HW 58 - Prom Interviews

1. 1 person your age who hasn't been to prom about what they expect the experience to include, some reasons they want to participate or not participate, their thoughts on the dominant social practices (DSP) of prom, etc.

- For this interview i decided to talk to max about what he expects the experience of prom to include. He expects prom to be a fun night and nothing more than that. He views the dominant social practices of prom to be all part of the rite of passage that prom is meant for. He believes that since we're given the chance to celebrate graduating high school, we mine as well take advantage of it. He sees nothing wrong with the dominant social practices of prom.

2. 1 person a little older than you who have been to prom about what they experienced and insights about their experience and the DSP of prom.

- For this interview i decided to talk to alex about his experience at his girlfriends prom.

He described the typical prom in a nutshell: )everyone was dressed up, pictures were taken, tuxedos were rented, kids showed up in limos, etc excluding the after party) . Although alex seemed to be paying more attention to the small details such as the food served at the venue, and the limo ride to the venue: "Since this was my girlfriends prom and i didn't know the kids from her school very well i didn't really like them so the experience in the limo going to prom was awkward".

3. 1 person significantly older than you, ideally parents/relatives/guardians, about what they understand of DSP of prom and their own experiences & insights around this ritual.

-I couldn't believe it when my parents told me they both never went to their school proms. So they don't have any personal experience of prom, but they both disagree with the dominant social practices of it. My dad believes that prom is an excuse for the popular kids to pick on the nerdy kids and that it is a very primitive and irrelevant ritual. He said that "buying a fancy suit and parading around with your date is very staged". My mom believes that no matter how prom is portrayed and celebrated there is always one kid that's unsatisfied with prom in the end.

HW 57 - Initial Thoughts on Prom

Prom, a right of passage. Another way to give humans more purpose in their lives, but why? Why do we feel the need to emulate celebrities for one night just to tell people what it was like in the future? Prom seems to be different from any other night because it occurs at a point in our lives where we are really starting to enter the "real" world. By this i mean becoming an adult by definition (go through college, get a job, raise a family etc.)

The idea that on the night of prom we emulate celebrities is ironic, because just like most celebrities that dress up and pull up in limos (which would be actors/actresses) we follow a certain script at prom. Which include many awkward moments that we feel like we have to live through because it's part of the process. Just like actors, we feel as though a lot is at stake if we don't feel like we follow this script.

1. What are the lasting effects of prom? How does the experience at prom effect ones future?

2. How does the location of the prom effect how people act at prom?

3. What are other ways the idea of prom can be celebrated besides the typical way it's celebrated today?

HW 56 - Culminating Project Comments

Rigel,

Your post interested me right from the beginning because it seemed very different. Rather than just breaking down specific aspects of death and studying them, your project was more focused on the idea of death and its connection with birth and life in general. I liked your ideas that even before the beginning we are some sort of energy, and the questioning of how we really define death.

Christian,

I enjoyed reading your interview with your parents, it was comedic at points but made good points in an interesting conflicts. Cremation is a cheaper method and i could relate to your mom in the fact that I'm also claustrophic but never thought about that and changed my opinion on the way i would want to be taken care of when dead. I also thought your analysis on the idea that religion doesn't always give people the same idea of how they want to be taken care of when dead was interesting.

HW 55 - Culminating Project - Care of the Dead

After learning that i grew up in a society where a typical funeral involves spending thousands on a fancy casket that wont protect the body in it, i wish i could have suggested a healthier option to my mother and her side of the family when they buried my grandmother. With that being said i decided to research more about natural burials, what exactly are they? What makes them more natural? What are the deceased buried in and how much do they cost compared to a typical funeral?

Naturial burials are burials that return the body to the environment as organically as possible, often in a wooded setting. By doing a natural burial you are not only helping the deceased but you are also giving back to the environment. In a natural burial, trees/field stones are usually. planted over the coffin and embalming (the process of injecting a body with preservatives to "protect" it) as well as metal caskets are prohibited.

Embalming is banned because the body may leak fluids that are dangerous to the environment such as formaldehyde in to the soil. In typical funerals, embalming is usually encouraged to give a more "alive" look to the dead when in fact it is dangerous, disgusting and expensive.

Home made coffins are used in a natural burial and are usually used made out of wood/pine. These coffins give people a sense of accomplishment, a better feeling than relying on someone else to handle a loved ones death. Often in typical funerals, people feel pressured to make a decision on the type of casket that they want and end up being pressured in to buying whatever they believe their loved ones will look better in which can end up costing them up to ten thousand dollars for protection of the deceased when fluids usually end up leaking inside the casket.

In a natural burial, it is an option to scatter the ashes rather than bury the body itself. I found this some what of a contradiction, isn't burning a dead body not organic at all? After doing further research i found that the process of cremating a body actually emits fossil fuels in to the air. I see this as a contradiction: although by scattering the ashes in a natural burial site we are giving back to the environment, aren't we also destroying it by burning fossil fuels? Maybe the ashes are burned in a different way in a natural burial compared to cremation, this leads to me to question: Is there a natural way to burn a dead body?

In conclusion, after doing all of this research and reading the book: "Grave Matters" by Mark Harris i have now decided the way i would like to be buried. If i have no control of what i do when i die, why not give back to the environment? I don't believe in heaven or hell, i don't think that when i die i'll be looking down at my grave and thinking: "man, i wish i could have been buried differently". I don't have control of my body once i die, so i mine as well die knowing i definitely did at least one "good deed".

