It's classy right?

A meritocratic society of class structures is what America has portrayed and
promoted.If one were to work hard and have all the virtues of honesty and integrity, all would fall into place. A person would not have to worry about anything because all of his good deeds and what he strived for would be rewarded. It is the utopia of the American society. However, and there is always the implication of the darker truth, it has become exceedingly evident the American society is a gilded class system with the entire makings of a caste system. In truth, the American society has thrived upon this myth; a myth that has driven home to every American and those rushing to the United States holding in their hearts the “Horatio Alger Dream”. The dream telling a person that it does not matter what class of society he came from, he has the chance to be one of the wealthy. The myth stating every person started from the same beginning and has the chance to race all in search to become ‘someone’.The sad truth of the matter is a person’s life can be greatly influenced, if not guided, by the mere fact of which class of society ;he or she was born into.
The American myth has laid the foundation for the pitiful and mediocre belief society has despondently followed. The belief that all have an equal opportunity tosucceed and even the boy who was born and raised in the slums of India can join in the wealth and fortune of the top five percent of Americans. The “Horatio Alger Dream” has become so ingrained into the American thought process that it has been named the “American Dream”. “[W]e live in today an era of diminished possibilities.” (Dalton, 277) The honest truth of the matter is a person is either made or broken at birth; they are se tfor life in a whirlwind cycle of a caste system that has been so diligently disguised as a class system. “From the cradle to the grave, class standing has a significant impact on our
chances for survival.” (Mantios,314) Whichever class a person happened to be born into
can greatly determine how his life will be set for the future. Those born into the wealthy society are far more likely to succeed and survive than those in the middle class; and those born into the middle class are more likely to succeed than those born into the poorclass.The society of America has the same standards in life for each person no matter which class the person happened to come from. The entire caste system however begins not with the schooling, but with the family.
There is a beginning to everything, and origin to which all can be traced back. For society, it all starts with the family. A person born into a wealthy family will have all that money can buy, which is not necessarily a debauched thing. The child who was born intothe affluent society will have a higher education and a privileged life as he ages. Theenvironment a child is raised in will have a tremendous impact upon the child’s life.A child born into a wealthy family where the parents and immediate family all graduated from college and have high status careers will be more likely to follow in the same path and usually take on the family business. On the other hand, a child who was raised in the ghettos of the downtown and saw drugs, guns, gang violence and alcoholism on his everyday walk to the neighborhood school, which barely offers the minimal educational standard, will most likely find himself growing old in either the same neighborhood or inpretty much the same, if he did not die early from an unnatural cause. Those who are raised in the middle class teeter on the brink of mingling with the poor or the rich. Those born in the middle class are usually raised in a cookie cutter neighborhood, so to say, or in the “rich” parts of town. The children grow up with soccer practice, ballet and are used to having the mother and father both work. Rarely do these children see the addiction to hard drugs and they see dog walkers and mailmen while walking to school rather than alcoholics and the homeless. When school does set in, it gives those who can afford it a head start and those who can’t, it leaves behind; all because money can buy a person’s way in.
There is an obvious difference when it comes to education and the classes in
society. If a person is wealthy, they will live where the wealthy live, shop where the
wealthy shop, work and attend school where the wealthy do as well. If one is poor they
will live, work, shop and converse with those who are poor. The middle class will be on the edge of all, not conversing solely with the rich and not solely with the poor, more often than none; the middle class will be in proximity with the poor rather than the wealthy. Those in the wealthy or the middle class are able to send their children to better public schools and to private schools. In sending the children to the neighborhood public school which offers music and art or to the private school which offers internships, college classes and all the arts, the wealthy and the affluent are already thrown into a society of the learned. The poor child sent to the neighborhood public school with the outdated books, large student to teacher ratio and a complete neglect of the arts is set in a slow downturn in which, if the child continues in the mediocre schooling, he or she will be unable to keep pace with the affluent and the middle class. With the affluent and the middle class ahead, the gap begins to become evident.Those within the affluent society have their debuts and begin to mingle with business owner and begin the transition from adolescence to college and finally to taking on the family corporation. The middle class have college at universities and begin their careers. Many of the poor cannot afford college, and if they get help from the government they usually only receive their Associates degree and work in order to put a roof over their head and food on the table eventually putting their college education on hold or stopping it for good. “[I]n this way the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying
at the top of the social heap.”(Brooks, HO) The lack of education and contacts with the wealthy plunges the poor into the abyss of society. Although in this abyss, many still feelit worth to have a dream, to have something in the end to look forward to, and that is the pursuit of happiness.
Every person wishes to pursue happiness, for that is one part of our inalienable
rights as Americans. An “[e]qual chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough, don’t it?” (Bambara, 270) For too long the “Horatio Alger Dream’ has guided
Americans and immigrants to America leading them to believe everyone has a chance,
despite any prejudices and racism. The classes, the distribution of wealth and power
continue to shrivel into the stretched Eiffel tower instead of being equally distributed. The corporations move overseas in order to pay people less than minimum wage than here in America, causing greater unemployment rates, a larger working-poor class and an ever-growing middle class with the widest gap seen. These companies would not even take a second thought and come back to America, and why, for “[t]here’s too many countries out there.” (Barlette and Steele, HO) Companies move overseas, the working class and middle class become larger, sharing less of the amount of wealth, while the wealthy continue the cycle of wealth.
As time passes the lives of those born to certain classes rarely change
significantly. The same people who wait and bus the tables at the restaurants will most always be from the same class. The dishwashers who wash all the restaurants dishes will most always be from the same class; and those who the waiters and the dishwashers clean
after and serve will almost always be from the same class. The poor, and mostly the
working poor, were born into the working society. This continuum has placed a
hindrance and a burden upon the middle and poor class, keeping America in a “hereditary class structure” (Brooks, HO) better known as a caste system. Those in the working class are often the minorities born into the poor class of society, barely receiving the minimal education and must work just to survive, not to live, as was stated in “Serving in Florida”
America has thrived and fed itself upon a dream that has been rotting from the
core. The “American Dream” taken from the famous Horatio Alger character himself is
all but too good to be true, for its only useful purpose “is it is often necessary for
[someone] to convince [themselves] that there is a reason to get up in the morning.”
(Dalton, 276) Although the cases arise that there are those who went from “rags to riches”, there is still no denying the fact that whichever class of society a person was born into can greatly affect the person’s life. If a person were born into the affluent society, they have a far more likely chance of not only succeeding, but surviving among the social hierarchies. Those in the middle class will be forever struggling to either attain the higher class or trying desperately not to fall into the poor class. Then those at the very bottom end of the social ladder, rarely able to climb the social ladder to anything higher, are destitute for a life of working just to survive, never to live. The class of society in which a person is born into can greatly shape the person’s life, often keeping the person in a caste system rather than the class system full of opportunities to climb the social ladder which
America continues to portray.

