Jacob Sutton Seminar-Fall 2018

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin Everything Stays the Same When I opened up my laptop to begin writing this blog, I pulled up a google doc and proceeded to have a staring contest with the white page about fifteen minutes.  My hands hadn’t even touched the keyboard.  My friend sitting next to me on the bus at the time actually started laughing, asking me if I was okay.  Truthfully, there was just so much I wanted to write about that I couldn’t think about how to start.  Going back home for October and thanksgiving break, I was immediately overwhelmed each time by how much I had changed as a person.  Sure, physically everything was the same!  My family was still the same, my little Brooklyn neighborhood was the same…. But I was already a completely different person.  I could talk forever about how I had become more independent, hard working, easy going and just overall mature.  Instead of focusing on how I’v...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin More and more I am starting to believe that adulthood is a social construct.  It is more the idea of the "adult roles" you take on such as you mature throughout life that make people think think you're an adult.  Do you pay the mortgage?  Are you living independently?  Have you finally moved out of your parents' house?  Are you financially independent?  All of these things are the roles that society tells a group of people that they need to fit.  I mean, think about it.  Teenagers feel as though they need to fit certain stereotypes and roles that society throws at them all the time.  Everyone, no matter what age you are or where you come from is just so used to just being thrown into a box.  When you break out of that box, it is surprising... and possibly unsettling for another group.  For example, if an "adult" were to, say, still be living with their parents, that would surprise many people.  Bec...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin, In a way, the years of your life during the period of emerging adulthood are the most important.  it is the period between youth and true adulthood, where you try on different roles to try to find your true self.  Let's say you're spending time trying to find what to wear to a date.  You try on your dark blue suit... too preppy for your date.  You give the "causal look" a try... no,  that's not right either.    Then all of a sudden, a lightbulb goes off in your head and you go with some jeans and black button down shirt.  So in a sense, the period of emerging adulthood is like trying on clothes.  It can be a very stressful experience, but somehow you find the perfect things to wear. The article Emerging Adulthood by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett discusses the development of teenagers from ages 18-25.  Much of the article gets it totally right.  So far for myself, emerging adulthood has been a stage of self d...

What did you particularly enjoy about the film?  What about the film remains especially relevant today?  What seems dated?  What kind of correspondence can you draw between what you've been reading in Passages and the film.   Be specific.  Refer directly to the text in your blog. Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin, The Breakfast Club starts with a simple quote from the David Bowie song, “Changes”. The quote goes as follows, “...And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds, are immune to your consultations. They’re quite aware of what they’re going through...". The iconic David Bowie song comes to be the whole message of the movie; that no matter how much an older generation may disagree and criticise the younger generation for trying to change the world, they aren’t going to stop trying to change it in their ways, and nor are they going to do exactly what they are told or expected of, by parents or any adults. This is not out of sheer ma...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin I have always known what I wanted to do with my life.  I am rather indecisive in certain situations regarding what to eat, what to wear... basically all the little things in life, but one thing I have always been decisive over is what I want to pursue in life.  This puts me in the identity achieved group.  However, one is not simply always at the identity achieved stage.  I have gone through different passages which have made me realize the values that I hold, the beliefs that I follow, and the career path that I want to take.  Yes I am still growing and maturing in so many ways, but my moral values and passions are, at this point, things that are a part of who I am.   One of my  best friends, Jessie, is in the identity foreclosed group.  He performs averagely in school, has a good education, and comes from a privileged background.  But he is my age, and has no idea what he wants to do...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin "Don't be like us, be like them" While reading this chapter, I was immediately drawn to this thought that Dennis's mom had... or should I say, the overarching and unsaid thought of the black community in America.  Through learning about Dennis's life growing up, we learn that our passages are determined by our environment, those who we are surrounded by, and sometimes just by others' preconceived notions of who we are.  Dennis's parents have the life experiences to know that the passages that they have faced are much more severe than that of a white person. Dennis's parents only want the best for their son, and to them, that means acting like a white person.  Many black people are criminalized for crimes that they did not commit, and put in jail from a young age.  While a young white man is out in the world getting a pristine education, a young black male sits in a jail cell, awaiting his trial.  While that same...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin From the very beginning, this section of Passages really struck a chord in me.  Right at the start, Sheehy begins talking about finding and developing our own sense of individuality. "With the debut of the first separate sense of self about the age of two, we are endowed with an extraordinary gift: the makings of our own individuality". Excuse me?  Are you saying that since I was just a baby, I was beginning to find my sense of self?  It's insane to think that, subconsciously we have all been trying to distinguish ourselves from those close to us (aka our parents and loved ones) throughout our whole entire lives.  However for a very long part of my life, my Merger Self would take over, attaching me to my parents and making me scared of letting go.  Maybe it was my anxiety, love for my parents or sensitivity, but for some reason I just found it hard to WANT to distinguish myself from my parents. Now, onto high school.  Th...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirksin consider what Sheehy (and Erickson) say about "crises" and how they are  like "inner impulses."  Reflect on your "readiness" for college and the change that you're living through.  What makes this challenge difficult and maybe at the same time in alignment with where you are in your life? Passages by Gail Sheehy, especially the second chapter has made me reflect on what it means to be "ready" for college?  Before coming to music school, I would drive myself absolutely crazy, questioning if I really had the work ethic, the drive, the heart, and the passion to pursue what I love.  I remember being in Cape Cod, a vacation my family takes every summer, and crying to my dad about how I won't make it in such an unstable career path such as music.  I was afraid I did not have the work ethic, the independence to live on my own, and I was afraid of the learning curve of college.  I had always been coddled in some...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin "What I'm saying is, we must be willing to change chairs if we want to grow" (51, Sheehy) While reading the second chapter of this book, I was immediately struck by this quote.  I must have read it at least ten times before moving on to the rest of the  chapter.  Sheehy talks a lot about growing emotionally and socially from obstacles that one must encounter to overcome different passages in their lives.  And this is exactly how we overcome those obstacles.  It sounds corny and silly to say but to grow from challenges we face, we need to challenge ourselves and our ways of thinking.  Transitioning from a more cushioned chair to a wooden chair represents you going through your obstacle, but how your chair responds to you is HOW you have grown.  If you sit on the new and wooden chair just like you've sat on the other one, you have reevaluated your situation at hand successfully.  If your chair wobbles bu...

