Everything I thought I knew about the world has changed. CC moved entirely virtual, the Olympic Committee postponed the 2020 games to 2021, and Costco ran out of toilet paper, which, up until two weeks ago, I thought was technically impossible. In a way, the effects of this COVID-19 pandemic remind me of my first day in a sociology class: mind-blown. Two years and eight sociology classes later, I’m still learning new things about the world. This past week in SO118: Deviance and Social Control has been no exception.
We began the first day of class by introducing ourselves virtually with two truths and a lie. As it turns out, our class has quite an impressive resume of random facts. Liza met Pusha T at the airport one time, Jeb raided Area 51, and Lorenzo has chickens in his backyard that consistently lay blue eggs. Crazy stuff. Although learning asynchronously, our class has managed to develop close personal relationships through daily small-group Zoom discussions. After spending most of the day commenting on my classmates’ posts, I’ve found it refreshing to have a human conversation with them, even if it is virtually. In addition to these small-group Zoom conversations, we’ve been assigned daily activities and nightly readings, learning about the conflicting definitions of deviance and how it’s often been socially constructed to control different groups of people. We’ve used macro-social theories to influence our thinking about the world and applied our new knowledge to analyze what deviance looks like amid the COVID-19 crisis.
In addition to my sociological learnings, I’ve also been re-learning how to live in a house with my entire family. As one of four boys, all of whom are home from school and studying online these next few months, I’ve had to re-learn how to share my workspace. One of the biggest challenges during this first week of class was figuring out who was going to occupy each room and when. It seemed like every time one of us tuned in for a meeting or lecture, someone else needed to be in the same place at the same time. Although it took a few days, we finally got the hang of it. Unless, of course, the mailman drives by. Then our dog starts barking, and all hell breaks loose.
To preface the next week of class, we’ve been instructed to watch The Purge: Anarchy over the weekend, which I’m 90% sure is bound to give me nightmares. We’re learning about crime and punishment, so I’d imagine that the movie will provide us with plenty to relate to our learnings. Time will tell. Stay tuned and stay safe. See you next week.
