Classmates

Talking to my classmates I got to learn more about the other OOCLOs. I learned more about the farmers market, and I wish I had thee chance to go.  I got to talk about the OOCLOs I went to and most of my peers found the Holocaust speaker the most interesting. They all commented on that OOCLO because not many of them saw that and wished they had gone to listen to his story. I also talked about going to church and heard about a girl who went to a Jewish synagogue. She said they did not have enough people to hold the mass, which was disappointing. I learned more about other OOCLOs which taught me how other people interpreted the class.

 

Icon

My icon is a child tubing because I thought it related most to this class. This class was so much fun but also seemed to go by very fast as well. The waves were like the OOCLOs because I learned from each one, some taught me more then others and some surprised me. I thought this was a great class to take because it taught me so much and was so much fun. The OOCLOs made the class a lot better because I got to go out and learn more about what I chose. Choosing the OOCLOs was great because some did not interest me while others did, which is why I enjoyed the many choices.

Occupy Brock

I decided to go to occupy Brock because I had head of occupy Wall Street and occupy Young street in one of my other OOCLOs. I wanted to know what they were fighting for and what it would be like to participate in an occupy movement. I thought it would be kind of like a strike where people are holding signs and making a ruckus. Therefore, I woke up early on Wednesday to go to the bottom of the tower and see what it was like. I got off bus 122 from the Penn Centre, walked towards the bottom of the tower, and saw signs posted on the windows. I also saw some people standing around talking. I walked into the room and saw security guards against the wall and a group of people standing listening to someone speak. As the person spoke I gathered the sheets of paper that people were handing out explaining what occupy Brock was. I then listened to the speaker talk about what they were trying to accomplish and what goals they had. Then another man spoke afterwards about a trip he took with the school one summer and the horrible things he saw there. Women were treated horribly and did not get the care they needed even when they were in labour. The students could not do much as they were there for the experience and to help people but I doubt many of them could properly deliver a baby. He talked about the horrible groups there that were said to help but in fact made things worse for the villagers. As the man talked more about his experience I looked more at the signs and what they said, each sign was clearly written by a different student reading: The grocery doesn`t cost as much as food here, F*** tuition fees, Lower our tuition, or anything along those lines. You could tell that students were getting sick of paying so much. However, they talked about lowering fees but raising the pay for TAs and professors. That does not make much sense to me because to give them higher pay the school would need more money.

From the sheets of paper I got I read more about what occupy Brock stood for and what it meant to take part in it. I saw that the government promised to drop our tuition fees by 30% and I do know that there is a tuition rebate that students can apply for. I also saw how much government support for tuition fees have dropped since 1990 and how high our fees are compared to other provinces. I do believe that it is harder to get education because the fees are so high and I understand why so many students need to rely on OSAP. If my parents were not paying for school then when I finished I would leave school with almost 50,000 dollars in debt. That is insane! It is not right that students have to pay this much, especially now when it is so hard to find a job and more students have to drop out because they cannot afford it. Most jobs want a diploma beyond they high school level but the government is making that as hard as they can. I believe that instead of our school wasting money to get everyone a mac they should focus on lowering fees and making life more cheap for students instead of making it harder. I should not be spending $500 every semester on book even when they are used.

I have learned what occupy Brock stands for and that they want to lower tuition fees so that students do not have to struggle to pay for school. This learning matters because I got to know more about what our school is doing and what they are spending their money on. The millions of dollars that Brock has spent to make fancy building for students, when it does not seem that we need them. Why do we need new buildings if Brock is lowering the number of professors that teach at Brock. Soon each professor will be able to have their own lecture hall all to themselves. In light of this learning, I got to see the problems with our school and its spending habits and what needs to be changed so that our students can be happy. Someone I know goes to Sheridan college and he pays $3,500 a semester and that is books and programs included. Why are our fees so much higher, especially when we get the same thing at the end, a diploma. I will stand being occupy Brock because they are fighting for what they students want and what they need to continue through their time at Brock. 

