Our Unhealthy Obsession With Sickness

               In the essay "Our Unhealthy Obsession with Sickness" Frank Furedi argues that people have become obsess with health. Health has become a major issue for everyone including politicians. Doctors are finding a medical conditions on every form of personality. For example, if a person is shy a doctor may say she/he has social phobia. Because any situation can bring some sort of illness, illness is no longer seen as abnormal. Furedi says that "there is now a presupposition that illness is as normal as health." (485) Having bad health is no longer the issue, the issue is that people are embracing their illnesses. People are comfortable with their illness so they no longer try and fix the problem, which is why their illness tend to be more durable and last longer. Because politicians make people feel guilty, people tend to worry more about their health and go do check ups for every little thing. The politicians call those who don't check themselves irresponsible and use guilt to motivate them to follow up with check ups. Health has become a major issue for everyone.
            Reading the essay "Our Unhealthy Obsession with Sickness" was very informative. Reading Furedi's argument of health made me realize that everything he said is true. Every morning when I watch the news they always bring up a health issue that can be harmful. Even his argument about how sex is no longer a fear of sin but instead a fear of getting a disease or infection is true because not many people are religious. Every situation that one goes through in life can bring a major health issue according to professional doctors. It may be true that events in our life can bring health issues, but stressing about them can be even more harmful to one.

Is Your Work Place Personality out of (Birth) Order

             The easy "Is your Work Place Personality Out of (Birth) Order?" by Ben Datter describes the children's personality based on their birth order. Datter describes the first born child as confident, dominant and protective. The first born child may tend to have a pleasing personality. They will try to please their parents as much as possible. The second born child may be more liberal, rebellious and risk takers. An only child may have the same personality as a first born child. Datter also mentions that twins seem to have a rivalry among each other. Even though he said that most of children gain their personality based on the order they are born, Datter says that certain circumstances may change their personalities. What may change a child's personality may have to do with the parents number of marriages, or having step brothers or sisters.Datter believes that birth order may predict a child's job performance.
             I believed that the essay "Is your Work Place Personality Out of (Birth) Order?" by Ben Datter was very informative. Reading the essay was very interesting. I do not completely agree with Datter opinion of birth order.  I believe each child has their own personality, but a lot of the times it has to do with the environment one grows up in. Also parents are a great influence on their childs personality. I am the oldest of my siblings and I do believe i am dominant but I am not the most confident, one. My younger brother is more more confident, and protective one. Everyone has their own opinion on how a child may gain their personality but its something no one can really predict.

Multi-colored Familes

          In the essay “Multi-colored Families” Tamala Edwards focuses on multi-colored families. Our society has come to be tolerant of multi-colored families. Even though having multi-colored families is great, people tend to forget that having a multi-colored families is a fragile situation. Having a multi-colored family isn’t always easy for both adults and children. Parents are sometimes forced to deal with the questioning their children ask. Children will have a curiosity of why they look so different from their parents. Parents have to learn to answer the questions very carefully. Edward mentions how parents have to chose a good environment for their families when they have a multi-colored family. The reason for having a good environment for a multi-colored family is to avoid rude remarks from people. Having a multi-colored family is a wonderful thing but also has its ups and downs.
          The essay “Multi-colored Families” by Tamala Edwards is really enjoyable to read. Edwards gave us a way to see how multi-colored families can have a hard time. I think having a different races in one family is a wonderful thing. But reading “Multi-colored Families” showed me that not everyone can be nice about it. People tend to make rude remarks. I really like the essay because its able to show different view of multi-colored families.

Beliefs about Family

           Mary Pipher’s short essay “Beliefs about Families” describes what a family is. Family members are those who are there by your side during hard times. People who help you when you need money to pay rent  or lose your job. To Pipher family doesn’t necessarily mean being blood related. There might be the case where one loses their mother and father and are left orphan. Others might have parents that abuse them. Abusive parents are not considered people who you can trust. In such cases friends might be considered family. Many people form their own community family and support each other. Finding family sometimes might be hard. In our culture many times people are shown to be rude and disrespectful, and people will not want to have any kind of relation with them. Also, because our culture is a money driven society, many people only think of themselves. Family is someone there for you, but because of our society it may not be so easy to have one.

          The essay “Beliefs about Families” was pleasant to read. I agreed with Mary Pipher’s definition of family. I believe family are those who try and help you, and they don’t essentially have to be blood related. I liked how Pipher gave examples of people and their experiences with the families they created. My favorite story was Anita’s story. Her parents abandoned her and she was raised by her aunt and uncle. And even though Anita tried having a relationship with her mother, her mother had no interest. Anita at least had her aunt and uncle who loved her. I really liked this story and people can see that they can have family with those around them.

Hey Nostradamus!

           In the last chapter of Hey Nostradamus!, we came to better understand Reg. We came to better understand him through a letter he writes to Jason. He told Jason through the letter how he as well was roughly treated by his father. Even though Reg tried to be nothing like his father, unfortunately he became just like him. Reg became cold, heartless, and biter. Losing his loved ones made Reg realize his actions. He cold, heartless words and actions drove the people he cared the most away. Ruth was an important person to him and he lost her. He lost her because he didn’t want to take her to Kent’s wedding, making her believe he was ashamed of her. He realized how all the pain he is going through was caused by him. Reg hopes one day his son Jason will come back and will be able to read him the letter he wrote to him. Reg was a cruel man, but he never meant to hurt no one.

            The last chapter of Hey Nostradamus! was really pleasurable to read. I really enjoyed reading Reg’s life experience and seeing why he became a cruel man. It made me realize not to judge cold people, that its better to find out what are the causes of ones actions. I was a little disappointed when Douglas didn’t give us a cue of what happened to Jason. Overall the book was really fun to read. The book made me think a lot about religion and helped me relate to the characters.