Response to Tony's Lin Quote

While reading through Tony Lin's response to the Odd Girl piece, I read a quote that related much to what I had said in my reflection of this piece.

I think people bully others sometimes for entertainment, because someone is different, trying to be cool, or just trying to fit in with everyone else. They might want to hurt their peers because the person might have done something stupid or just are different for them.

 I agree with what Tony is saying in this quote because I personally know many people who have bullied others for the simple fact that they want to fit into a certain group of people. I also have had people bully me for the fact that I was little different, but how does help a person to fit in. All this does is hurt the person emotionally, mentally, and physically. The concept of karma (what goes around comes around) can be easily be applied in this situation. The person who initiated the bullied may find himself being bullied by the same group of people he/she was trying to fit in. It is basically a cycle, one person bullies a person which leads to other people bullying each other. It is an endless cycle, but there are things that can be done to help slow down the cycle and prevent other people from falling into this cycle. For example, the ASTI constitution is a great source of ways to slow down bullying. The ASTI constitution was made for and by the students. I believe that the ASTI constitution is very easy to follow. It consists of rules on what not to do. This rules are not the hardest thing in the world to follow. I believe the constitution can almost eliminate bullying from ASTI but as long as there are differences between people and people wanting to fit in there will always be bullying. It is something that is in our daily lives, but we have to learn how to look past this and look ahead towards the future and positive things in life. We cannot allow ourselves to drown in the never ending cycle that is bullying.

"Just Kidding" and 'Ganging Up' reflection

After reading 'Just Kidding' and 'Ganging Up' I thought about about the many times I have been bullied and how I took that anger of bullying to bully others. As a child going through elementary and middle school I went through a lot of things. I was bullied consistently and I was excluded from groups. I felt horrible because I felt as though there was something wrong with me which caused people to make fun of me. I was hurt physically, mentally, and emotionally. I began to develop a fear of going to school because I no longer wanted to be bullied. I was afraid to think to think or dress differently than others because I knew that I would be made fun of. I developed a hate for certain people. I kept these thoughts and feelings bottled up inside of me, but when I entered high school these feelings and thoughts came out of me. I began to bully others, who I know would not do anything back. I joined in groups where we made fun of people. The one true thing in life that I hated, bullying, was what I was doing. I was turning into those very same people that I hated so much during elementary and middle school. I did not realize what I was doing until I noticed that I was truly hurting other people's feelings. I had become a bully, no different from the ones that I had hated in the past. When ASTI did the bullying workshops I realized the amount of people's feelings I had hurt as a result of my bullying. I had also realized that the reason why I bullied others was because I was bullied once and it hurt me deeply. Most of the statements that were related to being bullied and bullying others were true for me. When I noticed this I quickly changed my ways and stopped bullying others. I apologized to those I had bullied, but for many others it is too late to apologize. Some people take bullying too far and cause others to hurt themselves and want to kill themselves. They have been multiple cases in which bullying has resulted in the suicides of multiple people who could no longer take this bullying. The only solution they could think of to stop the bullying was to kill themselves. I do not believe that bullying comes from anger or hatred of a certain person,rather it comes from the fear of being bullied yourself.