, it was easier for me to see their perspective once I placed myself in their shoes. The analogy “For any oil company, being in Iraq is like being a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz,” really hit me. I know exactly what it is like to be a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz and to feel overwhelmed with joy and excitement at the sight of so many toys. With this mental picture in mind, I was able to feel for the oil companies and how much they desire this oil. I finally understand their desire to do any means possible to protect it.
Prior to this lecture, I was very skeptical about Sam’s Christian Invaders talk. As a Christian, I feared that he was going to bash Christianity and rant about how our God is not right or our beliefs do not make sense. I was completely wrong, however. I found it extremely interesting that the Middle East considers all Americans to be Christian because we collectively pray for our country and many of us honor God. However, if they placed themselves in our shoes, they would know that the United States is a blend of thousands of religions and beliefs. From their perspective, we are trying to take their oil, and because of many of Americans are Christian, they link two unrelated subjects together and instantly associate Christianity with stealing oil. Therefore, they cannot understand that by praying and honoring God we are not in anyway trying to hurt them. In a similar way, I often associate Islam with terrorism and heinous people. This is because I, too, only little information through videos and television about Islam and it is usually negatively portrayed. Therefore, I finally see that we, Muslims and Christians, Middle Easterners and Americans, are all the same. We have the same mental processes and judge each other by our network framing. We associate neutral subjects such as religion as negative and threatening by what we see through a biased media in our country. If we all could open our minds and realize that we are fighting over lack of communication rather than oil, Christianity, Islam, land, or world domination, maybe our world would finally achieve the peace it deserves.

I LOVED this lecture. I thought it was the best class of the entire semester. I finally learned what ethnocentrism is and I finally understand the other side of the story. All my life I thought Jihad and Muslims were insane and psycho because I did not know fully their motives for their actions. I did not understand that they interpret Americans’ defensive actions as threatening to their goals in life. I am not saying that I agree with Muslims or Jihad with seeking world domination and killing in order to accomplish that goal. However, it was easier for me to see their perspective once I placed myself in their shoes. The analogy “For any oil company, being in Iraq is like being a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz,” really hit me. I know exactly what it is like to be a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz and to feel overwhelmed with joy and excitement at the sight of so many toys. With this mental picture in mind, I was able to feel for the oil companies and how much they desire this oil. I finally understand their desire to do any means possible to protect it.
Prior to this lecture, I was very skeptical about Sam’s Christian Invaders talk. As a Christian, I feared that he was going to bash Christianity and rant about how our God is not right or our beliefs do not make sense. I was completely wrong, however. I found it extremely interesting that the Middle East considers all Americans to be Christian because we collectively pray for our country and many of us honor God. However, if they placed themselves in our shoes, they would know that the United States is a blend of thousands of religions and beliefs. From their perspective, we are trying to take their oil, and because of many of Americans are Christian, they link two unrelated subjects together and instantly associate Christianity with stealing oil. Therefore, they cannot understand that by praying and honoring God we are not in anyway trying to hurt them. In a similar way, I often associate Islam with terrorism and heinous people. This is because I, too, only little information through videos and television about Islam and it is usually negatively portrayed. Therefore, I finally see that we, Muslims and Christians, Middle Easterners and Americans, are all the same. We have the same mental processes and judge each other by our network framing. We associate neutral subjects such as religion as negative and threatening by what we see through a biased media in our country. If we all could open our minds and realize that we are fighting over lack of communication rather than oil, Christianity, Islam, land, or world domination, maybe our world would finally achieve the peace it deserves.