Activism

I try my best to always help out in the community and participate in activist actions. The most resent thing I have done was sign a petition. I walked in the side doors of the school and outside of the fish bowl there was a table setup for people against animal abuse. This petition was about the abuse of sharks for shark fin soup. This has been a bigger issue lately because this was not the first time I have heard about it. I think it is horrible that they just cut off the shark’s fins and then throw them back into the ocean to let them die slowly. Although there is not much I can do other than signing the petition I still feel that it was not enough. I feel that there is more that I can do to help and I would like to do all I can because animals are a cause that I like to support. I feel the need to help animals because they do not have a voice to speak out and are helpless because they cannot ask for someone’s help. If an animal is tortured it just has to sit there and take it where as a person has the ability to fight back and get help. This is why I think it is important to help animals whenever I can. One of my favourite organizations is WWF (World Wildlife Foundation) and I support them every year. Since I was five I started doing the CN Tower climb for WWF every April and have done it every year since. I feel like that is doing more than signing a piece of paper because I am getting donations and helping animals at the same time. This is why I like doing something instead of sitting there, it gives me a sense of worth and accomplishment. This is one thing that I look forward to doing every year because I like the organization and I love supporting them and what they stand for. Doing activist work such as this makes me feel like I have done more than just signing a petition.

I think it is important to have an organization that you support because it gives back to the world in a way. Not only are you helping people that need help but you are also doing something that has more than a material meaning. We live in such a material world and I find doing something for a cause is important to me because it has a certain meaning to me. I like knowing that I am doing something and being part of something that is bigger than I am. In high school we did a big fundraiser that was a weeklong called Cancer Drive. We all would do activates and raise money for children with cancer so that they could go away to camp and have a chance to have fun while still getting the treatment they need. I think it is important to contain activist work and volunteering into school so students can see how amazing of an opportunity it is. This also gives them a good outlook on life and increases the chance of them doing activist work in the future. I think fundraising and helping out is one of the most important things to do in your life because it gives back to others, showing the helper that there is more in life then just them.

There are many different ways to do activist work and signing a petition is one of the many types. They told me that the petition will be going back to the government so that they ban shark fin soup and the abuse of sharks. Shark fin soup is a delicacy and I think it is horrible. I would never eat something that is said to torture animals. As soon as I heard what KFC does to their animals I stopped eating it and I will never eat it again. There are many ways that I do activist work in my everyday life, like what I choose to eat keeping away from food that is said to harm animals and steer towards more local foods. Therefore, activist work is something that I do every day because it is important to me and will always be important to me. I think it is important that everyone take place in activist work throughout their lives because everyone should believe in something and stand by what they believe. Also doing many little things each day can make a huge difference. The more little things people do the bigger they become as they become part of a daily routine.

Through the Eyes of a Child

I love kids and when I saw that there was an OOCLO where we could go look at artwork I thought it would be a lot of fun. For another OOCLO I went to Rodman Hall to see the artwork there and I thought it would be fun to see the difference between the two. Through the Eyes of a Child was in a small studio, there were only about 25 pieces up. However, there was a man walking around with the kids who did the artwork. As we walked in about 5 minutes late, we missed the first two descriptions. I thought it was a great idea to get the kids to describe their art and what they used and why they chose to do it. Each kid talked about how much fun it was and had a chance to speak out in front of everyone. The man who was walking with them would ask them questions about their pieces and then complement their work. The kids ranged from 3 to 16 and most of the pictures had the age of the artist below the picture. Under each piece, there was a plaque it had the person’s name on it and the name of the piece and some had the person’s age. My favourite speaker was a young boy, he would have been about four and he drew a fire truck. However, his picture came up as rather abstract because he ended up scribbling. He was very cute as the man picked the little boy up so we could all hear him; he pointed to the picture and explained what each thing was. He pointed to the bottom, explained that it was the grass, then to the top, and explained that it was the sky; lastly, he pointed to the red blob in the middle and said it was the fire truck. I thought this kid was very cute; he spoke very quietly and kept looking at his parents. All the kids were cute describing their pictures and they were all very proud of their work.

All the other people there seemed to be parents of the children and they all seemed to enjoy themselves. All the kids were very cute and I could not help but smile at them as they told their stories. At the end, I went around and looked at each picture more closely so that I could see it better. At the end of the ceremony, the man started posting more pictures that the kids had done that day. He got each child to draw a picture of something they liked to do and he stuck them to a canvas that was up, the canvas was painted like a dream catcher. I loved seeing the kids so happy, they all really seemed to love art. This was a great experience because I got to see how close this community is. All the parents seemed to know one another and seemed to enjoy each other’s company. It was a great experience and I had a lot of fun looking at the kids’ artwork.

