Blog #5

The Hybridity of Culture

The United States is known as the melting pot because of the various cultures and races of people that live here. As a result of all of these cultures existing within one nation, you begin to see some of the cultures begin to almost mix together and form a completely new thing. This would be considered a hybrid culture.

One example of a hybrid in our culture is what can be found on the menu at a restaurant. In particular, you can go to a restaurant that may be considered an “American Grill” but they’ll serve pizza, even though that is technically an Italian dish. In some instances they may even have pizzas with toppings that would be considered American food. For example, buffalo chicken or hamburger can be the toppings for the pizza.

Blog #3

I do agree with the New Yorker’s article, when it said that Beavan could have taken other precautions to help out the environment. By him lobbying state lawmakers to make a better transit and by him talking to other’s in his apartment about making a better heating system he could help out the environment on a much larger scale. There are people out there who are not willing to go through the lengths that Beavan did, but they are still willing to make a few changes to help out the environment.

This being said, I still somewhat disagree with Kolbert, that Beavan did not do enough to help out the environment. The fact that he wrote a book, made a movie, and appeared on talk shows about his project shows that he went through great lengths for his No Impact Project. There are many people out there who are going through great lengths to help out the environment. With the way our society is now, it would be hard to go through lengths as great as Beavan’s, but just by doing a little bit you could make a big difference.

As the author of the Green as a Thistle blog said, “The point of all these green memoirs is more or less the same: We wanted to find out what happens when the average person tries to be as eco-friendly as possible, and what our struggles and triumphs ultimately say about the green movement in general. What should we be doing? What should we not be doing?”

Just by these two authors documenting their struggles through their projects, many readers out there are seeing what is possible for some human beings to achieve out there. I think that Beavan and the author of Green as a Thistle have done a good job of letting us know how we can help the environment. There is always more that can be done, but I think that we are off to a decent start. Change does not always come quickly, it’s a process that takes time and patience.

After reading the blogs of other students, in particular Christian Jones' blog, they all also mostly agree with me about whether Colin Beavan did enough to start something. I completely agree with Christian in that one individual person can make a difference because eventually everyone's efforts will make a bigger difference. I think many of us can learn from Colin Beavan and the author of Green as a Thistle.

The picture above is a red solo cup filled with pistachio nut shells. It takes well over 400 years for plastic cups to decompose so i figured why not reuse the plastic cups rather than throwing them away. I eat a lot of pistachios, so instead of the shells taking up the little space i have in my trash can, i can use the cup to store the shells and throw them away later.

Characteristics of Everyday Life at Elon

Everyday life at Elon is very interesting. You see the many different types of people throughout the campus. You can easily spot some of the girls that are in sororities, the guys in fraternities, the athletes, and the normal everyday looking students. The campus of Elon is also very distinctive. Many people that visit the school remember the fountains and the beautiful flowers that are planted in the spring. The school is continuing to grow and will continue to gain more distinctive features.

Many people outside of the university view the culture of Elon different from other universities. Most people view Elon student's as very preppy-like, and they also think that the student's have a lot of money.

To some degree though, many of these assumptions are true about a lot of the students at the school. However, there are many students who do not fit the "Elon" stereotype and do not have the same characteristics. Though it seems there are so many people apart of sororities and fraternities, there are still a lot of people that are not affiliated with them. And there are many students who come from different backgrounds and are not as wealthy as some of the other students, but are still very good students.