I LOVED this lecture. I thought it was the best class of the entire semester. I finally learned what ethnocentrism is and I finally understand the other side of the story. All my life I thought Jihad and Muslims were insane and psycho because I did not know fully their motives for their actions. I did not understand that they interpret Americans’ defensive actions as threatening to their goals in life. I am not saying that I agree with Muslims or Jihad with seeking world domination and killing in order to accomplish that goal. However, it was easier for me to see their perspective once I placed myself in their shoes. The analogy “For any oil company, being in Iraq is like being a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz,” really hit me. I know exactly what it is like to be a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz and to feel overwhelmed with joy and excitement at the sight of so many toys. With this mental picture in mind, I was able to feel for the oil companies and how much they desire this oil. I finally understand their desire to do any means possible to protect it.
Prior to this lecture, I was very skeptical about Sam’s Christian Invaders talk. As a Christian, I feared that he was going to bash Christianity and rant about how our God is not right or our beliefs do not make sense. I was completely wrong, however. I found it extremely interesting that the Middle East considers all Americans to be Christian because we collectively pray for our country and many of us honor God. However, if they placed themselves in our shoes, they would know that the United States is a blend of thousands of religions and beliefs. From their perspective, we are trying to take their oil, and because of many of Americans are Christian, they link two unrelated subjects together and instantly associate Christianity with stealing oil. Therefore, they cannot understand that by praying and honoring God we are not in anyway trying to hurt them. In a similar way, I often associate Islam with terrorism and heinous people. This is because I, too, only little information through videos and television about Islam and it is usually negatively portrayed. Therefore, I finally see that we, Muslims and Christians, Middle Easterners and Americans, are all the same. We have the same mental processes and judge each other by our network framing. We associate neutral subjects such as religion as negative and threatening by what we see through a biased media in our country. If we all could open our minds and realize that we are fighting over lack of communication rather than oil, Christianity, Islam, land, or world domination, maybe our world would finally achieve the peace it deserves.

I LOVED this lecture. I thought it was the best class of the entire semester. I finally learned what ethnocentrism is and I finally understand the other side of the story. All my life I thought Jihad and Muslims were insane and psycho because I did not know fully their motives for their actions. I did not understand that they interpret Americans’ defensive actions as threatening to their goals in life. I am not saying that I agree with Muslims or Jihad with seeking world domination and killing in order to accomplish that goal. However, it was easier for me to see their perspective once I placed myself in their shoes. The analogy “For any oil company, being in Iraq is like being a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz,” really hit me. I know exactly what it is like to be a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz and to feel overwhelmed with joy and excitement at the sight of so many toys. With this mental picture in mind, I was able to feel for the oil companies and how much they desire this oil. I finally understand their desire to do any means possible to protect it.
Prior to this lecture, I was very skeptical about Sam’s Christian Invaders talk. As a Christian, I feared that he was going to bash Christianity and rant about how our God is not right or our beliefs do not make sense. I was completely wrong, however. I found it extremely interesting that the Middle East considers all Americans to be Christian because we collectively pray for our country and many of us honor God. However, if they placed themselves in our shoes, they would know that the United States is a blend of thousands of religions and beliefs. From their perspective, we are trying to take their oil, and because of many of Americans are Christian, they link two unrelated subjects together and instantly associate Christianity with stealing oil. Therefore, they cannot understand that by praying and honoring God we are not in anyway trying to hurt them. In a similar way, I often associate Islam with terrorism and heinous people. This is because I, too, only little information through videos and television about Islam and it is usually negatively portrayed. Therefore, I finally see that we, Muslims and Christians, Middle Easterners and Americans, are all the same. We have the same mental processes and judge each other by our network framing. We associate neutral subjects such as religion as negative and threatening by what we see through a biased media in our country. If we all could open our minds and realize that we are fighting over lack of communication rather than oil, Christianity, Islam, land, or world domination, maybe our world would finally achieve the peace it deserves.

I LOVED this lecture. I thought it was the best class of the entire semester. I finally learned what ethnocentrism is and I finally understand the other side of the story. All my life I thought Jihad and Muslims were insane and psycho because I did not know fully their motives for their actions. I did not understand that they interpret Americans' defensive actions as threatening to their goals in life. I am not saying that I agree with Muslims or Jihad with seeking world domination and killing in order to accomplish that goal. However it was easier for me to see their perspective once I placed myself in their shoes. The analogy "For any oil company, being in Iraq is like being a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz," really hit me. I know exactly what it is like to be a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz and to feel overwhelmed with joy and excitement at the sight of so many toys. With this mental picture in mind, I was able to feel for the oil companies and how much they desire this oil. I finally understand their desire to do any means possible to protect it.
Prior to this lecture, I was very skeptical about Sam's Christian Invaders talk. As a Christian, I feared that he was going to bash Christianity and rant about how our God is not right or our beliefs do not make sense. I was completely wrong. I found it extremely interesting that the Middle East considers all Americans to be Christian because a few of us collectively pray for our country and many of us honor God. However, if they placed themselves in our shoes, they would know that the United States is a blend of thousands of religions and beliefs. From their perspective we are trying to take their oil, and because of many of Americans are Christian, they link two unrelated subjects together and instantly associate Christianity with stealing oil. Therefore, they cannot understand that by praying and honoring God we are not in anyway trying to hurt them. In a similar way, I often associate Islam with terrorism and heinous people. This is because I, too, only see little information through videos and television about Islam and it is usually negatively portrayed. Therefore, I finally see that we, Muslims and Christians, Middle Easterners and Americans, are the same. We have the same mental processes and judge each other by our network framing. We associate neutral subjects such as religion as negative and threatening by what we see through a biased media in each of our countries. If we all could open our minds and realize that we are fighting over lack of communication rather than oil, Christianity, Islam, land, or world domination, maybe our world would finally achieve the peace it deserves.