I have learned what art means to different age groups and how important it is to children. I learned this by listening to them explain their artwork and hearing the excitement in their voices. This learning matters because I got to understand how important it is for children to draw and pint. Every kid there was having fun and was excited to see not only their artwork but also everyone else’s too. In light of this learning, I got to see how art makes a positive impact on kids. They were all having a lot of fun and listened to each child talk. All the kids stayed quiet during the presentations of the different pieces. I also got to see the different way these children view art. I personally love art and could sit down and draw or paint for hours. All the kids were very creative and many of them had talent. Some of this kids did it for fun because there was a satire of Harry Potter that was done with cows instead. There was Dairy Potter, Hermionie Utter, and Ron Cheesely. While other kids did it because they like it because one child carved a scene into a bar of soap. He did mountains and a moon, he did all this using tools and it was very well done. Each piece had a great story behind it and it was a lot of fun to hear it from the artist. All the kids did a great job and I learned a lot from going to the Through the Eyes of a Child opening reception. If you love art, I would recommend going to see it, it is a lot of fun and I find better than the artwork I saw at Rodman Hall. 

Church

My family has never been religious and therefore I have never really gone to church other than for weddings and funerals. In my house we do not pray before we eat nor do we go to church for religious purposes. In fact, my parents read books like The God Delusion and other books about different religions and they work. Before Sunday, I cannot remember the last time I have been to church. I have always found that most religions discriminate against homosexuals and having an openly gay father, I take offence to that. So going to church, I tried having an open mind and accept what the reverend was going to preach. As my roommate goes to church regularly, I decided to tag along with her so we woke up around 10 am so that we could make it for church at 10:30 am. We sat down at the table, she, Chelsea, ate her cereal, and I sat and ate my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. We then got dressed and headed off to church; when we arrived the parking lot was pretty full so we found a spot on the end and walked to the doors. The church was filled with mostly older people; they all seemed to know Chelsea because she had been many times before. They all asked who I was and what church I usually go to and what I was taking at Brock, all the people seemed very nice. We then walked in and sat down on a phew in the middle row. The service then began and the revered, who happened to be a woman, started talking about god and reading from the bible. The passages she talked about did not mean much to me as I do not fully understand the concept of god and how he works. She continued with the readings and talked about how these passages related to life. After a couple of passages, she got us to stand up and sing a song or read something out together. Then she started talking about homosexual suicides and how high they are especially in the GTA as a couple weeks ago a male homosexual committed suicide in Toronto. To myself I was thinking about how horrible the church experience is going to be because they will be discriminating against homosexuals. Then the reverend started talking about how horrible these suicides are and how she thought, we had passed this and that homosexuals should be accepted and not discriminated against. It turned out that church was a great experience because they believed what I believed. I had judged them before I knew much about the religion. However, there are many branches of Christianity and some of them do believe that homosexuals are horrible people.

This was a great experience and has taught me more about the church of transfiguration and how they think. I have learned that women can be reverends and that not all Christians believe that homosexuals are horrible people. I learned this when I went to church with my roommate, Chelsea, and listened to the reverend talk about how horrible it is that people discriminate against homosexuals. This learning matters because I have never been to church before this Sunday and now I know more about Christianity and the different branches. In light of this learning I will nt judge a religion before I learn about it and better understand it. Although church is not my thing and I will probably not go anytime soon I still think it was a great learning experience. I really like how much of a community they were. In the service a woman came up to talk about how a woman she knew had died earlier that week. As she was telling the story of this woman and her struggle to battle cancer, she was crying and the reverend, along with other people in the congregation went up to hold her hand and support her. After her story, she asked that everyone prayed for the family who had lost their mother and pray that she had found her way to heaven safely. I thought it was amazing that even though these people did not know this woman they still prayed for her and her family. I thought this was amazing because at a time like that, when someone dies, you do need support and she got it from her church.I would probably not go to church again because it is not something that I enjoy doing on a regular basis. However, this has opened my eyes to religions and the different ways that people warship what they believe god is. My family believes in science and that is what we will always believe, facts and theories. Everyone has different beliefs and can choose to think what they want.

Opportunity to Become Engaged

Knowing about your community and your government is very important. You need to be an informed citizen so that you can make a difference within your community. Voting without knowing about the different parties and their platforms is pointless. If you know what your government stands for and you disagree then vote for a different party. The more you know, the more powerful your vote can be. You can make a difference you just need to take the time to become informed before you make your decision.