"There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and a tired man who wants a book to read." ~G.K. Chesterton

"The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,And all the sweet serenity of books."
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

...and it's all the better when you're running with your best friend :)

I love art!!!

It's been a few months since I've sketched and I can't believe how much I missed it!

I pledge to read the printed word.

Just read.One book is all you need to fall into the beauty of the printed word which opens a new world with a story that can be revisted with just the turn of a leaf.

one day...I will learn to play adequately and get it ;p

One of the coolest chess sets I have ever seen!!!

gorgeous♥

my goal for the next two months(or month) is to learn this ....we will see....

Just some of the many :o)

Rome









Paris











Switzerland

...and it was amazing!!!!

hillarious and very true ;)

Cameras and I are usually not that great of a team. I have had cameras in the course of my life, many being disposable because of the one major fact that I tend to drop things...
I leave for Europe in about two weeks and I thought I might try to learn to use our family camera. So far its been going pretty well, I mean I haven't dropped anything yet and I am getting the hang of using it.
still far from being photographer material though...oh so very far :)



...and of course along the way of my learning my little siblings have to play models for me.

I love my little sister!

Therese and I got a tad bit bored today so we decided to play with the camera :)


...then she tried to eat my orchids which are still alive by some miracle.

Can brownies get any better??

They obviously can when you add peanut butter and chocolate ganache.

Peanut butter brownies. Those really the only words that you need:)

I got the recipe off of smittenkitchen.com which is one of the best cooking blogs I have read so far :)

Ironical.

How very true :)

Do you ever run across one of those pictures that makes you realize it took some of the nerd inside to make you laugh as hard as you did? It happens to me everyday ;)

Beautiful.

The mind has a beautiful way of allowing a person to see all the things that interest her but still leave a wanting for the perfect thing that fulfills her. As time has gone by my aspirations have changed and dreams that I once had turned into fleeting desires. I have aspired to be many things in my life, to pursue many careers, but there is now only one that I desire. For the first time in my life there is no lingering question nor doubt in my mind about my choice. My aspiration to be an obstetrician paved the way for my ultimate goal to be a midwife.
The healing that you practice in the science of medicine with compassion is a human experience beyond the boundaries of every culture and society. An obstetrician is an amazing field and helps women with their pregnancy and birth, especially those with complications. I knew that much and I left it at that. I thought that if I was an obstetrician I would be able to help women who had complicated pregnancies. I would be the doctor to give the mother and child a better chance for survival if anything went wrong. I would be the one to save everything. As I looked more upon the field of obstetrics I realized that it was not what I wanted, I still had a lingering feeling for something more. I am not to be the one that takes the credit for the birth, it is the mother and I am only to be an aid.
An obstetrician is an amazing medical field, do not get me wrong, but it is not something that I want for my life. An OB is the person who is turned to when births become drastic or complicated. I realize that research does a great deal to the mind and a person, which seems like common sense but in reality, I have only just realized this. Although an obstetrician specializes in challenging births with complications, there is never really any time to have a family or to see the patient and her family grow. I have had the aspiration to be an obstetrician but there was always a wanting and a question that could not be ignored. I realized I want something more than a career, I want a fulfilling life that I wake up to everyday thanking God for all that he has bestowed upon me.
A midwife is my answer and I am not only content but confident and striving towards the goal of becoming a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM).