On Wednesdays...

Today in class, we finished off the "Medicated Child" film from yesterday and then the presentations. The last half of the class went until lunch started and after lunch, there were still a few more people to go. Some of the drugs that were presented had a lot of very engaging conversations that spurred like Prozac (used as an antidepressant). I later learned that many of the drugs that are prescribed to both children and adults often times lead to more medications. In order to treat something, you would be prescribed one drug, then another to counter its side effects, and the chain continues on. One person shared the story that their grandmother is a pharmacist herself and ended up taking handfuls of medications everyday for one of her health issues. I also found out that there are other drugs that many people take even when their side effects are the most dangerous, like Avandia (for glycemic control in Type 2 diabetes patients). Many pharmaceutical companies have actually been filed for lawsuits and charged for more than what they profit each year. 

After lunch ended, right before the continuation of the presentations, the class performed our surprise for Monte! Zach opened the karaoke version of the song "Baby" by Justin Bieber for everyone to get ready and Monte watched us from the front seats! Monte recorded the whole thing from her point of view and sent it to the rest of the class! Everyone did a great job from rehearsing and fantastic on presenting their drugs (the assignment was to talk for 5 minutes long, but I think that almost everybody went 5 minutes and over). 

I was super excited to receive a lecture (since we have not gotten them in so long)! Monte gave a brief lecture on what I think is one of the most fascinating topics ever, body image. She brought up icons in her power point slides that had a picture of Marilyn Monroe on one side, and Paris Hilton on the other. We talked about how society today perceives the two and decides on who is pretty or not. Some guys even put in their opinion on what they would prefer and all of them liked Marilyn Monroe's body type better than Paris Hilton because it was closer to what is supposed to be considered as "normal". I copied some statistics down from her slide, the ones that I thought were really astounding, such as the fact that "nearly 50% of girls aged from 3-6 were already concerned about their weight." When I read that off of the screen, I felt so appalled! I can not imagine toddlers from 3 years of age to childhood years that little girls would already be worrying about their own body image. Another slide read, "adolescent girls are more afraid of gaining weight than getting cancer, losing their parents, or nuclear war." This statement was controversial in my class, some argued that girls can actually see themselves gaining weight, whereas getting cancer, losing a parent, or having nuclear war happen all of a sudden is not so likely. However, although that I think that is true, I also believe that society has pushed the standards far enough that there are now expectations for all ages. 

Monte showed us a few Youtube clips on commercials that photoshop their models and how easy it is to do so. Other people are discouraged about their bodies when they see this, but when they see the pictures of the models in actuality, it is not what their mind had expected at all. 50% of commercials that are aimed at women mention physical attractiveness. One example of a cultural expectation on beauty is Chinese foot binding. We were shown a video on the practice of foot binding, when it all started to its end with a new emperor. At the end of the power point, Monte had the whole class participate in an activity (including herself). She started off by saying one thing that she found negative about herself and shared it, and we went around the room. Then, she decided to turn things and make us find one positive thing that we like about ourselves and share it too. This reminded me of a video that I had watched where there was a study on women who walk into the same building through one of the two doors, one labeled as ugly, and the other as beautiful. The majority of the women walked through ugly and normally when someone thinks of themselves as beautiful, others tend to think that they are conceited so most of the time. We tend to find it okay to talk down upon ourselves when it comes to our self images. During study hall, we were supposed to watch a film on body image, but I guess there was a video tape on "Gymnastics Safety: First, Second, and Always" that was accidentally placed in the box that it came in. So we stopped the video half way through once we figured out that it was the wrong video and played short clips on Youtube on how body image has changed throughout history. 

There was free time after study hall until 6 PM, which was time for proctor night (for 3 hours long). I decided to take a nice nap shortly until then. Our proctor night plans were to stay inside and watch the movie "Mean Girls" on the projector on the 3rd floor's lobby while eating pizza. I had never watched the movie before (it was mainly the whole reason why we watched it, so that I can see what I had been missing out on). My roommate was (temporarily) dyeing her hair a shade of burgundy and there were girls who were working on friendship bracelets as well during the movie. After it ended, it was still not 9 yet, so we pulled up Youtube and watched tons of funny videos, such as the Jimmy Fallon and Kevin Hart video on a rollercoaster. Lizzy explained the plans for tomorrow (the last day) and set the time for us to meet up for Pancake Pantry in the morning! 

My view from our makeshift movie theater.