sociologyyyy

I LOVED this lecture. I thought it was the best class of the entire semester. I finally learned what ethnocentrism is and I finally understand the other side of the story. All my life I thought Jihad and Muslims were insane and psycho because I did not know fully their motives for their actions. I did not understand that they interpret Americans’ defensive actions as threatening to their goals in life. I am not saying that I agree with Muslims or Jihad with seeking world domination and killing in order to accomplish that goal. However, it was easier for me to see their perspective once I placed myself in their shoes. The analogy “For any oil company, being in Iraq is like being a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz,” really hit me. I know exactly what it is like to be a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz and to feel overwhelmed with joy and excitement at the sight of so many toys. With this mental picture in mind, I was able to feel for the oil companies and how much they desire this oil. I finally understand their desire to do any means possible to protect it.
Prior to this lecture, I was very skeptical about Sam’s Christian Invaders talk. As a Christian, I feared that he was going to bash Christianity and rant about how our God is not right or our beliefs do not make sense. I was completely wrong, however. I found it extremely interesting that the Middle East considers all Americans to be Christian because we collectively pray for our country and many of us honor God. However, if they placed themselves in our shoes, they would know that the United States is a blend of thousands of religions and beliefs. From their perspective, we are trying to take their oil, and because of many of Americans are Christian, they link two unrelated subjects together and instantly associate Christianity with stealing oil. Therefore, they cannot understand that by praying and honoring God we are not in anyway trying to hurt them. In a similar way, I often associate Islam with terrorism and heinous people. This is because I, too, only little information through videos and television about Islam and it is usually negatively portrayed. Therefore, I finally see that we, Muslims and Christians, Middle Easterners and Americans, are all the same. We have the same mental processes and judge each other by our network framing. We associate neutral subjects such as religion as negative and threatening by what we see through a biased media in our country. If we all could open our minds and realize that we are fighting over lack of communication rather than oil, Christianity, Islam, land, or world domination, maybe our world would finally achieve the peace it deserves.

I LOVED this lecture. I thought it was the best class of the entire semester. I finally learned what ethnocentrism is and I finally understand the other side of the story. All my life I thought Jihad and Muslims were insane and psycho because I did not know fully their motives for their actions. I did not understand that they interpret Americans’ defensive actions as threatening to their goals in life. I am not saying that I agree with Muslims or Jihad with seeking world domination and killing in order to accomplish that goal. However, it was easier for me to see their perspective once I placed myself in their shoes. The analogy “For any oil company, being in Iraq is like being a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz,” really hit me. I know exactly what it is like to be a kid in F.A.O. Schwartz and to feel overwhelmed with joy and excitement at the sight of so many toys. With this mental picture in mind, I was able to feel for the oil companies and how much they desire this oil. I finally understand their desire to do any means possible to protect it.
Prior to this lecture, I was very skeptical about Sam’s Christian Invaders talk. As a Christian, I feared that he was going to bash Christianity and rant about how our God is not right or our beliefs do not make sense. I was completely wrong, however. I found it extremely interesting that the Middle East considers all Americans to be Christian because we collectively pray for our country and many of us honor God. However, if they placed themselves in our shoes, they would know that the United States is a blend of thousands of religions and beliefs. From their perspective, we are trying to take their oil, and because of many of Americans are Christian, they link two unrelated subjects together and instantly associate Christianity with stealing oil. Therefore, they cannot understand that by praying and honoring God we are not in anyway trying to hurt them. In a similar way, I often associate Islam with terrorism and heinous people. This is because I, too, only little information through videos and television about Islam and it is usually negatively portrayed. Therefore, I finally see that we, Muslims and Christians, Middle Easterners and Americans, are all the same. We have the same mental processes and judge each other by our network framing. We associate neutral subjects such as religion as negative and threatening by what we see through a biased media in our country. If we all could open our minds and realize that we are fighting over lack of communication rather than oil, Christianity, Islam, land, or world domination, maybe our world would finally achieve the peace it deserves.