Dr. Mirskin Seminar Passages-Part 1 As young people, the question "have I wasted my life?" doesn't always happen to cross our minds.  We're very used to just going about our lives without thinking twice about the consequences of our actions.  To put it bluntly, young people live in a bubble.  In her book Passages, Gail Sheehy  explores how we think about life and how, as we get older, we go about learning from changes and failures that take us by surprise.   When I first picked up this book a couple days ago, I predicted that it would be a boring read (hey, I'm not going to lie).  I looked at the front cover and I said "oh great.  Another book that is about history and is filled with excerpts from that time period".  Because that's what Sheehy means by excerpts, right?  Isn't a passage just an excerpt??  Well to my surprise, this book is not about excerpts at all.  In this sense, the word passage is referring to an...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin I have just began my fourth week of college.  MY FOURTH WEEK!  How I made it through the first three, I do not know.  Ithaca College has truly been a rollercoaster of emotions, and it has taken a significant amount of maturing on my part to begin living independently.  But I feel like, even though I've been here for just over three weeks, both my maturity and sense of self have grown immensely. College has taught me a lot.  As a vocal performance major I am constantly working on my repertoire, aural skills, music theory, and keyboard skills.  I definitely don't have as much free time as I was thinking I would during the day, and with that, I have had to greatly work on my time management skills.  At home, my parents were always nagging at me to finish my homework, and I guess that since they did that so much, I relied on it to keep me on track.  It took me a while to fully realize that I would have to rely on myself ...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin "The Achievement of Desire", part two of "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez talks much about his schooling as a Mexican American student in an English speaking classroom. Coming from a very underprivileged family, he quickly admits that much of his success came from him never taking his education for granted. Rodriguez felt that since he began American schooling at a disadvantage to other students, he had to work harder than everyone else in the classroom.  Rodriguez is implying that his background as a lower-class, Mexican American student gave him a kind of advantage in the classroom, since it made him so aware of the changes his educating was bringing to his life. This very awareness caused him to push harder in his academic endeavors and ultimately helped him succeed and quickly exceed the  standards of pretty much all of his teachers (and receive more outstanding grades compared to his peers in the classroom).   This ...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin September 9, 2018 I have to say, it's been quite the journey, adapting to college.  In a sense, it's like starting a whole new way of life.  The phrase "new year new me" has probably been coined by the vast majority of teenagers on countless instagram posts as they enter a new year of high school.  But that doesn't apply anymore.  It's not just a regular year of different classes, new textbooks, and new teachers.  College is beginning again, both starting over and starting anew. Don't get me wrong, Ithaca gives its students much more academic, mental, and emotional support than other institutions.  But even so, college is hard.  Really hard.  I thought that having so much free time would make college much less stressful than other schooling experiences that I've had.  But once classes began, I quickly realized that this was in no way the case.  As a music student (and honestly just as a college student in ge...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin I vividly remember the days leading up to my new beginning.  It was certainly a surreal experience.  My mom, dad, brother and I had spent the last two weeks of summer soaking up the little time we had left with each other in Cape Cod (a family vacation we take every year).  The first week in Cape Cod was completely normal; we would go to the beach practically everyday and spend hours trying to catch the biggest waves we could find.  I would hike down the steep rocks to Higgins Pond that my dad and I would swim across.  I was in heaven. And all of a sudden it was my second week in Cape Cod.   Now, this may already sound dramatic.  Maybe I'm making my first blog post too over the top (if I am then bare with me).  As someone who has struggled with anxiety for almost as long as I can remember, just thinking about starting anew was absolutely terrifying.  College is just like starting high school, in a sense. ...