WORKS CITED

Tabitha Alterman.  Natural Burial: Build an Eco-friendly Coffin and Plan a Green Funeral .

Mark Harris.  Grave Matters.  : Simon & Schuster, Inc

New Funeral and Cemetery Services – Green Burials.
Naturalburial.coop.  Green Burials Versus Traditional Funerals

HW 53 - Independent Research A

1. Find 2 articles from the NYT

-Doctors at funerals. One might think that doctors at funerals feel awkward because they feel some sense of guilt for the deceased, but Dr. Danielle Ofri discusses this feeling in a different way. In the hospital death is a feeling that is always around the corner, so one would believe that the relationship between doctors and patients is one that is not very intimate. Ofri shows that that is not always true, even knowing a patient for two years was enough to depress her when looking at this particular patients body. Not only that, but as a doctor Ofri feels that she is not allowed to show as much respect to the deceased as the family and that she JUST the doctor.http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/a-doctor-at-the-funeral/?ref=deathanddying

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/us/21funeral.html?ref=funerals

-With the economy in the state it currently is, home burials seem even more of an appealing alternative option. Typical funerals in the United States cost up to 6000 while home burials cost as low as 250. Besides cost, the feeling of intimacy during a home funeral is alot stronger than a typical one. Dressing a dead loved one gives that person a stronger connection to them.

-The perspectives of both of these texts are very different but similar in one way. That is that they are both written by people on the outside looking in on typical traditions in funerals in one way or another. The first article talks about the typical feeling doctors get when at a patients funeral while the other talks about a healthier more intimate funeral rather than a more expensive/typical one.

2. Interview someone in the death care industry

-When looking for a funeral home to interview someone, i was suprised by the fact that i didn't have to look far. The place is called Greenwich Village Funeral Home and i decided to call and interview the director. The first question i decided to ask was: "What is at least one other healthier option to care for the dead besides a typical funeral?" He told me the first thing on his mind: Creamation. He told me that creamation is a very popular option, but that it is a common misconception for people to believe that you can't have a typical funeral before creamation. The second question i asked was: "What kind of services do you provide at your funeral home?" He told me that they provide a wide variety of services such as arrangement for a grave marker, arranging for music (to give a more intimative feeling to the funeral) and an abundance of religious staff members to help you carry out a funeral (Priests, Rabbis). After reading about different types of caskets, their price and meaning, the third question i asked was: "What type of caskets do you offer?" He told me that they have a large selection of caskets from metal (copper, metal bronze) to wood (pine, oak, cherry).

-In conclusion, i now know what exactly funeral homes can offer. Although this was only one interview it gave me a basic overview. One question i should have asked was "How does your funeral home compare to others? Does it offer more or less?" After doing a little further research, i noticed that most websites for funeral homes do not provide as much, although i can't base my answer just from the website.

HW 52 - Third Third of the COTD Book

precis

-The third third of Grave Matters focuses on three cheaper different burial options as well (compared to second third) The first is a plain pine box, which is exactly what is sounds like. Plain pine boxes are usually better because they are cheaper. The second option is a backyard burial. As Robert Smith stated, it allows you to return the body to the earth where it came from. At allows one to feel a closer, spiritual connection to the deceased. The third option is a natural cemetary which, like a backyard burial allows one to feel more connected to the deceased, but in the fact that the body is actually becoming one with the earth (a biological burial).

quotes

-"Looking at his wife, Ed had one clear thought: "she should have been the one standing there looking down at me, not the other way around"

-" 'It was so much better to have her here than in some hospital or nursing home, where she'd have stranger looking after her,' he says. 'I don't know how i would have managed without these angels of mercy.' "

-"..Billy's father, preserved to appear as if he had just slipped off to sleep and outfitted in his best suit, 'looked like he was going to a great sales meeting in the sky.' "

analytical paragraph

-Just like "Born in The USA" by Marsden Wagner, "Grave Matters" comes to the same conclusion that there are much healthier options to a dominant social practice then most people think. These are ways of not only giving back to the environment (literally for Wagner's book) but assuring a healthier connection for the person mainly involved in the social practice (the relatives of the dead, the birthmother and father). Both authors realize that the typical ways we perform these social practices are nightmares of a modern America.

HW 51 - Second Third of COTD Book

precis

The second third of Grave Matters focuses on three cheaper different burial options (than a typical funeral). The first is the burial at sea, in which someone may either actually be buried in a casket at sea or their remains scattered at sea. The second is the Memorial Reef which is a biological system in which the body is buried with the coral reef and given a special memorial. The third is the home funeral, which is self explanatory.

quotes
"The idea of using human remains to create habitat for marine life has its genesis in the coral reef beds of the Florida Keys"-Pg. 89

" 'The sight of the ashes, particularly if they include recognizable bone fragments, can freak some people out' says Ken. 'The petals give them something else, something beautiful, to focus on"-Pg. 80

analytical paragraph

Before reading Grave Matters, I had no idea that any of these options were available for celebrating the death of a loved one. After analyzing what i had read after every chapter i really came to realize how better these options were because they are cheaper, healthier to the environment, and seem to have a lot more meaning behind them.